ABSTRACT
Reassessment of the Middle Ages in European historiography commenced some centuries ago, but the traditional image of the Middle Ages as an intellectually dark period contributing nothing significant to human ‘progress’ has proved surprisingly durable. It is customary to look upon the intellectual life and teaching methods of the early Middle Ages as manifestations of shocking barbarism compared with ancient times. The Middle Ages took over their curriculum from Antiquity in the programme expressed as the seven artes liberales, ‘the seven liberal arts’. These originally formed the basis of philosophical teaching, but in late Antiquity they became identified with total knowledge. Traditionalism, both in its naive form and in the form used to fight the dialecticians, considered it to be its duty to sustain as faithfully as possible the teaching of the Fathers. Monastic theology differed from the scholastic not only in its purpose but also in its method; and finally, it may be added, in its sources.
