Post-Medieval Higher Education

Denise Stewart
Georgia Southern University
Professor Dr. Don Stumpf
EDLD 7432 History of American Higher Education

Chapter 3: Renaissance Education

The most important development in Renaissance education was the growth of humanism
as a belief system to challenge the Churchs divine right to educate Europeans. Ironically,
humanism became a driving force because of a series of disasters. The Black Death (1346-1349)
convinced some scholars that God did not protect them in any fashion. One-third of Europes
population died and educated people were not convinced of the Churchs explanation for what
happened. Petrarch, a famous scholar who survived the Black Death, sought to retrieve the
larger corpus of classical belle lettres for its own sake: poetry, philosophy, essays, histories,
biographies, letters (74). It was in the Italian city states, where Petrarch called home, that the
greatest revival of classical learning occurred first.
Another interesting effect caused by Renaissance education was the idea that the
vernacular language was equal to Latin and should be taught at universities side-by-side with the
papacys preferred language. Latin was a difficult language to speak conversationally, but Italian,
German, French and English were spoken by the wider majority. To conduct business with
merchants required a passable knowledge of the vernacular. Literature also became a popular
outlet for language growth. Boccaccios Decameron, Ameto and Ninfale Fiesolano were written
in Italian (75). Other Italian writers such as Pulco, Boiardo and Ariosto convinced their peers to
write in Italian by publishing non-Latin polemics (75).
As the Renaissance progressed, the concepts of empiricism and scientific inquiry took on
greater importance. Questioning and inquiry had their roots in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas
and other medieval scholars. The Renaissance encouraged greater questioning of authority, as
Renaissance scholars expanded on medieval thought by changing their focus towards a
humanistic approach. Questioning and inquiry focused more on the acquisition of earthly

knowledge than the education provided by the Church. Scientific education exploded in the 16th
century, which ironically occurred during the midst of the confessional atmosphere of hatred,
suspicion and distrust, at a time when scientists theories were assailed as heretical and their
methods denounced as devilish art (91). The confessional atmosphere applied to both
Protestantism and Catholicism, but Protestants were slightly more willing to accept some
scientific inquiry if the results would poke the Catholic Church in the eye. Catholic thought was
extremely dangerous to aspiring scientists. Nicolaus Copernicus was fortunate to survive after
proposing his heliocentric theory, while a Dominican monk, Giordano Burdo, was burned at the
stake for proposing the same concept (92). Galileo was forced to confess that his findings,
which elaborated on Copernican theory, were witchcraft despite the fact they were scientifically
accurate.
However, by the 1620s, more scientists challenged Catholic dogma successfully. Francis
Bacon was free to speak against the Church since he was not in a Catholic-affiliated country, and
significantly expanded the scientific literature with the Novum Organum. Rene Descartes became
a father of mathematics and philosophy after writing the Discourse upon Method in 1637. In the
late 17th century, Isaac Newton published the Principia, which cemented the scientific theory and
mathematical processes as central to human thought and a method to figuring out the nature of
the universe. By the end of the 17th century, humanistic thought reigned throughout Europe.
However, universities surprisingly stagnated in terms of scientific thought and focused their
energies on literature, politics and the arts, where they felt more comfortable due to the fact that
those subjects were within the bounds of the ancient trivium.