The educational development of a country is closely connected with its social and economic progress, and it is necessary clearly to bear in mind the economic changes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries if we are properly to understand the educational adjustments which resulted.
It is possible to trace a rapid advance in the intellectual life of England after the eleventh century. Among the contributory factors may be mentioned the restoration of social and political order, resulting in the greater security essential for intellectual life, and the influence of the Crusades. The Crusades were not only a sign of the reawakened energy of Europe but were also a cause of increased intellectual activity and change. Those who took part in the Crusades were brought in contact with new people and new ideas; new interests were created, and a more human conception of the world developed. Moreover, the deeds of the Crusades supplied new material for historical literature, and stimulated the romantic element in life and thought. The intellectual effect of the Crusades was manifested in every department of literary activity; the number of books written was greatly increased; studies of law, medicine, and theology received greater attention; scholastic philosophy manifested itself, and the universities came into being. Of these effects, the development of scholasticism and the rise of the universities are closely connected, and are of special importance for our present purpose.
The development of that system of thought known as scholasticism may be traced from the subjects taught in the medieval schools. These subjects were the Trivium,[390] and the more advanced Quadrivium.[391] The ordinary text-books of the age (of which the chief were founded on the works of five authors--Orosius, Martianus, Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Isidorus) enable us to estimate what was known of these subjects of instruction. Music included little more than the rules of plain song; arithmetic was discussed chiefly with reference to the mystical interpretation of numbers; geometry consisted of a few propositions from Euclid without demonstrations; astronomy, together with arithmetic, found its way into the curriculum chiefly because these subjects supplied the means of finding Easter.