Between 500 and 1100 the clergy were the only schoolmasters. Sometimes the parish priest of a village or town carried on an elementary school. There were also cathedral schools in charge of the bishops of various dioceses; but by far the larger number were connected with monasteries. In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, from the sixth century to the middle of the eighth, the monastery schools of Ireland and of England were by far the best. Three or four centuries after the days of Saint Patrick, Ireland was known as "the island of saints and scholars," and was the most learned country in Europe. The pupils built tiny huts near the schools, and in these a rich scholar and a poor often lived together, the poor serving the rich for his food and clothes. There were no prizes, and tuition was free to all who could not afford to pay. Most of the studying and reciting was done in the open air. Latin was the book language of the time, and was used in teaching as soon as pupils could understand it; but in the Irish schools Gaelic and Greek were also studied. One who had completed the course in school and university and become an "ollave," or doctor of philosophy, was expected to be able to compose verses extempore on any subject. He must know seven hundred and fifty historical tales and be ready to recite any that were called for at feasts. The greatest repect was paid to the ollave. He sat next to the chief or king. For his support "twenty-one cows and their grass" were given him. When he went on a journey, he had the right to an escort of twenty-four tutors, advanced pupils, and servants. It was looked upon as so great an honor to entertain him and his retinue that no one below a certain rank was permitted to have this privilege. If in the teacher's old age even his "twenty-one cows and their grass" did not keep him from poverty, his former pupils were expected to care for him; and this was always done with reverence and tenderness.

In England, one of the most famous schools was at the monastery of Jarrow, where six hundred monks besides many strangers and no one knows how many boys studied. The chief teacher was Bæda, or the Venerable Bede, the first English scholar. He loved the out-of-door work that was required of the monks, the care of the garden, the sheep, and the young calves; but he loved his books and his pupils. "I don't want my boys to read a lie," he said, and he translated for them the Gospel of Saint John and made for their textbooks collections of all that was then known of science and grammar and rhetoric.

During the reign of Charlemagne, at some time between 780 and 800, the various monasteries wrote to him that within their walls prayers would be offered for him. He thanked the monks most cordially, but told them plainly that the language of their letters was rude and illiterate and bade them begin to study. He founded schools, and he kept watch of them. Once at least he examined a number of the boys' exercises. He found that the poor boys had done far better than the rich. He praised the poor boys most warmly, and then gave a severe lecture to the wealthy ones. He told them that their birth and riches would count for nothing at all with him, and that if they hoped for his favor, they must go to work.

Charlemagne set these idle pupils a good example, for he himself was a student. He tried his best to learn to write; and under his pillow he kept tablets for practising; but his great hand was accustomed to wielding a mighty sword rather than a slender pen, and he never succeeded. He was deeply interested in astronomy, and he had a fair knowledge of Greek. Latin he is said to have spoken as readily as German. It had long been a custom to carry on a school at the Frankish court; but the palace school took on new life under the care of Charlemagne, for he himself was its most eager member. The pupils were the family of the king and the courtiers. For the older folk, the school was a sort of club which met to discuss literary and scientific questions. The members dropped their real names and took others. Charlemagne chose David, others chose Samuel, Homer, etc. One name, Witto, meaning white, was changed to the Latin form, Candidus;  Arno, meaning eagle, became in the same way Aquila. The master of the school, the learned Alcuin, had formerly been at the head of the monastery school of York. He wrote textbooks for his royal pupils. For the king's son Pepin, a boy of sixteen, he prepared a list of questions and answers. These are rather poetical than scientific. One question is, "What is frost?" and the answer is, "A persecutor of plants, a destroyer of leaves, a fetter of the earth, a fountain of water." Some of the questions are hardly more than puzzles or riddles. One is, "What is wonderful?" No one would ever guess the answer, for it is, "I lately saw a man stand and a dead man walk who never existed." The explanation follows, that the object seen was a reflection in the water. The king was so eager to bring educated men around him that when he was told of the learning of Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome, he exclaimed, "Why cannot I have twelve such men as these?" "What!" cried Alcuin, "The Lord of heaven and earth had but two such, and wouldst thou have twelve?"

In England monasteries and libraries had been destroyed by the Danes, and when Alfred came to the throne in 971, there was not one priest south of the river Thames, the most enlightened part of England, who could translate a page of Latin into English. It was many years before Alfred could win quiet for his land; but when peace had been made, he built monasteries and sent for learned men, his favorite among them being the Welsh priest Asser. Both Alfred and Charlemagne realized that people ought to be able to read their own language, even if it was not so polished as the Latin; Alfred decreed that all the free young folk of the kingdom should learn to read English, and that only those who could give more time to study should learn Latin. There were very few English books, and the busy man with a kingdom on his hands set to work to translate those that he thought best adapted to the needs of his people. One was a sort of history and geography, written by a Spaniard called Orosius. Alfred made many additions of his own; and there is no doubt that they were needed, for the book was already five hundred years old.

This book by Orosius was used as a textbook in Europe for many centuries. Other favorites were the writings of Bede and the Doctrinale  of one Alexander Dolensis. This was a textbook of grammar and was used for some three or four hundred years. The Latin Psalter was perhaps the most common textbook. As soon as boys had learned the alphabet and could read a little, they were promoted to the Psalter. They went over this so often that many of them could say it by heart, often without knowing its meaning. They learned to write with a stylus on waxed tablets; then they were allowed to use quills and ink and write on parchment. They were taught to sing the Church service. In Latin they studied the declensions and conjugations and long lists of words, and they also learned Latin conversation books by heart.

As soon as boys had completed this elementary work, they began on the trivium, or three-fold way. This was grammar, rhetoric, and logic. In grammar they had to learn long lists of answers to questions; they copied the fables of Æsop besides many proverbs and maxims; they read Virgil and some of the Christian poets. In rhetoric they studied the works of Cicero and Quintilian.

At the end of the trivium came the quadrivium, or the four-fold way. This included music, arithmetic, geometry, and what was known of the sciences. Even the most elementary arithmetic was no easy study, for until the Arabic numerals were introduced, the Roman notation was used. In speaking, numbers were often indicated by motions. To place the left hand on the breast meant 10,000. To fold both hands, 100,000. In business, the abacus was sometimes employed, an instrument made by stringing beads on wires, the first wire indicating units, the second tens, and so on. Sometimes a board was marked off into spaces, and the numbers were expressed by pebbles. The number 2451, for instance, would be represented as ..|....|.....|. Among the studies of the quadrivium, astronomy was especially important because the time of the Church festivals was reckoned by that science. There were so few textbooks that as a general thing the teacher dictated and the pupils wrote. Then they learned by heart what they had written, and were soundly whipped if they made mistakes. Girls were taught in convents by the nuns. They learned to embroider, to care for a house, to follow the services of the Church and obey her rules, and also to read and write to some degree. All learning centred in the Church. The monks and clergy were the teachers, and the first object of their teaching was to train boys for her various offices. No boy was shut out of her schools because of poverty. Those who declared that they meant to become monks, the oblati, were taught and fed free of charge; the others, the externes, paid nothing for tuition; and if they could not afford to pay for food, it was given them by the convent.

During the tenth and eleventh centuries especially there was great interest in chivalry, in the deeds that a man could do with his own right arm, in individuality. The towns increased in number and size. The crusades gave people broader ideas of the world. In Spain, the Saracens were searching for the philosopher's stone that should turn into gold whatever it touched; and for the wonderful elixir that should give a man youth and life for as long as he chose. They were using the Arabic, or probably more correctly, the Hindu numerals; and this alone opened a new world for mathematics. By all these means the people of Europe were aroused and made eager to learn something new. The result of this desire was the founding of numerous universities in the twelfth century.

The modern way of founding a university is to raise money, obtain a charter, buy land, and put up some buildings; but the method of the twelfth century was quite different. Indeed, in those times a university grew rather than was founded. Any learned man who believed that he had something to say about a favorite subject could settle himself near some school and give lectures to as many as cared to listen to him. Other learned men followed him and lectured on other subjects. In short, at first anybody lectured and anybody listened; and the lecturer who could bring together the greatest number of students received the most money in fees. After a while, men were obliged to secure a license before being permitted to teach.

The students were not regarded as citizens of the town in which the university was situated, and therefore in order to protect themselves, those who spoke the same language united in one association, or "nation." Naturally, they tried to lodge in the same part of the city, and sometimes they even built lodgings for themselves. At five or six o'clock in the morning, the students in Paris thronged to the lecture hall, and sat down on the floor on the straw or hay with which it was strewn. They took notes on waxed tablets for several hours. Some of them then hurried home to copy their notes; others met in a meadow playground for wrestling, ball-playing, running, jumping, or swimming in the river Seine. Sometimes the different nations carried on a rough-and-tumble warfare with one other. Sometimes they fought with the townsfolk. The town could do nothing to control them, for the university had no buildings and no apparatus; and if they chose, teachers and pupils could simply put on their hats, take up their handful of books, and go elsewhere, leaving the merchants of the town to mourn over their loss of several thousand customers.

As a general thing, each university became specially excellent in some one branch. The university at Paris, for instance, was famed for its teaching of theology; that of Salerno for its instruction in medicine, and that of Bologna in law. Students wandered from one to another, learning "in no place decent manners," said a monk indignantly. Many who were poor begged their food as they journeyed, often singing their petitions. One of these songs begins:—

He then rehearses his many needs and begs:—