HIST-308 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Trivium, Aeneid, Quadrivium
17 Nov 2020
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Books were still too expensive for most (non-noble) students to afford easily. The method of reading out a single paragraph a day, and commenting carefully upon it word by word and line by line, gave students a chance to write out their own copies. The method may strike modern readers as hopelessly dull, but in the twelfth century it generated extraordinary intellectual excitement: The newest and most advanced ideas in every field were being circulated in the most democratic way possible. they caused a good deal of trouble. Most students began their college careers around the age of fifteen, provided that they could prove mastery of latin. The trivium and quadrivium remained the basic curricular structure, although faculty were allowed a certain amount of freedom to innovate and to introduce new texts. After a year or two, students were encouraged to ask questions during their professors" lectures and to debate them publicly on certain occasions.
