le for
knowledge as such, not even for theological knowledge. The
monasteries, however, constituted the great clerical societies, where
many prepared for secular pursuits. The monasteries of Ireland
furnished many learned scholars to England, Scotland, and Germany, as
well as to Ireland; yet it was only a monastic education which they
exported.

Finally it became customary to found schools within the monasteries,
and this was the beginning of the church schools of the Middle Ages.
Formal and meagre as the instruction of these schools was, it
represents a beginning in church education. But in the seventh and
eighth centuries they again declined, and learning retrograded very
much; literature was forgotten; the monks and friars boasted of their
ignorance. The reforms of Charlemagne restored somewhat the
educational status of the new empire, and not only developed the church
schools and cathedral schools but also founded some secular schools.
The cathedral schools became in many instances centres of learning
apart from monasticism. The textbooks, however, of the Middle Ages
were chiefly those of Boethius, Isidor, and Capella, and were of the
most meagre content and character. That of Capella, as an
illustration, was merely an allegory, which showed the seven liberal
arts in a peculiar representation. The logic taught in the schools was
that given by Alcuin; the arithmetic was limited to the reckoning of
holidays and festivals; astronomy was limited to a knowledge of the
names and courses of the stars; geometry was composed of the first four
books of Euclid, and supplemented with a large amount of geography.

{360}

But all this learning was valued merely as a support to the church and
the church authorities, and for little else. Yet there had been
schools of importance founded at Paris, Bologna, and Padua, and at
other places which, although they were not the historical foundations
of the universities, no doubt became the means, the traditional means,
of the establishment of universities at these places. Also, many of
the scholars, such as Theodore of Tarsus, Adalbert, Bede, and Alcuin,
who studied Latin and Greek and also became learned in other subjects,
were not without their influence.

_The Rise of Universities_.[2]--An important phase of this period of
mediaeval development was the rise of universities. Many causes led to
their establishment. In the eleventh century the development of
independent mun