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Trends in the History of Medieval and Early Modern Education in HEQ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2021

Christopher Carlsmith Open the ORCID record for Christopher Carlsmith [Opens in a new window]
Christopher Carlsmith*
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Department of History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, LowellMA
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*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Editorial Introduction
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History of Education Quarterly , Volume 61 , Special Issue 2: Medieval and Early Modern Education , May 2021 , pp. 150 - 157
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Copyright © History of Education Society 2021

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References

1 My analysis of History of Education Quarterly’s output on medieval and early modern education was conducted in November 2020. Initially, I used the filters provided by Cambridge University Press (CUP) at HEQ's website, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-of-education-quarterly, searching for keywords related to theme (e.g., “medieval,” “Renaissance,” “early modern,” and “Middle Ages”), geography (e.g., England, Italy, France), and chronology (e.g., from “seventeenth century” back to “tenth century”). In addition to about three dozen articles, that search produced a number of false positives, such as a study of Renaissance Middle School in Montclair, New Jersey. The incomplete nature of these results was made abundantly clear when my own HEQ article about Jesuit education in sixteenth-century Italy did not appear in my results. In order to cast a wider net, I utilized the Exe Libris database managed by the UK History of Education Society's online bibliography, http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/hoebibliography/advanced.php. This well-designed database offers different search parameters (albeit with a British-influenced focus) and produced an additional dozen articles about medieval and early modern education. Among my final group of forty-six research articles, I have included five from the 1960s that were really short essays of three to five pages with minimal citations, but which do address medieval and early modern education in substantive ways. My numbers do not always sum because some categories overlap.

Searches in other databases for medieval and early modern articles printed in HEQ were largely unsuccessful: America: History and Life excluded most articles about Europe (as befits its focus on North America); Historical Abstracts only indexes articles from the fifteenth century to the present.

2 I estimated 60 years x 4 issues per year x 4 articles per issue = 960 articles; 46/960 = 4.8 percent. On broader publication trends in the history of education, see Freeman, Mark and Kirke, Alice, “Review of Periodical Literature on the History of Education Published in 2016,” History of Education (UK) 46, no. 6 (2017), 826–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Richardson, William, “British Historiography of Education in International Context at the Turn of the Century, 1996–2006,” History of Education (UK) 36, no. 4–5 (2007), 569–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Both articles rely upon the Exe Libris database (cited in note 1), which surveys the content of fifty-five English-language journals, including History of Education (UK), Paedagogica Historica, HEQ, and History of Education Review. As Freeman and Kirke note, the Exe Libris database relies primarily upon journals published in the UK. See especially table 1 (p. 828), “Chronological distribution of articles included in the Exe Libris database, 1960–2016,” where 5.2 percent of articles focused on medieval and early modern topics (my calculation, based upon the data in that table).

3 The Exe Libris database does not include book reviews, so my estimate here is based upon the CUP database alone. I estimated 60 years x 4 issues per year x 10 reviews per issue = 2,400 reviews. Using the search methods described in note 1 produced seventy book reviews on medieval and early modern Europe; 70/2,400 = 2.9 percent. Given that I missed about 20 percent of relevant research articles, and would expect a similar result with book reviews, my estimate of seventy is probably on the low side.

4 Freeman and Kirke suggest that “the ancient and medieval worlds are often the province of philosophers of education rather than historians.” See Freeman and Kirke, ”Review of Periodical Literature,” 833. The six HEQ articles: Edward J. Power, “Plato's Academy: A Halting Step Toward Higher Learning,” HEQ 4, no. 3 (Sept. 1964), 155–66; Edward J. Power, “Class Size and Pedagogy in Isocrates’ School,” HEQ 6, no. 4 (Winter 1966), 22–32; Robert R. Wellman, “Socrates and Alcibiades: The Alcibiades Major,” HEQ 6, no. 4 (Winter 1966), 3–21; A. J. Papalas, “Herodes Atticus: An Essay on Education in the Antonine Age,” HEQ 21, no. 2 (Summer 1981), 171–88; Christopher J. Lucas, “The Scribal Tablet-House in Ancient Mesopotamia,” HEQ 19, no. 3 (Autumn 1979), 305–32; and William S. Wong, “The Hsüeh Chi, An Old Chinese Document on Education,” HEQ 16, no. 2 (Summer 1976), 187–93.

5 Juan Estarellas, “The College of Tlatelolco and the Problem of Higher Education for Indians in 16th-Century Mexico,” HEQ 2, no. 4 (Dec. 1962), 234–43; and Yuan Zheng, “Local Government Schools in Sung China: A Reassessment,” HEQ 34, no. 2 (Summer 1994), 193–213.

6 N. Ray Hiner, “The Cry of Sodom Enquired Into: Educational Analysis in Seventeenth-Century New England,” HEQ 13, no. 1 (Spring 1973), 3–22; Jon Teaford, “The Transformation of Massachusetts Education, 1670–1780,” HEQ 10, no. 3 (Autumn 1970), 287–307; Antonio T. Bly, “In Pursuit of Letters: A History of the Bray Schools for Enslaved Children in Colonial Virginia,” HEQ 51, no. 4 (Nov. 2011), 429–59; and Clark Robenstine, “French Colonial Policy and the Education of Women and Minorities: Louisiana in the Early Eighteenth Century,” HEQ 32, no. 2 (Summer 1992), 193–211.

7 Richard G. Durnin, “The Role of the Presidents in the American Colleges of the Colonial Period,” HEQ 1, no. 2 (June 1961), 23–31; Sheldon S. Cohen, “The Yale College Journal of Benjamin Trumbull,” HEQ 8, no. 3 (Autumn 1968), 375–85; Kathryn McDaniel Moore, “The Dilemma of Corporal Punishment at Harvard College,” HEQ 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1974), 335–46; David C. Humphrey, “Colonial Colleges and English Dissenting Academies: A Study in Transatlantic Culture,” HEQ 12, no. 2 (Summer 1972), 184–97; Jo Anne Preston, “‘He Lives as a Master’: Seventeenth-Century Masculinity, Gendered Teaching, and Careers of New England Schoolmasters,” HEQ 43, no. 3 (May 2003), 350–71; E. Jennifer Monaghan, “‘She Loved to Read in Good Books’: Literacy and the Indians of Martha's Vineyard, 1643–1725,” HEQ 30, no. 4 (Winter 1990), 493–521; and Amy J. Schutt, “‘What Will Become of Our Young People?’: Goals for Indian Children in Moravian Missions,” HEQ 38, no. 3 (Autumn 1998), 268–86.

8 Barbara Hutchinson, “Robert Grosseteste: The Role of Education in the Reform of Thirteenth-Century English Society,” HEQ 5, no. 1 (March 1965), 26–39; Joel Rosenthal, “The Universities and the Medieval English Nobility,” HEQ 9, no. 4 (Winter 1969), 415–37; John R. Shinners, “University Study Licenses and Clerical Education in the Diocese of Norwich, 1325–35,” HEQ 28, no. 3 (Autumn 1988), 387–410; Steven R. Smith, “The Ideal and Reality: Apprentice-Master Relationships in Seventeenth-Century London,” HEQ 21, no. 4 (Winter 1981), 449–59; Celeste Chamberland, “From Apprentice to Master: Social Disciplining and Surgical Education in Early Modern London, 1570–1640,” HEQ 53, no. 1 (Feb. 2013), 21–44; Ayers Bagley, “Seventeenth-Century Childhood Education: Reflections from Venus and Adonis,” HEQ 5, no. 4 (Dec. 1965), 224–34; C. John Sommerville, “Breaking the Icon: The First Real Children in English Books,” HEQ 21, no. 1 (Spring 1981), 51–75; and James L. Axtell, “Education and Status in Stuart England: The London Physician,” HEQ 10, no. 2 (Summer 1970), 141–59.

9 Cohen, Ronald D., “Puritan Education in Seventeenth-Century England and New England,” HEQ 13, no. 3 (Fall 1973), 301–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Courtenay, William J., “Recent Work on Fourteenth-Century Oxford Thought,” HEQ 25, no. 1–2 (Summer 1985), 227–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leff, Gordon, “The Medieval University,” HEQ 10, no. 4 (Winter 1970), 492–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and O'Day, Rosemary, “Education in Early Modern England,” HEQ 16, no. 1 (Spring 1976), 101–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Review essays are not counted as research articles.

10 Schmitt, Charles, “Scientific Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century,” HEQ 15, no. 4 (Winter 1975), 475–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ferruolo, Stephen C., “‘Quid dant artes nisi luctum?’: Learning, Ambition, and Careers in the Medieval University,” HEQ 28, no. 1 (Spring 1988), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar are representative of these pan-European topics.

11 Medlin, William K., “Cultural Crisis in Orthodox Rus’ in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries as a Problem in Education and Social Change,” HEQ 9, no. 1 (Spring 1969), 28–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Okenfuss, Max J., “Technical Training in Russia Under Peter the Great,” HEQ 13, no. 4 (Winter 1973), 325–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Okenfuss, Max J., “V. O. Kliuchevskii on Childhood and Education in Early Modern Russia,” HEQ 17, no. 4 (Winter 1977), 417–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dneprov, E. D., Levin, Eve, and Eklof, Ben, “‘Relentlessly Running in Place’: The Historiography of Schools and Pedagogical Thought in Medieval Russia (Some Conclusions, Thoughts, and Perspectives),” HEQ 26, no. 4 (Winter 1986), 537–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mironov, Boris N., “The Development of Literacy in Russia and the USSR from the Tenth to the Twentieth Centuries,” HEQ 31, no. 2 (Summer 1991), 229–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Green, Lowell, “The Education of Women in the Reformation,” HEQ 19, no. 1 (Spring 1979), 93–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Friedrichs, Christopher R., “Whose House of Learning?: Some Thoughts on German Schools in Post-Reformation Germany,” HEQ 22, no. 3 (Fall 1982), 371–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Strauss, Gerald, “The Social Function of Schools in the Lutheran Reformation in Germany,” HEQ 28, no. 2 (Summer 1988), 191–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Frago, Antonio Viñao, “The History of Literacy in Spain: Evolution, Traits, and Questions,” HEQ 30, no. 4 (Winter 1990), 573–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carlsmith, Christopher, “Struggling Toward Success: Jesuit Education in Italy, 1540–1600,” HEQ 42, no. 2 (Summer 2002), 215–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lougee, Carolyn C., “Noblesse, Domesticity, and Social Reform: The Education of Girls by Fénelon and Saint-Cyr,” HEQ 14, no. 1 (Spring 1974), 87–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dekker, J., “A Republic of Educators: Educational Messages in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting,” HEQ 36, no. 2 (Summer 1996), 155–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Freeman and Kirke observe that the percentage of comparative and international articles doubled from 5.5 percent in the 1960s and 1970s to 10–16 percent during the 1980s and later. See Freeman and Kirke, “Review of Periodical Literature,” 829–31, and table 2, 830. But this must be for modern topics; a search for keywords “international” and “comparative” within the medieval and early modern time periods at Exe Libris yielded zero results. Yet articles that compare England and New England certainly exist. See Cohen, “Puritan Education in Seventeenth-Century England and New England”; Humphrey, “Colonial Colleges and English Dissenting Academies”; and Belok, Michael V., “The Courtesy Tradition and Early Schoolbooks,” HEQ 8, no. 3 (Fall 1968), 306–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Freeman and Kirke, “Review of Periodical Literature,” 829, 833.

16 Freeman and Kirke note that “the vast bulk of work under this heading [of race and ethnicity] was concerned with American education and usually published in US-based journals”; their examples are drawn largely from HEQ. See Freeman and Kirke, “Review of Periodical Literature,” 843.

17 Freeman and Kirke make this point about a broader scope in “Review of Periodical Literature,” 834; they cite Cremin, Lawrence A., The Wonderful World of Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (New York: Teachers College Press, 1965)Google Scholar; and McCulloch, Gary, The Struggle for the History of Education (New York: Routledge, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. trans. Baldick, Robert. (New York: Vintage Books, 1962)Google Scholar; Hanawalt, Barbara, Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Orme, Nicholas, Medieval Children (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; see also King, Margaret, “Concepts of Childhood: What We Know and Where We Might Go.” Renaissance Quarterly 60/2 (Summer 2007): 371–407Google ScholarPubMed.

19 For example, Grendler, Paul F., Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Black, Robert, Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy: Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lynch, Sarah B., Elementary and Grammar Education in Late Medieval France: Lyon, 1285–1530 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017)Google Scholar; Sheffler, David, Schools and Schooling in Late Medieval Germany: Regensburg, 1250–1500 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Orme, Nicholas, Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Cruz, Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran, The Growth of English Schooling, 1340–1548: Learning, Literacy, and Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Kagan, Richard L., Students and Society in Early Modern Spain (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

20 For a brief overview of the Italian situation, see Grendler, Paul F., “The Italian Renaissance in the Past Seventy Years: Humanism, Social History, and Early Modern in Anglo-American and Italian Scholarship,” in The Italian Renaissance in the Twentieth Century, ed. J., Allen Grieco, Michael Rocke, and Fiorella Gioffredi Superbi (Florence, Italy: L. S. Olschki, 2002), 3–23Google Scholar.