Mendicant Orders and Universities Unit 6 Topic 2

Rise of Merchants

• Relied on begging and donations

• Did not have a large territory and income

• Lived in the cities

• Were mobile - moved between houses

• Called fairs

Rise of the Universities

• It started as schools attached to cathedrals in the 1000s

• Mainly taught by priests 

• Curriculum:

  • Liberal arts: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, grammar, rhetoric, logic

  • Medicine, law, theology

Scholasticism

• Saw a unity between faith and reason

• Used questions and debate to teach

• 1100s - translations of Aristotle first make it to Western Europe

  • Via Muslim scholars (Averroës Avicenna)

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274)

• Dominican friar

• Used Aristotle’s philosophy to explain theological truths

  • Most important work: Summa Theologiae

Medieval Science

• Studied Greek and Arab works

• Adopted Arabic numerals

• St. Albert the Great (1200 - 1280)

  • Dominican friar, taught Aquanias

  • Studied astronomy, minerals, plants, and animals

    • Empirical (observed by the senses) investigations and experiments