reality in an extremely small area. Nevertheless, Louis laid the groundwork for the
gradual extension of royal power. As the lord of vassals, the king could call upon his
men to aid him in times of war (though the great ones could defy him). As king and
landlord, he collected dues and taxes with the help of his officials, called prévôts.
Revenues came from Paris as well, a thriving commercial and cultural center. With
money and land, Louis could employ civil servants while dispensing the favors and
giving the gifts that added to his prestige and power.
New Forms of Learning and Religious Expression
The commercial revolution and rise of urban centers, the newly reorganized church,
close contact with the Islamic world, and the revived polities of the early twelfth
century paved the way for the growth of urban schools and new forms of religious
expression. Money, learning, and career opportunities attracted many to city schools.
At the same time, some people rejected urbanism and the new-fangled scholarship it
supported. They retreated from the world to seek poverty and solitude. Yet the new
learning and the new money had a way of seeping into the cracks and crannies of
even the most resolutely separate institutions.
THE NEW SCHOOLS AND WHAT THEY TAUGHT
Connected to monasteries and cathedrals since the Carolingian period, traditional
schools had trained young men to become monks or priests. Some were better
endowed than others with books and teachers; a few developed reputations for
particular expertise. By the end of the eleventh century, the best schools were
generally connected to cathedrals in the larger cities: Reims, Paris, Bologna,
Montpellier. But some teachers (or “masters,” as they were called), such as the
charismatic and brilliant Peter Abelard (1079–1142), simply set up shop by renting a
room. Students flocked to his lectures.
What the students sought, in the first place, was knowledge of the seven liberal
arts. Grammar, rhetoric, and logic (or dialectic) belonged to the “beginning” arts, the
so-called trivium. Grammar and rhetoric focused on literature and writing. Logic,
involving the technical analysis of texts as well as the application and manipulation of
arguments, was a transitional subject leading to the second, higher part of the liberal
arts, the quadrivium. This comprised four areas of study that might today be called
theoretical math and science: arithmetic (number theory), geometry, music (theory
rather than practice), and astronomy. Of these arts, logic had pride of place in the
