ABSTRACT
The first question that calls for exploration in our enquiry is how a practice that was largely independent in its Greek origins lost that independence. How did it become subordinate, first of all to Church interests, and later to those of more secular powers? The decisive points in this transformation of education are closely linked to the historical fortunes of Christianity in Western civilization. In the brief historical overview that follows here, we will see how the seeds of the transformation were sown as early as the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ. But we will also see that changes didn’t begin to affect practice on a wide scale until the ninth century or so. The major events of the transformation occurred only after the first millennium.
