Education and learning

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He was called the Subtle Doctor (Doctor Subtilis).

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Interpretation A is convincing about the friars' contribution. The Dominicans reached Oxford in 1221 and the Franciscans arrived in England in 1224 and soon settled in Oxford, where Robert Grosseteste lectured to them from about 1229. Both orders set up schools of theology and sent their ablest members to study. Many of the most brilliant scholars of the 13th century were friars: the Franciscans Adam Marsh, Roger Bacon, John Peckham, who became Archbishop of Canterbury and wrote a standard textbook on optics, and Duns Scotus, as well as the Dominican Robert Kilwardby, another Archbishop of Canterbury. It is also right that friars took religious teaching to ordinary people, preaching in English in towns and markets and helping priests to teach the basics of the faith ordered by the Council of Lambeth in 1281.

However, the claim that the friars 'transformed' English learning is exaggerated. Oxford had been a centre of learning since the 12th century, and Cambridge since 1209, before the friars arrived. Most masters and students were secular clergy, not friars, and the greatest early figure, Grosseteste, was a secular scholar and bishop. Monks played a part too, with Gloucester College founded for Benedictines in 1283, and colleges such as Merton were for secular scholars. There were also bitter quarrels between the friars and the university, for example over friars studying theology without first taking an arts degree. The claim that there would have been 'no Roger Bacon' without the friars is weak: Bacon had already lectured on Aristotle in Paris before he joined the Franciscans, and his order then restricted what he could publish.

Overall, Interpretation A is convincing that the friars produced many of the greatest scholars and spread religious teaching widely, but it exaggerates in claiming that they transformed English learning on their own. As the work of a Franciscan historian, it may give the friars more credit than other groups.

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The founding of colleges was important first because it gave scholars security. Early students lived in rented rooms or halls, were often poor and frequently clashed with townspeople, as in 1209 when townsmen hanged some students. As Figure 1 shows, a series of colleges was founded from the middle of the 13th century. A college was an endowed community: its lands gave it a permanent income, it had its own buildings, and its statutes set out rules for an ordered life of study. This meant that scholars could afford the long years needed for higher degrees, especially theology.

The colleges were also important because of who founded them and why. Walter de Merton, who founded Merton in 1264, was Chancellor of England at the start of Edward I's reign, and Peterhouse was founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Balliol was founded in about 1263 by John de Balliol, whose son became King of Scots in 1292. Such founders wanted to train educated clergy and servants for the Church and the crown, so the colleges show how closely the universities were tied to both.

Merton was especially important because it became a model. Its statutes, revised in 1270 and 1274, created a self-governing body of scholars under a warden, and when Peterhouse was founded its scholars were to follow the rule of Merton. Later colleges at both universities followed the same pattern, and colleges still shape Oxford and Cambridge today.

The colleges also drew the monks into university life. Gloucester College was founded in 1283 for Benedictine monks, and the Cistercians founded Rewley Abbey in Oxford in 1281, showing that by Edward's reign the universities, not the monasteries, were the leading centres of learning. However, the early colleges were small and mainly for graduates, so most students still lived in halls; their full importance came later.

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I largely agree that Duns Scotus was more important than Roger Bacon for medieval learning, because medieval learning centred on theology and the universities, where Scotus's influence was far greater. However, Bacon was important in different ways, especially for the later history of science.

Scotus's importance for medieval learning was very great. Born in about 1266, he became a Franciscan, was ordained at Northampton in 1291, lectured at Oxford around 1300 and became a master of theology at Paris, the leading theology faculty in Europe, in 1305, before dying at Cologne in 1308. He worked at the very heart of the medieval university system. His ideas were original and deep: he argued that each individual has its own 'thisness' (haecceity), that the word 'being' means the same when applied to God and to creatures, that the will and love matter more than the intellect, and that God acts freely. He developed a rigorous proof of God's existence. His defence of the Immaculate Conception helped to change Catholic belief, and it became official teaching in 1854. Above all, his followers created Scotism, one of the main schools of thought in medieval universities, taught in Franciscan houses across Europe for centuries, and later thinkers such as William of Ockham developed their ideas by arguing with him.

However, Scotus's influence had limits. His writing was so difficult that he was called the Subtle Doctor, his ideas reached only educated scholars, and he had little to say about the natural world. In the 16th century his followers were mocked as 'dunces'.

Bacon's importance lies in his programme for reforming learning. In the Opus Majus, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium, written for Pope Clement IV in 1267-68, he argued for experimental science, for mathematics as the key to the sciences and for the study of Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. He wrote on optics, explaining reflection, refraction and magnifying lenses, described gunpowder and showed that the calendar needed reform. In this sense he looked further beyond the medieval curriculum than Scotus did.

But Bacon's importance for medieval learning at the time was limited. Clement IV died in 1268, so his proposals were never taken up; the Franciscans restricted what he could publish; and he did not found a school of followers as Scotus did. His work built on Robert Grosseteste and Arab scholars such as Ibn al-Haytham. Much of his fame came later, when Tudor writers made him a legendary magician and 19th-century admirers hailed him as a forerunner of modern science.

The answer depends on the criteria used. If importance means influence on medieval learning, which centred on theology in the universities, Scotus was clearly more important. If it means originality about the natural world or later reputation, Bacon has a stronger claim.

Overall, I largely agree. Scotus was more important for medieval learning because his ideas were taught and debated in universities across Europe for centuries and shaped Catholic belief. Bacon was a more unusual thinker whose importance lies more in his vision of what learning could become and in the later history of science than in his influence on the learning of his own time.