Envy of Angels

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.