The Database Studium and the Beginnings of the Schools in Paris

Abstract

The database starts with some names (8 at the moment) of eleventh century scholars: only two of them have studied or taught certainly at Paris. This is both one of the limitations and advantages for the database: on the 2519 individuals it contains for the period 1160–1300, only 1135 have been attested Parisian scholars. But the other people are also interesting: of these, 853 are classified as „uncertain”. Most of them are “masters”; but is it a title or a grade? And where have they obtained it? There is no doubt that some of them got it in Paris. This study will try to explore these unsatisfactory data, and their interpretation could be made more satisfactory. These statistics will also throw light how, before the development of the college movement, the developments of the schools issued from the growth of the school of Notre-Dame after they had started to spread on the Mount Sainte-Geneviève combined with the monastic schools, especially those of the regular canons of Saint-Victor to make Paris an essential intellectual centre, as it is demonstrated by the wide circulation of the works of some of its masters.