The Misfiring of German Cultural Leadership in the Twelfth Century: The Evidence from the Cathedral Schools

Abstract

Although German culture, Eke German political authority, stood above the rest of Latin Christendom in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, this cultural pre‐eminence was lost during the course of the twelfth century. Nowhere is this more evident than in the German schools. Between 1050 and 1125, a shift occurred, characterized by the desire of aspirants for high ecclesiastical office in Germany going beyond its borders for advanced training. My paper focuses on some of the causes and effects of this shift, on the subsequent decline in German cathedral schoob, and on the retarded entry of Germany into the community of nations which sported universities. It contrasb the challenging (and exciting) curriculum which was developing in the schoob of northern France and northern Italy in the twelfth century with the more conservative (even remedial) curriculum which seemed to become the chief offering of contemporaneous German schoob. The net result of this loss of cultural leadership was that Germany moved to the periphery of cultural activities until the Reformation: leadership passed to France, Italy and even England for the time being.