even then a truism, that the scholars of his day were like dwarfs standing on the shoulders
of giants: they saw farther than the giants, not through their own efforts but from their
higher vantage point. Thus, reading a succession of medieval authors addressing the same
question we find identical points used in argument for and against the issue. The
difference between them will almost always be a difference in weighting of the same
evidence rather than something new or different. This approach arises not from a lack of
imagination or originality but from a worldview that thought that most “truth” had
already been discovered by the authorities of the past.
This method is a means of exposition, not of deliberation. The method is not used in
order to arrive at the truth—that is done by a prior and inner appeal to traditional
doctrine, experience, and common sense with reason. The method is simply the means of
stating, in convincing fashion, what the solutions are and what the arguments might be.
Lesley J.Smith
[See also: PHILOSOPHY; THEOLOGY]
Landgraf, Artur Michael. Introduction à l’histoire de la littérature de la scholastique naissante, ed.
Albert M.Landry, trans. Louis B.Geiger. Montreal: Institut d’Études Médiévales, 1973.
Flint, Valerie I.J. “The ‘School of Laon’: A Reconsideration.” Recherches de théologie ancienne et
médiévale 43 (1976): 89–110.
Chenu, Marie Dominique. La théologie au douzième siècle. Paris: Vrin, 1957.
——. Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in
the Latin West, ed. and trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K.Little. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1968. [Selected chapters from La théologie au douzième siècle.]
——. Toward Understanding St. Thomas, trans. Albert-M. Landry and Dominic Hughes. Chicago:
Henry Regenery, 1964.
Colish, Marcia L. “Systematic Theology and Theological Renewal in the Twelfth Century.”
Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988):135–56.
Gilson, Étienne. History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. New York: Random House,
1955.
Grabmann, Martin. Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode. 2 vols. Freiburg-im-Breisgau:
Herder, 1909–11.
SCHOOLS, CATHEDRAL
. Although precedents for cathedral schools can be found from the early Middle Ages,
they did not acquire a firm institutional base until 8th-and 9th-century Carolingian
legislation required that arrangements be made for the proper education of clergy. Most
cathedral schools aspired to little more, essentially dedicating themselves to ensuring that
parish clergy and cathedral canons had sufficient education to perform their assigned
tasks; what little we know about the education they provided suggests that they
concentrated on the basics of Latin grammar and Christian doctrine. But cathedral
schools occasionally did furnish an institutional fo-rum to masters whose ambitions were
higher and who drew students from outside the immediate region, although this role
scarcely ever outlived the master whose eminence it reflected. In the 11th century
especially, it was generally cathedral schools that employed the masters who were
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