<P> The leading scholars of the Early Middle Ages were clergymen, for whom the study of nature was but a small part of their scholarly interest . They lived in an atmosphere which provided opportunity and motives for the study of aspects of nature . Some of this study was carried out for explicitly religious reasons . The need for monks to determine the proper time to pray led them to study the motion of the stars; the need to compute the date of Easter led them to study and teach rudimentary mathematics and the motions of the Sun and Moon . Modern readers may find it disconcerting that sometimes the same works discuss both the technical details of natural phenomena and their symbolic significance . In an astronomical observation, Bede of Jarrow described two comets over England, and wrote that the "fiery torches" of AD 729 struck terror in all who saw them--for comets were heralds of bad news . </P> <P> Among these clerical scholars was Bishop Isidore of Seville who wrote a comprehensive encyclopedia of natural knowledge, the monk Bede of Jarrow who wrote treatises on The Reckoning of Time and The Nature of Things, Alcuin of York, abbot of the Abbey of Marmoutier, who advised Charlemagne on scientific matters, and Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz and one of the most prominent teachers of the Carolingian Age, who, Like Bede, wrote treatises on computus and On the Nature of Things . Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham, who is known mostly for his Old English sermons, wrote a book on the astronomical time reckoning in Old English based on the writings of Bede . Abbo of Fleury wrote astronomical discussions of timekeeping and of the celestial spheres for his students, teaching for a while in England where he influenced the work of Byrhtferth of Ramsey, who wrote a Manual in Old English to discuss timekeeping and the natural and mystical significance of numbers . </P> <P> In the early Middle Ages, Cathedral schools developed as centers of education, evolving into the medieval universities which were the springboard of many of Western Europe's later achievements . During the High Middle Ages, Chartres Cathedral operated the famous and influential Chartres Cathedral School . Among the great early Catholic universities were Bologna University (1088); Paris University (c 1150); Oxford University (1167); Salerno University (1173); University of Vicenza (1204); Cambridge University (1209); Salamanca University (1218 - 1219); Padua University (1222); Naples University (1224); and Vercelli University (1228). </P> <P> Using church Latin as a lingua franca, the medieval universities across Western Europe produced a great variety of scholars and natural philosophers, including Robert Grosseteste of the University of Oxford, an early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation, and Saint Albert the Great, a pioneer of biological field research . By the mid-15th century, prior to the Reformation, Catholic Europe had some 50 universities . </P>

During the middle ages what part of the ancient catholic church served as a center of learning