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Chpater 2: Liturgy as Education in the Middle Ages
- Fordham University Press
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Liturgy as Education in the Middle Ages * T his volume is devoted to the theme of education in the Middle Ages. Here, for the most part, the term education is taken in the modern English sense of the word: education consists of learning things in a school-type setting. The practice of reading and the contents of books are central to what is learned in schools and thus to what is discussed under the topic of education. This essay is concerned with a different concept of education, a different kind of learning environment, and a different purpose to the educational endeavor. These pages take the term education in its etymological sense, one that is still common in French and several other languages: upbringing, the manner in which persons are raised and their character formed. My argument is that the Catholic liturgy was the major source of education about their faith for laymen and -women of the Middle Ages. It was in church, and through church services, that people learned what it meant to be a Christian; that was their most important religious ‘‘school.’’1 The topic to be examined here is similar in important respects to the phenomenon of chivalric education (on the latter, see, for example, McDonald ). Although there are significant differences between these two kinds of non-school-based education,2 in both cases we are dealing with kinds of upbringing and training that were highly impor- *This work is part of a project supported by an NEH Summer Stipend; I wish to express my deep gratitude for this support. PAGE 20 ................. 11150$ $CH2 02-02-05 07:57:44 PS Liturgy as Education in the Middle Ages tant to medieval culture but rarely text-based. In both cases, the lessons transmitted were strongly interpersonal in nature and concerned with attitude and behavior more than with the mastery of abstract knowledge. In both cases, the purpose of the education was the formation of a certain type of person. The study of books is not part of the topic to be addressed,3 for two reasons. First, and primarily, my concern is with laymen and -women, most of whom could not read. Second, for those members of the laity who could and did read, the part of their religious knowledge that was transmitted to them in written form—for example, through written lives of the saints and translations from the Bible— was its non-liturgical part. What the faithful learned from the liturgy came in essentially by osmosis: by the mere fact of being in church and attending services through the different seasons, over many years. It is useful to note the differences between going to school and learning through the liturgy. In the former, students had to make a considerable effort to learn; they were taught by masters; poor students were punished. In the latter, most of what was mastered was presumably learned without conscious effort (though not, one assumes, without boredom on occasion ); there were no masters, no examinations; there was, however, no way of verifying what any member of the laity had actually learned in and from the liturgy; some laymen and -women were no doubt more attentive than others. Some private religious reading by the laity did occur, especially toward the end of the Middle Ages. The argument being made here— that the liturgy constituted the medieval religious school—is, then, relatively speaking, somewhat less true of the later medieval period than of earlier centuries. But, despite some measure of historical change, the primacy of the liturgy for religious education should be insisted on for the entire medieval period: the number of readers remained a minority of the Catholic laity. These pages will deal very little with book learning. Rather, they will be concerned with basic education in the Christian faith. Such an approach surely has strong authority (the medievals would surely have appreciated this argument). Book learning has never been thought of as necessary to salvation or, indeed, to sanctity. The Catholic and OrPAGE 21 ................. 11150$ $CH2 02-02-05 07:57:44 PS [44.222.146.114] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 16:52 GMT) Medieval Education thodox traditions contain many saints who could not read or write; some of these figures positively, actively, refrained from acquiring such learning. It is instructive in this regard to recall the highly influential account of the early youth of St. Anthony the Great, the first great hermit, as narrated by St. Athanasius (, –): . . . [H]e refused to...