Dictionary:

scholasticism

  (skə-lăs'tĭ-sĭz'əm)

1. often Scholasticism The dominant western Christian theological and philosophical school of the Middle Ages, based on the authority of the Latin Fathers and of Aristotle and his commentators.
2. Close adherence to the methods, traditions, and teachings of a sect or school.
3. Scholarly conservatism or pedantry.

scholasticism, the methods and doctrines of the leading academic philosophers and theologians of the late Middle Ages in Europe. The schoolmen of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries attempted to reconcile Christian theology with the Greek philosophy of Aristotle. The leading figures of scholasticism included Peter Abelard, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and above all Thomas Aquinas, whose Summa Theologica (mid‐13th century) is the most ambitious of scholastic works; his followers are called Thomists. During the Renaissance, the deductive logic of scholasticism was superseded by the inductive methods of modern science, while its theological concerns were challenged by the emergence of humanism.

For more information on Scholasticism, visit Britannica.com.

Although historians sometimes refer to ‘scholastic philosophy’, scholasticism is not a philosophical school or current of thought. Rather, it describes the methods of study characteristic of the medieval universities and also, in the view of some historians, the particular accommodation between Christian doctrine and rational investigation reached by scholars there.

1. Schools, Universities, and Scholasticism

Before about 1200 there were no universities in northern Europe. In the 8th, 9th, and 10th c. the leading centres of learning were the great monasteries. But by the late 11th c. it was in some of the schools attached to cathedrals, such as those at Chartres and Laon, that the most exciting intellectual developments were taking place. At this stage it was the fame of the individual teacher (usually a canon of the cathedral) which made a particular school popular. Over the next 50 years, however, Paris became pre-eminent as a centre of learning. In addition to the cathedral school of Notre-Dame, other schools opened there, so that by 1150 a whole variety of teachers—grammarians, logicians, and theologians—were competing for pupils.

The University of Paris—the oldest and most important of the north European universities—was, in its origins, simply an association of the various masters teaching in Paris. Its earliest charter dates, conveniently, from exactly 1200. The masters formed a tightly organized guild, and the requirements for degrees (which books were to be studied and for how long) were formalized. Paris, like other medieval universities, was divided into faculties of arts and the smaller but ‘higher’ faculties of law, medicine, and theology, which students could not enter without having completed the arts course or its equivalent. Statutes also regulated many other aspects of university life, ranging from academic dress to the lavishness of graduation celebrations. But the written regulations are likely to give a misleading impression of universities as centralized institutions, offering a highly uniform education. In fact, the masters were all private, each with his own students, on whose fees he depended for his living. The various orders, especially the Franciscans and the Dominicans, had their own private houses of study within the university, catering for their own members, and from the 13th c. students increasingly resided and studied in semi-autonomous colleges, the most famous of which was the Sorbonne. Moreover, the majority of students did not complete even the whole arts course, whilst for most masters university teaching was a passing stage in their career. University statutes were, then, an attempt to impose some framework on institutions never far from chaos. Perhaps the same characteristic—an apparent rigidity of organization which disguises heterogeneous variety—is also found in the scholastic method, which dominated university studies.

2. The Scholastic Method

Each faculty in the medieval university had its own textbooks, and study was centred on them. In the arts faculties from the mid-13th c. onwards the near-complete corpus of Aristotle's works (in Latin translation) provided most of the set texts. In theology the set texts were the Bible and the Sentences of Peter the Lombard, a mid-12th-c. work which provided a convenient guide to the range of theological problems. In lectures, set texts received two different sorts of exposition. First, in an effort to explain exactly the meaning of each text, they were systematically divided and subdivided until the most basic units of argument were reached. Secondly, ‘questions’ (quaestiones) were posed about the topics raised by each portion of the text. Especially in commentaries on the Sentences, these questions—and the discussions raised in answering them—range far beyond any of the matters actually raised by Peter the Lombard and reflect rather the intellectual interests of the university theologians of the time.

In their polished, written version, scholastic quaestiones have a standard structure. A problem is put in the form of a question which can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The writer then puts a series of arguments, from reason or authority, for the answer with which he disagrees. There follows a brief statement, usually from an authoritative author, in favour of the opposing view, with which the author in fact agrees. Then comes the ‘body’ of the quaestio—the author's own arguments for the answer he favours (which sometimes involve modifying the terms of the original question). Finally, the arguments for the opposite answer set out at the beginning are answered in turn. Very often the rejection of these arguments, a large number of which are taken from the most authoritative Christian or classical authors, takes the form, not of a refutation, but of a demonstration that, though valid, they do not pertain to the matter at issue. The neatest example of the quaestio form is provided by Thomas Aquinas's famous Summa theologiae, written in the 1260s in an attempt (unsuccessful at the time) to provide a textbook to replace the Lombard's Sentences. In the 14th c., although the basic form of the quaestio was retained, there was a tendency for the ‘body’ section to grow into an independent essay, with its own divisions and subdivisions, and for the other parts to shrink into a mere formality.

In addition to lectures on set texts, the university year also included a number of disputations (quaestiones disputatae), either on a particular topic (such as the soul, evil, or truth) or else ‘quodlibetal disputations’, where any topic could be raised by a questioner. Although in their polished, written form disputations are hard to distinguish from quaestio-commentaries on texts, the organization of these disputations was complex, and they took place in two sessions, the first of which was probably far from orderly in its presentation of arguments and counter-arguments.

The way in which argument was conducted within the framework of a quaestio was deeply influenced by the intensive study of grammar and, especially, logic in the arts course. Not only did they often spell out arguments in explicitly syllogistic form, but also scholastic thinkers were skilled in the sophisticated analysis of logical form and of the different ways in which words could refer to their objects. In addition, the Aristotelian studies of the arts course were taken for granted among the theologians, and Aristotelian terms and ideas abound in their writings. It would be wrong, however, to imagine that scholastic thinkers were straightforward Aristotelians. In the arts faculties ‘Aristotle's’ views were, indeed, very often taken as a guide; but these were Aristotle's views as seen through a tradition of ancient and Arab commentaries, especially those of Avicenna (ibn Sina, 980-1037) and Averroes (ibn Rushd, 1126-98), and coloured by the inclusion of apocryphal works such as the Liber de causis (in fact a compilation based on the work of Proclus, a Neoplatonist) within the Aristotelian canon. For the theologians, Aristotle's views were, at best, examples of what human reason unaided by revelation, could achieve; and from the late 13th c. onwards the theologians became increasingly bold in analysing the deficiencies of such a perspective, even with regard to matters apparently within its scope.

3. Scholastic Thinkers

Understood as a method, scholasticism can only be said to have been established by the mid-13th c., when the universities of Paris and Oxford adopted an Aristotelian curriculum in the arts faculty. Already in the early 12th c., however, the pupils of Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux, most notably Peter Abélard, had begun to fashion the quaestio technique and to raise some of the theological problems which would preoccupy their successors. Theologians such as William of Auvergne, in the early 13th c., used a wide range of Aristotle's works, but they did not set out their work in the distinctively scholastic form. Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-1274), therefore, belonged to the first generation of properly scholastic thinkers. Although greatly respected, he did not enjoy in his own or the succeeding century the pre-eminence which he has been accorded by more recent historiography. The most influential figure of the next generation was Henry of Ghent (c.1217-1293). But it was Duns Scotus (c.1265-1308), a keen though admiring critic of Henry (and, less directly, of Aquinas), whose ideas became an inevitable point of reference for all his successors. The influence of William of Occam (c.1285-1347/9), once portrayed as the destroyer of the syntheses of Aquinas and Scotus, has been exaggerated. He is best seen as one of a set of brilliant Oxford scholars—among whom were Adam Wodeham and Walter Chatton—whose ideas influenced Parisian thought in the following decades. Although the great age of scholasticism had passed by about 1350, a number of outstanding scholastic thinkers worked in the late Middle Ages, such as John Wyclif (c.1330-1384) and Peter of Ailly (1350-1420/1). All these figures were theologians. But a few thinkers made their careers in the arts faculty. They include Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia in the 1260s and 1270s, and John Buridan in the 14th c.

4. The Idea of Scholasticism

Was scholasticism merely a set of methods, or did it also involve on a more abstract level a distinctive approach to intellectual life? Historians have been quick to point to the combination of faith and reason in the works of the scholastics. Scholastic thinkers, they say, neither relied uncritically on the authority of the ancients and Church Fathers, nor did they attempt to base their views on reason alone. Their independence from authorities marks them out from their early-medieval predecessors; their reliance on revelation distinguishes them from philosophers of the early-modern period and later.

Yet it is questionable whether such a characterization amounts to more than saying that the scholastic thinkers were, indeed, thinkers, and that most of them did their most important work as theologians. No thinker relies blindly on the authority of his predecessors, and scholastic writers differed from their early-medieval predecessors not by being independent from authorities, but in the methods by which they achieved this independence. Within the arts faculties scholars were not merely encouraged, but required to discuss only what reason could construct on the basis of self-evident premisses. In the theology faculties Christian doctrine provided the basic material for study, although this did not prevent theologians from spending much of their time analysing concepts, logical connections, and language. The relationship between what could be known without Christian revelation and what could not was a matter for constant sophisticated debate, in which no single solution became the accepted one. Scholasticism is, therefore, best regarded as a set of methods and, in a transferred sense, as the name for the large and various body of surviving logical, philosophical, scientific, legal, and theological texts which exemplify them.

[John Marenbon]

Bibliography

• N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, and J. Pinborg (eds.), The Cambridge History of Later medieval Philosophy (1982)
• A. de Libera, La Philosophie médiévale (1989)
• J. Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350): An Introduction, 2nd edn. (1992)

The philosophy taught in the church schools and theological training-grounds in the medieval period. Scholasticism was the dominant philosophical approach in Europe from perhaps the 11th until the 16th century, or the time of Abelard to that of Suárez. It combined religious doctrine, study of the Church fathers, and philosophical and logical work based particularly on Aristotle and his commentators, and to some extent on themes from Plato. Prominent scholastics included Aquinas, Buridan, Duns Scotus, and Ockham.

In the early modern period the term "Scholasticism" denoted the systematization of learning in schools and universities, mainly in philosophy and theology, occasionally extended to law and medicine. It may be characterized by its distinctive method and language and by its elaboration into competing systems of thought.

Scholastic Method

What is called "scholastic method" started with the disputations that were held in the schools of the Middle Ages. A disputation began with the posing of a question that could be answered either affirmatively or negatively. It involved two interlocutors, one on each side, and the method of arguing was basically that explained in the Topics of Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.). The topics or problems were drawn from a teaching text, usually in philosophy or theology, and expressed in Latin. The rules of reasoning were those concerned with concepts, propositions, and arguments and contained in other logical works of Aristotle. The proponent of the affirmative, called the defendant, stated his thesis in the form of a proposition, and then proceeded to develop arguments that supported his thesis. In response, the proponent of the negative, called the objector, developed counterarguments that disproved the defendant's thesis. To these counterarguments the defendant then replied by reformulating his initial arguments, introducing distinctions of meaning to meet the opponent's objections. The argument went back and forth in this form until either the objector was convinced that his difficulties had been met and he conceded the thesis, or the defendant was unsuccessful in his defense of the thesis and conceded defeat.

Scholastic method grew out of this procedure. Its basic instruments were definition, distinction, and argumentation, and its ideal goal was certain truth, although frequently it could reach only probable conclusions. By the time of the Renaissance a stylized format had been developed for meeting these objectives. First the thesis was stated, usually as a universal affirmative proposition. Then three steps were commonly envisaged, consisting of prenotes, proofs, and difficulties that might be brought against the thesis. In the prenotes the proponent provided definitions of the terms in the thesis, distinctions relating to them, and different positions being held on the thesis. Then various proofs were offered, first from authority, such as the Bible or a noted philosopher, then from reason, using varieties of argument. Finally, objections against the thesis were restated and resolved, usually on the basis of distinctions introduced earlier in the presentation.

Medieval Schools

The development of Scholasticism coincided with the founding of universities in the late twelfth century and of religious orders such as Dominicans and Franciscans in the early thirteenth century. In the universities newly translated texts of Aristotle provided the basis for a system of thought known as Aristotelianism. Additionally, religious orders had their favorite doctors, whose teachings were also systematized. Dominicansfollowed Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), whose system was called Thomism, and Franciscans followed Duns Scotus (1266?–1308) and William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347), whose systems were called Scotism and Ockhamism, respectively. A feature of medieval universities was public disputations in which doctors of these schools debated before the student body. Different though their systems were, the discourse was made possible by the participants' reliance on Aristotle's method of logic.

The language of Scholasticism was a technical Latin, with specialized vocabularies suited to particular subject matters. Geographically, Scholasticism flourished in Italy and on the Iberian Peninsula, in France, Germany, the Low Countries, and in the British Isles. The leading schools were the University of Oxford, noted for philosophy, the University of Paris, for theology, and the University of Bologna, for law and medicine.

In the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries Augustinianism, a theological form of Neoplatonism advanced by Augustine of Hippo (354–430), was influential. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Latin Averroism, a teaching of Averroës (Ibn Rushd; 1126–1198) that denied the immortality of the human soul, assumed importance, mainly at the University of Padua. Ockham's insistence that universal natures cannot be known in things, but only their names (nomina), led to his system's being known as nominalism. The opposing systems, which held that natures could be known to be real (realia), were then seen as various forms of realism. Debates between realists and nominalists were frequent in university disputations.

The Renaissance

Scholasticism reached its highest state of development during the Renaissance, roughly from about 1450 to about 1650. The first phase, to the mid-sixteenth century, was focused in Italy and Spain and is known to historians as "Second Scholasticism." The second phase saw its development by the Jesuits and its extension to the schools of northern Europe, Protestant as well as Catholic.

In the first phase Thomism, Scotism, and nominalism developed extensively. Thomism was advanced mainly by Dominicans, of whom the most significant were the Italians Tommaso de Vio Cajetan (1469–1534) and Giovanni Crisostomi Javelli (1470–c. 1538), and the Spaniards Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1486–1546) and Domingo de Soto (1495–1560). Cajetan was the most profound synthesizer of St. Thomas's theology, whereas Javelli is best known for his teaching manuals in philosophy. Vitoria and Soto worked extensively on social and political thought, arguing that natives in America had souls and therefore had the same rights as Europeans.

Scotism was largely the preserve of the Franciscans, who adopted Scotus as their order's doctor in 1539. Before that, a revival of Scotist teachings had been promoted by the French Peter Tartaretus (d. c. 1532), and the Italian Antonio Trombetta (1436–1517). Trombetta was a critic of Cajetan and is known especially for having combated Averroism at Padua.

A nominalist revival radiated out from the University of Paris to other countries, including Spain and the Low Countries. Its chief promoters were Gerard of Brussels (d. 1502) and the Scot John Major (1469–1550), both teaching at Paris, and Johannes Eck (1486–1543), whose career was mainly in Germany. Among Major's students were Pedro Ciruelo (1470–1554) and Gaspar Lax (1487–1560), the latter well known for his manuals in logic. Major's school made significant contributions to the study of motion and prepared the way for the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.

The second phase of the Renaissance began with the founding of the Jesuit order in 1540. Jesuits blended humanism with Scholasticism and introduced methods of teaching that had profound effects throughout Europe. In general, they subscribed to Thomism but introduced variations within that system. Their most important school was the Collegio Romano, located in Rome, which was staffed initially by Iberians, notably Franciscus Toletus (1532–1596) and Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604), who wrote influential textbooks. Their most outstanding teacher was Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), whose version of Thomism is referred to as Suarezianism.

Although Martin Luther (1483–1546) held a disputation against Scholasticism in 1517, it came to occupy a central place in Protestant universities within a hundred years. This was true whether the universities leaned to Calvinism, as in Heidelberg and Marburg, or to Lutheranism, as in Wittenberg, Altdorf, and Helmstedt. The basic approaches were those of Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), who composed textbooks on physics, psychology, and ethics at Wittenberg, and Jacob Schegk (1511–1587), who commented on Aristotle's logic and natural philosophy at Tübingen.

For metaphysics, Jesuit textbooks, particularly Suarez's, were used initially but were later replaced by Protestant manuals. Johannes Caselius (1535–1613), working at Helmstedt, wrote early texts in the Aristotelian tradition pioneered by Schegk. Works showing Suárez's influence include those of Jakob Martini (1570–1649) at Wittenberg and Christoph Scheibler (1589–1653) at Giessen, the latter called the Protestant Suárez. For systematic thought, notable works are those of Bartholomaeus Keckermann (1571–1608), who taught at Heidelberg and Gdańsk and wrote manuals for all of philosophy and science. Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638) followed Keckermann's teachings with his own Encyclopediae in 1620 and 1630. At Leiden, Franco Burgersdijk (1590–1635) wrote similar compendia for Scholastic philosophy that were widely used throughout Protestant Europe.

Later Period

By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Scholasticism had run its course. The way of thought it had spawned, with its many "-isms," had become overburdened and toppled of its own weight. Disputations that had earlier held great interest had by then degenerated into making subtle distinctions and quibbling endlessly over terms. Scholastic method continued to be employed in religious houses of study and in universities, however, though in the latter it gradually gave way to new methods based on experimentation and mathematical reasoning. This transition is seen graphically in the early writings of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Galileo's Latin notebooks on logic and natural philosophy, written at Pisa between 1588 and 1592, were couched in the language of Scholastic disputations. The same can be said of Newton's Trinity notebooks, written at Cambridge in the early 1660s.

Scholasticism was transplanted to the New World by religious orders in time for the founding of institutions of higher learning in North and South America and the Philippines. Those in Mexico and the Philippines followed the teachings of Spanish Scholastics, mainly from Salamanca and Alcalá, whereas American colleges, such as Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary, reflected teachings current in Protestant universities in England, Scotland, Germany, and the Low Countries.

Bibliography

Marthaler, Berard, et al., eds. "Scholastic Philosophy," "Scholastic Terms and Axioms," and "Scholasticism." In New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Vol. 12, pp. 749–779. New York, 2003. Very complete treatment.

Nauert, Charles G., Jr. Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe. Cambridge, U.K., 1995.

Rummel, Erika. The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reformation, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1995.

Wallace, William. "Newton's Early Writings." In Newton and the New Direction in Science: Proceedings of the Cracow Conference, 25 to 28 May 1987, edited by George V. Coyne et al., pp. 23–44. Vatican City, 1988.

——. "Scholasticism." In Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, edited by Paul F. Grendler, vol. 5, pp. 422–425. New York, 1999. See also the same author's entries on "Aristotle and Aristotelianism," vol. 1, pp. 107–113, and "Logic," vol. 3, pp. 443–446.

Wallace, William, trans. Galileo's Early Notebooks: The Physical Questions. Notre Dame, Ind., 1977.

Wallace, William A. "Aristotle in the Middle Ages." In Dictionary of the Middle Ages, edited by Joseph R. Strayer, vol. 1, pp. 456–469. New York, 1989.

—WILLIAM A. WALLACE

Fourteenth century image of a school.

Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus (Greek: σχολαστικός), which means "that [which] belongs to the school", and was a method of learning taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100–1500. Scholasticism originally began to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology. It is not a philosophy or theology in itself, but a tool and method for learning which puts emphasis on dialectical reasoning. The primary purpose of scholasticism was to find the answer to a question or resolve a contradiction. It is most well known in its application in medieval theology, but was eventually applied to classical philosophy and many other fields of study.

Scholastic method

The scholastics would choose a book by a renowned scholar, called auctor (author), as a subject of investigation, for example the Bible. By reading the book thoroughly and critically, the disciples learned to appreciate the theories of the auctor. Then other documents related to the source document would be referenced, such as Church councils, papal letters, anything written on the subject, be it ancient text or contemporary. The points of disagreement and contention between these multiple sources would be written down. These individual sentences or snippets of text are called sententiae. For example, the Bible contains apparent contradictions for Christians, such as the laws regarding what foods are kosher, and these contradictions have been examined by scholars ancient and contemporary, so a scholastic would gather all the arguments about the contradictions, looking at it from all sides with an open mind.

Once the sources and points of disagreement had been laid out, through a series of dialectics the two sides of an argument would be made whole so that they would be found to be in agreement and not contradictory. This was done in two ways.

First, through philological analysis, where words were examined and it would be argued they could have more than one meaning, that the author could have intended the word to mean something else. Ambiguity in words could be used to find common ground between two otherwise contradictory statements. Second, through logical analysis which relied on the rules of formal logic to show contradictions did not exist, but were subjective to the reader.

Scholastic genres

Scholastics developed two different genres of literature:

The first is called quæstiones or "questions" which is basically as described above, except rather than being confined to a single scholar, or auctor, the scholastic method would be applied to a question. For example, "Is it permissible to kill for self-preservation?" From there any number of sources could be referenced to find the pros and cons of the question.

The second genre was called a summa. A summa was a system of all questions, thus a complete summary of what it was possible to deduce on the subject. In this way any question could be found in the summa and would reference any other question that might arise. The most famous summa is by Thomas Aquinas called Summa Theologica, whose goal was to cover the "sum" total of Christian theology at the time.

Scholastic school

Scholastic schools had two methods of teaching. The first is the lectio. A teacher would read a text, expounding on certain words or ideas, but no questions were allowed, it was a simple reading of a text, the instructors explained, and silence for the students.

The second is the disputatio which is at the heart of the scholastic method. There were two types of disputatios. The first was called the "ordinary" in which the question to be disputed was announced beforehand. The second was the quodlibetal in which the students would propose the question to the teacher without any prior preparation. The teacher would then have to come up with a response. The teacher would cite authoritative texts such as the Bible to prove his position. Students would then rebut the response and this would go back and forth. During this exercise someone would be keeping notes on what was said, the teacher would then summarize the arguments from the notes and present his final position the next day, answering all the rebuttals.

History

Scholastic philosophy usually combined logic, metaphysics and semantics into one discipline, and is generally recognized to have developed our understanding of logic significantly when compared to the older sources.

In the high scholastic period of 1250 - 1350, scholasticism moved beyond theology into the philosophy of nature, psychology, epistemology and philosophy of science. In Spain, the scholastics also made important contributions to economic theory, which would influence the later development of the Austrian school.

During the humanism of the 1400s and 1500s, scholastics were put to the background and somewhat forgotten (though revived in Spain in the School of Salamanca). This has been the source of the view of scholasticism as a rigid, formalistic, outdated and improper way of doing philosophy. During the catholic scholastic revival in the late 1800s and early 1900s the scholastics were repopularized, but with a somewhat narrow focus on certain scholastics and their respective schools of thought, notably Thomas Aquinas. In this context, scholasticism is often used in theology or metaphysics, but not many other areas of inquiry.

Scholasticism was concurrent with movements in Jewish philosophy (especially Maimonides) and Islamic philosophy (for example, the work of Averroes). From the 8th century, the Mutazilite school of Islam, compelled to defend their principles against the orthodox Islam of their day, looked for support in philosophy, and are one of the first to pursue a rational theology, called Ilm-al-Kalam. This can be seen as a form of scholastic theology.

The following authors and works were commonly used as auctores:

• Aristotle ("The Philosopher") and commentaries by Averroes ("The Commentator")
• Boethius and his Consolation of Philosophy
• Saint Augustine
• Plato (specifically, Timaeus)
• Peter Lombard (specifically, his Sentences)
• Bible

Early Scholasticism and its contemporaries

Anselm of Canterbury is sometimes misleadingly called the 'Father of Scholasticism' because of the prominent place that reason has in his theology; instead of establishing his points by appeal to authority, he presents arguments to demonstrate why it is that the things he believes on authority must be so. His particular approach, however, was not very influential in his time, and he kept his distance from the Cathedral Schools. We should look instead to the production of the gloss on Scripture associated with Anselm of Laon, the rise to prominence of dialectic (middle subject of the medieval trivium) in the work of Abelard, and the production by Peter Lombard of a collection of Sentences or opinions of the Church Fathers and other authorities. Scholasticism proper can be thought of as the kind of theology that emerges when, in the Cathedral schools and their successors, the tools of dialectic are pressed into use to comment upon, explain, and develop the gloss and the sentences.

Notable authors include:

• 

  

  Anselm of Canterbury
  Anselm of Canterbury (1033/1034-1109)
• Anselm of Laon (died 1117)
• Hugh of St Victor (1078-1151)
• Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
• Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
• Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
• Peter Lombard (c.1100-1160)
• Alain de Lille (c. 1128-1202)
• Joachim of Fiore (c.1135-1202)

High Scholasticism and its contemporaries

The 13th Century saw the attempted suppression of various groups perceived as heterodox, such as the Cathars and Waldensians and the associated rise of the mendicant orders (notably the Franciscans and Dominicans), in part intended as a form of orthodox alternative to the heretical groups. Those two orders quickly became contexts for some of the most intense scholastic theologizing, producing such 'high scholastic' theologians as Alexander of Hales (Franciscan) and Thomas Aquinas (Dominican), or the rather less obviously scholastic Bonaventure (Franciscan). The century also saw a flourishing of mystical theology, with women such as Mechthild of Magdeburg playing a prominent role. In addition, the century can be seen as the earliest period in which the study of natural philosophy that could (anachronistically) be called 'science' began once again to flourish in theological soil, in the hands of such men as Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon.

Notable authors include:

Aquinas

• Saint Dominic (1170-1221)
• Robert Grosseteste (c.1175-1253)
• Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
• Alexander of Hales (died 1245)
• Mechthild of Magdeburg (1210-1285)
• Roger Bacon (1214-1294)
• Bonaventure (1221-1274)
• Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
• Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)

Late Scholasticism and its contemporaries

Scholastic theology continued to develop as the thirteenth century gave way to the fourteenth, becoming ever more complex and subtle in its distinctions and arguments. The fourteenth century saw in particular the rise to dominance of the nominalist or voluntarist theologies of men like William of Ockham. The fourteenth century was also a time in which movements of widely varying character worked for the reform of the institutional church, such as conciliarism, Lollardy and the Hussites. Spiritual movements such as the Devotio Moderna also flourished.

Notable authors include:

Catherine of Siena

• Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)
• Duns Scotus (1266-1308)
• Marsilius of Padua (1270-1342)
• William of Ockham (c.1285-1349)
• John Wycliffe (c.1320-1384)
• Julian of Norwich (1342-1413)
• Geert Groote (1340-1384)
• Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
• Jean Gerson (1363-1429)
• Jan Hus (c.1369-1415)
• Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471)

Famous scholastics

Main article: list of scholastic philosophers

• Early scholastics (1000–1250):
  • Solomon Ibn Gabirol
  • Gilbert de la Porrée
• High scholastics (1250–1350):
  • Albertus Magnus
  • Siger of Brabant
  • Boetius of Dacia
  • Duns Scotus
  • William of Ockham
  • Jean Buridan
  • Nicole Oresme
  • Marsilius of Padua
• Late scholastics (1350–1650):
  • Gregory of Rimini
  • Francisco de Vitoria
  • Francisco Suarez
  • Leonardus Lessius
  • Cesare Cremonini (Caesar Cremoninus)

Key anti-scholastics

The factual accuracy of this article is disputed.

• Erasmus ^{[citation needed]}
• Bernard of Clairvaux - during his lifetime Bernard was one of the strongest opponents to scholasticism.

See also

• Medieval philosophy
• Aristotelianism
• Renaissance of the 12th century
• History of science in the Middle Ages
• Neo-Scholasticism
• Thomism
• Aquinas and the Sacraments
• Thought of Thomas Aquinas Part I

External links

• "Scholasticism". In Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
• Etext of 1908 document about Scholasticism
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13548a.htm
• Yahoo! directory category: Scholasticism
• The genius of the scholastics and the orbit of Aristotle, article on the influence of scholasticism on later thought
• The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves by von Balthasar
• Medieval Philosophy, Universities and the Church by James Hannam

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