Primary education Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====The medieval church and education in Europe==== [[File:Jules-Alexis Muenier - La Leçon de catéchisme.jpg|thumb|''The Catechism Lesson'' by [[Jules-Alexis Muenier|Jules-Alexis Meunier]]]] As the Roman influence waned, the great [[cathedral school]]s were established to provide a source of [[chorister]]s and clergy. [[The King's School, Canterbury|Kings School, Canterbury]] dates from 597. The [[Council of Rome]] in 853 specified that each [[parish]] should provide elementary education: religious ritual but also reading and writing Latin.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|81}} The purpose of education was to explain salvation, not social change. The church had a monopoly on education; the feudal lords concurred and allowed their sons to be educated at the few church schools. The economy in most of Europe was agrarian and the children of serfs started work as soon as they were able. It was accepted as a truth by Christians that man was created by God in the image of [[Adam]] with his share of [[original sin]] and that a boy was born sinful. Therefore, only the teachings of the church and the [[sacrament]]s could redeem him.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|77,85}} The parishes provided elementary education- but had no requirement to provide it to every child. The need was to produce priests, and in a stable kingdom such as that of [[Charlemagne]], administrators with elementary writing skills in Latin and the arithmetic needed to collect taxes and administer them. [[Alcuin]] (735–804) developed teaching material that was based on the [[catechesis|catechetical method]]- repeating and memorizing questions and answers, although often understanding the information was not important. These skills were also needed in the great abbeys such as [[Cluny]]. There was a divergence between the needs of town and monasteries and we see the development of the parish, chantry, monastic, and cathedral schools. With the entry of women into church life, convents were established, and with them convent schools. Girls entered at the age of eight and were taught Latin grammar, religious doctrine, and music, and the women's arts of spinning, weaving, tapestry, painting, and embroidery.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|84}} [[Bede]] entered the [[monastic school]] at [[Jarrow]] at the age of seven and became a writer and historian. [[Chantry|Chantry school]]s were the result of charitable donations and educated the poor. Beginning in 804, parishes were obliged to have a school, and cathedrals had to establish [[cathedral schools|schools]] after the [[Lateran Council]] of 1179. Elementary education was mainly to teach sufficient Latin for the trivium and the quadrivium that formed the basis of the secondary curriculum.<ref name=black>{{cite journal |last1=Black |first1=Robert |title=Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy: Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century |journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary History |date=2001 |page=489 |issn=1530-9169}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page