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The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950-1200. By C. STEPHEN JAEGER. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. xvi + 515 pp.
Many scholars have sought to identify the peculiar forces that shaped the eleventh century and made it the threshold of "the twelfth century Renaissance" and the foundation of modern Europe. Social and economic historians quickly come to mind, as well as F. Edward Cranz's thesis that around the year 1000 medieval people, most notably Anselm of Canterbury, began to think in a new mode which broke the frame they had inherited from antiquity. In the same camp as Cranz is Stephen Jaeger, whose primary interest is the intellectual map of the period, with special attention to literature and "manners." His study concentrates on French and German cathedral schools-less on the little-known Italian schools-and traces three stages in the development of medieval education: the Carolingian, based on monastic and cathedral schools; the Ottonian, which contributed little to rational thought but developed the cultural values of civility and...