During the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 150 ...

, the

Chartres Cathedral Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly con ...

established the

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

School of Chartres, an important center of French scholarship located in Chartres. It developed and reached its apex during the transitional period of the 11th and 12th centuries, at the start of the Latin translation movement. This period was also right before the spread of

medieval universities A medieval university was a corporation organized during the Middle Ages for the purposes of higher education. The first Western European institutions generally considered to be universities were established in present-day Italy (including the ...

, which eventually superseded cathedral schools and

monastic school Monastic schools ( la, Scholae monasticae) were, along with cathedral schools, the most important institutions of higher learning in the Latin West from the early Middle Ages until the 12th century. Since Cassiodorus's educational program, the st ...

s as the most important institutions of higher learning in the

Latin West Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of Medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the '' lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, t ...

.Natural Philosophy at School and University, (Lecture 18), in Lawrence M. Principe (2002) ''History of Science: Antiquity to 1700''. Teaching Company, Course No. 1200 In the early 11th century, (c. 1020), Bishop Fulbert established Chartres as one of the leading schools in Europe. Although the role of Fulbert himself as a scholar and teacher has been questioned, his administrative ability established the conditions in which the school could flourish. Great scholars were attracted to the cathedral school, including

Bernard of Chartres Bernard of Chartres ( la, Bernardus Carnotensis; died after 1124) was a twelfth-century French Neo-Platonist philosopher, scholar, and administrator. Life The date and place of his birth are unknown. He was believed to have been the elder bro ...

Thierry of Chartres Thierry of Chartres (''Theodoricus Chartrensis'') or Theodoric the Breton (''Theodericus Brito'') (died before 1155, probably 1150) was a twelfth-century philosopher working at Chartres and Paris, France. The cathedral school at Chartres promoted ...

William of Conches William of Conches (c. 1090/1091 – c. 1155/1170s) was a French scholastic philosopher who sought to expand the bounds of Christian humanism by studying secular works of the classics and fostering empirical science. He was a prominent member ...

, and the Englishman

John of Salisbury John of Salisbury (late 1110s – 25 October 1180), who described himself as Johannes Parvus ("John the Little"), was an English author, philosopher, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres. Early life and education Born at Salisbury, E ...

. These men were at the forefront of the intense intellectual rethinking that culminated in what is now known as the twelfth-century Renaissance, pioneering the Scholastic philosophy that came to dominate medieval thinking throughout Europe. As with most monastic and cathedral schools, the school's teaching was based on the traditional seven

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term '' art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically th ...

, grouped into the

trivium The trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The trivium is implicit in ''De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii'' ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury") by Martianus Capella, but t ...

(study of logic, grammar and rhetoric) and into the

quadrivium From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the ''quadrivium'' (plural: quadrivia) was a grouping of four subjects or arts—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the ...

(arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). There were, however, differences among the schools on the emphasis given to each subject. The Chartres school placed special emphasis on the quadrivium (the mathematical arts) and on

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancient wo ...

. Chartres' greatest period was the first half of the twelfth century, but it eventually could not support the city's large number of students and its masters lacked the relative autonomy developing around the city's other schools. By the later 12th century, the status of the school was on the wane. It was gradually eclipsed by the newly emerging

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

, particularly by the School of the Abbey of St. Victor (attended by the '

Victorines The school of St Victor was the medieval monastic school at the Augustinian abbey of St Victor in Paris. The name also refers to the Victorines, the group of philosophers and mystics based at this school as part of the University of Paris. It ...

').

References

Bibliography

* Edouard Jeauneau, ''Rethinking the School of Chartres'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

External links

The School of Chartres
in A History of Western Philosophy Vol. II / by

Ralph McInerny Ralph Matthew McInerny (February 24, 1929 – January 29, 2010) was an American author and philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame. McInerny's most popular mystery novels featured Father Dowling, and was later adapted into the '' ...

{{Authority control Science in the Middle Ages Medieval philosophy Scholasticism History of education in France Medieval organizations Chartres Chartres Chartres Cathedral Educational institutions established in the 11th century