What kind of history did they teach during medieval times?

nicole: What kind of history did they teach during medieval times?
Not the history of medieval times, but the history of the history of it I guess.

Answers and Views:

Answer by A M Frantz
First, there was no public education in that era. The vast majority of people got no education, including learning to read and write.

For those few who were educated, most instruction was in Latin. They learned to read and write it, and learned history from the Bible, as well as studying lives of saints. Some had knowledge of Greek and Roman historical writing and literature, but such knowledge would have been very unusual before the Renaissance. Students of certain subjects such as medicine, law, astronomy, rhetoric, and mathematics were usually trained in the Greek and Roman works relevant to their specialties.

Answer by Carol C
The best resource I have on this is an old western civ text, but it’s packed. Wikipedia is probably the next best bet. What formal education existed was generally training in reading and writing in the monasteries, but some schools remained from Roman days. Oral history was the method of transmission used by the wandering tribes.

google: medieval education

That seemed to bring up a good variety of references (child through adult ed).

Answer by thorntonlouis
There weren’t many educated people during medieval times, hardly anybody was literate bar monks in monestaries and even then what work they did do was essentially copying other texts out.
When Charlemagne became emperor though he set out to build royal schools etc to help the people become literate etc again.

I’m assuming the only real history people would have been taught was local history and the odd bigger story. Things about philosophers and past rulers etc.

Answer by llordlloyd
People were not educated in the middle ages. Most were illiterate and did not ‘need’ education (and this included many upper-class people). The only organisations that had time and resources for teaching were the churches, and they just taught a very narrow area, in Latin, designed to entrench church power.

Answer by Sassyinsanta_ana
There was no such a subject then. The vast majority of people were illiterate. The upper class men might have been taught by private tutors.
The focus was teaching the Greek and Roman classics such as Homer,Euclid the Odyssey etc.
Your question makes little sense “the history of the history of it”
Now to add a little.
Medieval europe was not the most advanced of places then. There were not solid international or national boundaries therefore much time and effort was spent defending &/or taking new land.
As a lot of highly trained soldiers were needed, the usual path for the sons of the gentry was to be sent off to another castle to be schooled in the art of war by the lord of the manor along with other lads. This started at about age 12-13 and lasted until they earned knighthood at about 18-20. The other option for men was the priesthood.
As for universities the first known were Muslim universities in Tunis 732 and Fez 859. These are in Africa. The first european ones were five hundred years later in the 12th and 12th centuries. .