Good historical works on medieval educational methods?

[RenegadeHealer]

Renegade, I did a lot of reading on the Paris (and other) medical schools about two or three years ago and one of the things that really stood out for me is that the ATTITUDE of universities hasn't change one iota in 600 years.

That's fascinating, and I completely believe it! There's an iconoclastic little book out there called You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., which I recommend anyone planning on applying to graduate or professional school read. It basically argues that the real aim of graduate and professional education is to train people to think and behave in ways that serve the interests of the powerful. I imagine that — and most of the politics of education for that matter — is nothing new.

One thing that differs significantly is that graduates sought patronage rather than "jobs" (I'm sure they took jobs when they could find them, but society was based on monarchies at the time and kings came and went and often changed their minds about who they liked and who they didn't, so professionals seeking work often had to go wherever someone was willing to take them for a few months or years). Setting up a business was different from now. Now anyone can apply for a business license. In those days guilds, kings, and circles of nobility had power of a kind that's hard to imagine if you grew up in a democracy. They even dictated what you could wear and used the apprentice system to keep the younger generation out of the powerful part of the workforce for as long as possible. 

Sounds like the economics of education has changed substantially, though. It's interesting to consider this system of patronage and the competition therefor, when considering the question of what use might it be for a traveling professional to be armed with a reference book that others around him can't read. He could be protecting the secrets of his trade and discouraging the theft of his book by either writing his native unwritten language in a new script, or by encoding the common language in a unique way (cipher) that only he could read. Or he could just have been a quack, who disguised his lack of knowledge as exotic writing or a cipher.