The Educational System of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantium’s surprisingly advanced educational system
The educational system of the Byzantine Empire was in large part that inherited from the Hellenistic/Roman past. During primary schooling, students were initiated in reading and writing while secondary schooling deepened their knowledge. Higher education was to be found in large cities only and from the middle Byzantine period onward almost exclusively in Constantinople and with the initiative of Emperors or high ranking officials.
Despite some initial difficulties in synthesizing the Christian religion with the Pagan literature of antiquity, the Church accepted that the study of the intellectual tradition of the ancient world was to its benefit. Gregory of Nazianzos and Basil of Great both recommended the study of classics to Christians and pointed how their legacy was beneficial to Christian readers too.
Education was always a matter of individual choice and not something mandated by the state. Schools were private and parents who wanted their children to receive a good (or even average) education had to pay tuition fees (misthos or siteresion). Fees were determined by the teacher’s reputation and learning. Fees were somewhat high and there are known cases where there were legal challenges about fees owed. In the middle Byzantine period an official named prokathemenos ton pedaiuterion supervised those private schools.
Although the number of pupils is not know, they must have represented a small, elite proportion of the young generation. The number of highly cultivated people was small. On the other hand, elementary education was far more widespread. Wealthy women in Byzantium could get educated at home but also in schools for girls. Michael Psellos’ daughter Styliane might have went to such a school as the philosopher makes reference to her ‘fellow schoolgirls’. There was no established schedule for when children would go to schools or specific dates for starting/ending the lessons.
The primary education was known as propaideia (beginning at 6–8 yo and lasting 3 -4 years) and the schoolteacher was known as paidagogos, paidotribes, paidodidaskalos or grammatistes. Secondary education was known as enkyklios paideia (beginning at 12–14 yo and lasting at least 4 years). Responsible for this education was the grammatikos/maistor while pupils were taught by ekkritoi tes scholes (‘prefects’). The grammatikoi monitored the general progress of pupils and supervised the ekkritoi. Primary education was usually conducted in courtyards of monasteries or churches (as many of the teachers were from the clergy) while secondary education was conducted in buildings in the city center.
Primary education focused on reading, writing and arithmetic. Pupils would write exercises on schedaria (wooden tablets) or ostraca using stylus. The Psalter was the key textbook. The secondary education included the trivium of grammar, philosophy and rhetoric and the quadrivium of music, arithmetic, astronomy and geometry. Principal textbooks were the Iliad and nine tragedies: Persians, Prometheus Bound, and Seven Against Thebes by Aischylos, Ajax, Electra and Oedipus the King by Sophokles, and Hecuba, Orestes, and Phoenician Women by Euripides. Three comedies from Aristophanes (The Frogs, Wealth and The Clouds) and Pindar, Theokritos, Demosthenes, Aischines, Xenophon, Psalms of David and poems of Gregory Nazianzos were also part of the curriculum.
Regarding grammar, the Cannons of George Choiroboskos and Theodosios of Alexandria and the Techne Grammatike (Art of Grammar) of Dionysios Thrax were popular. Rhetoric was also important, with pupils having to compose small texts on themes drawn from ancient Greece (usually mythology). Mathematics were usually taught along with astronomy. Mathematical epigrams by Metrodoros (6th century), texts by Nikomachos of Gerasa (1st — 2nd century AD) and Euclid were the basis of mathematical education. With regards to music, ancient musical theory consisted in studying the mathematical ratios that represented musical intervals, and that study of harmonic ratios was extended to cosmology. The Byzantines continued with this tradition.
Astronomy was much cultivated by the Byzantines. Byzantine astronomy can be divided into two strands; the Ptolemean tradition and the adoption of various foreign astronomical tables (Arabic, Persian, Latin and Jewish). The Ptolemaic tradition was based on his work Almagest and on Theon of Alexandria, whose commentaries on Ptolemy were widely used. Theon’s book was, according to the author, ‘astronomy for dummies’ and with its clear explanations and examples allowed anyone to use Ptolemy’s tables without having to understand the difficult geometrical grounds of Ptolemy’s astronomy. The eleventh century was the most important for Byzantine astronomy. Aside from books based on the Ptolemaic tradition, one can find good knowledge of Islamic astronomy. In 1062, a Byzantine astrolabe was created for a man of Persian origins. The destruction brought upon by the Fourth Crusade caused a rapture in that scientific advance and the Islamic works disappeared from Byzantium until the late thirteenth century, when Constantinople had been recovered. Among the renewers of Ptoleamic astronomy in that new period was Theodore Metochites with his enormous work Astronomike Stoicheiosis (Astronomic Elements). Nikephoros Gregoras, pupil of Metochites, was able to use Ptolemaic astronomical tables to predict solar and lunar eclipses. Barlaam of Calabria was also skilled in astronomy and able to calculate the solar eclipses of 1333 and 1337. During this period, Persian astronomy was introduced in Byzantium.
Bonds could develop between students and teachers and pupils sometimes brought gifts to their teachers such as food (honey, fish, wine, etch). Teachers could also help their students after finishing school, helping them take positions in the Byzantine bureaucracy. Byzantium had a large administrative machinery that had to be staffed by educated men: in this regard, it somewhat resembled the dynastic empires of China. It is by no accident that the most important literati/scholars of Byzantium also were career bureaucrats.
The state did sometimes intervene in attempts to impose control on higher education. Theodosius II in 425 founded the Pandidakterion, which was meant to help equip young men with the knowledge necessary to enter the Byzantine bureaucracy. It had 31 professors, most of whom taught Latin and Greek. Higher education schools also existed in Berytus, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria and other major cities. Later on, in 855, Caesar Bardas established a higher school at Magnaura.
Constantine VII in the tenth century supported a series of schools: he himself was an accomplished scholar, among his works being De Ceremoniis (“On Ceremonies” — Περί τῆς Βασιλείου Τάξεως), describing court ceremonies, De Administrando Imperio (“On the Administration of the Empire” — Προς τον ίδιον υιόν Ρωμανόν), giving political advice to his son Romanos and Vita Basilii (“Life of Basil” — Βίος Βασιλείου), a biography of the founder of the Macedonian Dynasty, Basil I. He was a passionate collector of books and manuscripts.
Emperor Constantine IX (reigned 1042–1055) established two higher education schools, the Didaskaleion ton Nomon (legal school), under John Xiphilinos, and the School of Philosophy under Michael Psellus. Under the Komnenian Dynasty (1081–1185), higher education was reorganized by the central government. A Patriarchal Academy was established with series for rhetoric, philosophy, theology, and Scripture, with twelve teachers appointed by the Patriarch. After 1204, it was the Church that provided infrastructure for higher education.
