BjornP wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 1:18 pm
GrumpyCatFace wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 12:43 pm
No education was allowable outside of the Church. And yes, in many places, it was punishable by death to own a copy of the Bible. Translation out of Latin was heresy for centuries.
You already know this.
Next, you'll argue that it was the feudal lords that maintained this system, not the Church. But we both know why they did that, and who directed it.
Nonsense. That the Church initially was responsible for most education is not evidence that they
outlawed all education outside the Church. They didn't have a monopoly, they were simply the only one's offering education up untill the 11th century.
First: Look up medieval universities. Bologna, for example. Then find me some evidence that Church outright
banned education outside the Church - prior to the rise of the first medieval universities (because I know you won't find anything past that).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_h ... _Near_East
Christian Europe
See also: Byzantine higher education, Cathedral school, and Monastic school
The Pandidakterion of Constantinople, founded as an institution of higher learning in 425, educated graduates to take on posts of authority in the imperial service or within the Church.[7] It was reorganized as a corporation of students in 849 by the regent Bardas of emperor Michael III, is considered by some to be the earliest institution of higher learning with some of the characteristics we associate today with a university (research and teaching, auto-administration, academic independence, et cetera). If a university is defined as "an institution of higher learning" then it is preceded by several others, including the Academy that it was founded to compete with and eventually replaced. If the original meaning of the word is considered "a corporation of students" then this could be the first example of such an institution. The Preslav Literary School and Ohrid Literary School were the two major literary schools of the First Bulgarian Empire.
In Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages, bishops sponsored cathedral schools and monasteries sponsored monastic schools, chiefly dedicated to the education of clergy. The earliest evidence of a European episcopal school is that established in Visigothic Spain at the Second Council of Toledo in 527.[8] These early episcopal schools, with a focus on an apprenticeship in religious learning under a scholarly bishop, have been identified in Spain and in about twenty towns in Gaul during the 6th and 7th centuries.[9]
In addition to these episcopal schools, there were monastic schools which educated monks and nuns, as well as future bishops, at a more advanced level.[10] Around the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, some of them developed into autonomous universities. A notable example is when the University of Paris grew out of the schools associated with the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Monastery of Ste. Geneviève, and the Abbey of St. Victor.[11][12]
All church-related, out to Byzantium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university
Hastings Rashdall set out the modern understanding[12] of the medieval origins of the universities, noting that the earliest universities emerged spontaneously as "a scholastic Guild, whether of Masters or Students... without any express authorisation of King, Pope, Prince or Prelate."[13]
Among the earliest universities of this type were the University of Bologna (1088), University of Paris (teach. mid-11th century, recogn. 1150), University of Oxford (teach. 1096, recogn. 1167), University of Modena (1175), University of Palencia (1208), University of Cambridge (1209), University of Salamanca (1218), University of Montpellier (1220), University of Padua (1222), University of Toulouse (1229), University of Orleans (1235), University of Siena (1240), University of Valladolid (1241) University of Northampton (1261), University of Coimbra (1288), University of Pisa (1343), Charles University in Prague (1348), Jagiellonian University (1364), University of Vienna (1365), Heidelberg University (1386) and the University of St Andrews (1413) begun as private corporations of teachers and their pupils.[14][15]
First non-religious school founded in Europe - University of Bologna, as you mentioned. So, we're already up to 4 centuries of church-only education.
General education of the masses though, wouldn't happen for another 700 years.
But we can imagine that a few wealthy kids and future monks constitute general literacy, if you want. It's not true, but I'm tired of pointing out the obvious.