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Humanites

The twelfth century in Europe was in many respects an age of fresh and spirited life. It was the era of the Crusades, of the rise of towns, and of the earliest bureaucratic states of the West that saw the height of Romanesque art, the beginnings of Gothic, Roman law, the recovery of Greek science, and the origin of the first European universities. The first European medieval institutions were established in Italy, France, and England in the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries for the study of arts, law, medicine, and theology. These universities evolved from much older schools and monasteries. University studies took six years for a Bachelor degree and up to twelve additional years for a master's degree and doctorate. (Publishing) The first European university was founded in Italy in 1119. By the end of the thirteenth century, universities had been established in Paris, Bologna, Padua, Ghent, Oxford, and Cambridge. These were major sites for the institution of a new relationship to books, learning, and the Word of God. These were important institutions because, prior to the arrival and rise of the university, learning in Europe had been dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. (12thcentury) In the eleventh and the twelfth centuries new types of schools were developed in some cities. These schools were different because they were usually located in city cathedrals rather than in monasteries, and they were dedicated to more advanced studies than the other schools. For this reason, they attracted students and teachers not just from the neighborhood but from all over Europe, who were interested in studying subjects such as philosophy, medicine, and law. (Publishing) There was an increasing professionalism of teaching and learning in the society during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Learning became essential to advancing and teachers gained prestige. However, demand quickly exceeded the capacity of cathedral schools. These...