Recovering Theological Education — Part 2: Medieval Church
by: Mike Fourman
6th–15th Century | Catholic “Dark Ages”
Primary Theological Educational Method: Institutionalizing and Secularizing
Historical Context
During the Medieval period, from around the sixth century to the fifteenth century, the Christian Church declined. Two factors significantly contributed to this decline. First, the geo-political situation early in this period was unstable. With the strength of the Roman Empire significantly diminished, the Germanic barbarian tribes invaded and eventually settled in the former Western Roman Empire during the fourth and fifth centuries.1 While the Byzantine Empire in the East escaped outside invasion, retaining much of its Roman societal structures, its conflict with the Arabic world was ongoing.2 The second contributing factor arose from the deep entwinement of Christianity with political, cultural, and educational power.3 As a result, the secularization of the church gradually progressed from the time of Constantine to the point where the church became indistinguishable from political power in the sixth century.4 Similarly, in the West, the Germanic invaders adopted Christianity rather than implement their paganism, making Christianity their state religion.5 With the rise of Roman Catholicism as the state religion and the collapse of Roman society and education, Western Europe and the church entered a period of significant decline known as the Dark Ages.
During the Medieval period, from around the sixth century to the fifteenth century, the Christian Church declined.
Educational Challenges
Learners in this era faced many of the same challenges as those in the Patristic period. Without public educational systems, literacy among the masses remained limited, if not worsened, compared to the late Roman period.6 Books were scarce and often written in non-vernacular Latin.7 Outside of the privileged few, education relied almost exclusively on memorization and oral transmission.8 As in ancient times, the opportunity for formal academic instruction remained a privilege of the elite class, with training centers, such as monasteries, cathedral schools, and later universities located in urban areas, severely limiting accessibility for large segments of adult learners in rural communities.9 Additionally, the medieval feudal system required peasants and craftsmen to engage in manual labor from a young age. People considered education among the youth unnecessary and allocated little time or resources to pedagogy.10 In this context, theological learners faced significant challenges.
Outside of the privileged few, education relied almost exclusively on memorization and oral transmission.
Institutional Church-Based Training
During this era, institutional church-affiliated education was the primary method for training elders and ministry leaders, though its accessibility was limited. Any assessment of this age of Christendom must first recognize that the medieval “Church” functioned as the governing political authority and was predominantly not an accurate representation of the New Testament church. Not surprisingly, as John Frame observed, “During the medieval period…academic learning in general was dominated by the church.” 11 Education was limited to theology and church tradition, neglecting scientific, historical, and political inquiry, resulting in widespread ignorance and cultural decline.12 From this historical backdrop, theological education emerged in two locations: within the monastic communities and the cathedral schools.13
“During the medieval period…academic learning in general was dominated by the church.”
Monastic Schools
Theological education became central within monastic life from its inception as an ecclesiastical institution in the late patristic period. Andrew Bain identifies two benefits of monastic training. First, he states that monastery training facilitated a strong sense of “community” by providing “opportunity for…substantial time with like-minded Christians.” allowing “able Christians to sharpen one another thoroughly.”14 Second, Bain emphasizes that early on, monastic theological instruction provided “saturation in the Scripture.”15 However, the quality of this instruction was contingent upon the character and biblical orthodoxy of the leaders within these monastic learning communities.
Andrew Bain identifies two benefits of monastic training.
Exceptions and Revivals
As the monastic movement formalized and the church secularized, biblical orthodoxy rapidly declined. Nevertheless, some exceptions arose, such as the revivals within the Irish monasteries during the early medieval period.16 The Irish monastic revivals emphasized Scripture, spiritual formation, and missionary work, offering glimpses of the potential of residential learning communities.
Cathedral Schools
Parallel and complementary to Monastic schools, Cathedrals within the major cities of Europe also became focal points of theological training. As cathedrals became central to the public life of Christendom during the medieval period, educational communities formed within their walls to train clergy.17 More so than the monasteries, the Cathedral schools often drew students through the widespread notoriety of their directors.18 With the rise of Scholasticism in the late medieval period, many of these urban Cathedral schools would evolve into the major universities of Europe.19
Core Curriculum and Influential Texts
The principal curriculum within medieval theological education focused on instructing clergy in their responsibilities and the methods by which they were to fulfill them. Two books written by the so-called Latin Doctors of the sixth century became synonymous with pastoral training: Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule and Ambrose’s Of the Duties of the Clergy.20 Gregory’s Pastoral Rule became so prominent that historians recognize it as one of the Middle Ages’ most widely read books or textbooks.21 For those who lacked access to Monastic or Cathedral schools, these texts and mentorship from other clergy became the most commonly accessible means of ministerial theological education.22 However, with these writings largely inaccessible, the average clergyman often operated in theological ignorance, and the body of Christ suffered as a result.
Gregory’s Pastoral Rule became so prominent that historians recognize it as one of the Middle Ages’ most widely read books or textbooks.
Evaluation
An analysis of theological education in the medieval period, when evaluated against the project director’s rubric, reveals the strengths of community-oriented theological instruction, which, at times, maintained structures of lifelong learning. The residential learning communities formed within monasteries and around cathedrals provided opportunities for deep relational engagement and genuine community, facilitating educational accountability. Additionally, through the many years of life lived together, monastic communities facilitated opportunities for ongoing education. However, the increasing secularization of the church posed an existential threat to biblical theology. While the medieval monastic and cathedral schools maintained Catholic denominational oversight, these theological training centers operated outside the local church’s authority and quickly devolved into biblical error and theological impracticality.
1 Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 192–251, 445–479. ↩
2 John Haldon, The Byzantine Wars: Battles and Campaigns of the Byzantine Era (Stroud: Tempus, 2001), 79–85. ↩
3 Peter Heather explains that Christian Roman Empires, believing their appointment divine, “involved themselves in the operation of the Church at all levels.” He adds, “Christianity as it evolved within the structures of the Empire was thus very different from what it had been before Constantine’s conversion.” Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, 442. ↩
4 Henry Chadwick acknowledges the secularization of the church as a state religion, “By Justinian’s time it had become an incentive to accept baptism, or at least to become a catechumen probably only intermittently attending church services, that thereby one ceased to be disqualified for high office.” Henry Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 259. ↩
5 Edward James, Europe’s Barbarians, AD 200–600 (London: Routledge, 2009), 215, 222–224; Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, 469–470. ↩
6 Henri-Irénée Marrou notes the destruction of the school of antiquity following the invasions, explaining, “the whole system of classical education…had come to depend more and more on the State…when the Empire collapsed, they collapsed.” Henri-Irénée Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), 308–312, 457. ↩
7 Justo González notes the “decline and almost disappearance of ancient letters, both secular and religious” during the early Middle ages. González, The History of Theological Education, 27. ↩
8 In her writings about memory in medieval culture, Mary Carruthers explains that as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, i.e., the time of Richard de Bury, “Everything from authoritative canons to the latest controversy is reported directly to him orally, memory to memory—not having to go through the unreliable medium of scribal copying.” Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 202. ↩
9 Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 115; David Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought (New York: Longman, 1962), 81. ↩
10 In “serfdom,” village peasants were essentially the property of the landowner from birth, with their primary role being labor. Georges Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century, trans. Howard B. Clarke (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 175. ↩
11 Frame, “The Academic Captivity of Theology,” chap. 6, ebook. ↩
12 James Mohler explains the damage education receives when bound with politics, stating, “[it] in the end invariably destroys the paideia by using it for its own ends.” Public education and the free exchange of thought would have challenged the status quo of church power and the feudal system of the medieval period. Therefore, a few religious elites controlled public education. James A. Mohler, The School of Jesus: An Overview of Christian Education Yesterday and Today (New York: Alba House, 1973), 121. ↩
13 Justo González credits the invasion of Arabs in the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain, along with the repeated invasions of the Normans prior to their conversion to Christianity, for centralizing education into two institutions: monastic and cathedral schools. González, The History of Theological Education, 29; Mohler, The School of Jesus, 138; West, Church-Based Theological Education, 121. ↩
14 Andrew Bain, “Theological Education in Early Christianity,” 56. ↩
15 The church leaders that Andrew Bain uses as examples of “Scripturally-soaked” pastoral preaching are the fourth and fifth-century church fathers “Augustine, Chrysostom, and the Cappadocians.” It is less clear if the same dedication to Scripture persisted throughout the medieval age. Andrew Bain, “Theological Education in Early Christianity,” 56. ↩
16 The authors point out, “At this time [sixth through eighth centuries] a revival of learning occurred in Irish monasteries, making Ireland more enlightened than her Continental neighbors.” Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 117; González, The History of Theological Education, 32. ↩
17 Henry Griffith describes cathedral schools as a place where [students] priests “gathered around a bishop to receive training in dogma, liturgy, and common law.” Henry Griffith, “Models of Theological Education Yesterday and Today,” East Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology 7, no. 1 (1988): 46. ↩
18 The authors note, “By the twelfth century, good teachers attracted many students in some of the cathedral schools.” Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 141. ↩
19 The authors note, “Abelard taught several thousand at the cathedral school in Notre Dame in Paris. His teaching attracted the students necessary to establish the university at Paris.” Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 141; Russell West explains that “cathedral schools…anteceded Europe’s first universities in twelfth and thirteenth centuries.” West, “Church-Based Theological Education,” 123. ↩
20 “Doctors of the Church,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5 (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1913), 75; González, The History of Theological Education, 26. ↩
21 González, The History of Theological Education, 27. ↩
22 James Reed and Ronnie Provost describe a form of “parish school” that would form as parish priests established schools in their homes. These schools engaged in the reading and oral explanation of Catholic texts and practical mentorship. Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 141. ↩