Renaissance and the Medieval Times

SECTION A

According to History, the Medieval times where when there was a fall of Rome in 476CE and the beginning of the Renaissance in the 14th century.

Meaning of concepts:

• Medieval is relating to a historical period roughly coinciding with the European middle ages and characterised by feudal or aristocratic social structures (The free dictionary)

• According to Dictionary.com Renaissance is the activity, spirit or time of the great revival of art, literature and learning in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the 17th century, marking the transition from the Medieval to the modern world.

• In accordance to the free dictionary, Reformation is a religious political movement of the 16th century Europe that began as an attempt

Girls from noble families were taught at home or in a house of another noble man. Some girls from rich families went abroad to get an education but no matter where they went, the basis of their education was the same i.e. how to keep a successful household for your husband.

University education was a luxury to which only the wealthiest and brightest could ever aspire. Ever since the first university, universities were considered to be self-regulated, scholastic guilds of students and teachers who work under the sanction of an ecclesiastical or civil authority.

Initially, medieval universities had no physical manifestation. Students and teachers had to meet in houses or churches and, occasionally, public parks. Later universities began to rent and finally were able to construct buildings specifically for their purpose.

Students attended the Medieval University at different ages, ranging from 14 to their 30s. During this period of study, students were often living far from home and were unsupervised; thus students developed a reputation, both among contemporary sources and modern historians, for drunken debauchery. Students were frequently criticised in the middle ages for neglecting their studies in favour of drinking, gambling and sleeping with

The students also bargained as a collective regarding fees, and threatened teachers with strikes if their demands were not met. The “Denouncers of Professors” was a special committee that judged the quality of a professor’s work and fined them if they hadn’t completed a course on time, or if they failed to achieve the educational standard expected. Professors themselves were not powerless, however; forming a College of Teachers, they secured the rights to set examination fees and degree requirements. Eventually, the city of Bologna ended this arrangement, paying professors from tax revenues and making the university a chartered, public institution.

Medieval education in England was the preserve of the rich. Education had to be paid for and the medieval peasants could not afford it. The sons of the peasants could only be educated if the lord of the manor had given his permission, they were only taught skills needed to survive by their parents. Any family that was caught educating a son without permission was heavily fined.

This was to keep the peasants in their place because having them educated was a threat to their masters, their masters were also afraid that if the peasants got an education they may start asking questions about the way things were