HIST 204 Lecture Outline (Spring 2015 – Week 10)

Week 10: Tuesday

SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES

Music:

Student drinking and love songs, from the Carmina burana (11th-early 13th cent.):

Bacche bene venies (3:27 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBWsnxe1l9w&feature=relmfu

Tempus est iocundum (3:59 min.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPDCsi1mbhE&feature=related

In taberna quando sumus (3:59 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9dvU9TP8Y0

Seven Liberal Arts:

Trivium = grammar, logic, rhetoric
Quadrivium = arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music

11th cent.: Rise of urban schools; decline of monastic schools
end of 11th-12th cent.: Introduction to West of Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis (compiled mid 6th cent.; includes concept that “the will of the prince has the force of law”), and of Aristotle’s works (translated into Latin)

Major scholarly controversies:

debate over “universals” (“realists” held that universals were real; “nominalists” held that universals had no reality and were only names; “conceptualists” held that universals were real as concepts) relationship between reason and revelation

Peter Abelard (1079-1142):

Sic et Non (Yes and No): How to reconcile conflicting texts?
Historia Calamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes): Abelard’s affair with his student Heloise

Gratian, Decretum (c. 1140): codification of canon law

Accursius of Bologna, Glossa Ordinaria (mid 1200s): codification of commentaries on Corpus Juris Civilis

Late 12th-13th cent.: Rise of universities (see map; most important: Bologna for law; Salerno for medicine; Paris for philosophy and theology)

Books were so valuable that they might be chained to library shelves, as here in Hereford Cathedral’s library

Attempts to reconcile reason with revelation:

  • Ibn Rushd (known in the West as Averroes, 1126-1198): attempted to reconcile Aristotle with Islam
  • Moses Maimonides (1135-1204): Guide for the Perplexed (see here in an autograph draft MS), attempted to reconcile Aristotle with the Hebrew Bible
  • St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Summa Theologica: attempted to reconcile reason with Christianity

Online readings:

Pierre Abelard (1079-1142), Sic et Non (Yes and No), c. 1120, and Historia calamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes): excerpts
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1120abelard.asp
http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/211abel.html

Gregory IX: Statutes for the University of Paris, 1231
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/UParis-stats1231.asp

Jacques de Vitry: Student life at the University of Paris, 13th century
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/vitry1.asp

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-75), Summa theologica: Justification for the Inquisition
https://sites.uwm.edu/carlin/st-thomas-aquinass-justification-for-the-inquisition/

Thursday:

RESEARCH PAPER DUE IN CLASS

Film: “The Art of the Western World: The Renaissance”
(you can find this episode of Michael Wood’s documentary, broken into short segments, at:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOt9h5ML4c&list=PLWiTYj386M8M1so85skA92UdYn2DYDnyU

also available as: “The Art of the Western World,”
Episode 5 (The Early Renaissance in Italy, 25 minutes):
https://vimeo.com/16980514
Episode 6 (The Northern Renaissance, 26 minutes):
https://vimeo.com/16982744