The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950-1200

Before the rise of universities, cathedral schools educated students in a course of studies aimed at perfecting their physical presence, their manners, and their eloquence. The formula of cathedral schools was letters and manners (litterae et mores), which asserts a pedagogic program as broad as the modern letters and science. The main instrument of what C. Stephen Jaeger calls charismatic pedagogy was the master's personality, his physical presence radiating a transforming force to his students. In The Envy of Angels , Jaeger explores this intriguing chapter in the history of ideas and higher learning and opens a new view of intellectual and social life in eleventh- and early twelfth-century Europe.