A Brief History of Liberal Education in Ancient and Medieval Europe－Focusing on the Formation and Evolution of Liberal Arts

Abstract

This paper examined the history of liberal education in ancient and medieval Europe, focusing on the formation and evolution of liberal arts using materials concerning the history of education, history of university, history of philosophy, and history of science. The elementary form of liberal education emerged at Greece in the fourth century BC. The philosophers’ tradition and the orators’ tradition made two approaches to liberal education. Greek scholarship was accepted in the form of encyclopedic publications in the Roman era, and <i>Disciplinarium libri novem</i>, the first work which contained the idea of liberal arts, was written in the first century BC. In the early medieval ages, so called dark ages, secular scholarship maintained its existence through the medium of liberal arts. In the fifth century, liberal arts became actualized into the seven liberal arts through <i>De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii</i>. Since the sixth century, the seven liberal arts were divided into trivium and quadrivium. In the Renaissance of the twelfth century, ancient writings were extensively translated including Aristotelian works, and the attempt to relate Greek philosophies and the seven liberal arts was tried. Circa 1250, some universities were set up in the major cities of Europe, and medieval universities were mostly organized with the faculties of arts, theology, law, and medicine. Since the late thirteenth century, the arts faculty extended the scope of liberal arts by adding three philosophies to the existing seven liberal arts: natural philosophy, metaphysics and ethics. Based on the above examination, this paper showed that the scope of liberal arts was not fixed but continuously changed, and that humanities and science were not separated in ancient and medieval Europe.