Category: Education/Science

Analysis:

The so-called seven arts include trivium and quadrivium. The former refers to grammar, Rhetoric and logic, the latter including arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, are combined into the so-called "septem artes liberales", or "seven arts" for short. This was a compulsory course in medieval church schools.

In the fifth century AD, with the demise of the Western Roman Empire, the splendid classical culture of Greece and Rome declined rapidly. The cities in the Roman era almost completely declined, and various ancient cultural and educational institutions almost disappeared. The Roman Christian Church became the bearer and disseminator of ancient culture. Thanks to the efforts of the church, a number of monastic schools, archdiocesan schools and parochial schools emerged one after another. Among them, the educational activities organized by the Benedictine monasteries founded by the Italian monk Benedict had the greatest influence. There are two types of students in monastic schools: one is children who prepare to become monks, called Oblati, which means voluntary consecration; the other is children who do not intend to become monks after graduation, called Externi, which means outsiders. The former is also called internal learning, and the latter is also called external learning. In addition to monastic schools, there are also archdiocesan schools and parochial schools. The archbishop's school is located in the seat of the bishop. The nature and level of the school are equivalent to those of monastic schools. The school equipment is better and the subject content is relatively complete. The parochial school is located in the village where the clergy is located. The school is small in scale and poorly equipped. It only teaches general reading, writing, arithmetic and preliminary knowledge of Christianity. Although it is organized by the church, it is also open to the general secular public. The first thing the church needs is to educate priests and monks in reading, writing, arithmetic and basic doctrinal knowledge. This requires the use of some achievements of classical culture. In this way, it gradually formed what is known as the "Seven Arts" (literary subject education) of study courses.