Education in England in the Middle Ages: Thesis Approved for the Degree of Doctor of Science in the University of LondonParry, Albert William
History
Education in England in the Middle Ages: Thesis Approved for the Degree of Doctor of Science in the University of London
Parry, Albert William
Education -- England -- History; Education, Medieval
A third stage in the evolution of monasticism is associated with the name
of St. Basil of Caesarea. Instead of founding his monastery in some remote
district, he built it near a town and received into it not only solitaries
who had become convinced of the dangers of living alone, but also the
poor, the oppressed, the homeless, and those who, for various reasons, had
become weary of life in the outer world and sought an asylum for their
remaining days. Not only men but also women and children were received by
Basil: so great was his success that he ultimately established in
different centres several industrial coenobitic communities.
The reception of children by Basil naturally brought forward the question
of their education. These children fell into one or other of two classes;
in the one class were those who, like the infant Samuel, were offered by
their parents for the cloistral life from a tender age; in the other class
were those who were subsequently to return to the world. St. Basil
organised schools for the former of these classes; children were to be
admitted to them when they were five or six years of age; details with
regard to the mode of their instruction were prescribed; general rules of
discipline were laid down.[9] Under certain circumstances, children who
were not destined for the monastic life could also be received in these
schools.[10] In addition to teaching the elements of grammar and rhetoric
and the facts of scripture history, Basil provided for a number of trades
to be learned and practised as soon as the children were able to profit by
the course. Among the trades recommended were weaving, tailoring,
architecture, woodwork, brass work, and agriculture.[11]
Cassian was the first to transplant the rules of the Eastern monks into
Europe. He founded two monasteries in the neighbourhood of Marseilles for
men and women respectively. In 420 he wrote _De Institutis Renuntiatium_,
in which he records the rules to be observed in the institutions he had
founded. The code of rules here enunciated constituted the law of
monasticism in Gaul till it gave place to the regulations of Benedict.
Cassian in his youth had studied the works of Greek learning, but in his
later years he showed a great distrust of pagan literature and strongly
opposed its study. He considered that the fascination of such literature
distracted the soul, and desired that even the memory of the classical
writings should be eradicated from his mind. The underlying conception of
the rule of Cassian was that the monastery was a school in which a future
stage of existence was the dominating and controlling thought.
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