Readings in the History of Education: Mediaeval UniversitiesNorton, Arthur O.
History
Readings in the History of Education: Mediaeval Universities
Norton, Arthur O.
Education, Medieval -- History -- Sources; Universities and colleges -- Europe
The study of sacred letters among us has descended into the very
factory of confusion; the teachers are more watchful for glory
than for doctrine, and they write up new and modern summaries and
commentaries upon theological foundations, with which they
soothe, retain, and deceive their pupils; as though there were
not plenty of works of the holy fathers who, we read, put forth
their sacred writings inspired by that same spirit which we
believe inspired the apostles and prophets when they composed
theirs.... Public debates are carried on in violation of the
sacred constitutions concerning the incomprehensibility of the
Deity; a wordy, carnal strife on the incarnation of the Word goes
on irreverently. Even the indivisible Trinity is divided at the
street corners and quarrelled over, so that there are already as
many errors as there are teachers, as many scandals as lecture
rooms, as many blasphemies as public squares.
Furthermore, if recourse is had to the courts which are
established by Common Law, either those set up by us, or by the
regular judges which we are bound to recognize, there is
presented by venal men the tangled forest of the Decretals, under
the pretext, as it were, of the sacred memory of Pope Alexander,
and the more ancient sacred Canons are thrown away, rejected, and
spewed out.
This confusion being made in the very centre of the wholesome
regulations made by the Councils of the holy fathers, they impose
upon their councils no method and on their business no restraint,
those letters having prevailing weight, which, it may be, lawyers
have forged and engrossed for pay in their own offices or
chambers. A new volume, got together from these sources, is both
read regularly in the schools and is exposed for sale in the
market with the approval of the crowd of notaries, who rejoice
that both their labor is lessened and their pay increased in
engrossing these suspicious works.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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