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Episode 6: The not-so-Dark Ages, medieval intellectuals, and freethinkers

This Week In Free Speech with Jacob Mchangama

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What Did the Mediaeval Universities Really Teach?

Mediaeval universities consisted of four faculties: law, medicine, theology and liberal arts. But what did they actually teach and where did the limits go? The seven liberal arts are an inheritance from antiquity; traditionally divided into a trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric,. and a mathematical quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. In other words, liberal arts are all pagan subjects, but due to the blessings of christian greates such as augustine and the monk boethius, a select number of pagan ideas were acceptable in mediaeval times. Some mediaeval scholars regarded themselves as dwarfs perched on the shoulder of giants - though most people think this quote originated with is

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