[xvii] Europe in the course of the sixteenth century experienced -- in the words of Lawrence Stone -- an "educational revolution." ⁽¹⁾ The change this revolution entailed was a sudden and unprecedented increase in the number of "educated" and particularly university educated men. Previously, during the Middle Ages, higher learning was limited primarily to churchmen and members of the learned professions. But beginning more or less around 1500, new schools, colleges, and universities came into being, while private persons, municipalities, ecclesiastics, and kings endowed new masters and teaching chairs. Simultaneously, the number of students attending educational institutions increased dramatically, and in many countries the total number of university students would not be equaled again until the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. The reasons for this educational achievement were many. Demographic and economic trends, social and political developments, changes in job opportunities, religious beliefs, intellectual currents, and shifts in adult attitudes toward children and growing-up all played a part, although the exact contribution of each is difficult, if not impossible, to discover.

One of the aims of this study is to demonstrate that Castile experienced an "educational revolution" of its own. More importantly, Castile, with the possible exception of a few Italian states, experienced this revolution several decades before the north of Europe and to a degree which neither England nor France, let alone the German states, could match. On this particular question, therefore, the current historiographical practice which forces events and situations in under-studied Spain into a mould created by the rest of Europe should be reversed. In terms of education, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain, or Castile to be more exact, should be the yardstick by which the performance of other states will have to be measured and compared. It would be jumping the gun, however, to begin this examination of Castile's educational experience without first setting it within the broader European context.

Much of the educational advance of the sixteenth century was the result of the spread of the printing press and the mass-produced book following Johannes Guttenberg's introduction of movable type in 1453. ⁽²⁾ [xviii] This new industry helped to improve the position of the literate man in European society. The person who was able to read in medieval times was for the most part a churchman, a scribe, a merchant, or a member of one of the learned professions. On the other hand, society's most important and honored class, the aristocracy, though not totally illiterate, was not expected to be endowed with bookish skills they regarded as suitable only for low-born clerks. The appearance of the printed book altered the aristocracy's stand; its widespread availability encouraged interest in reading and in less than a century rendered literacy an essential skill for all members of society's upper ranks. ⁽³⁾

Additional impetus toward education came from the so-called "new monarchies" which were established in Western Europe, principally in England, France, Burgundy, and Spain, toward the end of the fifteenth century. Rulers in these states extended their powers by the appointment of thousands of officials. Lawyers and administrators, tax-gatherers and finance officials, military experts or secretaries of state all had this in common: they had to be not only literate but educated and trained for their jobs.

This was not the whole story. In a fundamentally religious age, the church remained at least as important in education as the state, and the religious controversies of the era provided a considerable stimulus for academic training. The various factions, Protestant and Catholic, eager to reform from within and to proselytize abroad, were determined to create an educated clergy. Colleges and universities were enlisted for this task and many were attached to specific doctrines and groups, particularly in Germany where each of the Protestant sects sought pulpits of their own. The churches, moreover, encouraged school and university training among the laity in the belief that early indoctrination could bolster their position against the inroads of heresy. Accordingly, teachers, both clerical and lay, were obliged to offer instruction in dogma as well as the three Rs. The "educational revolution" of the sixteenth century must therefore be set against a background of religious dissidence and hate. In large part, it was the product of particular creeds struggling to indoctrinate children in their version of spiritual truth. Continuing confessional divisions proved, however, that religious propaganda meted out to the young is not always effective; education is just as likely to spark new, sometimes dangerous ideas as it is to bolster those which society sanctions.

Books, bureaucracies, and militant religions provided the bases for the "educational revolution," but its success has also to be attributed to the populace's response to the emergence of new careers in the ruling hierarchies. Public offices, promising broad opportunities for wealth and advancement, [xix] were strong magnets for many of society's most ambitious individuals, urging them to acquire educational skills. Together, church and state served as the major employers of educated men; consequently, changes in their demands helped to determine changes in Europe's educational development, since the time had not come when agriculture, commerce, or industry required their practitioners to attend any but the primary school.

Equally important for the success of the educational revolution were the families and clans who moved regularly from school and university into official posts. Originally, the "new monarchies" attempted to man their administrations with officials trained in law and the Latin prose style popular at the time. Recruited primarily from the lower echelons of the nobility and the Third Estate, these functionaries, dependent upon their offices for honors and for wealth, formed the beginnings of an "administrative nobility" which emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This class, owing its titles and privileges to academic training and offices rather than chivalry and war, formed the backbone of monarchical government, and in this position, acquired immense fortunes and power. The old, warrior aristocracy, though wary of these upstarts, gradually followed suit, acquiring in turn the skills and training which could enable its members to preserve their position and influence at the royal court and to cash in on the riches which the new monarchies had amassed.

These two distinct but interrelated groups, known commonly as the nobilities "of the robe" and "of the sword," constituted, along with leading ecclesiastical officials, many of whom were their kinsmen, what might be called early modern Europe's ruling elite. And because of their wealth, culture, and patronage, the educational interests of these groups were crucial to the educational history of the era as a whole. Thus it may be said that the emergence of militant, national churches, the growth of strong monarchies, and the nobilities these governments helped to develop or transform were the most direct and sustained influences upon the history of education, particularly higher education, in Europe before the beginning of the modern age.

After 1500, higher education in Europe can be divided roughly into two general categories: the professional, specialized, largely legal training designed for civil servants and churchmen, and the humanist, Latin, largely literary training designed in the first instance for noblemen, to whom this instruction was important mainly for culture and social status rather than career. This division may be illusory, since jurists often had a background in philosophy and the classics, while the nobles who attended university commonly studied law. But it is nevertheless true that each of these categories represented an independent strain in the education of early modern Europe which, when blended together, formed a single, hybrid program. ⁽⁴⁾

[xx] The humanist strain in this program dates back to the poets and pedagogues of northern Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries who advocated instruction in the liberal arts, meaning the literature and languages of classical Greece and Rome, as a substitute for the scholastic education of the Middle Ages. ⁽⁵⁾ Asserting that education should not necessarily involve vocational training, they set education within the wider context of moral development and made as its goal the creation of the individual capable of and interested in public service to his prince or nation and to God. Famous teachers like Alberti, Bruni, Palmieri, Vergario, and Vittorino proceeded to instruct their pupils in the prose and poetry of the ancients, shunning the logic of Aristotle which, in the hands of medieval educators, had evolved into a professional tool for future theologians. For them, scholastic training in logic was fruitless, leading in no apparent direction beyond the study of the subject matter itself. Conversely, the study of Cicero, Quintillian, and Plutarch, along with other classical authors, would provide models of "virtuous" men and their deeds and, consequently, direct the young to emulate the examples of their ancient forebearers in the "active, civic life." The goal of this liberal arts program was a life of involvement, not of monastic or scholarly withdrawal. It was in fact designed to create citizens rather than clerics, while aiming to improve men's characters instead of sharpening their wits.

Speaking largely to the circles of the princely courts and to the nobility who were their patrons, the Italian educators, along with their followers and imitators in the rest of Europe -- among others: Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives in the Low Countries, Budé in France, Colet and More in England, and Melancthon in Germany -- urged the ruling class to shed its disdain for learning and follow a liberal arts education, combining instruction in the classics with its age-old training in chivalry and the martial arts. ⁽⁶⁾ Such a background, argued the teachers, would best enable them to serve their nations as councillors, courtiers, soldiers, and statesmen, and even as kings.

At first, the haughty aristocrats balked, preferring the life of arms to that of letters. But opposition to the "new learning" began to wane at the opening of the sixteenth century, since Latin studies, thanks to the influence of the humanists and early aristocratic converts to the liberal arts, had already shed much of its old "clerkly" reputation, making it much more attractive to noblemen and peers. Added to this were the examples of monarchs like King Henry VIII of England and Queen Isabel of Castile, both of whom were schooled in Latin and the classics. So it did not take very long before courtiers took to the "new learning" themselves, if only to preserve their influence in the courts of rulers interested in the services [xxi] of "educated" men. ⁽⁷⁾ Soon Latin became all the rage. Private tutors, hired especially to teach Latin and Greek, proliferated in wealthy households, and many a young nobleman, tutor in tow, attended a court academy organized specifically to instruct the court aristocracy in the liberal arts. Private libraries also came into vogue as humanist authors, making the best of the printing press, promoted their educational program on an international scale. Among Europe's early "best sellers" were classical works and educational tracts, notably those by Castiglione and Erasmus, along with Ascham, Elyot, and More.

In addition, instruction in the liberal arts was institutionalized. Beginning early in the sixteenth century, various colleges and universities accommodated the new curriculum, some more quickly than others, and new chairs in Greek and Latin literature were added to supplement if not to replace those in the traditional areas of scholastic study. And when existing universities did not readily accept the humanists' program, new educational foundations were formed wholly dedicated to the "new learning." Paris thus gained the College of France with the help of Francis I; Oxford, the Colleges of Corpus Christi and the Cardinal (later Christchurch); Cambridge, St. John's College followed by Trinity; and Spain acquired the University of Alcalá de Henares, famed for its Trilingual College.

Despite this new popularity, the liberal arts never managed to dominate the university curriculum. It is a common misconception that the Renaissance emphasized the liberal arts to the exclusion of other disciplines. It is true that pedagogical thinkers of the epoch lauded Greek and Latin literature above all other subjects, and it is also true that most institutions of higher learning in Europe sooner or later heeded the call by adding the "humanist" program to their curriculum. But neither did these institutions neglect the scholastic education characteristic of the Middle Ages which aimed at the production of professional specialists trained in jurisprudence, medicine, and theology. In fact, the sixteenth century marked a heyday for such subjects, particularly law, a favorite among university students on the continent. Of course, the study of jurisprudence in the sixteenth century had acquired a new historical and philological dimension, thanks to the work of legal scholars such as Cujas, Forcadel, Alciato, and Vasco de Quiroga. ⁽⁸⁾ But "humanist" law was slow to shed its [xxii] "clerkly" reputation at a time when the administrative requirements of both church and state required more and more trained lawyers and other officials schooled in the law. Consequently, the universities remained rooted in the past: homes for professionally oriented students and others interested in the law for practical, utilitarian reasons. For these students a liberal arts education served mainly as background for the more specialized disciplines from which a living could be earned. As a result, the universities of continental Europe (England's experience was somewhat different, since the study of law was centered wholly at the Inns of Court after Henry VIII ended instruction in canon law at Oxford and Cambridge) paid more attention to the "certification" than to the "education" of the young, allowing professional training to take precedence over innovative scholarship and thought. ⁽⁹⁾ In the long run, it was this vocational emphasis which cost many of Europe's leading universities their place in the mainstream of intellectual life, since by neglecting studies in philosophy, natural history, and other speculative subjects, they had little opportunity to join in the emergent, rational-scientific culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In order to find the causes for the exaggerated juridical character of Europe's universities, one must look to the demands of the "new monarchies" and the militant churches of the sixteenth century for educated men. Generally, those with a background in law were preferred, and, indeed, this subject led to opportunities for employment that none of the other university disciplines could match. Across Europe, royal councils, regional tribunals, popular assemblies, and cathedrals fell increasingly under the sway of legally trained and educated men. ⁽¹⁰⁾ In the Middle Ages legal education had also offered easy access to lucrative administrative careers, but in the sixteenth century -- an age marked by the rapid expansion of government, spiritual as well as secular -- it began to do so on a vast and unprecedented scale, both in competence and scope. For commoners, the lower nobility, and even for the landless sons of the aristocracy, law was the road to wealth, influence, and social prestige. Perhaps their model of success was England's Thomas Cromwell (1485?-1540): a lawyer who rose to occupy a powerful position on the king's council and at the royal [xxiii] court of Henry VIII before establishing a household which, as the Earls of Essex, later ranked among England's peers.

It would, of course, be exaggerating to suggest that law's popularity in the universities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had only to do with such "careerism." Europe then consisted of societies dominated increasingly by a "rule of law" imposed by absolute monarchs interested in internal order and domestic peace. Under this restraint, litigation became a regular feature of daily life. Though dueling remained fashionable among the aristocracy, and blood-feuds still disturbed the countryside, the bulk of western Europe's citizenry after the late sixteenth century settled more and more of their differences in court. ⁽¹¹⁾ Thus even among families who scorned "professional" education for their sons, training in jurisprudence was something of value, and, together with those who viewed the subject along more vocational lines, they guaranteed that the universities retained their clerkly, professional image.

A change occurred in the course of the seventeenth century when, after generations of office-holding and the gradual acquisition of lands, titles, and wealth, many of the families who had been in the habit of sending their sons to university ceased to do so. Responsive to aristocratic principles, many sons of the office-holding class, long a major contributor of university students, eschewed judicial posts for honorific charges at the royal court and for commissions in the military, while the careers of others were made secure through the purchase of public office. Gradually, a tradition of legal education was lost; judicial robes were discarded and replaced by the luxurious appurtenances of gentlemen. During this changeover, the custom of attending university was largely forgotten.

Meanwhile, the universities attempted to keep in step with the changing interests of the ruling caste. Having formerly served as a means to power, the universities evolved into institutions designed to temper that power with elegance and grace. Gowns of scholarly black gave way to bright silks as the universities became playgrounds for the rich. The old, professional curriculum, unsuited to the new, genteel spirit, languished as teaching passed from the lecture halls to colleges and tutors whose interests were more in harmony with students' "cultivated" tastes. Concomitantly, the university's age-old tradition for advanced learning and thought suffered from decay. Scholars deserted the universities for newly established private and royal academies, leaving the former saddled with instructors more interested in cultivating gentlemanly habits among their students than in writing and research. More and more, the university came to be a center for those who looked upon education as a social asset rather than an exercise in learning or preparation for a career.

It would be wrong to suggest that this transformation was complete. Sons of the ruling elite, particularly at the large universities of continental [xxiv] Europe, represented only a fraction of the students. Whereas gentlemen in England managed to dominate the universities of Oxford and Cambridge by means of the college system, on the continent they only succeeded in gaining control of a few colleges within the larger institution. The remainder of the students resembled those youths who had enrolled at universities since their inception -- the future professionals: lawyers, physicians, theologians, and teachers. For these students, certainly the majority, higher education still represented a preparation for a livelihood, and their relationship to the university was linked to its survival.

By the end of the seventeenth century, Europe's educational revolution had run its course. Attendance at the universities had slipped; even secondary education was depressed. Apparently, Europe had lost faith in organized education. This change was linked in part to the difficult economic conditions of the century, and contemporaries were quick to blame an excess of education for economic stagnation and decay. ⁽¹²⁾ Authors in France and Spain further noted that education beyond the level of literacy served only to encourage youths to enter careers in government and the church, turning them away from more useful and productive pursuits in commerce, farming, and the crafts. Furthermore, it was clear that the educational revolution had done little to solve Europe's continuing religious problems, nor had it stemmed the threat of revolt, both political and spiritual, from within. Indeed, in the face of new ideas which challenged established churches and monarchies in the seventeenth century, intensive education for the laity, once touted as the harbinger of orthodoxy and order, was suspect and viewed with increasing misgivings. Kings and royal ministers even lost faith in the liberal arts education of the aristocracy which they had once so forcefully espoused, and it was no accident that in the first half of the seventeenth century independent, but almost simultaneous and analogous, schemes were presented in England, France, and Spain to alter and improve the training of this powerful class. ⁽¹³⁾ In short, by the middle of the seventeenth century it was patently clear that the educational revolution had not born the fruits its "humanist" heralds had promised.

In the meantime, university matriculations continued to decline, while a few wealthy students managed to entrench themselves behind college walls. Many ordinary students, hurt by the economic difficulties of the era, simply stayed away. Others, aware that the positions to which a law [xxv] degree once led were distributed on the bases of money and family ties, sought other instruction, generally outside the university. Many chose to finish their formal education at the secondary level, perhaps to enter one of the many venal offices which proliferated during the seventeenth century or to follow a career in the behemoth armies which were characteristic of the times. Religion, the New World, and openings in trade and commerce -- partly the result of continuing European expansion overseas -- offered other careers to talented and ambitious youths, and they too were in a position to push university aside. On the whole, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries appear to have been an era of shrinking job opportunities for university graduates, while new positions which did not require a prolonged academic education came to the fore. And since the former had served as a major catalyst for university study, many would-be students failed to enroll, leaving the centers of higher education to the rich, the clergy, and those hard-core professionals which society could still absorb.

The outcome was the end of the universities' Golden Age. In 1600 the university was a populous, flourishing institution, respected for its learning and called upon for its advice. One hundred years later, the university was in decline. Its students were few and its curriculum, grounded in the medieval past, was under attack. Meanwhile, much of learned opinion was moving to institutions closer to the royal court, since the university's continuing overemphasis on the study and teaching of law had caused it to lose much of its intellectual preeminence and scholarly prestige. Though criticism of the university's decadence mounted and plans to update them appeared repeatedly in manuscript and in print, these institutions, controlled by groups who had little interest in innovation or reform, fought hard to remain unchanged.

This dynamic shift in the importance of the university between 1600 and 1700 was a European phenomenon, but it is not the purpose of this study to explore this question in continental terms. The reasons for this turnabout will only be examined within one country, the kingdom of Castile, but these may then be able to serve as guidelines for a study of the educational experience of Europe as a whole.

1. Lawrence Stone, "The Educational Revolution in England, 1560 to 1640," Past & Present 28 (1964): 41-80.

2. See Elizabeth L. Eisenstein's two suggestive articles: "Some Conjectures about the Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought: A Preliminary Report," Journal of Modern History 40 (1968): 1-56; "The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance," Past & Present 45 (1969): 19-89. Also useful is Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, L'Apparition du Livre (Paris, 1958). For the early history of printing in Spain, see below, p. 35.

3. See J.H. Hexter, "The Education of the Aristocracy in the Renaissance," in Reappraisals in History (London, 1961).

4. Max Weber was among the first to distinguish the differences between the education designed to create the "humanist" or "cultivated" man and that designed to create "professional" men, the "specialists"; see H.H Gerth and C.W. Mills, From Max Weber (London, 1948), pp. 242-43.

5. See E Garin, L'Educazione in Europa, 1400-1600 (Bari, 1957), esp pp. 124-57.

6. See ibid.; W. H Woodward, Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance, 1400-1600 (Cambridge, 1906).

7. A good example of a monarch interested in improving the education of the aristocracy was the Emperor Charles V. His courtiers in the Franche-Comté had complained to him about the role given to the low-born Cardinal Granvelle in the important affairs of state, whereas they found themselves neglected and ignored. Charles supposedly said in reply: "What do you want me to tell you -- that you are ignorant, without learning and education? Give your children an education, and I will have them serve me, otherwise, do not expect me to make them public servants but only soldiers, cavalrymen, or domestic servants in my household." Cited in Lucien Febvre, Philippe II et le Franche-Comté (Paris, 1911), p. 429.

8. The best introduction to the jurisprudence of the Renaissance is Domenico Maffei, Gli Inizi dell'Umanésimo Giuridico (Milano, 1956).

9. Legal education in England during the sixteenth century has recently been examined in Wilfrid R. Prest, The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts, 1590-1640 (London, 1972). I owe the terms "education" and "certification" to David Reisman and Christopher Jencks, The Academic Revolution (Englewood Cliffs, N J, 1969), p. 44. Karl Mannheim's essay, "On The Nature of Economic Ambition and Its Significance for The Social Education of Man," deals briefly with the relationship between "education" and "career." See his Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, ed Paul Kecskemeti (London, 1952), pp 247-49.

10. On the backgrounds of the deputies to popular assemblies in England and in France, see J.E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London, 1949), pp. 290-91, and J. Russel Major, The Deputies of the Estates General in Renaissance France (Madison, 1960), pp. 138-42.

11. See Lawrence Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 234-70.

12. See below, pp. 20, 43-44 For French criticism of "excess" education, see BNP (see Abbreviations). Ms. Fr. 17307, "Memoire pour diminuer le nombre des etudiants," folios 230-31.

13. See below, pp. 38-39, for the Count-Duke of Olivares's suggestions For a similar plan submitted by Richelieu, see his Lettres Instructions et Papiers d'Etat, ed. M. Avenel (Paris, 1863), 5: 721-23, Recueil General des Ancienne Lois Françaises, ed. Isambert and Taillander (Paris, 1829), 16: 466-70, and BNP: Ms. Fr. 18828, folios 679-92 The Journals of the House of Lords III: 36-37, mentions a proposed academy for the English nobility.