Cathedral schools began in a Early Middle Ages as centers of sophisticated education, some of them ultimately evolving into medieval universities. Throughout a Middle Ages & beyond, they were complemented by the monastic schools. Some of these early cathedral schools, in addition to more recent foundations, continued into modern times.
In the later Roman municipal education declined, bishops began to determine schools associated with their cathedrals to render the church with an educated clergy. The earliest evidence of a school develop in this rank is in Visigothic Spain at the Second Council of Toledo in 527. These early schools, with a focus on an apprenticeship in religious learning under a scholarly bishop, make-up been noted in other parts of Spain and in about twenty towns in Gaul France during the sixth and seventh centuries.
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Charlemagne, king of the Franks and later Emperor, recognizing the importance of education to the clergy and, to a lesser extent, to the nobility, manner out to restore this declining tradition by issuing several decrees requiring that education be produced at monasteries and cathedrals. In 789, Charlemagne's Admonitio Generalis invited that schools be established in every monastery and bishopric, in which "children can memorize to read; that psalms, notation, chant, computation, and grammar be taught." Subsequent documents, such(a) as the letter De litteris colendis, required that bishopsas teachers men who had "the will and the ability to memorize and a desire to instruct others" and a decree of the Council of Frankfurt 794 recommended that bishops undertake the instruction of their clergy.
Subsequently, cathedral schools arose in major cities such(a) as Chartres, Orleans, Paris, Laon, Reims or Rouen in France and Utrecht, Liege, Cologne, Metz, Speyer, Würzburg, Bamberg, Magdeburg, Hildesheim or Freising in Germany. coming after or as a statement of. in the earlier tradition, these cathedral schools primarily taught future clergy and provided literate administrators for the increasingly elaborate courts of the Renaissance of the 12th century. Speyer was renowned for supplying the Holy Roman Empire with diplomats. The court of Henry I of England, himself an early example of a literate king, was closely tied to the cathedral school of Laon.
Cathedral schools were mostly oriented around the academic welfare of the nobility's children. Because it was quoted to train them for careers in the church, girls were excluded from the schools. Later on, many lay students who were non necessarily interested in seeking a career in the church wanted to enroll. Demand arose for schools to teach government, state, and other Church affairs. The schools, some notable ones dating back to the eighth and ninth centuries accepted fewer than 100 students. Pupils had tosubstantial intelligence and be fine to handle a demanding academic course load. Considering that books were also expensive, students were in the practice of memorizing their teachers' lectures. Cathedral schools at this time were primarily run by a business of ministers and divided up into two parts: Schola minor which was intended for younger students would later become elementary schools. Then there was the schola major, which taught older students. These would later become secondary schools.
The subjects taught at cathedral schools ranged from literature to mathematics. These topics were called the seven liberal arts: grammar, astronomy, rhetoric or speech, logic, arithmetic, geometry and music. In grammar classes, students were trained to read, write and speak Latin which was the universal Linguistic communication in Europe at the time. Astronomy was necessary for calculating dates and times. Rhetoric was a major component of a vocal education. logic consisted of the criteria for sound or fallacious arguments, especially in a theological context, and arithmetic served as the basis for quantitative reasoning. Students read stories and poems in Latin by authors such as Cicero and Virgil. Much as in the present day, cathedral schools were split into elementary and higher schools with different curricula. The elementary school curriculum was composed of reading, writing and psalmody, while the high school curriculum was trivium grammar, rhetoric and dialect, the rest of the liberal arts, as well as scripture study and pastoral theology.