Medieval Intellectual History: Universities and Theology

Item 4: The Rise of Medieval Universities

In the thirteenth century, the city grew, and the bourgeoisie emerged within a social organization that included nobility, soldiers, and servants. As cities advanced, cathedrals and universities arose. During this time, the Church held significant influence, as the Middle Ages were dominated by supernatural beliefs, superstition, and magic. However, the sacredness of the Church and the mendicant orders allowed them to conquer universities, organs of power, and address heresies. The Church organized Crusades to conquer the Holy Land, which facilitated an information exchange between Islam and Europe and led to the rediscovery of ancient Greek culture and Aristotelian philosophy.

The Structure of Medieval Universities

In this period, universities became the cultural spaces that evolved from monastic schools. They began as groups of teachers or students who assembled to form guilds and brotherhoods. The organization was composed of a president and a general assembly of students, formed by individuals from various nations who each chose a chaplain to head the center alongside the president. The administration included a proctor, two treasurers, and janitors. Students were taught subjects recognized by the Church, provided they had first completed the liberal arts (the trivium and quadrivium). Teachers focused on the written word as a repository of truth, commenting on ancient philosophical texts. Philosophy was not a separate discipline but was subject to religious tradition, with the goal of enlightenment through philosophical methods and revealed truth.

Anselm’s Ontological Argument and Scholastic Critique

Anselm’s ontological argument is accepted by dialectical authors but criticized by thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas because it is not based on experience. The core ideas of the argument are:

• We all have in mind the idea of a perfect being.
• Even the "fool" says in his heart that God does not exist, yet he must have the idea in his mind to reject it.

St. Thomas Aquinas argues that not all men possess this idea because ideas originate from experience, and not everyone has experienced such a being. He further expresses that the idea of a perfect being implies that its perfection cannot be matched by any other; it must meet all other perfections in unity and wholeness. If any perfection were missing, it would not be perfect. If existence were missing, other beings with the same perfection—plus existence—would be more perfect than God. St. Thomas insisted that existence is not a logical predicate but a matter of experience. Ultimately, he refutes the idealist formula, stating that thinking of a perfect being does not necessarily imply its actual existence.