The Middle Ages: 500–1500

Abstract

Moore presents the necessary foundation for the new universities: a Latin Christian church that continues to need literate ministers; the practice of educating those ministers in the traditional liberal arts; and the love of learning that motivated outstanding scholars. Using capsule biographies of representative individuals, he follows the evolution from earlier monastic and cathedral schools to full-fledged universities in the thirteenth century. That is followed by the development of those universities as new groups and new materials appear in the university, especially Dominican and Franciscan Friars and recently discovered Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Jewish texts. Finally, the author writes that despite the hard times of the Late Middle Ages, new developments continued to enrich the universities, especially in science and the beginning of “literary humanism.”