The Transmission of knowledge

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In Byzantium

Contrary to popular belief, the profound transmission of knowledge established in Antiquity[1] didn’t decline during the Byzantine period. In spite of the decline of the urban network and the crises, there’s evidence of a continuation of a high level of literacy—study was promoted by the Emperor and the Church.

Up until the fifth century, elementary instruction was provided by a grammarian, in local schools (financed by the evergetism of the upper classes) and private schools. These existed in most of the villages. This instruction was then completed in the nearest town by the grammatikos. Reputable schools of higher education (Athens, Alexandria, Beirut, and Antioch) attracted students from the whole Empire. The crisis in the cities in the sixth and seventh centuries led to the disappearance of local schools, but this form of education did continue in some form or other, allowing elementary and intermediary education to survive and re-emerge later.

Elementary education (propaideia) continued in most of the Byzantine villages, in small private schools, as attested by the hagiography, which describes the primary education of future saints. Most of the Byzantines (especially men) could read, write, and count. Reading was taught through reading of the Psalter and Homer.

Intermediate education (enkuklopaideia) continued in the towns and was principally designed to train the officers of the Empire and the Church, though it didn’t become widespread until the ninth century. The schools were small and were run by a poorly paid, low-status teacher, who was sometimes assisted by advanced pupils. The education, which corresponded with the classical trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and poetry), used passive learning methods (learning by heart, imitation of classical works, and schedography, which consisted of learning from the maximum number of stylistic and grammatical errors in a short text), and also provided a good grounding in classical culture (Homer, the Greek tragedies, orators, and Christian authors like Gregory of Nazianzus). Manuals, such as those by Choiroboskos (ninth century) transmitted the rules of classical grammar, which continued to govern written language up until the end of the Empire. The most gifted and wealthiest students then went through a sort of quadrivium (philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and musical theory). An examination completed this cycle of teaching, which developed considerably in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Students mostly paid for their studies, but some schools were subsidized by the State or the Church.

After the sixth century, and the disappearance of the higher education establishments of Late Antiquity (the school in Athens was closed by Justinian in 529), higher education declined, even though teaching at the highest level continued in Constantinople up until the reign of Heraclius (reigned 610–641) with the arrival of Stephanos of Alexandria, who introduced the Alexandrian tradition. Subsequently, the iconoclast emperors (eighth to ninth centuries) promoted a revival of intermediary studies, and the Macedonian dynasty (from 867) inaugurated a renaissance of higher education—the regent Bardas established four chairs in the Magnaur Palace in Constantinople, under the direction of Leon the Mathematician. In the eleventh century, Constantine X Monomachus appointed Michel Psellos (appointed hypatos of the philosophers) to teach philosophy and Joannes Xiphilinus (who acquired the title nomophylax) was appointed to teach law. The condemnation (under pressure from Alexios I Komnenos) of John Italus, Psellos’s student and successor, who believed that the Revelation could be rationalized through philosophy, demonstrates the level of imperial control over secular education. Theological teaching was provided by the patriarchal school, located in Hagia Sophia, where the teachers officiated: the teacher of the Psalms, the Apostles (Paul), and the Gospels. The latter ran the school and held the title of ecumenical teacher. The patriarchate was also involved in the secular education: the teacher of rhetoric provided instruction in rhetoric and delivered speeches in praise of the Emperor. At the same time, professional training was provided for people in various professions: notaries, tax surveyors, doctors, and so on.

After the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, during which most of the schools were destroyed, intellectuals sought refuge in the Empire of Nicaea. Gifted students had to travel from town to town to find good teachers. One such student, Nicephorus Blemmydes, helped re-establish a sophisticated system of higher education, paving the way for the revival of classical studies under the Palaeologi. When Constantinople was recaptured by Michael VIII in 1261, he reorganized the city’s intermediary and higher education with the help of, among others, George Acropolites and Maximus Planudes. In the fifteenth century, the many private schools (such as those of Scholarios and Manuel Kalekas) reflected the vitality of Byzantine intellectual life. Famous teachers (Jean Chortasmenos, who taught medicine in Constantinople, and Gemistos Plethon, who taught philosophy in Mistra) attracted Byzantine and Italian intellectuals, laying the foundations of Western humanism for the decades that followed.

M.-H. C.

In Islam

In Islamic tradition there are two terms for knowledge: ‘ilm, which refers to knowledge of Islam, and maʿrifa, which literally means ‘interior knowledge’. This important distinction separates knowledge related to the understanding and application of the Qur'anic text isn’t restrictive and includes the Arabic language, grammar, literature, and the Qur’anic sciences as variations of the text according to the seven readings (qirā’āt), orthography (rasm), the method of recitation (tajwīd), and the science of explanation of the Qurʾān (tafsīr). To this were added the traditions (Ḥadīths) and elements of law. ‘Ilm prevails over ma‘rifa in the hierarchy of knowledge, which is also evident in the transmission of knowledge in general and particularly in instruction. from secular ‘knowledge’ that covers other rational forms of knowledge, i.e. sciences in the modern sense of the term. However, ‘ilm

In early Islam, children were taught in schools, later called Kuttāb, and were also taught in mosques. Children learnt to read, write, and count; they memorized passages from the Qurʾān. Language instruction was very important and the equipment was limited and consisted of a small board and reed pens. The methods are described in the work of Ibn Sahnūn (ninth century), who wrote the first book on Islamic education, the Kitāb ādāb al-Mu’allimīn (translated into French under the title: Le Livre des règles de conduite des maîtres d’Ecole[2]), and when children misbehaved corporal punishment was used. In the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldūn (in his work Kitab al-ibar[3]) described the regional particularities of this instruction: in the Maghrib, instruction focused exclusively on learning the Qur’anic text, while in Andalusia epistolary art, poetry, and calligraphy were added to Qur’anic instruction. In Tunisia, calligraphy was deemed less important but children did study some Ḥadīths. Ibn Khaldūn only refers to the Eastern peoples through hearsay but, according to him, they added some disciplines to the study of the Qurʾān, but not calligraphy.

Young people then went to their local mosque or a master, or scholar. The students sat in a circle (a halqa) around their teacher in the mosque, as Ibn Jubayr[4] observed in the Great Mosque of Damascus in the twelfth century. Instruction primarily focused on the Qurʾān, and the sunna (customs), but language study and poetry were also included.

In private residences, there were sessions known as majālis, which adopted the same method, based on note taking and memorization. Dictated lessons produced notes (amālī) for ‘publication’. Titles of works reflect their origin as ‘Lecture-Notes’ books, such as Kitābālisal-Amālī al-maj or by al-Tha‘lab, and the Kitāb al-amālī by al-Qālī. More literary meetings were also held in the presence of prominent people, and even the sovereign himself. In general, patronage played an important role but its close connection with the ruling authorities was also a constraint.

Before the eleventh century and the propagation of the madrasah, private and kingly initiatives to establish libraries created special places for the diffusion of knowledge. The most famous example was ‘the house of wisdom’ (Bayt al-hikma) in Baghdad, which operated under the caliph al-Ma’mun and provided a place of learning for scholars and translators, as well as equipment for writing and copying books. The material was generally secular and Hellenic, and even Persian and Indian in origin. Medicine was, quite naturally, taught in hospitals.

Before continuing, it’s important to emphasize that the emergence of paper and the diffusion of its use (from the middle of the eighth century) greatly facilitated the production of books and their diffusion. The importance of the book—its attribution and classification—originates from the bibliographical lists inherited from Islam, and which are still indispensable tools, such as the Kitāb al-fihrist or ‘Index’ by Ibn al-Nadīm (end of the tenth century). He was a bookseller in Baghdad who drew up a list of all the books written in Arabic, including those that had been translated. This list was completed by Yaqūt (died 1228) in his own dictionary Kitābād al-arīb ilā ma’rifat al-adīb (‘Dictionary of the Learned Men’). And in the Ottoman period, the encyclopaedist Hadjī Khalīfa (1609–1657) used these lists to compile his Kashf al-zunūn ‘an asāmī al-kutub irsh wa-funūn (‘Clarification of conjectures about the names of books and sciences’), which lists 14,500 titles of works in Arabic. The economic and political capitals, such as Baghdad, Basra, Kufa, Cairo, Kairouan, Tlemcen, Fez, Córdoba, and later Istanbul, did of course become intellectual centres. Moreover, an important institution—the madrasah, an institution of higher education—also spread from the east to the west from the middle of the eleventh century. The institution spread on the initiative of Nizām al-Mulk, who founded the ‘Nizāmiyya’ madrasah in Baghdad (1065–1067), whose purpose was to diffuse and establish Sunni Islam after spread of Shia Islam. The madrasah became the educational establishment par excellence, which naturally prioritized Islamic subject matter, primarily law, followed by exegesis and theology. From a practical point of view, the madrasahs often comprised a hostel (khan) for housing foreign students, financed by waqfs (religious endowments). Education was still based on memorization, but varied according to the subject matter. A law student graduated after successfully conducting the case for the defence in a dispute (munāẓara), while a student who memorized and was able to transmit the contents of a work was awarded a ‘degree’ (ijāza). If a student had simply read out a particular work in front of a master they were awarded a ‘reading certificate’, and students who listened to a teacher reciting a work were awarded a ‘certificate of audition’. Contemporary studies of these certificates are providing information about the geographical, social, and historical diffusion of a work. The madrasah spread east from Iraq to Iran and Khorasan (Herāt and Merw), and west to Upper Mesopotamia (Mosul). In Syria, Nūr al-Dīn and then Saladin founded similar establishments. Saladin introduced the madrasah in reconquered Jerusalem, Egypt, and Hijaz. The madrasah was introduced in the Maghrib in the second half of the thirteenth century. The library was of course the necessary complement to the madrasah. From the thirteenth century and with the development of the Sufi brotherhoods, the ‘monasteries’ also became places of education, but were restricted to the acquisition of devotional knowledge.

In the Ottoman world, the education system was a continuation of this system. The mekteb replaced the kuttāb, and the Arabic language remained a dominant element—given the central importance of the Qurʾān—, even though the lessons were primarily conducted in Turkish. The medresesmadrasahs, and the first Ottoman medrese was established by Orhan Gazi in Iznik, in 1331. continued the tradition of the

J. Ch. D.