Which schools came first?

[Emily]

Author By Night and I were discussing which came first - Hogwarts or Beauxbatons/Durmstrang? So, topic ...

My personal take on it was that Beauxbatons or other central/southern European schools (if there are/were any others. but definitely not Durmstrang) were likely to have been founded before Hogwarts. This opinion is because what was going on in continental Europe in terms of an intellectual environment was rather more intense than what was happening in Britain. Charlemagne, for example, in western-central Europe, was creating a big ol' empire and being rather marvellous about learning, literacy, books, scholarship, education and other such wonderfulnesses.

Meanwhile, Britain at the same time (early 9th century), was ... distinctly not the same sort of place as the Carolingian Empire. It was Anglo-Saxon and squabbly and low on intellectual environment.

So - working hypothesis - the Founders saw what was going on in Europe, ie someone had founded Beauxbatons - and were inspired to found Hogwarts ...

It's just a rough idea which came to me - what do you all think? How much would the Muggle politics of the time have affected how & why the wizarding world worked, and the schools founded?

~ e

[vegablack]

Yes I agree with you. Beauxbatons appears to be on the mediteranean coast of France. Wasn't that region very advanced in the period of say Elinor of Acquitaine and her father and even earlier? We don't really know where Durmstang is but I could see it having beginings under Charlemagne.

That is a clever question. I hadn't thought about it.

[doriscrockford]

Perhaps William the Conqueror was a wizard and brought Beauxbaton's ideals with him.

[Author By Night]

I actually wonder if it wouldn't have been as early as the Romans; after all, they had the first schools, correct? I could easily see wizards of Ancient Rome having a school.

[queenie]

Well, Ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt were probably the first places in Western civilization to have some sort of organized schooling for wizards - though likely in the form of one-on-one tutoring, a practice which I can see carrying over into Ancient Greece. (Remember, Chiron the Centaur, the trainer of heroes).

Chinese schools of magic would probably be very segmentalized, because the country itself is such a collection of distinct ethnic minorities and regions. Each one would probably have its own school, probably very small schools, (but this begs the question of what became of these schools when the Communist Party took over.)

Now, just because Hogwarts has had the good fortune to last 1000 years doesn't mean that Beauxbatons and Durmstrang have. Those schools might be newer, but that doesn't mean that they were the first school implemented in those parts. Beauxbatons could be a union of what were once two magical schools in France and Switzerland, for example.

[starsea]

May 27, 2009 0:07:00 GMT -5 queenie said:

Chinese schools of magic would probably be very segmentalized, because the country itself is such a collection of distinct ethnic minorities and regions. Each one would probably have its own school, probably very small schools, (but this begs the question of what became of these schools when the Communist Party took over.)

Mass migration to Hong Kong, which was part of the British Empire and therefore protected.

[queenie]

Mass migration to Hong Kong, which was part of the British Empire and therefore protected.

Aha. A-ha. I'll get back to you on that once I finish Tai-Pan. Is there even room on Hong Kong for a school of magic of the necessary size?

[starsea]

Are you kidding me? Hong Kong currently has 7 million inhabitants, it's one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world. Even allowing for reduction going back 50 years, it could EASILY house a magic school.

[queenie]

Sorry, reading Tai-Pan, every English and Scotsmen and even the Chinese describe Hong Kong as a barren fleabitten rock that's hardly worth anything, so I've got some funny ideas about Hong Kong right about now.

Somewhere on my old computer I wrote a fanfiction about what a school for magic was like in the Hawaiian Islands. I think I concluded that every island has its own small school of magic, which happens to teach dancing, singing, and/or instruments along with what the West recognizes as magic. I don't know the Hawaiian islands that well, of course, and with a small isolated archipelago there's no telling what you could do. *coughEarthseacough* Maybe there's a whole secluded island devoted to the study of magic? But there magic seems an intrinsic part of the populace - no Hawaiian would laugh at the Night Marchers, for instance, or fail to pay homage to Pele when visiting a volcano.

And... speaking of China, I developed a sort of half-theory a while ago, related to the widespread, at one time, practice of footbinding. ... I don't want to disgust anyone who reads this, so I'll try to be as discreet as possible. Mothers would start to bind their daughter's feet between the ages of three and ten. It occurred to me that such an experience (which was very painful) would be the prime opportunity, if a girl had magic, for her magic to manifest itself. I can't imagine a young, Muggleborn witch's magic not immediately reacting, even if the girl has willed herself to believing it (her feet being bound) is for the best. Either her feet would spontaneously heal overnight, or the bindings would turn to water, or the girl would suddenly find herself in the garden pond - something.

This could be the way that Muggle-born witches are discovered, then, in Qing, Ming and Song China. A day or two after that initial outburst, a well-dressed person comes to the door of the house. Shortly thereafter, he (or she!) takes their daughter away - the parent's memories are modified into thinking their daughter has died. They don't mind so much, because daughters were, for a very long time, considered pretty much worthless to their parents.
However, the daughter is not dead - she has found a school (probably single-sex) of girls like her, with her talents, and indeed she has found a new world where perhaps she will have value for herself, and not the man she may marry. Maybe.

See, then I find myself thinking that this leads to a Wizarding China that believes that Muggle-born wizards just don't happen, or are far far rarer than Muggle-born witches. How would that belief affect the value of a Muggle-born wizard? A muggle-born witch? And also, what viewpoint of Muggles is engendered among an entire class of witches whose most vivid memories of their Muggle families is of footbinding?

I admit I got a bit rambly here. Maybe a bit off topic. But it's an interesting idea... at least I think so.