These words of Alcuin (see Sylvester, 1970, p. 3) describe how Ethelbert, his predecessor as schoolmaster at York Minister in the eighth century, attempted to ensure that the curriculum at that school was kept up-to-date. They emphasise how long a history curriculum development has, and it is significant that two agencies for change are identified, personal contact through travel and the book, which are still highly influential today. Alcuin, himself, was to become a still more renowned educator for he, the first member of England's ‘brain-drain’, was to move from York to Aachen where he tutored the almost illiterate Charlemagne and his court in a variety of subjects, including mathematics, and led what came to be known as the Carolingian renaissance.

Yet if we wish seriously to consider ‘curriculum development’ at York then we shall need to have further information. Thus, for example, it will be necessary to know by whom the school was established and for what purpose; what views society held on education; what mathematics was taught and used. Curriculum development, then as now, takes place within a social, educational, political and administrative framework owing much to history and geography.