Oct. 29: Intellectual revival in Europe (12-13th centuries CE)
Thursday: Kishlansky 44.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Bulliet Ch. 10 (268-273); Ch.
13 (325-338), Ch. 14 (353-354)
(continued from class before: III. Why were the Crusades important?
Because of their impact on Europeans.
The Crusades helped direct the energies of the warrior class of Europe away from Europeans and towards outsiders.
This not only helped save Europe from being destroyed by internal war, but reintroduced Europeans to the Near East – where they would learn many things.
Europeans learned techniques of fighting from the Moslems, Turks, and Mongols.
In particular – archery, and the importance of infantry as well as cavalry
Europeans saw real armies again – and in the 13th century began to recruit armies back home.
They learned how to campaign at a distance - in hostile territory.
Above, all, the Crusades prevented the European military from being fossilized in a chivalric form.
Even though it would be long time before Europeans had military superiority over their neighbors, the Crusades helped to begin the trend.
“Crusade” served as justification for war against other non-Catholics
–Slavs of eastern Europe
–Africans and native Americans
–Other Christians (Byzantines, Protestants
This is only the military significance of the Crusades.
There were also cultural and economic effects.
European knights while Crusading got a taste for Eastern luxuries.
Soon after the Crusades began, trade between the east and Europe revives with the Crusader kingdoms like Jerusalem acting as middlemen.
Europe would export its cloth, metals, and slaves to the Moslem world, in return for spices, paper, sugar, and silk.
In addition to trade in goods, Europe began to acquire learning.
The Moslems and the Byzantines were responsible for transmitting Greek philosophy and mathematics to the West,
Moreover, Europeans model some of their educational forms on Moslem – in the 12 th century the first universities appear in Europe, inspired partly by the Moslem universities (madrasa).
More of this next week
Translations of Aristotle and his Arabic commentators
esp. important
Aristotle (Greek philosopher, 4th century BCE)
A. had combined observation of
natural world with logical deduction
Evidence of the senses could be
believed (contra Plato)
Four categories of explanation: form, matter, origin of movement (“cause”), telos (goal)
Difficulty was combining a philosophy based on human observation and reason (like Aristotle's) with a revealed religion like Islam (or Christianity).
In medieval Europe, most people had just forgotten about the scientific explanations for things.
If you have the Bible to tell you that God created the universe - why do you need to find physical and rational evidence that this was the case?
God's word should be enough.
In 11th and 12th centuries, Moslem scholars attempted to reconcile Islamic wisdom with ancient philosophy.
Averoes (1126-1198 CE), a Moslem philosopher from Spain showed how Aristotle's method could be combined with teachings of the holy scriptures.
For example, the scriptures say that God created the earth.
Do humans just have to take God's word for this - or is there evidence which they can see for themselves?
Averroes argued that when humans look at the order of the natural world:
"For when a man sees the sun, the moon, and all the stars, which are the cause of the four seasons; of days and nights, of rain, water and winds, of the inhabitation of the parts of the earth, of the existence of man, and of the being of all the animals and the plants and of the earth being fit for the habitation of a man, and other animals living in it; and the water fit for the animals living in it; and the air fit for birds, and if there be anything amiss in this creation and edifice, the whole world would come to confusion and disorder, then he would come to know with certainty that it is not possible that this harmony in it for the different members of the universe -- man, animals, and plants -- be found by chance only.
Now Averoes realized the danger to his method.
That some people might look at the world, and decide it was disordered, violent, and evil - and therefore not possibly created by God.
But that was why philosophy was not everyone-
Uneducated, dimwitted people should just rely on revelation -
Only the educated elite - the philosophers and scholars - should try to actually understand things.
2. Reception of ancient
and Arabic learning in Europe
So in the 10th through 12th centuries, you have these Moslem scholars reconciling ancient science and philosophy with monotheism.
In the 12th century, the Europeans begin to borrow sme of these ideas.
Remember this was a period when Europeans were having a lot more contact with the Moslem world.
After 1097, they traveling to the Near East on Crusades..
In Spain, Christians are slowly reconquering territory.
And when not fighting, Europeans are trading and talking to Moslems, some learn how to speak Arabic.
It didn't take long for Europeans to realize that Moslem scholars knew more than they did.
Beginning in the 12th century, Latin scholars began to translate Arabic texts -
Europeans picked up habit of using Arabic numerals instead of Roman numerals.
Arabic versions of Aristotle are translated.
Arabic commentaries on Aristotle (like Averroes);
B. Scholasticism
Intellectual movement
grounded in the dialectic
method - the method of question, argument and conclusion
Aristotle and Islamic commentaries on him partly inspired.
Early scholastics: Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
Peter Abelard was one of earliest scholastic theologians
He is attributed with popularising the 'Sic et Non' method of examining the Fathers and the Scriptures (20), the method of placing apparently contradictory sources side by side in order to doubt, question and reach the truth. This method is dialectic, treating the 'mysteries of faith' as propositions, to be solved using logic and grammar.
He was born to a family of knights - but decided to pursue learning instead of worldly glory.
He studied theology in Paris - at the Cathedral school.
Soon he started to teach himself - gathering large number of students.
One of his students was a young woman called Heloise - who lived with her uncle - a cleric - at the time.
Abelard and Heloise became lovers (this sort of thing did happen in the Middle Ages).
Heloise became pregnant but didn’t want Abelard to marry her because it might hurt his career in the church.
They married secretly (shows change in marriage – by 12th century, verbal consent of both parties could make a marriage).
Her uncle found out.
He had Abelard kidnapped and castrated.
After this, Heloise and Abelard separated - both going into monasteries.
Without his outlets restricted, Abelard began to write books.
His greatest work was the Sic et Non - the Yes and No.
As students did in the Moslem madrasa, Abelard would make a statement and then state the contrary opinion: for example, why it is OK to kill people, and then why it is wrong to kill people.
He would give evidence for both sides.
But he wouldn't then say which statement was the correct one: he expected his readers to use reason to determine which side was correct.
The Moslems had been doing this sort of thing for several centuries - but in 12th-century Europe it was revolutionary.
To even state untruths - say, God does not exist - was subversive.
Early scholasticism would go through some rough times in the 12th century:
Some of Abelard's books were condemned by the church and burnt.
Pope temporarily banned the teaching of Aristotle at the University of Paris
(Name of Rose - old monk eating the poisoned pages of book of Aristotle because it had justified humor)
But scholasticism would eventually become the dominant mode of making intellectual arguments in the medieval world.
Thomas Aquinas responsible for this.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)
Thomas Aquinas would be the greatest scholastic theologian.
(in fact, probably the greatest Catholic theologian - next to Augustine of Hippo).
He lived in 13th century - a century after Abelard .
Although from a noble Italian family, Thomas renounced his wealth and became Dominican friar - part of the new monastic movement of Mendicants.
He studied in Germany, and then taught theology at the University of Paris (so a truly international scholar).
His Summa Theologiae (1273) was a giant encylopedia of divine and human wisdom - dealing with nature of God, the universe, marriage, slavery, war, everything.
Like Abelard, he would state a position and then possible objections.
Unlike Abelard, he would actually come to a conclusion in the end.
Aquinas basic premise was that human reason - since it is created by God - should be able to confirm revealed truth - i.e. the decisions of the Pope and of Scripture.
Aquinas used logical arguments of Aristotle, Arabic scholars like Averoes, even the works of Jewish scholars like Maimonides -
But he always ended up with the correct answer in the end.
Aquinas showed to Christians of his time that learning - even non-Christian learning - if properly used - could lead people closer to truth.
III. INVENTION OF THE UNIVERSITY
What was a university:
University was basically a guild (universitas) of student and teachers ("masters")
They first appear in Italy, France, and Germany in 12th century - and will spread throughout the Europe and later the world.
The universities were partly modeled on the Moslem madrasa, partly on the urban guilds of craftsmen, and partly on the cathedral schools.
Like a madrasa, they were residential schools of masters and students with method of instruction based on shared reading and commentary on texts
Like guilds, these masters and students formed a collective - with shared privileges and finances which were respected by outsiders.
(if a student committed a crime, university officials would judge him - not city's courts)
And like the cathedral schools - the universities were associated with the church (although students didn't have to enter church after they graduated).
(repeat)
Course of study
All courses were taught in Latin.
For first three years,
students would study the trivium - grammar, logic, and rhetoric (this was
basically how to write, how to speak in Latin, and how to use Aristotelian
logic)
(noteworthy that Aristotle was central to undergraduate
curriculum in Europe, while in Moslem world, he was not taught in madrasas –
only at higher level)
This would get you a bachelor's degree. (bachelor because undergraduates couldn't marry)
Another three years' would get you a master's degree - with focus on quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.
A doctorate was another 8 years of study in philosophy, medicine, law, or theology.
So although some fields of study have changed, you can see how modern universities are the heirs of the medieval.
Comparison with Islamic
schools:
- At madrasas, the Koran and religious law were most important parts of curriculum; logic / dialectic (based on Aristotle) and the sciences only came later
Europe was quite different: logic (based on Aristotle) was taught at the bachelor’s level; theology was only a doctorate degree, for fear of teaching unprepared men so dangerous a subject.
Both societies considered religion the most important subject of all – but for the Moslems, this meant it was the first thing you taught students; for the Europeans, it was the last (part of what was going on was European belief that priests should mediate between God’s word and the believer; medieval Moslems were encouraged to study Koran directly).
End result: secular learning derived from Greeks and Arabs (Aristotle) a fundamental part of undergraduate curriculum at European universities (in form of logic), not the preserve of advanced scholars as in Al-Andalusi’s world
- A second, related difference, was that astronomy and medicine were made part of the university curriculum in Europe (at Master’s and Doctorate level), rather being individualistic master – apprentice system as in the Islamic world.
This had tendency to formulate canon of agreed upon texts and interpretations – instead of the incredible diversity of hypotheses of the Islamic world.
This method of weeding out scientific interpretations will assist Europeans in making scientific progress in the centuries ahead.
Thanks to the universities, laymen - merchants' sons, knights - could get an education without becoming a cleric or monk.
Universities - esp. those in Italy - trained lawyers, physicians - and bureaucrats - of Europe.
**Formation of professional class once again in Europe.
Corporate legal standing of the universities protected scholars who studied controversial ideas
Scholastic learning – i.e. study of Aristotle (and his Arab commentators) – widely disseminated in Europe
Elitism of universities
But the universities didn't train the women, or ordinary Europeans
Woman couldn't go to university until the 20th century
And ordinary people - the farmers, craftsmen, and such - couldn't understand the language (Latin) or afford the fees.
Unlike the madrasas, there weren’t charitable endowments to allow the poor to go to university.
For this vast majority of the population - Aristotle meant nothing, scholasticism meant nothing, just signing your name was an impossible task
The teachers of these uneducated people in the Middle Ages would not be university professors - but the preachers.