Week 4 Reading 2

Week 4 Reading

Volz, chap. 5 & 6.
Petroff, pp. 136-157.
Placher, chap. 7. (High Middle Ages)

·        What prompted the rise of scholasticism and what benefits came from this movement?

The rise in scholasticism in the 12th century was for the most part a result of the renaissance of older cultural ideas and a revisiting of some of the earlier church fathers. (Volz, 118) This was not the only impetus but all of the others had a connection to this issue.  Others that were mentioned by Volz are the cessation or mitigation of the struggle between the papacy and the empire, a resurgence in Aristotelean thought,  revival of the trade industry and the success of minimizing Mediterranean piracy.  In the readings, my thoughts were that the resurgence of the Aristotlean principles.

This emphasis on the dialectic process of Aristotle was the driving force.  The intellectual stimulation of empirical cause and effect was a natural bridge to the interaction of reason and revelation (science vs. theology, fact vs. faith). The academic environment of the time centered around the monastic structure and their Rules. Up to this point in time most people were illiterate and, as such, were not concerned with or had no incentive to gain a formal education. (Volz, 129).  The monastics being the exception.  As Placher says, “Theologians had taught that understanding should begin with the Christian faith.” (Placher, 144) That thinking process over against the aristotelean thought became the tension that perhaps precipitated the impact of the renaissance attitude.

With the formation of the Franciscans and the Dominicans the nature of monastic structure changed.  While the new orders still maintained the celibate lifestyle and retained vows of poverty, they moved away from the cloistered style and became peripatetic orders known as Orders of Preachers.  We would see them as evangelists or circuit riding preachers.  This presented a need for a way to support them and house them.  The Pope adopted a policy that allowed for them to be cared for within restrictive guidelines.

As these monks carried their ministry out into the different regions they began to meet with some resistance from the established clergy.  The concept of teaching by masters became evident.  As that evolved over time colleges were formed and our system of higher education was the result. Among the very first of these institutions were the Sorbonne in France and Oxford, which split off into a second institutional group in Cambridge, giving the two universities in England that exist today by those same names.