Abstract: Research on Latin translations of Arabic natural philosophical texts in Spain and Sicily has been immense, with special attention paid to the study of translators such as Adelard of Bath, Robert of Ketton, Plato of Tivoli, and Hermann of Carinthia. Scholars focusing on these narratives of translation and transmission have paid less attention to the social context that allowed such transmission to occur. The fact that Latin clerics traveled to the Byzantine Empire, the Crusader States, and Damascus to learn at the feet of Arabic masters—as students alongside Muslims or Jews--raises questions about the formation of Latin knowledge and pedagogical practice in the years leading to the formation of the university. We would like to examine the “Arabic Masters” (magistri Arabici) referred to in Adelard of Bath’s Questiones Naturales, and to illuminate the relationship that existed between these teachers and their Christian and Jewish students.