study with several masters at once instead of being limited to the resources of a cathedral
school. Although both Thierry of Chartres and Gilbert of Poitiers had ties to Chartres,
both did most of their teaching in Paris. Despite the competition, cathedral schools
continued to play a significant though reduced role in French education until the end of
the century. Peter the Chanter studied at Reims, while Orléans was apparently a center of
composition (ars dictaminis). Yet comparatively little is known about either center, and
after 1200 any person intending to pursue a scholarly career would have sought his
training in Paris or one of the other universities rather than in any local school.
Charles Radding
[See also: ABBO OF FLEURY; ABÉLARD, PETER; ALCUIN; ANSELM OF
LAON; ARISTOTLE, INFLUENCE OF; BERENGAR OF TOURS; BOETHIUS,
INFLUENCE OF; CHARTRES; EDUCATION; ERIUGENA, JOHANNES SCOTTUS;
FULBERT OF CHARTRES; GERBERT OF AURILLAC; GILBERT OF POITIERS;
LIBERAL ARTS; OVID, INFLUENCE OF; PETER THE CHANTER; PLATO,
INFLUENCE OF; SCHOOLS, MONASTIC; THIERRY OF CHARTRES;
UNIVERSITIES; VIRGIL, INFLUENCE OF; WILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX]
Contreni, John. The Cathedral School of Laon from 850 to 930: Its Manuscripts and Masters.
Munich: Arbeo, 1978.
Merlette, Bernard, and Suzanne Martinet. Enseignement et vie intellectuelle (IXe-XVe siècle [Actes
du 95e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes]). Reims, 1970.
Radding, Charles. “The Geography of Learning in Early Eleventh-Century Europe: Lanfranc of
Bec and Berengar of Tours Revisited.” Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo
e Archivio Muratoriano. Forthcoming.
——, and William W.Clark. Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in
the Age of Ro-manesque and Gothic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Southern, Richard W. “Lanfranc of Bec and Berengar of Tours.” In Studies in Medieval History
Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, ed. R.W.Hunt et al. Oxford: Clarendon, 1948, pp. 27–
48.
SCHOOLS, MONASTIC
. The education of Greek and Roman society was highly developed, but Christianity,
having become the state religion in A.D. 380, faced a dilemma—how to marry the two
strands of its tradition: that of the illiterate fishermen-Apostles with the bookish, classical
training of its apologists. The tradition of learning was strong, and a number of patristic
writers, especially Jerome, were associated with education, although we still see Au-
gustine, for example, questioning the legitimacy of his use of his pagan, classical
education for Christian ends. The first Christian, nonclassical religious schools date from
the 4th century and were associated with monasteries.
The fate of these schools varied with the political situation of their times and places,
so that in mainland Europe around the 5th-8th centuries few schools taught anything but
the absolute basics of reading and writing. In the insular and insulated territories of
Ireland and Britain, however, a brighter light burned, and monastic schools taught
grammar and singing to their oblates and perhaps to secular children as well. Bede tells
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