Medieval Education

Chapter 8: Educational Communities in German Convents of the Franciscan and Dominican Provinces before 1350

        Educational Communities in German Convents of the Franciscan and Dominican Provinces before   ̈* T his essay will treat, first of all, the mendicant orders at the universities of Europe in the thirteenth century and then turn to some specific examples from Germany in the fourteenth (Rüegg ; Patschovsky and Rabe ; Cobban ). Additionally, rather than treating the intellectual history of mendicant learning, I will be focusing primarily on the history of the mendicant movements in medieval society and academic life (Maierù ; Hoenen, Schneider, and Wierland ). I am looking at the schools not as institutions but as organized groups of individuals who formed, inhabited, and constituted the convents as educational communities. I will not concentrate on individual scholars or their thinking and writings (Courtenay , –; Brunner and Wolf ). I will discuss the characteristics of the system of higher education and illustrate them by reference to certain specific studia in German lands. Therefore, I will cite evidence and statements about the development of regular schools from the rules, constitutions, and decisions of the general chapters; I will also present a short overview of ordinances for studies and curricula of preaching friars and Minorites. Subsequently, I will sketch the origins of colleges of the mendicant orders at the universities and offer a panorama of the provincial and local convent studies. I would like to start with the Dominican position on the pursuit *I am grateful to Dr. Susan R. Boettcher, of the University of Texas at Austin, and David C. Mengel, of the University of Notre Dame, for help in translating and discussing this essay. PAGE 123 ................. 11150$ $CH8 02-02-05 07:58:08 PS Medieval Education  of knowledge and the evaluation of education (Mulchahey ; Renard ; Boyle ). The Dominican order had created absolutely new and independent institutions for teaching and study, for which Dominic himself had laid the foundation and which were developed further by the general chapters of , , and . At the most basic level within a convent, a lector instructed all his brothers in theology and was supported by a director of students (the magister studentium). In addition to this, each province possessed one or two studia solemnia, which educated the convent lectors; among them the most significant had the title studia generalia—these individuals had the obligation to take two or three advanced students from each province for further education. After the reform of studies in  in Valenciennes, a differentiation of the system emerged with the creation of a studium solemne as a studium directed particularly at theology and a studium artium in which younger members would receive direction in grammar and dialectic as well as an introduction to philosophy. The lector prepared the younger brothers for the examination that was appropriate to the friars who sought permission to preach outside the convent. Such friars were required to be at least twenty-five years of age (constitution , chap. , –; constitution , chap. , –). A prerequisite for the attainment of permission to preach publicly was at least four years of theological studies, and these studies only the most qualified of the brothers were allowed to undertake. The leadership of the order limited the number of students sent to the studia to three per province; each home province was to equip its scholars with money as well as three theological books that corresponded to the objects of study at the order’s studia (constitution , chap. , –). The increasing numbers of young students who sought to complete their insufficient education through study of the arts within the order caused the general chapter to set a minimum age of eighteen for acceptance into the cloister; in addition to this, each cloister was supposed to set up a board of three qualified brothers who were to check prospective novices in morals and knowledge (constitution , chap. , –). Further prescriptions regarding studies found their way into the constitution later; each public preacher was required to study for three PAGE 124 ................. 11150$ $CH8 02-02-05 07:58:08 PS Educational Communities in German Convents  years but might study theology for another four years (constitution , chap. ). The total time of study comprised eight years: the first two were devoted to philosophy; the second two were focused on history of the Church, basic theology, and canon law, and only then did actual theology make its entrance. The spiritual center of this system was Saint-Jacques in Paris, which had two chairs of theology at hand and exclusively educated those masters who had received the licentia...