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Reviewed by:
  • Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000–1200
  • Clare Monagle
Vaughn, Sally N. and Jay Rubenstein, eds, Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000–1200 (Studies in the Early Middle Ages; v. 8), Turnhout, Brepols, 2006; hardback; pp. xx, 360; 30 b/w illustrations; RRP €60.00; ISBN 2503514197.

This collection of essays aims to chart the evolution of the monastic schools of Northern France in the eleventh century. Arguing that the hitherto told story of education in the 'twelfth-century renaissance' has been unduly focused on the rise of the cathedral schools, Vaughn and Rubenstein aim to show that 'the story of the development of education must pass through the monasteries, and particularly the abbey school of Bec' (p. 7).

At stake for the editors is their belief that if we are to look for the sources of a twelfth-century mentality, we ignore the monasteries at our peril. Rather than seeing them as sites of outmoded oral educational methods, Vaughn and Rubenstein argue that the monastic schools of the eleventh century deserve close consideration for their articulation of an educational way of life conveyed through close personal bonds between teacher and student. Particularly at Bec, the editors argue, learning was vitalized and schematized by a merging of the intellectual and emotional, the pedagogical and pastoral. This vitalization, they argue, should be considered a source for the 'twelfth-century renaissance', in much the same way we might consider Berengar's Eucharistic theology or the Gregorian reform.

This is an intriguing formulation, and one that makes an interesting quarrel with historians who seek to sunder monastic approaches to education from those emerging in the cathedral schools. If the common line is that monastic education [End Page 224] belongs to a culture of orality and personal charisma which begins its decline in the eleventh century, the editors of this volume seek to make a case that monastic education actually feeds into the textual innovations of the twelfth.

The overall case of this volume, however, is not particularly convincing. There are a number of excellent essays here, but they do not cohere into the convincing testimony suggested by the editors in their introduction. The essays do support clearly the supposition of an educational way of life that is particularly monastic. They do not show what, if any, influence this way of life had upon what we think of as the 'twelfth century renaissance'.

This absence notwithstanding, the collection does have some fascinating things to say about monastic educational life per se. In particular the essays of Priscilla D. Watkins and Sally N. Vaughn reconstruct the pedagogical practices of Bec to great effect. They each argue that the monastic school was not a minor subset of the monastery, but rather part of an ethos that held the monastic life to be a holistic continual educative process for all monks. They follow Marjorie Chibnall in arguing that 'the entirety of the monastic life was a teaching exercise' (p. 11).

Bruce Brasington, Jay Rubenstein and William L. North discuss the careers of three students at Bec: Ivo of Chartres, Guibert of Nogent and Richard of Préaux respectively. They argue that, for each man, the overarching pedagogy of the monastic life had provided them with models by which they could imagine themselves as worthy and holy administrators. That is, their monastic educations gave them a frame within which the activities of secular and episcopal governance could be conceived of within a sanctified model.

Each of these essays is fine in itself, and I encourage all medievalists interested in education in the Middle Ages to avail themselves of them. The problem is, however, that read together they run counter to the major claim of the collection. In showing the holistic nature of monastic education, as a process that infuses all aspects of life in the monastery and seeks to monasticize activities outside it as well, these essays ultimately assert the difference between the monasteries and the cathedral schools.

The innovation of the cathedral schools, to my mind, is the objectification of the liberal arts into a foundation for specialized and professionalized activities. Education, in this formulation, becomes a sphere of activity among many others...

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