trivium

These subjects were the Trivium, and the more advanced Quadrivium.

The Trivium was the real basis of the secular education of the period.

The trivium was the most popular course; such knowledge was considered an absolute necessity for any one making claim to culture.

After completing the trivium, those who wished for higher culture studied the quadrivium.

Among the old Romans, a trivium meant a place where three ways met, and a quadrivium where four, or what we now call a cross-road.