about 1250, enumerates the following authors whom he read with his pupils: Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Persius, Statius, Homerus Latinus, Boethius, Claudian, Sedulius, Prudentius, and others.[1] Of prose authors are mentioned: Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, and others. The study of Greek is met with only very exceptionally before the Renaissance. Mathematics were taught, but it is difficult to say to what extent.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there was a revival of literary studies, which, however, was soon replaced by another movement, scholasticism. Through the Arabs and the Jews, Western Europe became acquainted with the entire Logic of Aristotle – hitherto only his Organon was known, and that in the Latin translation of Boethius, – with his Dialectics, Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics.[2] Scientific inquiry in the universities began to move in another direction than heretofore. The methods of Aristotle were introduced into the schools; henceforth there was a more rigorous form of reasoning, a dialectic tendency, and a closer adherence to the syllogism; disputations were very common. A renewed study of the Fathers of the Church, and a more correct understanding of Aristotle inaugurated the most brilliant period of scholasticism (1230-1330).[3]
- ↑ On the authors studied or known during the Middle Ages see Comparetti, Virgil in the Middle Ages. – Boutaric, Vincent de Beauvais et la connaissance de l'antiquité classique au treizième siècle, in Revue des Questions Historiques, vol. XVII, pp. 5-57. – An adequate history of the use of the classics during this period does not exist. A pretty full bibliography of monographs is given by Taylor, The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages, pp. 363-365.
- ↑ Windelband, A History of Philosophy, p. 310.
- ↑ On Scholasticism see also Alzog, History of the Church, vol. II, pp. 728-784.
