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History 104A, November 7: School Used to be Fun & Now it is a Riot!

For those that were not here on Friday, I postponed the exam

until Monday. And the reason was that I did have some material I did

want to cover before we went to the exam. Now there's no class Friday

or I would have given it on Friday. In any case, we were dealing with

knowledge and learning in the high middle ages and specifically

entering what is often known as the 12th century which is the 1100s

renaissance.

And we sort of ended up, as I identified last time, on a major

dispute that was to reign throughout most of the 12th century, and

that was a dispute between nominalists and rationalists -- the

nominalists who believe that basically things we saw were the reality

and that there was nothing beyond that in the universal. We created

the universals by what we see, a table is a table is a table and then

we get the concept of the table; versus the rationalists, who believe

that somewhere God has revealed to us truth, beauty, wisdom, justice

and tables. Usually they talk about apples for teachers. I deal with

tables. And that we understand the differences between tables because

of the higher plane of tableness, if you will.

Abelard famous for his book Sec Et Non, "yes and no", brought

together -- and that's about where I ended -- the various commentaries

made by all of the church fathers to show that there were differences

what they held. Where do you draw truth? Of course in the medieval

period, like in the legal system which is really derived from this

whole basis of what we're dealing with in yes and no, i.e. precedent.

We weigh precedent. In our legal system, the highest precedent comes

from the supreme court. And supreme court cases are used for arguing

what is valid, what is not. And this was the work later of a man

named Peter Lombard who put together these yes and no's and argued

which was more valid based on weighing of the arguments. So he took

on Abelard in that sense.

Abelard's greatest opponent was a French bishop by the name of

Saint Bernard. Don't ask me if the Saint Bernard dog comes from Saint

Bernard. Saint Bernard did take him on and demanded that the Pope

take him to task for his views. And in 114l Abelard was forced to

come to Rome to defend his position. Abelard said that he believed in

reason as long as the reason doesn't interfere with his faith. In

that sense, he was not what many people refer to him as a free

thinker. He certainly restricted his own thinking to his faith.

Abelard, on the way to Rome in 1142, died. And with that, the

controversy ceased for a period of time, although it kept reappearing

until the 13th century when it was somewhat resolved -- and I'm

jumping ahead here -- by Saint Thomas Aquinas, although they were not

saints at that particular point in time.

What we then have emerging, in the 13th century, is something

known as scholasticism. Although in reality, I refer to most of the

learning in the high middle ages as scholasticism, which basically

means knowledge comes from deductive reasoning. You take a theorem

and you accept the theorem and you deduct truth from that concept.

Syllogisms -- all men are mortal; Socrates is a man; Socrates

therefore is mortal. We find then that we move into, again, jumping

ahead, some of these changes that are going on. As I mentioned Peter

Lombard coming forth and deducting based on weighing of authority, his

book became the standard text for learning. And it was called The

Four Books of Sentences.

We have Gartian G-A-R-T-I-A-N who basically uses that same

process in law and in the development of law and canon law, which

becomes basically the foundation or precedent in, shall we say, our

western law. And of course much of the law code is again picked up

from the Arab world, from the Muslim world, who has maintained much of

the Roman and Greek traditions.

We also begin to see, in this 12th century, the beginning of

universities. The universities in Italy are more or less graduate

schools for medicine, for law, for scribes. Balonia is quite famous

or its educational process or a graduate level. And the students have

a lot of input and say because they're more mature. As we found years

back in Europe, and perhaps it's still the same at the university,

students often stay on, not just 18, 19, 20, 21. They're sort of like

Ohlone College students; they stay here for 20 years and graduate in

their thirties. Not all of you, but, you know. Only those in student

government used to stay here for centuries. They felt powerful.

However, a different kind of university which was basically

undergraduate training, training for the development of the priesthood

begins in other parts of Europe. And perhaps the most famous is the

university of Paris which, in 1200, receives a charter from Phillip

Augustus who is the king of France at the time. It is an official

charter which somewhat separates itself from the cathedral and

cathedral schools of Notre Dame, yet it really still appoints the

chancellor or president. You have letters, information from the

students at that period of time. And humans are humans and students

are students. Most of the letters that we have are students writing

back home for money which is spent in the local bars. They had no

restrictions on 3/2 beer or being 21. We also have records of who

rebel against their professors. And a couple of cases where they

threw him out of windows. I'm not recommending that.

A Good thing you don't have windows.

THE PROFESSOR: That's why I chose this classroom. I wasn't

going to take any chances. In other words, there used to be bumper

stickers in the late 1960s, early vice -- I don't know, cars had

bumpers then that said that school used to be fun, now it's a riot.

And of course riots broke out at the University in Paris. The young

people roamed the street when they got pissed off at exams. Here in

America, instead we see how many people we can stuff into a phone

booth or how many goldfish we can down. We have our fraternity

rampant. But in Paris, they loved the violence. That's why they like

Jerry Lewis. Amad and I were just discussing the riots that are now

going on in France by young people. And if you haven't been -- and

that's why I'm playing on this realm right now, it's been 11 days

going into the 12th day of basically Muslim and black young people

rampaging through the suburbs of France and now through Paris itself

busting windows, burning cars, and specifically burning schools. How

many of you have heard about this? And part of the reason that some

of you may know is that France, in its recent separation of church and

state, decided to get even with all those bastards who demanded that

religion be taken out of the schools. You see in France, up until

three years ago, when you went to a public school, you had to see a

large cross with Christ's crucifixion on it in the public schools. It

was used basically to warn students what would happen to them if they

screwed around. Never mind. But in any case, with the demands from

Muslims and to some extent the Jews that remain in France, for the

separation of church and state, they demanded secular schools. And

the French government in its nasty way got even by excreting law that

insisted that there be no religion, which meant that Muslim women

could not wear their head scarves, sheiks could not wear theirs,

anything reflective of religion including crosses, whatever, had to be

removed from any of the secular education. And that was not what

Muslims and others had wanted or anticipated. The French get even.

And so the question being: What is France going to do at this

particular point? By the way, I should also note that there were

large numbers of houses of prostitution around the university as well

that came exam time were pretty active.

I might note that the European system also has exams once a year,

has exams only once a year, and that's at the end of the year. And

those exams determine whether you go on or not. And so the tension

for a yearly exam is quite heavy to say the least. Can you imagine

just one exam? A friend of mine went to medical school in Belgium and

he went crazy because he just wasn't used to that yearly approach and

the tensions that built up around it. Obviously suicides and other

kinds of pressures built on the educational system in Paris and

elsewhere throughout Europe.

So we began to see a formalization of the university system,

including -- I think I talked about it earlier -- the final student

rebellion settled down a little when they were able to get rectors

into the university system. The students elected a faculty member who

was to be their tribune, the person who would speak for the students

and try to prohibit the faculty from instituting any rules and

regulations that would be detrimental to the students. Ohlone College

is moving to get rid of D's. I'm not sure why. I love the idea of

giving dummy grades. Those were the kinds of things that were

approached and is approached by the faculty Senate to represent the

faculty and students. And the students of course at the general

colleges do have members on the boards, and we do have a dean of

president students or vice president of students. The university

system was based on the guild system. Guilds, not G-I-L-D, but guild

G-U-I-L-D.

As wealth expanded, as trade expanded, as commerce expanded,

skilled crafts also expanded. There was a greater demand. And so in

the high middle ages we began to see something organized by the

employers, if you will, the skilled labor, the guild system, which by

the late middle ages or better said around the 14th century, the

waning of the middle ages, we saw in northern Europe these independent

cities developing a league of guilds. And in northern Europe they

were called Hanse, became known as the Hanseatic league, the Hanseatic

league -- let me see if I can find something here. It was sort of

like the western hemisphere common market that they threw back at Bush

this week or last week. They had interaction and exchanging goods

made up and controlled, not by kings, but by the businessmen. We're

somewhat familiar with the guild system, education for the trades

basically. The education at the university, the education at the

cathedral schools, the education at the monasteries basically taught

the liberal arts. They trained people in music, in grammar, in

mathematics, in astronomy, and of course in rhetoric talking,

preparing them for professions, as I indicated.

What about the masses of people who could not read generally and

generally did not read? What about the blacksmiths, the coppersmiths?

And in some areas in sheep herders in Spain were members of guilds.

They joined together. Farmers did bring their goods together, much

like in Minnesota and in places like that where they created

cooperatives. Some people called them socialists where the various

farms bring their goods together and store them or use the mills to

grind them and maintain them.

Parents looking to have their kids become trained in a skilled

labor would search out a mentor, somebody who was a master craftsman.

If the master craftsman was willing to take on a young man or maybe

young woman in some cases, they were brought on as apprentices. As an

apprentice, what it translated to was, your parents paid for your

room/board. They took care of and perhaps even an extra little

tuition quote/unquote paid to the silversmith. After a number of

years, the apprentice who did all the work, learned skill, might reach

a level where the master craftsman decides that they will bring them

on as a journeyman, which meant that they received a quote/unquote

scholarship. Now, they worked for room and board. Parents no longer

had to pay the room and board, but they did not generally receive any

salary. After a number of years as a journeyman, they then might be

ready to become a master craftsman. If the master craftsman felt that

the young man was now ready, at that point, the individual had to

produce a masterpiece, a particular object that they would make that

then went to, not just the master craftsman, but to the master

craftsman guild. And then the members of the guild, all master

craftsmen, would examine the masterpiece. If they approved of the

work, they then gave to the young master, which he now became a

hallmark, the hallmark of the craft hall where they met. And that

hallmark became a standard of quality. It meant that, not only did

this person produce good work and was recognized, licensed to sell his

product, but he was going to sell it at a fair price. He was not

going to gouge anyone, a price based on the material and somewhat of a

price for his labor, but not what the market would bear, but what was

fair, fair quality, standard of fairness and standard of quality. And

at that point, the young person could take on his own apprentices.

And that basically was a system, not of unions, but of skilled

craftsmen who were the employers. And I repeat that because many

people often identify the guilds mistakenly with unions. They were

not protecting the workers. The guilds created the standards and

protection, if you will, even insurance for the employers, for the

craftsman, for the skilled laborers.

How does this apply to education? Exactly the same. Students

who wanted an education at first came to the expert, as I said.

Professors would lecture to students, rent a room, and the students

would pay them. When they began to create universities, they

basically would have to provide housing. Their parents would pay for

their housing, their room and their board. And in a sense, they built

dorms around the schools, but usually the professors, the universities

provided this area. In a sense you, the undergraduates were

journeymen -- I'm sorry, were apprentices. And as apprentices, so

that you would show yourself equally and nobody could show off wealth

in the sense of equality of the medieval period, they wore uniforms.

Of course many private schools and some public schools do insist that

you wear a uniform, not simply for standards of decency, but to create

a sense of uniformity so that nobody can show off their wealth in

their clothing. Of course I don't know why they worry about that, you

wear nothing but jeans nowadays anyways?

A But especially with girls, you can tell the difference between

$20 genes and $200 pair of genes.

A I can't.

THE PROFESSOR: What's the difference?

A By brand name.

THE PROFESSOR: If the brand is across their backside?

A Yeah.

THE PROFESSOR: I guess it's the brand name that does it. I

guess you can get away with that. The uniforms are, of course, more

common today.

The gowns they wore had a flat sleeve and, of course, they're the

gowns that you will wear upon graduation; but they were worn day in

and day out. Had you reached a certain level, when your skills were

there, you became a TA. They're using different names for it now. I

think at UC San Diego where my son is, it's TA. Berkeley has a

different name for it. And at that point, he's getting money, room

and board in a sense to be able to grade papers and a small seminar

group with the professor tells him to flunk as many students as

possible. He becomes a journeyman. As a journeyman, they have a

different gown. That gown will have a hood that indicates what his

specialty is, as the colors on the gowns of graduation do today. And

they have a long pointed sleeve which is the master gown. So the

journeymen's gown is that master's degree gown.

And then we enter the field of the master crafts training. You

need to produce an education, your dissertation, which is your

masterpiece. It varies from obviously discipline to discipline. In

history, we have to produce a unique study that ranges 3- to 600 pages

of research, original primary source research versus secondary source,

two terms, that is, historians and few of you that are history majors

definitely could show. What's the difference between primary source

and secondary source materials? Anybody have any idea? Hopefully

this is something that you will now know. Secondary source is when

you research terms that other people have researched and written on.

In other words, you are taking their material and looking at what they

researched, what their conclusions were. Primary source is when you

go to the actual documents, when you go into the archives and you find

letters or you find materials that came from the original people.

Primary source can even be oral interviews, but those are archival

library research, not concepts or ideas that others have written

about. So if you read a book and you use it as part of your

footnoting, you are footnoting secondary sources. If you read a

document, a letter, it becomes a primary source footnote. In any

case, once you turn in your masterpiece, your dissertation, you are

examined by a panel of professors, your master craftsmen. In most

universities, that is five individuals who orally/verbally challenge

you on your research and question you on the theories. You have

provided evidence which is supposed to be totally original. When I

had to do my Ph.D., one of the things we had to worry about in our

dissertation was whether anybody else was working on it or anybody

else had done it. And so we had to write away to the University of

Wisconsin, which keeps the records of any research that's being done

or has been done. And if it cleared them, it could be acceptable to

our panel of professors. That could take months. Today, of course,

we can Google and we can, through the computer, know almost overnight

whether what you want to work on has ever been done before. Again,

it's got to be quote/unquote original research done primarily with

primary sources.

Q Does this just go for the masters of like sciences or does it

also go for arts?

THE PROFESSOR: Again, in the arts, you have to have a show of

your paintings that are examined, your work. In fact, it's

interesting, I received just a few months back an e-mail from the

woman who I haven't heard from in 30 years, I think, maybe longer. I

bought one of her pieces that she showed for her master's degree at

her exhibit. And she's become quite well-known in a strange world of

lesbian art. And that would explain the piece of bought. She was

married to a friend of mine at the time, man, but I'm sorry -- just in

the arts that very common again to have a show. And the professors

will weigh and in a sense, grade the material. In the sciences, it's

a research project. And obviously it's not 3- or 400 pages, but it's

the sum of the original experiment that you would work on. Does that

answer your question?

A Yeah.

THE PROFESSOR: When you turn in the material, if the professor's

approve it, you're given your hallmark, which is your diploma, which

is your sheepskin because the hallmark, your diploma, was actually

written on the sheep's skin which you could then post in your

business, office, school, to show that you were now able to practice.

You go into a real doctor's office, MD's you generally see in their

offices the diplomas from the schools to let you know that they are

certified to practice their medicine and by board certified extra

testing.

Once you receive your master craftsman degree, you receive a

different gown. The Ph.D. gown which is also awarded to MD's and

LLD's (lawyers) has three stripes on it. You now become a sergeant I

guess. And our gowns are the colors of your schools. Schools have

their different colors. And of course your hood has the color of the

school and your discipline. And so the different colors you see on

the hood that is the professors wear at graduation are also including

the discipline, doctor of philosophy, history, medicine, whatever it

is, which again comes out of the medieval era.

During the universities at medieval times you wear those gowns

all the time and probably had a couple of them. You probably not,

people didn't care about smell, certainly the French still don't.

Lots of perfume. Now, when you go to graduation, if you graduate you

will see me and understand what my gown is and why my gown is purple.

I like to stand out and that was the color of my school, purple.

That's my burial shroud. I get to wear it only once a year instead of

everyday. It would be fun wearing it everyday and drive everybody

nuts.

In any case, as I identified the university system in itself was

a guild and still is. In fact, it's still difficult certainly for me

and most professors to break away from that medieval educational proof

which is the lecture. Since books were not available readily, since

they were hand copied and illuminated until the printing press was

developed in 1450s by Gutenberg and some other printers, students

would, on their papyrus or sheepskins, copy down slowly the

professor's lecture and attempt to memorize them. The concept of

going from my notes or my memory to the student notes or the student

memory without going through the heads of either one of us was quite

common. The experts in the middle ages loved and graded their

students the highest who could memorize the most material and

regurgitate, comma for commas, period for period. One study I wrote

indicated that the professors were extremely impressed by one young

man because there were three professors questioning him for his

masters degree or Ph.D. as we call it today on St. Augustine and three

of the works of saint Augustine, the heavenly city, et cetera. And he

was able to answer questions, which meant repeat the words of various

sections in a photographic memory approach from any point at any point

that he was asked the question perfectly. Now, memory was much easier

in medieval times because that was the learning process. Today we're

moving into a visual age. They're moving out of the print age.

However, medieval was an oral age. Learning came about -- news was

transmitted through rhyme because it was a lot easier to remember

things through rhyme. Troubadours go from city to city passing on

news -- the queen is dead or whatever, prince Charles and Camilla have

visited Beach Blanket Babylon, I don't know. This was done through

song, through the troubadours. And when they played the song other

musicians picked up on it immediately and could replay it and remember

the words. We lost that with printing. With prints we didn't need to

remember it. And not only did you have the troubadours, you had with

a form of poetry known as goliardic, which comes from the clerks.

This was by the clerks especially the students who made fun of

authority. Students have always made fun of authority. And produced

graffiti with their little pens, quills; they were write things in the

edges of some of the prior books that were there or they'd scratch it

in the sides of walls. It's written of course in Latin.

Quote, yet a second charge they bring. I'm forever gaming.

Yeah, the dice have many a time stripped me to my shaming. Look again

upon your list. Is the tavern on it? Yeah and never have I scorned,

never shall I scorn it until the old holy angels come and the eyes

discern them kin for the dying soul a requiem eternally let me ..

(reading).

This are parodies that we find, satires, scandalous attacking,

attacking Bush, Pope Bush. Here's one towards the Pope.

Quote, a poor man seeks charity at the papal court. This is

called "The Gospel According to the Marks of Silver". Friend, thigh

poverty perish with thee. Get behind me say me Satan because now

knowist not the wisdom of cash... (reading).

Translation in a sense, do not generalize about the medieval

mind. Point -- people are people, students are students and you're

students. We'll see you Wednesday.

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