Talk:Scholae

I did NOT use this as a Latin-English dictionary - I was linked here from the Wiki page on the Battle of Adrianople. To me this rejects the pretense of the "cuasus deletorum". Came hoping to find more detail than are present, but I'll take what I can get.

21/08/06 AE, London UK - Am hoping to expand once I get my hands on such sources as John Haldon's book and also some of the Osprey Men At Arms series. Others with knowledge please add. www.grippingbeast.com has some pretty models of Byzantine extra heavy cavalry.

Going to redirect to "Scholae Palatinae"
Going to redirect the article to "Scholae Palatinae" - the contents of Scholae article are highly questionable and filled with unfulfilled requests for cites going back to at least August 06. 2 of 3 paragraphs also seemingly talk about the Tagmata rather than Scholae Palatinae in any case, which is a Byzantine rather than Roman institution, and in an case already has a full article at Tagmata. Can't see any reason for keeping this article whatsoever but feel free to revert if you feel this redirect is in error. - PocklingtonDan 17:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That is something different. There were different kinds of scholae, also the non-military, so there must be a page explaining this. Reverted and added to from some Encyclopadiae. --FlammingoParliament 19:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Chill out PocklingtonDan, It was a work in progress (as my original comment was made), and look at the original before I attempted my first wiki entry addition. My intent was the Tagmata regiment called the Scholae. It's not like wiki is my life work or raison d'etre, just didn't finish it, so what? AE London 5th January 2006

I changed "Scholae WAS a Latin word used by the Romans" to "Scholae IS a latin word that was used by the Romans", because Scholae is STILL a Latin word. The language still exists.

Changed some Simple Wording
I changed "Scholae WAS a Latin word used by the Romans" to "Scholae IS a latin word that was used by the Romans", because Scholae is STILL a Latin word. The language still exists.

Solutus 23:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Confusing
There's also a social network called Schola that operates entirely in Latin. That's what I was actually looking up.Gniob (talk) 02:05, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Serious misconceptions
There appear to be some serious misconceptions in this article. I am struggling to find reasons why it says what it say but I'm coming up short. You must help me here. Before I start to detail anything let me refer you to the Latin dictionary. Check out Schola]. You will see the problem right away I am sure. This article stakes everything on the words and wisdom of one author. As it is explained here, his wisdom flies in the face of all other wisdom. Did I misunderstand? Was he not presented properly? Is that what he said and meant? Help me out here. My plate is full elsewhere so what I have in mind is an unbalanced source tag. But, all in due process. For now, see if you can make sense of it.Botteville (talk) 00:51, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Further evaluation
The etymology of this article is so much at odds with the rest of the scholarly world either on WP or off that I felt obliged to do a little further research and consideration. It is true, Rouche did say that. But who is Rouche? No one of much scholarly consequence, obviously. But let me defer Rouche for the nonce. The article speaks of the "Late Roman Empire." Exactly what would that be? The western empire was long gone by the 9th century, and yet, Rouche was using the term to refer to Gaul and the like. There was an empire in the vicinity, but it was not Roman, unless you want to consider "Holy Roman Empire" to count. For the last of the actual Roman Empire you have to go back half a millenium earlier. In the 9th century Italy not only did not speak Latin anymore, but there was no longer a single state there. Don't you remember, Theodoric the Goth cleared out Rome and rode admiringly through the vacant city, deciding at last to invite somebody back? Under a Gothic king, of course. There was no Italian either. Various grades of Romance languages prevailed depending on the location. Tuscan was considered the purest, but it did not look much like Latin. Europe was under an empire, that of the Franks. They however were Germans. Charlemagne spoke Old High German, judging from a letter. Gaul itself did not speak it, as it had been Romanized to other varieties of Romance. So, when the WP article and Rouche speak of the "Late Roman Empire" with respect to western Europe, I have to say, along with everyone else, what on earth are you talking about?

Now, according to the Latin dictionary, schola, which came to have many meanings, did have a military sense, as the article picks up. It applied, however, to the eastern empire, which lasted an incredible long time until the Ottomans pulled it down in the 15th century, after resettling Anatolia. But what was that, and what relevance to Europe? By the 9th century it had given up any thought of reconquering western Europe centuries previously. It still had Greece and much of the Balkans, for which it contended with the Slavs. Some of the eastern emperors were in fact slavs.The language they spoke was the earliest modern Greek. By the 9th century it had very little significance to anywhere else in Europe. It may as well have been the other side of the moon. We hear about it as an obstacle to the crusaders on the way to Jerusalem, but we don't hear good things. It keeps getting defeated and finally sacked. Whatever schools of imperial guards existed had no relevance to anyone but the eastern emperor, a fast-fading historical figure. It was of more significance centuries earler, but this article and Rouche are talking about the 9th century.

And now let's consider Rouche's educational history. He (and here we) are speaking of the transition of monastic schools to public shools. But, the public school system in Europe did not come from the monastic schools, it came from the parochial schools. These were not in the great imperial centers, they were scattered about the parishes, to be converted in the age of revolution to schools supported by tax money. Indeed the revolutionary governments appropriated and reused most church property, even the churches. Moreover, the the term "school" as the seat of a parish school was the name of a building on the perimeter of the church since earliest Christianity. Monks, and the monkish schools and libraries, are very reclusive, you know. That is what a monk does, he retreats from society. I have no doubt the major literary discoveries of the future are going to come from unknown or obscure monasterial facilities. Who knows what is in the Vatican archives? They rightly keep it under lock and key, but it may be published someday.

No, public schools come from the seizure of parish schools. They were known as scholae long before the 9th century and had nothing at all to do with either monks or imperial military guards. Of what relevance would THEY be to the people at large? The people scarcely knew they existed. Every settlement, however, was in a parish, had a parish priest, and went to the parish church and its school. And that is how it is elsewhere on WP. For Britain, which came rather late to the public school table, take a look at Ecclesiastical Commissioners, Queen Anne's Bounty, Elementary Education Act 1870, Education Act 1902, Education Act 1918 and Cathedral school. You will see that the larger Cathedral schools gave rise to the universities but in the end the Cathedral schools were suppressed in favor of the parish schools. However, by public schools the British mean private schools. They were in existence as grammar schools, and grammar schools I am sure went back into the Roman and Old English times.

Frankly I am tempted to say Rouche had little idea what he was talking about. He was asked to write his article by his fellow education majors. I am going to refrain from repeating any of the comments I used to hear about education majors while studying a liberal arts curriculum. They are in a sense "established" figures. You can't teach in the public shool systems without majoring in education, except by exception. Be that as it may, they are NOT classicists and have little weight in world of classicists even on educational topics. We get a hint of this in another work by educationalists, "Blackboards and Bootstraps: Revisioning Education and Schooling." Look it up on the Internet. They repeat Rouche's statement. They also say of it, "Discussing the origins of schooling ... is bedeviled by the fact that the Latin word schola was known and used in classical Roman times...", p. 30. Bedeviled? What does he mean, bedeviled? Then he presents the quote from Rouche as "another source" with a more than gracious excuse, "we know almost nothing about the institutions of education in the classical period...." Sorry, but we do too. I know this seems a bit critical of Rouche but he should have checked it out before he threw his hat in the ring with the professionals.

So, WP has a source for this view. I would not say it is a crank view. I would say it is a minority view, apparently a minority of two, Rouche and WP editor who wrote this article. Unless presented as that, it is misleading. This entire article is too short to present an adequate summary of scholae. There should also be a disambig page for the meaning of scholae. Well, scholae is the etymological source of "school," so you figure it out. For myself I would start with Diogenes Laertius, who defines school. I would say, keep this article as a military article, but remove or reduce the phony etymology. Set up the disambig page. Then we need to start a few more articles. It is the sort of thing I would do, but right now I am busy on other things.Botteville (talk) 08:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)