Intellectual+Post+Classical+Europe

Medieval European Intellect/intelligence By Emily Ross

Initially, all intellectual knowledge was in monasteries, and even that was limited. The monks preserved all intelligence by copying by hand every scrap of intelligence that remained. They copied the bible first and foremost though, so whatever else they copied came second. This continued until the ninth century, when schools began. With the schools in the new towns, there was less of a frantic need for the brothers of the monasteries to retain all knowledge, as there was a better educated generation pouring to the schools. The knowledge was still very limited, and focused mainly on Christian ideas. In the eleventh century, universities began to appear, focused on Christianity as they were. Within these universities, the concept of Scholasticism began to appear, building to a strong point before finally crumbling to debates over how many angels could dance on a pin head. Though when Scholasticism declined dramatically, other schools of thought began, taking influence from Greek ideas. After some time, the knowledge that the Islamic World had retained and improved before closing their “gates” reached Europe. When it did, the Europeans drank it up quite eagerly, importing those ideas into their universities and schools.