During the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history between and ; it was preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended according to historiographical convention ...

, the Chartres Cathedral established the

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

School of Chartres, an important center of French scholarship located in

Chartres Chartres () is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir Departments of France, department in the Centre-Val de Loire Regions of France, region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 1 ...

. 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 This period was also right before the spread of medieval universities, which eventually superseded cathedral schools and

monastic school Monastic schools () were, along with cathedral schools, the most important institutions of higher learning in the Latin West#Use with regard to Christianity, Latin West from the early Middle Ages until the 12th century. Since Cassiodorus's educatio ...

s as the most important institutions of higher learning in the Latin West.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, Thierry of Chartres, William of Conches, and the Englishman John of Salisbury. 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 () is a traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''skill, art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. ''Liberal arts education'' can refe ...

, 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 ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury") by Martianus Capella, but the term was not used until the Carolin ...

(study of logic, grammar and rhetoric) and into the quadrivium (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, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the develop ...

. 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 The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

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

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 {{Authority control Science in the Middle Ages Medieval philosophy Scholasticism History of education in France Medieval organizations

Chartres Cathedral Educational institutions established in the 11th century