EDUCATION AND MANNERS

Tuesday:

Readings:

Shahar, Chap. 10 (second part), pp. 214-224 (with notes on pp. 322-325): “Education in the nobility”

“Schooling” (9 extracts from the writings of Guibert of Nogent and others):
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/medieval-memory.html#Schooling                                    

“Distichs of Cato” (a medieval schoolbook for teaching Latin); read editor’s introduction,
and then click on “The Monostichs, as `Prologue'” and read that page also:
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/cato/index.html

Dialogue:

Magistra:    Benedicite, discipuli!

Discipuli:    Benedicite, magistra!

Magistra:   Quando magistra tua entrat cameram studii, omnes discipuli debent stare.  State, discipuli!

Discipuli:    [Omnes stant.]  Bene, magistra.

Magistra:    Bene, discipuli.  Nunc, sedete.  [Discipuli sedent.]  Hodie, studeamus numeros in ligua latina.  Unus, due, tres . . .  Dicete, discipuli.

Discipuli:    Unus, due, tres . . .

Magistra:    Bene.  Nunc, scribeamus numeros. Unus est “i”; quinque est “v”;  decem est “x”;  et cetera.  Quis potest scribere “centum quindecim” in numeris?

Images:

Starting school (15th cent.)

Boys in school (Manessa Codex, c. 1300)

Hornbooks (16th cent. and later)

Writing tablets and styli (from ancient Egypt to medieval Europe)

Children holding hornbooks or wax tablets  (fresco in St. Vigil unter Weineck, c. 1385-1390)

Girls dance in street; boys study in classroom (detail from Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good Government, 1338, Siena)

Classroom scene (from Omne Bonum, English, c. 1360-75)

St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read (c. 1200-15th cent.)

Girls reading (c. 1400-25) and female teacher instructing girls (S. Netherlands, c.1445: BL, Harley MS 3828, f. 27v)

Classroom scene (15th cent.)

A child’s alphabet (S. Holland, c. 1480)

Signboard for a German schoolmaster (1516)  The schoolmaster teaches three boys, while a woman teaches a girl.

Discussion:

Proverbs, maxims, and aphorisms (short, pithy sayings, like Cato’s monostichs) have often been used in teaching children, both at home and in shcool.
Write down at least five different proverbial sayings (more, if possible).  Here are some typical topics and examples to prod your memory:

Relationships:
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Out of sight, out of mind.”

Behavior:
“Silence is golden.”
“Children should be seen and not heard.”

Financial/workplace:
“Penny wise and pound foolish.”
“Haste makes waste.”

Political:
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

Human nature:
“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
“One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

Moral/Biblical:
“Thou shalt not steal.”
“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

Time:
“Better late than never.”
“The early bird gets the worm.”

Thursday:

from the Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1325-35):  the Luttrells at table

Duccio: The Wedding at Cana (Italian, 1308-11)

From Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (early 15th cent.): January (the duke at table)

Brueghel, “Peasant Wedding” (16th cent.)