ABSTRACT
Around 1300, William Durand the Younger summarized papal legislation dating from 1179 through to 1215 and went on to propose that bishops are to provide masters in cathedral churches and major parish churches to teach poor students without cost. Most intellectuals would have denied that they were balancing on a tightrope strung between the naturalism of reason's philosophy and the religion of man's need as expressed by theology. They were instead convinced that philosophy and theology combined together to argue for Christ. The Church attempted to improve lower-school education and so did secular government. The earliest university or 'high school' was the school of law at Bologna, privileged by the emperor in 1158 and confirmed by papal authority. Education, it was thought, prepared humanity for heaven. Because most assumed that human reason was capable of comprehending some part of nature and even of glimpsing the deity, learning was almost idolized.
