We have to keep in mind that there was no organized 
system of education outside the universities. So that after the 
Renaissance “we find frequent allusions to the fact at Paris in 
the small classes of certain colleges, teaching commenced with 
the alphabet.” We have, moreover, data on students in the 
college who were under ten years of age. But, certainly, for the 
medieval university we have to keep in mind that it “embraced 
all the levels of instruction from the most elementary to the 
most advanced.” Specialism in our sense was unknown and all 
levels of instruction tended to be inclusive rather than 
exclusive. Certainly this inclusive character applies to the art of 
writing at this period; for writing implied all that to the ancient 
and medieval world was grammatica  or philologia .

     At the opening of the twelfth century, says Hajnal (p. 
39), there had been “for some centuries an important system