medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Well, the cathedral school was the center of a growing body of scholars that
would in a few generations coalesce into the University of Paris. Some of
the brightest scholars in Paris, such as Abelard, taught under the umbrella
of the cathedral school (although Abelard was gone by 1131). Overall, Louis
could have received a more cutting-edge education through the cathedral
school, although it would have depended on who his masters were.
Did St. Denis maintain a monastery school at this time? I don't know,
but many monasteries were doing away with schools for children because
oblation was becoming less common during this period. Apart from the
cathedral school, the other two 12th century schools at Paris that I know of
were St Victor and St Genevieve, and I haven't been able to find any
reference to a school at St Denis in the materials I have at hand about the
University of Paris. Assuming it did have a monastery school, Philip might
have worried that sending Louis to St. Denis might have been mistaken as
oblation. (In England two decades earlier, there was a fierce debate over
whether Henry I's intended bride, Edith, had been veiled as a nun or whether
she was simply placed at a convent as a boarding house. Edith insisted she
had not been veiled, but there was clearly uncertainty about what might to
us seem a very cut and dried issue.) Any school St. Denis maintained would
have offered a rather traditional sort of education, whereas the cathedral
school was being to be the place where 'professional' education was pursued,
since its members went on to serve as bureaucrats, lawyers, and theologians.
Philip may have felt that Louis would get a more intellectually-challenging
education at the cathedral school, although that's a rather modern way to
think about the situation, and to my mind a less likely explanation than
that there simply wasn't a school at St Denis.
Those at least are my thoughts.
Andrew E. Larsen
On 4/8/08 12:49 PM, "Christopher Crockett" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> perhaps someone morebetter equiped than i can answer me a small riddle.
>
> the future Louis VII (Junioris) was born in 1121, second son of Louis VI
> (Crassus).
>
> the Recieved Wisdom is that the young Louis was destined for a career in the
> (secular) clergy.
>
> but in 1131 his older brother and co-king with his father, Philip (named after
> his grandfather) died in a freak accident** and, shortly thereafter, Louis the
> Kid was taken to a council at Reims where he was crowned co-king by Innocent
> II (who happened to be conveniently in Northern France at the time).
>
>
> the author of the best book on his reign, Marcel Pacaut (_Louis VII et son
> royaume_. Paris, 1964) cites, as the only evidence that Louis was destined for
> the clericature a passage in a charter which he issued in favor of St. Mary of
> Paris : "Nos ecclesiam parisiensem, in cujus claustra, quasi in quodam
> maternali gremio, incipientis vitae et pueritiae nostrae exegimus tempora"
> (Rec. des hist. des Gaules, t. XII p. 90).
>
> and concludes --rightly, i suppose (does anyone disagree?)-- that it was at
> the cathedral school that Louis was being educated.
>
> my question is: why not at St. Denis?
>
> political considerations aside (e.g., the King's friend Suger, himself
> educated at St. Denis, was abbot there from about 1122; Fat Louis had just
> come through several years of rather heated "reforming" disputes with the
> Bishop and chapter of St. Mary's, which nearly resulted in a near-civil war),
> would not an ancient Benedictine house offer a better education to a young
> prince, certainly on the Primary level??
>
>
> could it have been that Fat Louis wanted his second son to get some educating,
> but not *too* much --and certainly not so much that he would want to become a
> monk (rather than a secular canon/archdeacon/abbot of the "royal monasteries"
> like his younger brother, Henry, who suceeded him in that role)?
>
> (that latter, off-the-top-of-my-head thought probably approaches
> unanswerability, so can just be ignored.)
>
> any thoughts would be appreciated.
>
> best,
>
> c
>
> **he was riding through a street in (or near)Paris, when a pig suddenly
> appeared, freightening the animal and causing it to throw the young prince and
> crush him.
> at least one source (Ordericus?) notes that the obviously diabolical pig was
> "black" and immediately ran off and disappeared into the Seine.
>
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