1090s–mid-13th century

Peter Lombard's 'Sentences' and the Rise of the Universities

The return of stability in France fostered a revival of the Paris theological schools. They sought to systematize Christian doctrine and show its rationality. The school of Saint-Victor (William of Champeaux, Hugh and Richard of Saint-Victor) and the school of Chartres combined dialectic with the religious life.

The translators of Toledo worked under Bishop Raymond's patronage. They introduced the West to the works of Aristotle, Avicenna, al-Ghazali and Averroes. These came through Arabic and Jewish intermediaries (Maimonides, Avicebron).

Peter Lombard arrived in Paris around 1130 and became its bishop. He compiled the "Four Books of Sentences" – a compendium of the opinions of the Bible and the Fathers on every branch of theology. It adds his own moderate conclusions. He was the first to clearly name seven sacraments, later confirmed by the Council of Florence (1439).

The "Sentences" became the standard university theology textbook until the late 16th–early 17th century. A commentary on them was a required step toward the doctorate.

In the 12th–13th centuries the first universities were born out of cathedral schools, growing cities, and guilds – Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Salerno. They were corporations of teachers and students. They displaced monasteries as centers of learning.