ABSTRACT
The Middle Ages are one of the richest and most innovative periods in the history of educational thought and practice. The predominance of rhetorical education, valued relative to specific political doctrines, is a consequence of the predominance of the Isocratic educational tradition throughout the European Middle Ages. The educational writings of Martianus Capella explicitly place him in the Isocratic tradition. Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus was a Christian Roman, and a very important figure in the history of educational ideas. It is well-established that the Carolingian Renaissance is one of the most important periods in the history of Western educational ideas. The educational institutions of the Carolingian Renaissance began their slow decline shortly after the collapse of the Carolingian empires in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. John of Salisbury's educational ideas are a part of a medieval transmission of the Isocratic idea of education, and of the Isocratic legacy generally.
