Answer three of the following questions:
(1) What kinds of developments occurred during the renaissance of the twelfth century?
One of the developments was the translation movement, where Western scholars rediscovered long lost Greek and Arabic texts, particularly the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid and Islamic philosophers like Averroes. Another development was the birth of Scholasticism, which was a new philosophical method which sought to harmonize Christian theology with classical reason and logic, altering how theology and philosophy were studied.
(2) Discuss the origins and features of the university system in the High Middle Ages.
One of the origins of the medieval universities was the Bologna model which operated in Italy, where the students hired and paid the professors, setting the rules for the curriculum. Another origin is the Paris model, where the corporation of teachers ran the institution and dictated the rules.
(4) Write a brief overview of the life and work of Thomas Aquinas.
St. Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and theologian. He was widely regarded as the greatest intellectual heavyweight of high Scholasticism. He was born to an Italian noble family, where he shocked his relitives by choosing to join the Dominican Order, which was a new Mendicant order of beggars. He went on to study under Albert the Great in Paris and Cologne.
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