Description

The history of medieval learning has traditionally been studied as a vertical transmission of knowledge from a master to one or several disciples. *Horizontal Learning in the High Middle Ages: Peer-to-Peer Knowledge Transfer in Religious Communities* centres on the ways in which cohabiting peers learned and taught one another in a dialectical process - how they acquired knowledge and skills, but also how they developed concepts, beliefs, and adapted their behaviour to suit the group: everything that could mold a person into an efficient member of the community. This process of 'horizontal learning' emerges as an important aspect of the medieval learning experience.[-][-]Progressing beyond the view that high medieval religious communities were closed, homogeneous, and fairly stable social groups, the essays in this volume understand communities as the product of a continuous process of education and integration of new members. The authors explore how group members learned from one another, and what this teaches us about learning within the context of a high medieval community.[-]