medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
William of Champeaux is associated with both the cathedral school & St.
Victor from anything I have read about Abelard & his age.
Tom Izbicki
jbugslag wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Recent scholarship on Abbot Suger and his works at Saint-Denis have increasingly been
> transferring the intellectual sophistication of his writings and the iconography of his stained
> glass from Saint-Denis, and Suger himself, to Hugh of St Victor. Did the "school" of St Victor
> accept outside students, or was it associated with the "University of Paris" at that time? It
> would seem in some respects to have been a likely alternative to Saint-Denis in the
> education of a royal son.
> Cheers,
> Jim Bugslag
>
> On 9 Apr 2008 at 10:33, Christopher Crockett wrote:
>
>
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
>> culture
>>
>> From: Andrew Larsen <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>>> 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).
>>
>> "under the umbrella"
>>
>> do we know anything more about his teaching during that pre-rainstormy
>> period than what he tells us in the H.C.? [Brenda?]
>>
>> viz., that he was a *private tutor* to the adolescent daughter of a
>> dignatary of the cathedral chapter.
>>
>> Louis the Kid was...well, he was just a kid before his brother died
>> and he was jerked out of whatever situation he was in, being prepared
>> for whatever career he was destined for before Destiny took a Hand in
>> his life and grabbed him by his hair.
>>
>> Heloise was, presumably, somewhat older when tutored (and etc.) by
>> Abelard, and i can't quite see him (or the other, relatively
>> high-powered scholards of the cathedral school) as being an elementary
>> school teacher.
>>
>> *was* there a "grammer school" (in the sense of a primary school for
>> quite young children) associated with the cathedral?
>>
>>
>>> Overall, Louis could have received a more cutting-edge education
>>> through the
>>>
>> cathedral
>> school, although it would have depended on who his masters were.
>>
>> it's not the "higher" education that's at issue, only the "primary"
>> one.
>>
>>
>>> Did St. Denis maintain a monastery school at this time?
>>>
>> i don't know.
>>
>>
>>> I don't know, but many monasteries were doing away with schools for
>>> children
>>>
>> because
>> oblation was becoming less common during this period.
>>
>> knowing nothing whatever about it in any detail, i can venture the
>> Firm Opinion that "this period" was one of Transition, and that it
>> might be a wee bit early to assume that the Benedictines at St. Denis
>> (or anywhere else) had given up their centuries-old tradition of
>> providing primary educations for the sons of the local aristocracy.
>> (what's the evidence that those guys *ever* gave up their primary
>> schools, in the M.A.?)
>>
>> after all,
>>
>> 1) providing this service certainly paid well, both Karmically (i.e.,
>> putting a keen edge on their Do Good for Humanity blade) and in more
>> tangible terms, garnering donations from families which formed ties to
>> the institution lasting generations, Time out of Mind;
>>
>> b)such a school would have been a pretty good recruitment tool;
>>
>> iii) Suger was (i'm told, presumably ultimately based on a Vita)
>> educated at the St. Denis school, just a generation before Louis'
>> time.
>>
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> well, the St. Denis school wouldn't have been part of that particular
>> development, would it?
>>
>> certainly not in the same way that St. Victor's was (i know not from
>> St. Genevieve).
>>
>> can't we assume that St. D.'s would have been a dull-edged, quite
>> traditionally-based institution, specializing in the most primary of
>> educations?
>>
>> the kids would graduate and go to the Big City, for the advanced
>> stuff.
>>
>>
>>> Assuming it did have a monastery school, Philip might have worried
>>> that
>>>
>> sending Louis to St. Denis might have been mistaken as oblation.
>>
>> that's a thought.
>>
>> it could certainly have been a temptation --esp. considering that
>> Louis seems to have been of a rather pious Disposition anyway.
>>
>> Louis is not my Real Interest --his younger brother, Henry, is.
>>
>> and he succumbed (in the end) to the Temptations of Monasticism, Big
>> Time.
>>
>> on Philip's death, Henry took (what was apparently) Louis' place as
>> Family Cleric, accumulating, through the '30s and '40s, quite a few
>> abbacies in the _abbas regalium abbatiarum_ (the royal collegials at
>> Etampes, Melun, Corbeil, etc., directly under the King's thumb) and
>> numerious prebends and dignities in various other institutions of
>> political significance (e.g., canon of Paris, Treasurer of St. Martin
>> of Tours).
>>
>> he apparently led a life befitting a Prince in the Church, until he
>> ran into St. Bernie in 1146 and was "converted", becomming a simple
>> monk at Clairvaux.
>>
>>
>>> (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.)
>>
>> an interesting case.
>>
>> it's *so* easy for us to forget how "ad hoc" everything was, and that
>> such a seemingly continuous and wet situation could have been
>> otherwise.
>>
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>>
>> again, i have little problem with his going to "high school" at the
>> cathedral --it's just the "grammar school" work that concerns me.
>>
>> he was only 10 or 11 when Philip was killed.
>>
>> apparently nothing is known about Henry's education, save for the fact
>> that we have a multi-volume, glossed Bible which was made for him,
>> perhaps in a "secular" scriptorium at Chartres, in the 1130s.
>>
>> he gave them to Clairvaux when he entered, and they are now in the
>> dreadfully named "Médiathèque de l'agglomération Troyenne" (formerly
>> just the "Bibliotheque municipale").
>>
>> these are quite magnificent, absolutely De Lux manuscripts,
>> beautifully written and laid out on their white pages,
>>
>> http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_048354-p.
>> jpg
>>
>> with fine decorations (no real illuminations, alas)
>>
>> http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_048361-p.
>> jpg
>>
>> http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_048369-p.
>> jpg
>>
>> http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_048374-p.
>> jpg
>>
>> http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_048380-p.
>> jpg
>>
>> this is ms. 0512.
>>
>> more here:
>>
>> http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/documentation/enlumine/fr/rechexpert
>> e_00.htm
>>
>> though trying to find the damned thing in that wretched frog db
>> interface is challenging.
>>
>>
>> my point is that a Prince would have been given, well, a Princely
>> education, from beginning to as far as he wanted to go.
>>
>> this applied to Henry and it would have applied to Louis.
>>
>> would this have meant, in its primary phase, the quiet, contemplative
>> setting of St. Denis, or the raucus hurly-burly of Centre Ville Paris?
>>
>> Louis' exact words
>>
>> "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)
>>
>>
>> leave the question open, it seems to me --he doesn't actually *say*
>> that he was educated at the "cathedral school", just in the
>> "claustra", which basically meant in the area around the cathedral.
>>
>> and, perhaps, at age 10-11 he would have graduated from St. Denis and
>> gone UpTown for further study??
>>
>>
>>> Those at least are my thoughts.
>>>
>> and, i must say, pretty good ones (since i had most of them myself as
>> well).
>>
>> Thanks, Andrew.
>>
>> and Brenda.
>>
>> c
>>
>>
>>> 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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