132 Intellectual Life
Learning Objective
- Describe intellectual life in the Middle Ages
Key Points
- Increased contact with Byzantium and with the Islamic world in Muslim-dominated Spain and Sicily, the Crusades, and the Reconquista allowed Europeans to seek and translate the works of Hellenic and Islamic philosophers and scientists, especially Aristotle.
- The groundwork for the rebirth of learning was also laid by the process of political consolidation and centralization of the monarchies of Europe, especially of Charlemagne and Otto I.
- Cathedral schools and universities started to develop, with young men proceeding to university to study the trivium and quadrivium.
- Scholasticism was a fusing of philosophy and theology by 12th- and 13th-century scholars that tried to employ a systematic approach to truth and reason.
- Royal and noble courts saw the development of poems and songs spread by traveling minstrels.
- Legal studies advanced in Western Europe.
- Algebra was invented, allowing more developed mathematics, and astronomy and medicine advanced.
Terms
Thomas Aquinas
Italian Dominican friar and priest (c. 1225 CE–1274 CE) and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism.
trivium
In medieval universities, the trivium comprised the three subjects that were taught first: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Corpus Juris Civilis
The modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529–534 CE by order of Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.
quadrivium
The four subjects, or arts, taught after the trivium. It consisted of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy and was considered preparatory work for the serious study of philosophy and theology.
Ptolemy
Greco-Roman writer of Alexandria (c. CE 90–c. 168 CE) known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet. Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, three of which were of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science.
Aristotle
Greek philosopher and scientist born in Stagirus, northern Greece, in 384 BCE. His writings covered many subjects and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy.
scholasticism
Method of critical thought that dominated teaching by the academics (scholastics, or schoolmen) of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1700 CE.
During the 11th century, developments in philosophy and theology led to increased intellectual activity, sometimes called the renaissance of 12th century. The intellectual problems discussed throughout this period were the relation of faith to reason, the existence and simplicity of God, the purpose of theology and metaphysics, and the issues of knowledge, of universals, and of individuation. Philosophical discourse was stimulated by the rediscovery of Aristotle—more than 3,000 pages of his works would eventually be translated—and his emphasis on empiricism and rationalism. Scholars such as Peter Abelard (d. 1142)