Learning how to read

Subjects

The Four Stages of Reading

A Riddle

Back to the Index

Back to top

Learning how to read
Education which was provided by the church until the Early Middle Ages always started by learning how to read. However, pupils did not learn to read in their mother tongue but in Latin which was the language used by the scholars and by the church in the Middle Ages. Therefore, learning how to read meant learning to read a completely alien language even in the early stages of school.

At first the pupils studied the alphabets which meant that they learnt to identify what a letter looked like and to produce the correct sound. After learning the alphabets the pupil was taught to pronounce syllables in a correct way. Separate letters were put together to form syllables and by pronouncing them correctly one was able to form words and read small religious texts such as the prayer Our Father thou art in heaven (pater noster) and the confession of faith. Psalms were often used in learning the syllables and the sounds. Therefore, those who received a minimal knowledge of Latin could be referred by the name Psalter. A young pupil was able to read holy texts without knowing what they were all about, because the basic grammar and a wider vocabulary were given only after this particular phase of learning.

Subjects
The primary education consisted of writing, singing with some grammar and calendar reading as well as learning how to read. After this the medieval education was divided into what were known as the Seven Liberal Arts.

These consisted of Trivium which included Grammatics i.e. Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic as well as Quadrivium which included Mathematics i.e. Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music. In the early stages education was mostly based on learning things by heart. The medieval educators made tremendous use of the fact that children have a phenomenal capacity to memorise things before teenage years. New things were often learned through different dialogues and series of questions and answers.

As well as learning the Seven Liberal Arts schoolboys were taught proper occupational skills for their future professions as clergymen. This meant that they were directed in reading holy texts mainly in reading and explaining the Bible, in giving sermons and in teaching the liturgy and catechisms.

The Four Stages of Reading
The essential part of reading holy texts was the so-called reading in four stages. This referred to the fact that it was possible that the same text can be read in four different ways. However, to do this one needed to acquire enough skills. The four ways included the literary i.e. the historical way and three spiritual ways i.e. the allegoric, the anagogic and the tropologic way. One example of reading things in different ways is in interpreting the word Jerusalem. Historically Jerusalem is the city of the Jews, where as allegorically it refers to the church of Christ, anagogically it is the Holy City of God, which is mother to us all, and finally tropologically i.e. morally it refers to the soul of man threatened and praised by God.

A Riddle
A riddle teaching logic by the famous teacher Alcuin (his students include e.g. Charlemagne):

Three men who each had a sister were on the banks of a river. Their purpose was to cross it. On the bank there was a boat that can carry only two people at a time. There is reason to believe that in order to preserve their reputation the girls can only rely on their brothers. How is it possible for this group of six to cross the river, when the limitations of the boat and reputations of the girls are taken into consideration?

Meri Heinonen
TY