Lecture 33: Universities and Theology
• In such cities as Bologna and Paris, the number of cathedrals and
monastic houses, each with its school, drew larger clusters of
students and teachers together in a single location.• The availability of scholarly resources for the first time made
concentrated study in a specific field more possible.
o A legal scholar named Gratian (d. c. 1160) drew into the
framework of a tractate called the Decretum Gratiani some
4,000 canons that he pulled together from patristic writers,
councils, and papal pronouncements.o The Decretum became the stable basis for the study of
canon law, one of the main subjects in medieval universities
and one required for adequate training in political and
ecclesiastical life.Earliest Universities
• In their first stages, the universities were not the great sprawling
campuses and huge dedicated buildings we associate with present-
day universities; rather, they grew out of existing buildings and
processes gathered into a “whole” (universitas).• Students moved about from one “faculty” or “master” to another in
the various monastic and cathedral schools; the growth of colleges
(collegia) with distinct student bodies and faculties came with
the establishment of student residence halls as growth in student
numbers dictated.• There were no “sciences” in the contemporary sense, thus, no
laboratories or physical experimentation. Reading texts, lecturing
on texts, and taking notes on lectures and texts made up the essential
pedagogy. Students paid masters directly after a lecture and on the
basis of its satisfying character.• The curriculum through which students passed began with the study
of the seven liberal arts and then moved to the advanced study of