Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Masters Degree Requirements, ca 1200 AD

I'm reading this book, which you can purchase from Amazon dot com by clicking on Lem's Amazon portal.

A few chapters describe how universities were formed in Europe in the 11th century.  The first universities issued certificates or licenses for Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts.

A Bachelor of Arts certificate took 4-5 years to earn, and at the end of it the student had to "determine a question", essentially orally defend a question given him by his instructors, using all he had learned.

A Master of Arts certificate took another two years and provided a license to teach in any university in Europe.  Since the only books available were the few that had been laboriously copied by monks, books were "heard" rather than read, that is, a professor would read and explain them to students, encouraging discussion.

In order to receive a license to teach, a Masters student must have "heard" at Paris, Oxford, Bologna or in another university the following Aristotelian works: Physics, On Generation and Corruption, On The Heavens,and the Parva Naturalia; namely the treatises of Aristotle On Memory and Remembering, On the Length and Shortness of Life.  He must also have heard On the Metaphysics, and have attended lectures on the mathematical books, and books on grammar, in rhetoric including Aristotle's Rhetoric (three terms), the Topics of Boethius, or Cicero's Nova Rhetorica, or Ovid's Metamorphoses, or Poetria Vrigili.

Also, Aristotle's De Interpretatione (three terms) or Prior Analytics, or Topics in artitmetic and in music.  Euclid in geometry, and Theoritica Planetarum (two terms), or Potelmy's Almagesta.  In natural philosophy the additional works were: The Physics, or On the Heavens (three terms), or On the Properties of the Elements, or the Meteoroics, or On Vegetables and Plants, or On the Soul, or On Animals.

In moral philosophy, the Ethics or Economics, or Aristotle's Politics (three terms), and in metaphysics Metaphysics (three terms).

A certificate or a license to teach was granted after the student completed all his studies and demonstrated his knowledge to his instructors.

Without regard for the student's native language, the readings were in the language in which they were written, mostly Latin and Greek.

Quite the curriculum for the Middle Ages, isn't it?

A better question, perhaps: How does the curriculum for a masters degree in 1200 AD compare with a the curriculum for a masters degree in, say, Sociology, in the current century?  Or a doctorate degree, for that matter.

24 comments:

bagoh20 said...
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bagoh20 said...

How does the curriculum compare? One major difference is the age of the material. It had to have survived a lot of years, critics, and changing sensibility to make it. Much of today's material seems a lot less vetted. Of course today being hip and current is more important than getting it right, even when exploring ancient concepts.

bagoh20 said...

Did educated people consider themselves to be in the "dark ages" back then? Did they see the classical period as one of superior knowledge? Few today would consider any past time, to be wiser. Last month's thinking is thought to be pathetic, even when its predictions come true and disprove today's "common wisdom".

blake said...

No, the "Dark Ages" was a term applied to that time period by a bunch of douchebags who referred to themselves as "The Renaissance".

1200 is late middle ages, practically proto-Renaissance, and the term "Dark Ages" isn't applied after the 10th and 11th centuries.

bagoh20 said...

What I really mean is did people consider themselves to be the pinnacle of civilization all through history, or did people in the middle ages see their time as somehow inferior as is commonly accepted for that period compared to the classical today?

Mumpsimus said...

I'm surprised not to see Plato on that list. And I'm really surprised not to see any theologians, or indeed anything related to Christianity. The Church famously stuck its nose into everything in the Middle Ages; did they really leave the Universities alone to study and teach these pagan authors?

Michael Haz said...

Interesting question, Mumpsimus. I wondered the same thing, since the early universities were a creature of the Catholic Church.

The answer later in the book is that the monks who founded the universities purposely kept them secular, with theological instruction kept in seminaries and monasteries.

TTBurnett said...

In the 13th century, Aristotle and the other works cited would have been known in Latin. Greek was little understood in the West at that time. That changed in the course of the 15th century, when Greek original texts began to be circulated and often commanded high prices from wealthy collectors. By the 17th century, an educated person would have had to have known most that his 13th century predecessor did (Ptolemy and the more whacky branches of mathematics having slipped from the canon by this time), and a great deal more besides. Since then, it's been downhill, at least as far as Classical learning is concerned. But, as Aldous Huxley asked, "What good is an elegant 17th century literary education in the age of science?" A fine question, any answer to which is moot. No one has an elegant, Classical literary education any longer to venture a guess. And few have the slightest idea what such an education even meant, much less what its contents were.

I think not having a scientific education, either, is the obvious next step. But, we've already treated enough of one Dark Age for a blog post.

Paddy O said...

The early universities were part of the church. The classical philosophers were seen as a key part of understanding theology. Early church writers would talk about them being proto-Christians.

Aquinas, in the 13th century, wrote a huge amount about Aristotle, as that really was a defining philosophical approach for theology in the Middle Ages.

I had a 4 year BA, a 3 year MDiv, a 5 year Phd (which was quick in the program). Had to show proficiency in 5 languages (Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French German), which really about translating articles and texts.

I didn't have to study Aristotle, but I did read through a 300 page theology book a week. Sometimes more during the first stage. Then took 4 3-hour written tests in 2 weeks that tested my mastery of knowledge in specific subjects. Wrote 100,000 dissertation in a year. 2 hour oral defense.

Which is to say that some subjects have kept a semblance of rigor.

We have it harder now, because in the 11th century they weren't distracted by blogs or Facebook...

Michael Haz said...

Patrick, I stand in awe.

TTBurnett said...

The Classical texts mentioned are mostly distinguished by their prefiguring Christianity. There really wasn't much separation of "secular" and "religious" learning. It all had a spiritual and Christian import. Thus, Timaeus was the only Plato known to the Middle Ages. This is Plato's weird, Pythagorean explanation of the cosmos, filled with whacky Greek mathematics relating to music and astrology. Aristotle, likewise, was given a Christian cast, for his many passages that could be interpreted favorably to Christianity. The Middle Ages respected the Classical learning it knew, as long as it reinforced Christian morality and helped explicate the wonders of God's world (as Ptolemy did for the heavens), in ways that didn't contradict Scripture and the received wisdom of the Church.

TTBurnett said...

Ah, I see I've just restated Paddy's points in a more crabbed way. Sorry. I'll just let it stand, though.

TTBurnett said...
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rcocean said...

Going off on a less learned tangent; what drives me crazy about "education" is no what ever asks "Education for what?" or "Why?". Why are 'we' spending $billions on sociology/history/literature/women studies/whatever?

Education for what? Especially, since most of the "Liberal Arts" professors aren't classical liberals or even learned.

Mumpsimus said...

"Greek was little understood in the West at that time."

"...Timaeus was the only Plato known to the Middle Ages."

Thank you for the explanation, TTBurnett. I guess that shouldn't have been a surprise to me -- the Renaissance was largely about rediscovering the Greeks -- but it was. You can learn something every day on the internetz.

chickelit said...

It is uncommon to have both an MS and a PhD in chemistry. The MS level is usually skipped, or awarded to students who drop out of a PhD program (with the necessary thesis of course). I don't know if this is common in every STEM fields.

chickelit said...

I've read that the modern American chemistry PhD was pioneered at Johns Hopkins and was modeled on German programs.

virgil xenophon said...

@chickenman/

For several decades now the Univ of Illinois has generally been considered to have the best Chemistry Dept in the nation. Agree?

(Of course it's almost 90% Chinese in both undergrad, grad and instructors, lol)

KCFleming said...

We give ribbons for participating in school now.

Everyone's a winner.

"1 in 4 Americans Apparently Unaware the Earth Orbits the Sun"

KCFleming said...
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chickelit said...

1 in 4 Americans Apparently Unaware the Earth Orbits the Sun

I heard that the percentage is higher in France. They had a Sun King after all.

chickelit said...

For several decades now the Univ of Illinois has generally been considered to have the best Chemistry Dept in the nation. Agree?

It's always been in the big ten, thanks to Roger Adams.

Paddy O said...

Education is mostly just about putting in the time and doing the work. Like any job. The pay is horrible so you have to put up with that and have a situation where you can focus or split your responsibilities.

Doesn't take especial smarts, just a bullheadedness. Or driving questions that others just can't or won't answer.

But scholarships never really was a way to real success. Best you can hope for is 3 square meals and a room to yourself to write. Maybe a horse someone let's you borrow to get places. That's what monasteries were for.

It's a crazy amount of time and effort spent for very little social or economic payoff. Not that I regret it, don't at all. And I'm definitely happy there's a lot more to read these days than Aristotle.

Paddy O said...

"It is uncommon to have both an MS and a PhD in chemistry."

I think that's true with most fields. History, psychology, etc. The ones I've looked at in the past.

Theology is wonky. I know people who have BA, MDiv, ThM (a 1 year or so Masters in Theology that's pre-PhD studies) then go on for a PhD. Most theology programs require a separate masters before they'll look at a PhD application. Very traditional...