For centuries, school and university education in Europe was based on the
Trivium (language and literature studies, called grammar, logic and rhetoric) plus the
Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music).
In the 13th century, when St Thomas Aquinas taught in the Sorbonne and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were just beginning, these are the subjects that young men learned as university undergraduates before beginning studies for the priesthood, Law or Medicine.
Thirteen years after Chavagnes began a new life as an international college, and having ourselves sent several of our young men to Oxford, Cambridge and the Sorbonne, we are now going back to our own
thirteenth century roots. In about 1300 when the future Pope Clement V came to visit the Priory of St Anthony of Egypt here, the monks of Chavagnes were studying the Trivium and the Quadrivium too, just like the young clerks in the Sorbonne.
And from September 2016, we'll be picking up right where they left off. Because Chavagnes is now going to offer an intensive 2-year BA in the Liberal Arts, with the additional bonus of French language and literature.
The course is divided into five main areas (Literature and Language studies, History, Philosophy/Theology, Mathematics/Science and French/Latin)
Our challenging programme contains the essentials of the medieval
trivium and
quadrivium, plus some basic philosophy and theology, integrated into a modern Humanities degree. It will be ideal for young Catholics who are seeking an integrated university level formation: one that imparts a solid Christian worldview and fosters a rigorous academic approach.
What's more, the students at
Chavagnes Studium will be pursuing their intellectual, cultural and spiritual odyssey at the heart of old Catholic Europe, in the traditionally Catholic Vend�e, where the peasants resisted the French Revolution to defend Altar and Throne. And we'll be taking advantage of our central position to make sure our students can contemplate the ancient world while exploring a real Greek temple, muse on the middle ages while praying in the Cathedral of Chartres and be moved to tears of sadness or silliness at Shakespeare's Globe in London.
Some of our Rhetoric classes will even be taught in Syracuse, Sicily, where Corax and Tisias in 466BC developed this science for the first time in order to formulate arguments in defence of some of their poor countrymen who had been dispossessed of their property.
A liberal education is meant to free your mind, but in fact a liberally educated person may, like Corax and Tisias, end up being called to work for the freedom of others. That is what the Chavagnes Liberal Arts BA is all about; as St John Paul II teaches in
Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the Catholic university endeavour is a missionary one ordered to the service of others, because it is "the ardent search for truth and its unselfish transmission to youth and to all those learning to think rigorously, so as to act rightly and to serve humanity better."
Places for young men will be available from September 2016.
We hope to provide facilities for young ladies from 2019.A great intellectual preparation for adult Catholic life
