Middle Ages University: context of intellectual and cultural traditions. Part II

Abstract

The article shows that due to the high standards of teaching dialectics and theology, the University of Paris is gaining universal fame by the end of the 12th century. Paris has established itself in the status of the main scientific center of Europe, the stronghold of the Catholic faith, «the city of books and scientists». The sphere of university education, according to the author, receives a powerful impetus for development through the intensive use of translated Latin classics, translations of Greek and Arabic works – those sources that were assimilated by the Latin Christianized culture. Philosophy and logic take priority positions in the educational segment of the University of the Middle Ages. There was already a Platonism open to the influence that came from Proclus and Avicenna. By the beginning of the 13th century, a new cultural paradigm was being formed in university education, combining the grammatical foundations of Latin (the «revolt» of logical grammar was taking place), logic, and the philosophy of Aristotle. Fine literature fades into the background in comparison with theology and scholastic philosophy, interest in it is muted (the situation will be changed by the 14th century, a century of high style, fruitful for philosophy and theology, which prepared the intellectual upheaval of the 15th and 16th centuries, associated with the name of Petrarch, «prince of eloquence»). The role and specifics of lectures and disputes are revealed, the potential of commenting and questioning methods (quaestio) in university education of the Middle Ages is characterized.

Keywords

• latin patristic culture
• doctrinal synthesis
• stronghold of the catholic faith
• romanesque renaissance
• early scholasticism
• platonism
• belles letters
• intellectual revolution
• theology
• scholasticism
• logicized grammar
• lecture
• debate
• methods of commenting and questioning (quaestio)