The Bamberg Cathedral School |
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Home In a narrative poem from around 1012, Bamberg is praised as the "city of letters and learning, its citizens no wit inferior to the Stoics, greater than the Athenians." Martin Luther didn't think much of Bamberg learning. Here is an anecdote he once related at table: At Bamberg, they exhibit, once a year, a book, which they say contains the history of the Emperor Henry and his wife Kunigunde, who mayde on their marriage day, a vow of virginity. Birkheimer, when he passed through Bamberg, asked to see this book, and when it was brought to him, found it was only a copy of Cicero's Topics. The Bamberg Cathedral Christoph Clavius of Bamberg the Methematician Who Invented the Gregorian Calendar The Canonization of Henry II and Kunegunde |
The school at Bamberg appears to have played an important part in the
staffing of imperial offices virtually since its founding in 1007.
About the
year 1100, when Bamberg was the favorite city of the
Salian emperors of Germany, its cathedral school stood at the
pinnacle of its glory: from it emerged men prepared for service in both
the church and the empire. Bamberg's curriculum stressed
grammar
and rhetoric however. As the value of didactic and logic
became
recognized, candidates for ecclesiastical or imperial preferment found
it necessary to go to the schools of Reims or Paris. In the
process, Bamberg lost its standing among the great schools of medieval
Europe: while changes in emphasis were being made in French and Italian
schools, Bamberg remained conservative, being satisfied with that which
had brought it fame in the past. The picture presented by the at school at Bamberg at the beginning of the 13th century, while in many ways apparently unique, may nonetheless have been characteristic of others throughout the realm. The majority of the students were predominantly the younger sons of the local or regional German nobility who were elevated to the episcopacy after having received the customary schooling and experience in chapter and episcopal administration within their own churches. The school at Bamberg nevertheless continue to train men for careers in the church: fifteen bishops of the 12th century (not including those who sat in Bamberg itself) are known to have studied there. Yet, by about 1200 that training lagged behind what was available elsewhere. The provost of the Bamberg Cathedral, Berthold of Andechs, was elected Archbishop of Kalocza (Hungary) thanks to the influence of his sister, the Queen of Hungary. Pope Innocent III established a commission headed by the Archbishop of Salzburg to determine whether the candidate was suitable for such a high office: they were to ascertain whether his training, if not exceptional, was at least adequate, and whether he was at least close to the canonical age for the position. He gave Berthold good marks on reading and translating a Latin text, and on grammatical construction. Nevertheless, the pope rejected him: not only was he too young at 25 years of age, but he was not trained in either canon law or theology. For the next several years Berthold studied at Vicenza under men trained at Bologna, succeeding in his pursuit of the Hungarian archbishopric and eventually transferring to the patriarchate of Aquileia. The professional shortcomings of Bethold of Andechs may be representative of his contemporaries as well, most of whom were members of the high nobility for whom high church offices were regarded as proprietary rights. The majority of German bishops during the first half of the 13th century were "homegrown." Home |
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