THE NEGLECT OF THE ANCIENT CLASSICS AT THE 
EARLY MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES. 
LOUIS J. PAETOW. 
Not a single one of the ancient classics is prescribed in the 
statutes of the various universities of Europe of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries . 1 The history of universities, espec¬ 
ially the internal history, can not he read solely from the stat¬ 
utes, and hence it would be rash to conclude from such evidence 
that during this time no university student or master ever 
opened Virgil or Horace. Nevertheless, the silence of the stat¬ 
utes forcibly emphasizes the well established truth that the an¬ 
cient authors were seriously neglected at the early medieval 
universities. 
This striking phenomenon has attracted much attention ever 
since the time of the first Italian humanists. In accounting for 
it many serious writers have entirely misinterpreted medieval 
culture and education. Until recently it was customary to dis¬ 
miss the subject by dwelling upon the utter barrenness of clas¬ 
sical, as well as of all other lay learning in the Middle Ages, 
and thus intimate that nothing better could have been expected 
from the work at the universities. To-day no competent 
scholar would pronounce such a verdict. The term “Twelfth 
Century Renaissance” is becoming a familiar phrase, and is 
finding its way into hand-books and text-hooks. An important 
phase of this earlier Renaissance was a revival of the ancient 
classics. 
1 In this paper, ancient classics will be used as synonymous with 
Latin classics, for throughout the period under discussion, Greek was 
almost wholly unknown in the schools. 
22—S. & A. 
