ABSTRACT

The end of the twelfth century was marked by the rise of the universities, an increased study of literature and the seven liberal arts, and the production of universal manuals on all the different branches of knowledge; the way was prepared for the co-ordina-tion and synthesis of theology, metaphysics and natural science in the Summa of S.Thomas Aquinas. The characteristic new development of the twelfth century in education was the university: the characteristic new method for the attainment of truth was the rediscovered Aristotelian logic. The church and her doctrines were directly affected by this renaissance, for, except in Italy, all the scholars and teachers were clerks, and interested in the various branches of knowledge not only for their own sakes, but for the light such knowledge threw on the interpretation of the scriptures, theology, and the practical rule of the church.