Anselm of Canterbury decried medieval schoolmasters as butchers toward their pupils

Evidence

The Latin word — carnifex, “flesh-maker,” meaning butcher or executioner — is one of the strongest available terms in medieval Latin for a brutal authority figure. Anselm is using it specifically to characterize the medieval cathedral-school schoolmaster. His complaint is not abstract. He is naming, with substantial specificity, the operational reality of medieval cathedral-school pedagogical practice as he had experienced it as a boy and as he had observed it as an adult. — , The Rod and the Child, 2828

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to conventional accounts of Anselm as the founder of scholasticism, contrasting his theological career with this rarely-quoted view of pedagogy.