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UNIVERSITIES .1 The medieval Latin term universitas (from which the English word " university " is derived) was originally employed to denote any community or corporation regarded under its collective aspect. When used in its modern sense, as denoting a body devoted to learning and education, it required the addition of other words in order to complete the definitionthe most frequent form of expression being " universitas magistrorum et scholarium " (or " discipulorum "). In the course of time, probably towards the latter part of the 14th century, the term began to be used by itself, with the exclusive meaning of a community of teachers and scholars whose corporate existence had been recognized and sanctioned by civil or ecclesiastical authority or by both. But the more ancient and customary designation of such communities in medieval times (regarded as places of instruction) was " studium " (and subsequently "studium generale "), a term implying a centre of instruction for all.2 The expressions " universitas studii " and " universitatis collegium " are also occasionally to be met with in official documents. It is necessary, however, to bear in mind, on the one hand, that a university often had a vigorous virtual existence long before it obtained that legal recognition which entitled it, technically, to take rank as a " studium generale," and, on the other hand, that hostels, halls and colleges, together with complete courses in all the recognized branches of learning, were by no means necessarily involved in the earliest conception of a university. The university, in its earliest stage of development, appears to have been simply a scholastic gilda spontaneous combination, that is to say, of teachers or scholars, or of both combined, and formed probably on the analogy of the trades gilds, and the gilds of aliens in foreign cities, which, in the course of the r3th and 14th centuries, are to be found springing up in most of the great European centres. The design of these organizations, in the first instance, was little more than that of securing mutual protectionfor the craftsman, in the pursuit of his special calling; for the alien, as lacking the rights and privileges inherited by the citizen. And so the university, composed as it was to a great extent of students from foreign countries, was a combination formed for the protection of its members from the extortion of the townsmen and the other annoyances incident in medieval times to residence in a foreign state. It was a first stage of development in connexion with these primary organizations, when the chancellor of the cathedral, or some other authority, began, as we shall shortly see, to accord to other masters permission to open other schools than the cathedral school in the neighbourhood of his church; a further stage was reached when a licence .to teachgranted only after a formal examinationempowered a master to carry on his vocation at any similar centre that either already existed or might afterwards be formed throughout Europe"facultas i It is the design of the present article to exhibit the universities in their general historical development ; more detailed information respecting the present condition of each will be found in the separate articles under topographical headings. 2 Denifle, Die Universitaten des Mittelalters, i. I-29. ubique docendi." It was a still further development when it began to be recognized that, without a licence from either pope, emperor or king, no " studium generale " could be formed possessing this right of conferring degrees, which originally meant nothing more than licences to teach. In the north of Europe such licences were granted by the Chancellor Scholasticus, or some other officer of a cathedral Meaning church; in the south it is probable that the gilds of of masters (when these came to be formed) were at first "studium free to grant their own licences, without any ecclesigenerate." astical or other supervision. But in all cases such per-missions were of a purely local character. Gradually, however, towards the end of the 12th century, a few great schools claimed from the excellence of their teaching to be of more than merely local importance. Practically a doctor
sky... magistrorum, or scholarium or magistrorum et scholarium. By the close of the medieval period, however, the distinction between the terms studium generate and universitas was more or less lost sight of, and in Germany especially the term universitas began to be used alone.' In order, however, clearly to understand the conditions under which the earliest universities came into existence, it is necessary to take account, not only of their organization, but also empire, which had down to that time kept alive the traditions of pagan education, had been almost entirely swept away by the barbaric invasions. The latter century marks the period when the institutions which supplied their placethe episcopal schools attached to the cathedrals and the monastic schoolsattained to their highest degree of influence and reputation. Between these and the schools of the empire there existed an essential difference, in that the theory of education by which they were pervaded was in complete contrast to the simply secular theory of the schools of paganism. The cathedral school taught only what was supposed to be necessary for the education of the priest; the monastic school taught only what was supposed to be in harmony with the aims of the monk. But between the pagan system and the Christian system by which it had been superseded there yet existed something that was common to both: the latter, even in the narrow and meagre instruction which it imparted, could not altogether dispense Denifle i. 34-39.with the ancient text-books, simply because there were no others in existence. Certain treatises of Aristotle, of Porphyry, of Martianus Capella and of Boetius continued consequently to be used and studied; and in the slender outlines of pagan learning thus still kept in view, and in the exposition which they necessitated, we recognize the main cause which prevented the thought and literature of classic antiquity from falling altogether into oblivion. Under the rule of the Merovingian dynasty even these scanty traditions of learning declined throughout the Frankish dominions; but in England the designs of Gregory Revival In the Great, as carried out by Theodorus, Bede and time of Alcuin, resulted in a great revival of education and Gharieletters. The influence of this revival extended in the magne. 8th and 9th centuries to Frankland, where Charlemagne, advised and aided by Alcuin, effected a memorable reformation, which included both the monastic and the cathedral schools; while the school attached to the imperial court, known as the Palace School, also became a famous centre of learned intercourse and instruction. But the activity thus generated, and the interest in learning which it served for a time to diffuse, well-nigh died out amid the anarchy which characterizes the loth century in Latin Christendom, and it is at least questionable whether any real connexion can be shown to have existed between this earlier revival and that remarkable movement
which the university took its rise. But, in order comes" adequately to explain the remarkable development formation and novel character which that teaching assumed in of first the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, it is neces- sary univershies. to take account of the operation of certain more general causes to which the origin of the great majority of the earlier universities may in common unhesitatingly be referred. These causes are(1) the introduction of new subjects of study, as embodied in a new or revived literature; (2) the adoption of new methods of teaching which were rendered necessary by the new studies; (3) the growing tendency to organization which accompanied the development and consolidation of the European nationalities. That the earlier universities took their rise to a great extent in endeavours to obtain and provide instruction of a kind beyond the range of the monastic and cathedral schools Rose of appears to be very generally admitted, but with respect univerto the origin of the first European universitythat of sit)' of Salerno in Italy, which became known as a school of Salerno. medicine as early as the 9th centurythe circumstances are pronounced by a recent investigator to be " veiled in impenetrable obscurity." 2 One writer 3 derives its origin from an independent tradition of classical learning which continued to exist in Italy down to the loth century. Another writer' maintains that it had its beginning in the teaching at the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, where the study of medicine was undoubtedly pursued. But the most authoritative researches point to the conclusion that the medical system of Salerno was originally an outcome of the Graeco-Roman tradition of the old Roman world, and the Arabic medicine was not introduced till the highest fame of the Civitas Hippocratica was passing away. It may have been influenced by the late survival of the Greek language in southern Italy, though this cannot be proved. In the first half of the 9th century the emperor at Constantinople sent to the Caliph 2 Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, i. 76. ' De Renzi, Storia Documentata della Scuola Medica di Salerno (ed. 1857), p. 145. 4 Puccinotti, Storia della Medicina, i. 317-26. History of their studies, and to recognize the main influences of learning which, from the 6th to the 12th century, served to before the modify both the theory and the practice of education. univer- In the former century, the schools of the Roman shy era. Mamoun at Bagdad a considerable collection of Greek manuscripts, which seems to have given the earliest impulse to the study of the Hellenic pagan literature by the Saracens. The original texts were translated into Arabic by Syrian Christians, and these versions were, in turn, rendered into Latin for the use of teachers in the West. Of the existence of such versions we have evidence, according to Jourdain,1 long prior to the time when Constantine the African (d. 1087) began to deliver his lectures on the science at Salerno, although these early versions have since altogether disappeared. Under his teaching the fame of Salerno as a medical school became diffused all over Europe; it was distinguished also by its catholic spirit, and, at a time when Jews were the object of religious persecution throughout Europe, members of this nationality were to be found both as teachers and learners at Salerno. Ordericus Vitalis, who wrote in the first half of the 12th century, speaks of it as then long famous. In 1231 it was constituted by the emperor Frederick II. the only school of medicine in the kingdom of Naples. The great revival of legal studies which took place at Bologna about the year r000 had also been preceded"by a corresponding activity elsewhereat Pavia by a famous school of Bologna. Lombard law, and at Ravenna by a yet more important school of Roman law. And in Bologna itself we have evidence that the Digest was known and studied before the time of Irnerius (11oo-3o), a certain Pepo being named as lecturing on the text about the year 1076. The traditional story about the " discovery " of the Pandects at Amalfi in 1135 was disproved even before the time of Savigny. Schulte has shown that the publication of the Decretum of Gratian must be placed earlier than the traditional date, i.e. not later than 1142. This instruc- tion again was of a kind which the monastic and cathedral schools could not supply, and it also contributed to meet a new and pressing demand. The neighbouring states of Lombardy were at this time increasing rapidly in population and in wealth; and the greater complexity of their political relations, their growing manufactures and commerce, demanded a more definite application of the principles embodied in the codes that had been handed down by Theodosius and Justinian. But the distinctly secular character of this new study, and its close connexion with the claims and prerogatives of the Western emperor, aroused at first the susceptibilities of the Roman see, and for a time Bologna and its civilians were regarded by the church with distrust and even with alarm. These sentiments were not, however, of long duration. In the year 1151 the appearance of the Decretum of Gratian, largely corn- 1e- piled from spurious documents, invested the studies tum of Gratian of the canonist with fresh importance; and numer- and the ous decrees of past and almost forgotten pontiffs canon now claimed to take their stand side by side with law. the enactments contained in the Corpus Juris Civilis. They constituted, in fact, the main basis of those new pretensions asserted with so much success by the popedom in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries. It was necessary, accordingly, that the Decretum should be known and studied beyond the walls of the monastery or the episcopal palace, and that its pages should receive authoritative exposition at some common centre of instruction. Such a centre was to be found in Bologna. The needs of the secular student and of the ecclesiastical student were thus brought for a time into accord, and from the days of Irnerius down to the close of the 13th century we have satisfactory evidence that Bologna was generally recognized as the chief school both of the civil and the canon law .2 It has, indeed, been asserted that university degrees were instituted there as early as the pontificate of Eugenius III. (1145-53), but the statement rests on no good authority, and is in every way improbable. There is, however, another tradition which is in better harmony with the known facts. When Barbarossa marched his forces into Italy on his memorable expedition of 1155, and reasserted those imperial claims which had so long 1 Sur l'dge et l'origine des traductions Wines, &c., p. 225. s Denifle, Die Universitdten, &c., i. 48.lain dormant, the professors of the civil law and their scholars, but more especially the foreign students, gathered Foreign round the Western representative of the Roman students Caesars, and besought his intervention in their favour at in their relations with the citizens of Bologna. A large Bologna proportion of the students were probably from Germany; and it did not escape Frederick's penetration that the civilian might prove an invaluable ally in the assertion of his imperial pretensions. He received the suppliants graciously, and, finding that their grievances were real, especially against the landlords in whose houses they were domiciled, he granted the foreign students substantial protection, by conferring on them certain special immunities and privileges (November 1158)? These privileges were embodied in the celebrated Authentica, Habita, in the Corpus Juris Civilis of the empire (bk. iv. tit. 13), and were eventually extended so as to include all the other universities of Italy. In them we may discern the precedent for that state protection of the university which, however essential at one time for the security and freedom of the teacher and the taught, has been far from proving an unmixed benefitthe influence which the civil power has thus been able to exert being too often wielded for the suppression of that very liberty of thought and inquiry from which the earlier universities derived in no small measure their importance and their fame. But, though there was a flourishing school of study, it is to be observed that Bologna did not possess a university so early as 1158. Its first university was not constituted until The unlthe close of the 12th century. The " universities " at versifies" Bologna were, as Denifle has shown, really student gilds, at formed under influences quite distinct from the pro- Bologna. tecting clauses of the Authentica, and suggested, as already noted, by the precedent of those foreign gilds which, in the course of the z 2th century, began to rise throughout western Europe. These were originally only two in number, the Ultramontani and the Citramontani, and arose out of the absolute necessity, under which residents in a foreign city found themselves, of obtaining by combination that protection and those rights which they could not claim as citizens. These societies were modelled, Denifle considers, not on the trade gilds which rose in Bologna in the 13th century, but on the Teutonic gilds which arose nearly a century earlier in north-western Europe, being essentially " spontaneous confederations of aliens on a foreign soil." Originally, they did not include the native student element and were composed exclusively of students in law. The power resulting from this principle of combination, when superadded to the privileges conferred by Barbarossa, gave to the students of Bologna a superiority of which they were not slow to avail themselves. Under the leadership of their rector, they extorted from the citizens concessions which raised them from the condition of an oppressed to that of a specially privileged class. The same principle, when put in force against the professors, reduced the latter to a position of humble deference to the very body whom they were called upon to instruct, and imparted to the entire university that essentially democratic character by which it was afterwards distinguished. It is not surprising that such advantages should have led to an imitation and extension of the principle by which they were obtained. Denifle considers that the " universities " at Bologna were at one time certainly more than four in number, and we know that the Italian students alone were subdivided into twothe other Tuscans and the Lombards. In the centres formed by similar secession from the parent body a like subdivision took corn-place. At Vercelli there were four universitates, corn- menities posed respectively of Italians, English, Provencals and in Italy Germans; at Padua there were similar divisions into Italians, a See Savigny, Gesch. d. rom. Rechts, iii. 152, 491-92. See also Giesebrecht, Gesch. d. Kaiserzeit (ed. 1880), v. 51-52. The story is preserved in a recently discovered metrical composition descriptive of the history of Frederick I.; see Sitzungsberichte d. Bairisch. Akad. d. Wissenschaft, Phil.-Hist. Masse (1879), ii. 285. Its authenticity is called in question by Denifle, but it would seem to be quite in harmony with the known facts. Their democratic character. French (i.e. Francigenae, comprising both English and Nor-mans), Provencals (including Spaniards and Catalans). When, accordingly, we learn from Odofred that in the time of the eminent jurist Azo, who lectured at Bologna about 1200, the number of the students there amounted to some ten thousand, of whom the majority were foreigners, it seems reasonable to conclude that the number of these confederations of students (societates scholarium) at Bologna was yet greater. It is certain that they were not formed simultaneously, but, similarly to the free gilds, one after the otherthe last in order being that of the Tuscans, which was composed of students from Tuscany, the Campagna and Rome. Nor are we, again, to look upon them as in any way the outcome of those democratic principles which found favour in Bologna, but rather as originating in the traditional home associations of the foreign students, fostered, how-ever, by the peculiar conditions of their university life. As the Tuscan division (the one least in sympathy, in most respects, with Teutonic institutions) was the last formed, so, Denifle conjectures, the German " university " may have introduced the conception which was successively adopted by the other nationalities. In marked resemblance to the gilds, these confederations were presided over by a common head, the " rector schola- rium," an obvious imitation of the " rector societatum " guished from the " rector scholarum " or director of the studies, with whose function the former officer had, at this time, nothing in common. Like the gilds, again, the different nations were represented by their " consiliarii," a deliberative assembly with whom the rector habitually took counsel. While recognizing the essentially democratic character of the constitution of these communities, it is to be remembered Mature that the students, unlike the majority at Paris and later age at the universities, were mostly at this time of mature years. students. As the civil law and the canon law were at first the only branches of study, the class whom they attracted were often men already filling office in some department of the church or statearchdeacons, the heads of schools, canons of cathedrals, and like functionaries forming a considerable element in the aggregate. It has been observed, indeed, that the permission accorded them by Frederick I. of choosing, in all cases of dispute, their own tribunal, thus constituting them, to a great extent, sui juris, seems to presuppose a certain maturity of judgment among those on whom this discretionary power was bestowed. Innocent IV., in according his sanction to the new statutes of the university in 1253, refers to them as drawn up by the " rectores et universitas scholarium Bononiensium." About the year 220o were formed the two faculties of medicine and philosophy (or " the arts " 1) , the former being somewhat the earlier. It was developed, as that of the civil law had been developed, by a succession of able teachers, among whom Thaddeus Alderottus was especially eminent. The faculty of arts, down to the 14th century, scarcely attained to equal eminence. The teaching of theology remained for a long time exclusively in the hands of the Dominicans; and it was not until the year 136o that Innocent VI. recognized Bologna as a " studium generale " in this branchin other words, as a place of theological education for all students, with the power of conferring degrees of universal validity. In the year 1371 the cardinal legate, Anglicus, compiled, as chief director of ecclesiastical affairs in the city, an account Account of the university, which he presented to Urban V. of the The information it supplies is, however, defective, univen- owing to the fact that only the professors who were in shy by receipt of salaries from the municipality are mentioned. Anglkus.and notarial practice. The professors of theology, who, as members of the religious orders, received no state remuneration, are unmentioned. The significance of the term " college," as first employed at Bologna, differed, like that of " university," from that which it subsequently acquired. The collegia of the doctors no more connoted the idea of a place of residence than did the universitates of the students. There were the College of Doctors of Civil Law, the College of Doctors of Canon Law, the College of Doctors in Medicine and Arts and The (from 1352) the College of Doctors in Theology. univer-Though the professors were largely dependent upon sloes at the students, they had separate organizations of their Bologna. own; the college alone was concerned in the conferment of degrees. Each faculty was therefore at Bologna entirely independent of every other (except for the union of medicine and arts): the only connecting link between them was the necessity of obtaining their degrees (after 1219) from the same chancellor, the archdeacon of Bologna. The decline in the reputation of the studium from about 1250 was largely due to the successful efforts of the doctors to exclude all but Bolognese citizens from membership of the doctoral colleges (which alone possessed the valuable " right of promotion "), and from the more valuable salaried chairs. They even attempted and partially succeeded in restricting these privileges to members of their own families. Colleges as places of residence for students existed, however, at Bologna at a very early date, but it is not until the The 14th century that we find them possessing any earliest organization; and the humble domus, as it was termed, colleges. was at first designed solely for necessitous students, not being natives of Bologna. A separate house, with a certain fund for the maintenance of a specified number of scholars, was all that was originally contemplated. Such was the character of that founded by Zoen, bishop of Avignon, in February 1256 (O.S.), the same month and year, it is to be noted, in which the Sorbonne was founded in Paris. It was designed for the maintenance of eight scholars from the province of Avignon, under the supervision of three canons of the church, maintaining themselves in the university. Each scholar was to receive 24 Bolognese lire annually for five years. The college of Brescia was founded in 1326 by William of Brescia, archdeacon of Bologna, for poor foreign students without distinction as to nationality. The Spanish college, founded in 1364, for twenty-four Spanish scholars and two chaplains, is noted by Denifle as the one college founded in medieval times which still exists on the Continent. Of the general fact that the early universities rose in response to new wants the commencement of the university of Paris supplies us with a further illustration. The study origin of of logic, which, prior to the 12th century, was founded univer- exclusively on one or two meagre compends, received sity of about the year moo, on two occasions, a powerful Paris. stimulusin the first instance, from the memorable controversy between Lanfranc and Berengar; in the second, from the no less famous controversy between Anselm and Roscellinus. A belief sprang up that an intelligent apprehension of spiritual truth depended on a correct use of prescribed methods of argumentation. Dialectic was looked upon as " the science of sciences"; and when, somewhere in the first decade of the 12th century, William of Champeaux opened in Paris a school for the more advanced study of dialectic as an art, his teaching was attended with marked success. Among his pupils was Abelard, in whose hands the study made a yet more notable advance; so that, by the middle of the century, we find John of Salisbury, on returning from the French capital to England, relating with astonishment, not unmingled with contempt, how all learned Paris had gone well-nigh mad in its pursuit and practice of the new dialectic. Abelard taught in the first instance at the cathedral school at Notre Dame, and subsequently at the schools on Teaching the Montagne Ste Genevieve, of which he was the of founder, and where he imparted to logic its new Abelarddevelopment. But in 1147 the secular canons of Ste Genevieve Tenor. or " artium " of the gild, but to be carefully distin- Formation of the universitates. Faculties instituted. Of these there were twelve of civil law and six of canon law; three of medicine, three of practical medicine and one of surgery; two of logic, and one each of astrology, rhetoric i The arts course of study was that represented by the ancient trivium (i.e. grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (i.e. arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) as handed down from the schools of the Roman empire. See J. B. Mullinger's History of the University of Cambridge , i. 24-27.Study of logic. gave place to canons regular from St Victor; and henceforth the school on the former foundation was merely a study of school for the teaching of theology, and was attended theology. only by the members of the house.' The schools out of which the university arose were those attached to the cathedral on the Ile de la Cite, and presided over by the chancellora dignitary who must be carefully distinguished from the. later chancellor of the university. For a long time the teachers lived in separate houses on the island, and it was only by degrees that they combined themselves into a society, and that special buildings were constructed for their class-work. But the flame which Abelard's teaching had kindled was not destined to tom- expire. Among his pupils was Peter Lombard, who bard's was bishop of Paris in 1159, and widely known to "Sens posterity as the compiler of the famous volume of the fences." Sentences. The design of this work was to place before the student, in as strictly logical a form as practicable, the views (sententiae) of the fathers and all the great doctors of the church upon the chief and most difficult points in the Christian belief. Conceived with the purpose of allaying and preventing, it really stimulated, controversy. The logicians seized upon it as a great storehouse of indisputable major premises, on which they argued with renewed energy and with endless ingenuity of dialectical refinement; and upon this new compendium of theological doctrine, which became the text-book of the middle ages, the schoolmen, in their successive treatises Super sententias, expended a considerable share of that subtlety and labour which still excite the astonishment of the student of metaphysical literature. It is in these prominent features in the history of these early universitiesthe development of new methods of instruction Rise of concurrently with the appearance of new material other for their applicationthat we find the most probable early uni- solution of the question as to how the university, ersities. as distinguished from the older cathedral or monastic schools, was first formed. In a similar manner, it seems probable, the majority of the earlier universities of ItalyReggio, Modena, Vicenza, Padua and Vercelliarose, for they had their origin independently alike of the civil and the papal authority. Instances, it is true, occur, which cannot be referred to this spontaneous mode of growth. The university of Naples, for example, was founded solely by the fiat of the emperor Frederick II. in the year 1224; and, if we may rely upon the documents cited by Denifle, Innocent IV. about the year 1245 founded in connexion with the curia a "studium generale," 2 which was attached to the papal court, and followed it when removed from Rome, very much as the Palace School of Charles the Great accompanied that monarch on his progresses. As the university of Paris became the model, not only for the universities of France north of the Loire, but also for the great majority of those of central Europe as well as Barg for Oxford and Cambridge , some account of its early organh a-tion of organization will here be indispensable. Such an univer- account is rendered still further necessary by the fact sity of that the recent and almost exhaustive researches of Paris. Denifle, the Dominican father, have led him to con- clusions which on some important points run altogether counter to those sanctioned by the high authority of Savigny The original university, as already stated, took its rise entirely out of the movement
' The view of Thurot (De l'organisation de l'enseignement Bans l'universite de Paris, pp. 47) that the university arose out of a combination of these several schools is rejected by Denifle (see Die Universitaten, &c., i. 653-94). 2 Where the words studium generale are placed within marks of quotation they occur in the original charter of foundation of the university referred to. appointing a chancellor whose duty it should be to confer licentia docendi on those candidates who were desirous of opening schools in that district. But it was around the bestowal of this licence by the chancellor of Notre Dame, on the Ile de la Cite, that the university of Paris grew up. It is in this licence that the whole significance of the master of arts degree is contained; for what is technically known as admission Inception. to that degree was really nothing more nor less than receiving the chancellor's permission to " incept," and by " inception " was implied the master's formal entrance upon, and commencement of, the functions of a duly licensed teacher, and his recognition as such by his brothers in the profession. The previous stage of his academic career, that of bachelordom, had been one of apprenticeship for the The mastership; and his emancipation from this state bachelor was symbolized by placing the magisterial cap (biretta) ofarrs. upon his head, a ceremony which, in imitation of the old Roman ceremony of manumission, was performed by his former instructor, " under whom " he was said to incept. He then gave a formal inaugural lecture, and, after this proof of magisterial capacity, was welcomed into the society of his professional brethren with set speeches, and took his seat in his master's chair. This community of teachers of recognized fitness did not in itself suffice to constitute a university, but some time between the years 115o and 1170, the period when the Sentences me uniof Peter Lombard were given to the world, the uni- verslty versity of Paris came formally into being. Its first forL,ed. written statutes were not, however, compiled until about the year 1208, and it was not until long after that date that it possessed a " rector." Its earliest recognition as. a legal corporation belongs to about the year 1211, when a brief of Innocent III. empowered it to elect a proctor to be its representative at the papal court. By this permission it obtained the right to sue or to be sued in a court of justice as a corporate body. This papal recognition was, however, very far from implying the episcopal recognition, and the earlier history of the new community exhibits it as in continual conflict alike Diffiwith the chancellor, the bishop and the cathedral conies of chapter of Paris, by all of whom it was regarded as a first centre of insubordination and doctrinal licence. Had develop-it not been, indeed, for the papal aid, the university meat. would probably not have survived the contest; but with that powerful assistance it came to be regarded as the great Transalpine centre of orthodox theological teaching. Successive pontiffs, down to the great schism of 1378, made it one of the foremost points of their policy to cultivate friendly and confidential relations with the authorities of the university of Paris, and systematically to discourage the formation of theological faculties at other centres. In 1231 Gregory IX., in the bull Parens Scientiarum, gave full recognition to the right of the several faculties to regulate and modify the constitution of the entire universitya formal sanction which, in Denifle's opinion, rendered the bull in question the Magna Charta of the university. In comparing the relative antiquity of the universities oS Paris and Bologna, it is difficult to give an unqualified decision. The university of masters at the former was probably slightly anterior to the university of students at the latter; but there is good reason for believing that Paris, in reducing its traditional customs to statutory form, largely availed itself of the precedents afforded by the already existing code of the Transalpine centre. The fully developed university was divided into four facultiesthree " superior," viz. those of theology, canon law and medicine, and one " inferior," that of arts, which was divided into four " nations." These nations, which included both professors and scholars, were(1) the French nation, composed, in addition to the native element, of Spaniards, Italians and Greeks; (2) the Picard nation, rePre- The 'nabons." senting the students from the north-east and from the Netherlands; (3) the Norman nation; (4) the English nation, comprising, besides students from the provinces under English rule, those from England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany. The head of each faculty was the dean; the head of each nation was the proctor. The rector, who in the first instance was head of the faculty of arts, by whom he was elected, was eventually head of the whole university. In congregations of the university matters were decided by a majority of faculties; the vote of the faculty of arts was determined by a majority of nations. The chancellor of Notre Dame, whose functions were now limited to the conferment of the licence, stood as such outside the university or gild altogether, though as a doctor
In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries this democratic constitution of the middle ages was largely superseded by the growth of a small oligarchy of officials. The tribunal of the universitythe rector, deans and proctorscame to occupy a somewhat similar position to the old " Hebdomadal Board " of heads of colleges at Oxford and the Caput at Cambridge. Moreover, the teaching functions of the university, or rather of the faculty of arts, owing chiefly to the absence of any endowment for the regents or teaching graduates, practically passed to the colleges. Almost as much as the English universities, Paris came to be virtually reduced to a federation of colleges, though the colleges were at Paris less independent of university authority, while the smaller colleges sent their members to receive instruction in the larger ones (colleges de plein exercise), which received large numbers of non-foundation members. This state of things lasted till the French Revolution swept away the whole university system of the middle ages. It may be remarked that the famous Sorbonne was really the most celebrated college of Parisfounded by Robert de Sorbonne circa 1257but as this college and the college of Navarre were the only college foundations which provided for students in theology, the close connexion of the former with the faculty and the use of its hall
Apart from the broad differences in their organization, the very conception of learning, it will be observed, was different Paris and at Bologna from what it was at Paris. In the former Bologna it was entirely professionaldesigned, that is to say, con- to prepare the student for a definite and practical masted. career in after life; in the latter it was sought to provide a general mental training, and to attract the learner to studies which were speculative rather than practical. In the sequel, the less mercenary spirit in which Paris cultivated knowledge added immensely to her influence and reputation, which about the middle of the 14th century may be said to have reached their apogee. It had forty colleges, governed either by secular or religious communities, and numbered among its students representatives of every country in Europe (Jourdain, Excursions historiques, c. xiv.). The university became known as the great school where theology was studied in its most scientific spirit; and the decisions of its great doctors upon those abstruse questions which absorbed so much of the highest intellectual activity of the middle ages were regarded as almost final. The popes themselves, although averse from Papal theological controversies, deemed it expedient to cultivate friendly relations with a centre of such im- policy. portance for the purpose of securing their influence in a yet wider field. Down therefore to the time of the great schism (1378), they at once conciliated the university of Paris and consulted what they deemed to be the interests of the Roman see, by discouraging the creation of faculties of theology elsewhere. The apparent exceptions to this policy are easily explained: the four faculties of theology which they sanctioned in ItalyPisa (1343), Florence (1349), Bologna (1362) and Padua (1363)were designed to benefit the Italian monasteries, by saving the monks the expense and dangers of a long journey beyond the Alps; while that at Toulouse (1229) took its rise under circumstances entirely exceptional, being designed as a bulwark against the heresy of the Albigenses. The popes, on the other hand, favoured the creation of new faculties of law, and especially of the canon law, as the latter represented the source from which Rome derived her most warmly contested powers and prerogatives. The effects of this twofold policy were sufficiently intelligible: the withholding of each charter which it was sought to obtain for a new school of theology only served to augment the numbers that flocked to Paris; the bestowal of each new charter for a faculty of law served in like manner to divert a certain proportionate number from Bologna. These facts enable us to understand how it is that, in the 13th and 14th centuries, we find, even in France, a larger number of universities created after the model of Bologna than after that of Paris. In their earliest stage, however, the importance of these new institutions was but imperfectly discerned alike by the civil and the ecclesiastical power, and the first four universities of Italy, after Bologna, rose into existence, like Bologna itself, without a charter from either pope or emperor. Of these the first were those of Reggio nell' Emilia and Modena, both of which are to be found mentioned as schools of civil law before the close of the 12th century. The latter, throughout the 13th century, appears to have been resorted to Reggio by teachers of sufficient eminence to form a flourish- and ing school, composed of students not only from the Modena. city itself, but also from a considerable distance. Both of them would seem to have been formed independently of Bologna, but the university of Vicenza was probably Vicenza. the outcome of a migration of the students from the former city, which took place in the year 1204. During the next fifty years Vicenza attained to considerable prosperity, and appears to have been recognized by Innocent III.; its students were divided into four nations, each with its own rector; and in 1264 it included in its professoriate teachers, not only of the civil law, but also of medicine, grammar and dialectic. The university of Padua was unquestion- padae. ably the direct result of the migration in 1222 of a considerable number of' students from Bologna. Some writers, indeed, have inferred that the " studium " in the latter city was transferred in its entirety, but the continued residence of a certain proportion in Bologna is proved by the fact that two years later we find them appealing to Honorius III. in a dispute with the civic authorities. In the year 1228 the students of Padua were compelled by circumstances to transfer their residence to Vercelli, and the latter city guaranteed them, besides other privileges, the right to rent no less than five hundred lodging-houses at a fixed rental for a period of eight years. At first Padua was a school only of the civil and canon law; and during the oppressive tyranny of Ezzelin (123760) the university maintained its existence with some difficulty. But in the latter part of the century it incorporated the faculties of grammar, rhetoric and medicine, and became known as one of the most flourishing schools of Italy, and a great centre of the Dominicans, at that time among the most active promoters of learning. The university of Naples was founded by the emperor Frederick II. in the year 1225, as a school of theology, jurisprudence, the arts and medicinehis design being Naples. that his subjects in the kingdom of Naples should find in the capital adequate instruction in every branch of learning, and " not be compelled in the pursuit of knowledge to have recourse to foreign nations or to beg in other lands." In the year 1231, however, he decreed that the faculty of medicine should cease to exist, and that the study should be pursued nowhere in the kingdom but at Salerno. The university never attained to much eminence, and after the death of Frederick came for a time altogether to an end, but was restored The Sorbonne. in 1258 by King Manfred. In 1266 its faculty of medicine was reconstituted, and from 127274 Thomas Aquinas was one of its teachers of theology. The commencement of the uni- versity of Vercelli belongs to about the year 1228; it pro- bably included, like Naples, all the faculties, but Vercelli. would seem to have been regarded with little favour by the Roman See, and by the year 1372 had ceased to exist, although mention of colleges of law and medicine is to be found after that date. The two universities of Piacenza and Pavia stand in close connexion with each other. The Piacenza. former is noted by Denifle as the earliest in Italy which_ was founded by virtue of a papal charter (6th February 1248), although the scheme remained for a long time inoperative. At length, in the year 1398, the university was reconstituted by Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan, who in the same year caused the university of Pavia to be transferred thither. Piacenza now became the scene of a sudden but short-lived academic prosperity. We are told of no less than twenty-seven professors of the civil lawamong them the celebrated Baldus; of twenty-two professors of medicine; of professors of philosophy, astrology, grammar and rhetoric; and of lecturers on Seneca and Dante. The faculty of theology would appear, however, never to have been duly constituted, and but one lecturer in this faculty is mentioned. With the death of Galeazzo in 1402, this precarious
Pavia had been widely known as a seat of legal studies, Pavia. and more especially of the Lombard law, although the evidence is wanting which would serve to establish a direct connexion between this early school and the university which was founded there in 1361, by virtue of the charter granted by the emperor Charles IV. The new " studium " included faculties of jurisprudence, philosophy, medicine and the arts, and its students were formally taken under the imperial protection, and endowed with privileges identical with those which had been granted to Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Orleans and Montpellier; but its existence in Pavia was suddenly suspended by the removal, above noted, of its students to Piacenza. It shared again in the decline which overtook the university of Piacenza after the death of Giovanni Galeazzo, and during the period from 1404 to 1412 it altogether ceased to exist. But in October 1412 the lectures were recommenced, and the university entered upon the most brilliant period of its existence. Its professors throughout the 15th century were men of distinguished ability, attracted by munificent salaries such as but few other universities could offer, while in the number of students who resorted thither from other countries, and more especially for the study of the civil law, Pavia had no rival in Italy but Padua. Arezzo appears to have been Areszo. known as a centre of the same study so early as 1215, and its earliest statutes are assigned to the year 1255. By that time it had become a school of arts and medicine also; but for a considerable period after it was almost entirely deserted, and is almost unmentioned until the year 1338, when it acquired new importance by the accession of several eminent jurists from Bologna. In May 1355 it received its charter as a studium generale from Charles IV. After the year 1373 the school gradually dwindled, although it did not become altogether extinct until about the year 1470. The university of Rome (which is to be carefully distinguished from the Rome. school attached to the Curia) owed its foundation (1303) to Boniface VIII., and was especially designed by that pontiff for the benefit of the poor foreign students sojourning in the capital. It originally included all the faculties; but in 1318 John XXII. decreed that it should possess the power of conferring degrees only in tl}e canon and civil law. The university maintained its existence throughout the period of the residence of the popes of Avignon, and under the patron-age of Leo X. could boast in 1514 of no less than eighty professors. This imposing array would seem, however, to be but afallacious test of the prosperity of the academic community, for it is stated that many of the professors, owing to the imperfect manner in which they were protected in their privileges, were in the receipt of such insufficient fees that they were compelled to combine other employments with that of lecturing in order to support themselves. An appeal addressed to Leo X. in the year 1513 represents the number of students as so small as to be sometimes exceeded by that of the lecturers (" ut quandoque plures sint qui legant quam qui audiant "). Scarcely any of the universities in Italy in the 14th century attracted a larger concourse than that of Perugia, Perugia. where the study chiefly cultivated was that of the civil law. The university received its charter as a studium generale from Clement V. in the year 1308, but had already in 1306 been formally recognized by the civic authorities, by whom it was commended to the special care and protection of the podesta. In common with the rest of the Italian universities, it suffered severely from the great plague of 134849 but in 1355 it received new privileges from the emperor, and in 1362 its first college, dedicated to Gregory the Great, was founded by the bishop of Perugia. The university of Treviso, which received its charter from Frederick Treviso. the Fair in 1318, was of little celebrity and but short duration. The circumstances of the rise of the university of Florence. Florence are unknown, but the earliest evidence of academic instruction belongs to the year 1320. The dispersion of the university of Bologna, in the March and April of the following year, afforded a favourable opportunity for the creation of a studium generale, but the necessary measures were taken somewhat tardily, and in the meantime the. greater number of the Bolognese students had betaken themselves to Siena, where for the space of three years twenty-two professors gathered round them a body of enthusiastic students. Eventually the majority returned to Bologna, and when in 1338 that city was placed under an interdict by Benedict XII. another exodus of students repaired to Pisa, which in 1343 received from Clement VI. its charter as a studium generate. Closed in 1406, Pisa, aided by the powerful intervention of Lorenzo de' Medici, reopened in 1473, to undergo, however, a long series of vicissitudes which at last found a termination in 1850, when its fortunes were placed on a more stable basis, and it gradually acquired the reputation of ranking among the foremost universities of a reunited Italy. The charter of foundation for Florence, on the other hand, was not granted until May 31, 1349, when Clement VI. decreed that there should be instituted a studium generale in theology, jurisprudence, medicine and every other recognized faculty of learning, the teachers to be professors who had obtained the degree of doctor or master either at Bologna or Paris, or " some other studium generate of celebrity." On the and of January 1364 the university also obtained the grant of imperial privileges from Charles IV. On 14th February 1388 it adopted a body of statutes which are still extant, and afford an interesting study in connexion with the university history of the period. The university now entered upon that brilliant period in its history which was destined to so summary an extinction. " It is almost touching," says Denifle, " to note how untiringly Florence exerted her-self at this period to attract as teachers to her schools the great masters of the sciences and learning." In the year 1472, however, it was decided that Florence was not a convenient seat for a university, and its students joined the throngs which repaired to the reopened halls of Pisa. A special interest attaches to the rise of the university of Siena, Siena. as that of one which had made good its position prior to becoming recognized either by emperor or pope. Its be-ginning dates from about the year 1241, but its charter was first granted by the emperor Charles IV., at the petition of the citizens, in the year 1357. It was founded as a studium generate in jurisprudence, the arts and medicine. The imperial charter was confirmed by Gregory XII. in 1408, and the various bulls relating to the university which he subsequently issued afford a good illustration of the conditions of academic life in these times. Residence on the part of the students appears to have been sometimes dispensed with. The bishop of Siena was nominated chancellor of the university, just as, says the bull, he had been appointed to that office by the imperial authority. The graduates were to be admitted to the same privileges as those of Bologna or Paris; and a faculty of theology was added to the curriculum of studies. The uni-Ferrara. versity of Ferrara owes its foundation to the house of EsteAlberto, marquess of Este, having obtained from Boniface IX. in 1391 a charter couched in terms precisely similar to those of the charter for Pisa. In the first half of the 15th century the university was adorned by the presence of several distinguished humanists, but its fortunes were singularly chequered, and it would appear for a certain period to have been altogether extinct. It was, however, restored, and be-came in the latter part of the century one of the most celebrated of the universities of Italy. In the year 1474 its circle of studies comprised all the existing faculties, and it numbered no less than fifty-one professors or lecturers. In later times Ferrara has been noted chiefly as a school of medicine. Of the universities modelled on that of Paris, Oxford would appear to have been the earliest, and the manner of its develop-Oxford. ment was probably similar. Certain schools, opened within the precincts of the dissolved nunnery of St Frideswyde and of Oseney abbey, are supposed to have been the nucleus round which the university grew up. In the year 1133 one Robert Pullen, a theologian of considerable eminence (but whether an Englishman or a Breton is uncertain), arrived from Paris and delivered lectures on the Bible. It has been maintained, on the authority of Gervase of Canterbury, that Vacarius, a native of Lombardy, who, in the latter half of the 12th century, incurred the displeasure of King Stephen by lecturing in England on the civil law, delivered lectures at Oxford. H. S. Denifle, however (Die Enlstehung der Universitdten, p. 241), maintains that the naming of Oxford is a gratuitous assumption on the part of Gervase, and that we have, at best, only presumptive evidence of a studium generale there in the 12th century. Of this, Mr Rashdall inclines to find the beginning in a migration of English students from Paris about 1167 or 1168. In the first-mentioned year we are told by John of Salisbury that " France, the mildest and most civil of nations," has " expelled her foreign scholars " (Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. Robertson, vi. pp. 235-36). At about the same time we hear of an edict of Henry II., during the quarrel with Becket, recalling all clerks holding benefices in England (as they loved their benefices), and forbidding all clerks in England to cross the Channel (ibid. i. pp. 53-54). The arch-bishop himself remarks that " The king wills that all scholars shall be compelled to return to their country or be deprived of their benefices " (ibid. vii. p. 146). Paris was at this time the great place of higher education for English students. No English school was a recognized studium generale. Immediately after 1168 allusions to Oxford as a studium and a studium generale begin to multiply. The natural inference is that the breaking off of relations between England and Paris in 1167 or 1168 led to the growth of a studium generale in Oxford, formed no doubt in the first instance of seceders from Paris. In the 13th century mention first occurs of university " chests," especially the Frideswyde chest, which were benefactions de-signed as funds for the assistance of poor students. Halls, or places of licensed residence for students, also began to be established. In the year 12J7, when the bishop of Lincoln, as diocesan, had trenched too closely on the liberties of the community, the deputies from Oxford, when preferring their appeal to the king at St Albans, could venture to speak of the university as " schola secunda ecclesiae," or second only to Paris. Its numbers about this time were probably some three thousand; but it was essentially a fluctuating body, and when-ever plague or tumult led to a temporary dispersion a serious diminution in its numerical strength generally ensued for some time after. Against such vicissitudes the foundation of colleges proved the most effectual remedy. Of these the threeearliest were University College, founded in 1249 by William of Durham; Balliol College, founded about 1263 by John Balliol, the father of the king of Scotland of the same name; and Merton College, founded in 1264. The last-named is especially notable as associated with a new conception of university education, namely, that of collegiate discipline for the secular clergy, instead of for any one of the religious orders, for whose sole benefit all similar foundations had hitherto been designed. The statutes given to the society by Walter de Merton are not less noteworthy, as characterized not only by breadth of conception, but also by a careful and discriminating attention to detail, which led to their adoption as the model for later colleges, not only at Oxford but at Cambridge. Of the service rendered by these foundations to the university at large we have significant proof in the fact that, although representing only a small numerical minority in the academic community at large, their members soon obtained a considerable preponderance in the administration of affairs. The university of Cambridge, although it rose into existence somewhat later than Oxford, may reasonably be held to have had its origin in the same century. There was probably a certain amount of educational work carried on by the canons of the church of St Giles, which gradually developed into the instruction belonging to a regular studium. In the year 1112 the canons crossed the river and took up their residence in the new priory in Barnwell, and their work of instruction acquired additional importance. In 1209 a body of students migrated thither from Oxford. Then, as early as the year 1224, the Franciscans established them-selves in the town, and, somewhat less than half a century later, were followed by the Dominicans. At both the English universities, as at Paris, the Mendicants and other religious orders were admitted to degrees, a privilege which, until the year 1337, was extended to them at no other university. Their interest in and influence at these three centres was consequently proportionably great. In the years 1231 and 1233 certain royal and papal letters afford satisfactory proof that by that time the university of Cambridge was already an organized body with a chancellor at its heada dignitary appointed by the bishop of Ely for the express purpose of granting degrees and governing the studium. In 1229 and 1231 the numbers were largely augmented by migrations from Paris and from Oxford. Cambridge, however, in its turn suffered from emigration; while in the year 1261, and again in 1381, the records of the university were wantonly burnt by the townsmen. Throughout the 13th century, indeed, the university was still only a very slightly and imperfectly organized community. Its endowments were of the most slender kind; it had no systematic code for the government of its members; the supervision of the students was very imperfectly provided for. Although both' Oxford and Cambridge were modelled on Paris, their higher faculties never developed the same distinct organization; and while the two proctors at Cambridge originally represented " north " and " south," the " nations " are scarcely to be discerned. An important step in the direction of discipline was, however, made in the year 1276, when an ordinance was passed requiring that every one who claimed to be recognized as a scholar should have a fixed master within fifteen days after his entry into the university. The traditional constitution of the English universities was in its origin an imitation of the Parisian chancellor, modified by the absence of the cathedral chancellor. As Oxford was not in the 12th century a bishop's see, the bishop (in 1214, if not earlier) appointed a chancellor for the express purpose of granting degrees and governing the studium. But he was from the first elected by the masters, and early obtained recognition as the head of the university as well as the representative of the bishop. The procuratores (originally also rectores) remained representatives of the faculty of arts and (there being at Oxford no deans) of the whole university. But the feature which most served to give permanence and cohesion to the entire community was, as at Oxford, the institution of colleges. The earliest of these was Peterhouse, first founded as a separate Cam-bridge. institution by Hugh Balsham, bishop of Ely, in the year 1284, its earliest extant code being that given in 1344 by Simon de Montacute, which was little more than a transcript of that drawn up by Walter de Merton for his scholars at Oxford. In 1323 was founded Michaelhouse, and two years later, in 1326, Edward II. instituted his foundation of " king's scholars," afterwards forming the community of King's Hall
Returning to France, or rather to the territory included within the boundaries of modern France, we find Montpellier a recognized school of medical science as early as the 12th century. William VIII., lord of Montpellier, in the year 1181 proclaimed it a school of free resort, where any teacher of medical science, from whatever country, might give instruction. Before the end of the century it pos- sessed also a faculty of jurisprudence, a branch of learning for which it afterwards became famed. The university of medicine and that of law continued, however, to be totally distinct bodies with different constitutions. Petrarch was sent by his father to Montpellier to study the civil law. On 26th October 1289 Montpellier was raised by Nicholas IV. to the rank of a " studium generale," a mark of favour which, in a region where papal influence was so potent, resulted in a considerable accession of prosperity. The university also now included a faculty of arts; and there is satisfactory evidence of the existence of a faculty of theology before the close of the 14th century, although not formally recognized by the pope before the year 1421. In the course of the same century several colleges for poor students were also founded. The university of Toulouse is to be Toulouse. noted as the first founded in any country by virtue of a papal charter. It took its rise in the efforts of Rome for the suppression of the Albigensian heresy, and its foundation formed one of the articles of the conditions of peace imposed by Louis IX. on Count Raymond of Toulouse. In the year 1233 it first acquired its full privileges as a " studium generale " by virtue of a charter given by Gregory IX. This pontiff watched over the university with especial solicitude, and through his exertions it soon became noted as a centre of that Dominican teaching which involved the ,extermination of the Catharists. As a school of arts, jurisprudence and medicine, although faculties of each existed, it never attained to any reputation. The university of Orleans had a virtual existence orleaas. as a studium generale as early as the first half of the 13th century, but in the year 1305 Clement V. endowed it with new privileges, and gave its teachers permission to form themselves into a corporation. The schools of the city had an existence long prioras early, it is said, as the 6th centuryand subsequently supplied the nucleus for the foundation of a university at Blois; but of this university no records are extant .2 Aula denoting the building which the " college " of scholars was to inhabit; the society continued to retain this designation in order to distinguish it from Trinity College, founded in 1546. ' See Ch. Desmaze, L' Universitk de Paris (1200-1875).Orleans, in its organization, was modelled mainly on Paris, but its studies were complementary rather than in rivalry to the older university. The absorbing character of the study of the civil law, and the mercenary spirit in which it was pursued, had led the authorities at Paris to refuse to recognize it as a faculty. The study found a home at Orleans, where it was cultivated with an energy which attracted numerous students. In January 1235 we find the bishop of Orleans soliciting the advice of Gregory IX. as to the expediency of countenancing a study which was prohibited in Paris. Gregory decided that the lectures might be continued; but he ordered that no beneficed ecclesiastic should be allowed to devote himself to so eminently secular a branch of learning., Orleans subsequently incorporated a faculty of arts, but its reputation from this period was always that of a school of legal studies, and in the 14th century its reputation in this respect was surpassed by no other university in Europe. Prior to the x3th century it had been famed for its classical learning; and Angers, which received its charter at the same time, also once enjoyed a like reputation, which, in a similar manner, it exchanged Angers. for that of a school for civilians and canonists. The roll of the university forwarded in 1378 to Clement VII. contains the names of 8 professors utriusque juris, 2 of civil and 2 of canon law, 72 licentiates, 284 bachelors of both the legal, faculties, and 190 scholars. The university of Avignon was first recognized as a " studium generale " by Boniface VIII. Avignon. in the year 1303, with power to grant degrees in jurisprudence, arts and medicine. Its numbers declined somewhat during the residence of the popes, owing to the counter-attractions of the "studium " attached to the Curia; but after the return of the papal court to Rome it became one of the most frequented universities in France, and possessed at one time no less than seven colleges. The university of Cahors enjoyed the advantage of being regarded with especial favour by catrors. John XXII. In June 1332 he conferred upon it privileges identical with those already granted to the university of Toulouse. In the following October, again following the precedent established at Toulouse, he appointed the scholasticus of the cathedral chancellor of the university. In November of the same year a bull, couched in terms almost identical with those of the Magna Charta of Paris, assimilated the constitution of Cahors to that of the oldest university. The two schools in France which, down to the close of the 14th century, most closely resembled Paris were Orleans and Cahors. The civil immunities and privileges of the latter university were not, however, acquired until the year 1367, when Edward III. of England, in his capacity as duke of Aquitaine, not only exempted the scholars from the payment of all taxes and imposts, but bestowed upon them the peculiar privilege known as privilegi m fore. Cahors also received a licence for faculties of theology and medicine, but, like Orleans, it was chiefly known as a school of jurisprudence. It was as a " studium generale " in the same three faculties that Grenoble, in the year 1339, Grenoble. received its charter from Benedict XII. The university never attained to much importance, and its annals are for the most part involved in obscurity. At the commencement of the 16th century it had ceased altogether to exist, was reorganized by Francis of Bourbon in 1542, and in 1565 was united to the university of Valence. The university of Perpignan, perP18-founded, according to Denifle, in 1379 by Clement VII. nan, (although tradition had previously ascribed its origin Orange. to Pedro IV. of Aragon), and that of Orange, founded in 1365 by, Charles IV., were universities only by name and constitution, their names rarely appearing in contemporary chronicles, while their very existence becomes at times a matter for reasonable doubt. To some of the earlier Spanish universitiessuch as Palencia, founded about the year 1214 by Alphonso VIII.; Huesca, founded in 1354 by Pedro IV.; and Lerida, founded palenda, in 1300 by James II.the same description is applic- Huesca, able; and their insignificance is probably indicated by Lerida. the fact that they entirely failed to attract foreign students. Mont-pellet. Valladolid, which received its charter from Pope Clement VI. in 1346, attained, however, to great celebrity; and the foreign teachers and students frequenting the university became so numerous that in 1373 King Enriquez II. caused an enactment to be passed for securing to them the same privileges as those already accorded to the native element. But the total number of the students in 1403 was only 116, and grammar and logic, along with jurisprudence (which was the principal study), constituted the sole curriculum. In 1418, however, at the council of Constance, Martin V. not only decreed that Valladolid should take rank as a stadium generale, but also as a " universitas theologiae," and that the new faculty should possess the same privileges as those of the same faculty in Paris. From this time accordingly the advance of the university in numbers was steady and continuous throughout the 15th century, and, along with Salamanca, it served as the model alcaa for Alcala in 1499. The university which rose on the banks of the Henares andbecame famous under the direction of the eminent Ximenes, was removed in 1623 to Madrid; and for the next century and a half the foremost place among the universities of Spain must be assigned to Salamanca, to which Seville, in the south, stood in the relation of a kind of subsidiary school, having been founded in 1254 by Alphonso the Wise, Seville simply for the study of Latin and of the Semitic and sea- languages, especially Arabic. Salamanca had been manca. founded in 1243 by Ferdinand III. of Castile as a studium generale in the three faculties of jurisprudence, the arts and medicine. The king also extended his special protection to the students, granting them numerous privileges and immunities. Under his son Alphonso (above named) the university acquired a further development, and eventually included all the faculties save that of theology. But the main stress of its activity, as was the case with all the earlier Spanish universities until the beginning of the 15th century, was laid on the civil and the canon law. The provision for the payment of its professors was, however, at first so inadequate and precarious
The one university possessed by Portugal had its seat in medieval times alternately in Lisbon and in Coimbra, until, in the year 1537, it was permanently attached to the latter city. Its formal foundation took place in 1309, when it received from King Diniz a charter, the provisions of which were mainly taken from those of the charter given to Salamanca. In 1772 the university was entirely reconstituted. Of the universities included in the present Austrian empire, Prague, which existed as a " studium " in the 13th century, was Prague. the earliest. It was at first frequented mainly by students from Styria and Austria, countries at that time ruled by the emperor Charles IV., who was also' king of Bohemia, and at whose request Pope Clement VI., on the 26th of January 1347, promulgated a bull authorizing the foundation of a " studium generale " in all the faculties. In the following year Charles himself issued a charter for the foundation. This document, which, if original in character, would have been of much interest, has but few distinctive features of its own, its provisions being throughout adapted from those contained in the charters given by Frederick II. for the university of Naples and by Conrad for Salernoalmost the only important feature of difference being that Charles bestows on the students of Prague all the civilprivileges and immunities which were enjoyed by the teachers of Paris and Bologna. Charles had himself been a student in Paris, and the organization of his new foundation was modelled on that university, a like division into four " nations " (although with different names) constituting one of the most marked features of imitation. The numerous studentsand none of the medieval universities attracted in their earlier history a larger concoursewere drawn frdm a gradually widening area, which at length included, not only all parts of Germany, but also England, France, Lombardy, Hungary and Poland. Contemporary writers, with the exaggeration characteristic of medieval credulity, even speak of thirty thousand students as present in the university at one timea statement for which Denifle pro-poses to substitute two thousand as a more probable estimate. It is certain, however, that Prague, prior to the foundation of Leipzig, was one of the most frequented centres of learning in Europe, and Paris suffered a considerable diminution in her numbers owing to the counter-attractions of the great studium of Slavonia. The university of Cracow in Poland was founded in May 1364, by virtue of a charter given by King Casimir the Great, who bestowed on it the same privileges as those possessed by the universities of Bologna and Padua. In the Cracow. following September Urban V., in consideration of the remoteness of the city from other centres of education, constituted it a " studium generale " in all the faculties save that of theology. It is, however, doubtful whether these designs were carried into actual realization, for it is certain that, for a long time after the death of Casimir, there was no university whatever. Its real commencement must accordingly be considered to belong to the year 1400, when it was reconstituted, and the papal sanction was given for the incorporation of a faculty of theology. From this time its growth and prosperity were continuous; and with the year 1416 it had so far acquired a European reputation as to venture upon forwarding an expression of its views in connexion with the deliberations of the council of Constance. Towards the close of the 15th century the university is said to have been in high repute as a school of both astronomical and humanistic studies. The Avignonese popes appear to have regarded the establishment of new faculties of theology with especial jealousy; and when, in 1364, Duke Rudolph IV. founded the university of Vienna, with the design of constituting it a " studium Vienna, generale " in all the faculties, Urban V. refused his asssent to the foundation of a theological school. Owing to the sudden death of Duke Rudolph, the university languished for the next twenty years, but after the accession of Duke Albert III., who may be regarded as its real founder, it acquired additional privileges, and its prosperity became marked and continuous. Like Prague, Vienna was for a long time distinguished by the comparatively little attention bestowed by its teachers on the study of the civil law. No country in the 14th century was looked upon with greater disfavour at Rome than Hungary. It was stigmatized as the land of heresy and schism. When, accordingly, in 1367 King Louis applied to Urban V. for his sanction of the scheme of founding a university at Fiinfkirchen, Urban would not Fiint-consent to the foundation of a faculty of theology, kirchen. although theological learning was in special need of encouragement in those regions; the pontiff even made it a condition of his sanction for a studium generale that King Louis should first undertake to provide for the payment of the professors. We hear but little concerning the university after its foundation, and it is doubtful whether it survived for any length of time the close of the century. " The extreme east of civilized continental Europe in medieval times," observes Denifle, " can be compared, so far as university education is concerned, only with the extreme west and the extreme south. In Hungary, as in Portugal and in Naples, there was constant fluctuation, but the west and the south, although troubled by yet greater commotions than Hungary, bore better fruit. Among all the countries possessed of universities in medieval Valladolid. Coimbra. times, Hungary occupies the lowest placea state of affairs of which, however, the proximity of the Turk must be looked upon as a main cause." . The university of Heidelberg (the oldest of those of the German realm) received its charter (October 23, 1385) from Heide!. Urban VI. as a "studium generale " in all the re- berg cognized faculties save that of the civil lawthe form and substance of the document being almost identical with those of the charter granted to Vienna. It was granted at the request of the elector palatine, Rupert I., who conferred on the teachers and students, at the same time, the same civil privileges as those which belonged to the university of Paris. In this case the functionary invested with the power of bestowing degrees was non-resident, the licences being conferred by the provost of the cathedral at Worms. But the real founder, as he was also the organizer and teacher, of the university was Marsilius of Inghen, to whose ability and energy Heidelberg was indebted for no little of its early reputation and success. The omission of the civil law from the studies licensed in the original charter would seem to show that the pontiff's compliance with the elector's request was merely formal, and Heidelberg, like Cologne, included the civil law among its faculties almost from its first creation. No medieval university achieved a more rapid and permanent success. Regarded with favour alike by the civil and ecclesiastical potentates, its early annals were singularly free from crises like those which characterize the history of many of the medieval universities. The number of those admitted to degrees from the commencement of the first session (19th October 1386 to 16th December 1387) amounted to 5791 Owing to the labours of the Dominicans, Cologne had gained a reputation as a seat of learning long before the founding of Cologne. its university; and it was through the advocacy of some leading members of the Mendicant orders that, at the desire of the city council, its charter as a " studium generale " (21st May 1388) was obtained from Urban VI. It was organized on the model of the university of Paris, as a school of theology and canon law, and " any other recognized faculty "the civil law being incorporated as a faculty soon after the promulgation of the charter. In common with the other early ' universities of GermanyPrague, Vienna and HeidelbergCologne owed nothing to imperial patronage, while it would appear to have been, from the first, the object of special favour with Rome. This circumstance serves to account for its distinctly ultramontane sympathies in medieval times and even far into the 16th century. In a report transmitted to Gregory XIIL in 1577, the university expressly derives both its first origin and its privileges from the Holy See, and professes to owe no allegiance save to the Roman pontiff. erfure. Erfurt, no less noted as a centre of Franciscan than was Cologne of Dominican influence, received its charter (16th September 1379) from the anti-pope Clement VII. as a " studium generale " in all the faculties. Ten years later (4th May 1389) it was founded afresh by Urban VI., without any recognition of the act of his pretended predecessor. In the 15th century the number of its students was larger than that at any other German universitya fact attributable partly to the reputation it had acquired as a school of jurisprudence, and partly to the ardour with which the nominalist and realist controversies of the time were debated in its midst; its readiness in according a hearing to novel theories causing it to be known as novorum omnium portus. The collegiate system is to be noted as a feature common to all these early German universities; and, in nearly all, the professors were partly remunerated by the appropriation of certain prebends, appertaining to some neighbouring church, to their maintenance. During the first half of the 15th century the relations of the Roman pontiffs to the universities continued much the se me, although the independent attitude assumed by the deputies 1 The statistics of Hautz (Gesch. d. Univ. Heidelberg, L177178) are corrected by Denifle (Die Entstehung der Universitdten, p. 385).of those bodies at the great councils of Constance and Basel, and especially by those from Paris, could not fail to give rise to apprehensions. The papal bulls for each new founda- Relations tion begin to indicate a certain jealousy with respect to of the the appropriation of prebends by the founders. Where popes to such appropriations are recognized, and more particu- the untlarly in France, a formal sanction of the transfer gener- ally finds a place in the bull authorizing the foundation; but sometimes the founder or founders are themselves enjoined to provide the endowments requisite for the establishment and support of the university. In this manner the control of ,the pontiff over each newly created seat of learning assumed a more real character, from the fact that his assent was accompanied by conditions which rendered it no longer a mere formality. The imperial intervention, on the other hand, was rarely invoked in GermanyGreifswald, Freiburg and Tubingen being the only instances in which the emperor's confirmation of the foundation was solicited? The inadequacy of the traditional studies to meet the growing wants of civilization, and the consequent lack of sympathy on the part of each civic population in which a new studium was founded, now become frequently apparent. Of such conditions the fortunes of the studium at Wurzburg in Bavariafounded in 1402 by a bishop, with a charter WLr`-burg. bestowed by Boniface IX.illustrate the dangers. The students belonged chiefly to the faculties of law and theology, and the frequency of their conflicts with the citizens made it necessary before ten years had elapsed to close the university, which was not reopened until 1582. Under the patronage of the prince Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, however, it soon became largely frequented by Catholic students. At the present time, under the patronage of the house of Wittelsbach, it is widely famed as a school of medicine. In Turin the university founded in 1412 ,by the counts of Savoy had to be refounded in 1431. The efforts of Parma in the 14th century to raise itself by papal aid to the dignity of a university proved altogether abortive, and it was not until 1422 that, under the protection of the dukes of Milan, its object was attained. In Sicily, Catania, the earliest of its high schools, was created a university by Alphonso CR~fa' of Aragon in 1445. Five years later Barcelona Barce- received from Pope Nicholas V. the same privileges as tons. Toulouse had obtained from Gregory IX. Among the Spanish universities, however, none has had a more chequered history, although now taking rank with foremost. In Hungary, Mathias Corvinus obtained from Paul II. in 1465 permission to found a general studium where he thought best within his realmsa latitude of choice conceded probably in consequence of the dangers which menaced the kingdom alike from Bohemia and from the Turks; while the Budapest. fact that the university at Ofen (Hungarian Buda) was not actually founded until some ten years later, may have been owing to the resolute stand made by the youthful monarch against the claims to nominate bishops put forward not only by Pope Paul but by his successor Sixtus IV. (1471-84). After a series of eventful experiences, the university of Budapest remains, at the present time, almost exclusively Magyar. It has a school of law at Pressburg, which is all that remains of the university there founded by Mathias Corvinus in 1465. In northern Germany and in the Netherlands, on the other hand, the growing wealth and prosperity of the different states especially favoured the formation of new centres of Foundalearning. In the flourishing duchy of Brabant the tion of university of Louvain (1426) was to a great extent Louvain. controlled by the municipality; and their patronage, although ultimately attended with detrimental results, long enabled Louvain to outbid all the other universities of Europe in the munificence with which she rewarded her professors. In the course of the next century the " Belgian Athens," as she is styled by Lipsius, ranked second only to Paris in numbers and reputation. In its numerous separate foundations and general 2 Meiners, Gesch. d. hohen Schulen, i. 370. organizationit possessed no less than twenty-eight colleges it closely resembled the English universities; while its active press afforded facilities to the author and the controversialist of which both Cambridge and Oxford were at that time almost destitute. It embraced all the faculties, and no degrees in Europe stood so high as guarantees of general acquirements. Erasmus records it as a common saying, that " no one could graduate at Louvain without knowledge, manners and age." Sir William Hamilton speaks of the examination at Louvain for a degree in arts as " the best example upon record of the true mode of such examination, and, until recent times, in fact, the only example in the history of universities worthy of consideration at all." He has translated from Vernulaeus the order and method of this examination.' In 1788 the faculties of jurisprudence, medicine and philosophy were removed to Brussels, and in 1797 the French suspended the university altogether. In Germany the conditions under which the new centres were created reflect and illustrate the history of the country in a Leipzig. remarkable manner. Those connected with the rise of the university of Leipzig are especially noteworthy, it having been the result of the migration of almost the entire German element from the university of Prague. This element comprised (1) Bavarians, (2) Saxons, (3) Poles (this last-named division being drawn from a wide area, which included Meissen, Lusatia, Silesia and Prussia), and, being represented by three votes in the assemblies of the university, while the Bohemians possessed but one, had acquired a preponderance in the direction of affairs which the latter could no longer submit to. Religious differences, again, evoked mainly by the preaching of John Huss, further intensified the existing disagreements; and eventually, in the year 1409, King Wenceslaus, at the prayer of his Bohemian subjects, issued a decree which exactly reversed the previous' distribution of votes,three votes being assigned to the Bohemian nation and only one to all the rest. The Germans took deep umbrage, and seceded to Leipzig, where, a bull having been obtained from Alexander V. (September 9, 1409), a new " studium generale " was founded by the landgrave of Thuringia and the margraves of Meissen. The members were divided into four nationscomposed of natives of Meissen,Saxony,Bavaria and Poland. Two colleges were founded, a greater and a smaller, but designed, not for poor students, but for masters of artstwelve being admitted on the former and eight on the latter foundation. At Rostock, in the north, the dukes John and Albert of Mecklenburg conceived the design of founding a university Rostock. from which the faculty of theology should be excluded. Pope Martin V., to whom they applied for his sanction, was scarcely in a position to refuse it, absorbed as he was with the pacification of Italy, the consolidation of his own temporal power, and the restoration of his almost ruinous capital. The university was accordingly founded as proposed in 1419; but in 1431 Eugenius IV. instituted a faculty of theology, and two colleges were founded with the same design and on the same scale as at Leipzig. Six years later the whole academic community having incurred the papal ban was fain to migrate to Greifswald, returning, however, to Rostock in 1443, but with one important exception, that of a master of arts named Henry Rubenow, who remained to become burgomaster of the former city, and succeeded in persuading Duke Wratislaw of Pommern to make it the seat of a university. Calixtus III. granted a bull in 1456, but it was stipulated that the rector should be a bishop, and the professorial chairs were also made partially dependent for endowment on canonries. Greifswald thus became exposed to the full brunt of the struggle which had ensued when the endeavour to nationalize the German church was terminated by the Concordat of Vienna (1448). Of its original statutes only those of the arts faculty are extant. The universities of Freiburg in Baden and Tubingen in Wurttemberg, on the other hand, reflect the sympathies of Freiburg. the Catholic party under the Austrian rule. They alike owed their foundation to the countess Matilda, by whose persuasion her husband, the archduke of Austria, ' Dissertations and Discussions, Append. iii. known as Albrecht VI., was induced to found Freiburg in 1455, and Count Eberhard (her son by a former marriage) to found Tubingen in 1477. The first session at Freiburg opened auspiciously in 1460 under the supervision of its rector, Matthew Hummel of Villingen, an accomplished and learned man, and its numbers were soon largely augmented by migrations of students from Vienna and from Heidelberg, while its resources, which originally were chiefly an annual grant from the city council, were increased by the bestowal of canonries and prebends in the neighbouring parishes. Erasmus had made Freiburg his residence from 1529 to 1535, during which time he may have originated a tradition of liberal learning, but in 1620, under the rule of the archduke Maximilian, the control of the Humanistic studies and of the entire faculty of philosophy was handed over to the Jesuits, who also gained possession of two of the chairs of theology. Although Strassburg since 1872 has been able to offer considerable counter-attractions, Freiburg has held her own, and numbers over 160o students. The university of Tubingen was founded in 1477 with four faculties those of theology, law, medicine and the artsand numbered scholars such as John Reuchlin and Melanchthon Tubingen. among its teachers; while in the last century it was famous both for its school of medicine and that of theology (see TUBINGEN). Its general condition in the year 1541-1542, and the sources whence its revenues were derived, have been illustrated by Hoffmann in a short paper which shows the fluctuating nature of the resources of a university in the 16th centuryliable to be affected as they were both by the seasons and the markets.2 The earliest 15th-century university in France was that of Aix in Provence. It had originally been nothing more than a school of theology and law, but in 1409 it was re-organized under the direction of the local count as a re- Aix studium generale on the model of Paris. The sphere of its activity is indicated by the fact that the students were divided into Burgundians, Provencals and Catalans. The next foundation, that of Poitiers, had a wider signi- poHiers. ficance as illustrating the struggle that was going on between the French crown and the Roman see. It was instituted by Charles VII. in 1431, almost immediately after his accession, with the special design of creating a centre of learning less favourable to English interests than Paris had at that time shown herself to be. Eugenius IV. could not refuse his sanction to the scheme, but he endeavoured partially to defeat Charles's design by conferring on the new " studium generale simply the same privileges as those possessed by Toulouse, and thus placing it at a disadvantage in comparison with Paris. Charles rejoined by an extraordinary exercise of his own prerogative, conferring on Poitiers all the privileges collectively possessed by Paris, Toulouse, Montpellier, Angers and Orleans, and at the same time placing the university under special royal protection. The foundation of the university of Caen, in the diocese of Bayeux, was attended by conditions almost exactly the reverse of those which belonged to the foundation of that at Poitiers. It was founded under Caen. English auspices during the short period of the supremacy of the English arms in Normandy in the 15th century. Its charter (May 1437) was given by Eugenius IV., and the bishop of Bayeux was appointed its chancellor. The university of Paris had by this time completely forfeited the favour of Eugenius by its attitude at the council of Basel, and Eugenius inserted in the charter for Caen a clause of an entirely novel character, requiring all those admitted to degrees to take an oath of fidelity to the see of Rome, and to bind themselves to attempt nothing prejudicial to her interests. To this proviso the famous Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges was Charles's rejoinder in the following year. On the 18th of May 1442 we find King Henry VI. writing to Eugenius, and dwelling with satisfaction on the rapid progress of the new university, to which, he says, students had flocked from all quarters, and were still daily 2 Okonomischer Zustand der Universitat Tubingen gegen die Mille des r6ten Jahrhunderts (1845). Creiiswaid. arriving.' Ten years later, when the English had been expelled, its charter was given afresh by Charles in terms which left the original charter unrecognized; both teachers and learners were subject to the civil authorities of the city, and all privileges made previously conferred in cases of legal disputes were abolished. From this time the university of Caen was distinguished by its loyal spirit and firm resistance to ultramontane pretensions; and, although swept away at the French Revolution, it was afterwards restored, owing to the sense of the services it had Bordeaux, thus once rendered to the national cause.2 No especi-Valence, ally notable circumstances characterize the foundation Nantes. of the university of Bordeaux (1441) or that of Valence (1452), but that of Nantes, which received its charter from Pius II. in 1463, is distinguished by the fact that it did not receive the ratification of the king of France, and the conditions under which its earlier traditions were formed thus closely resemble those of Poitiers. It seems also to have been regarded with particular favour by Pius II., a pontiff who was at once a ripe scholar and a writer upon education. He gave to Nantes a notable body of privileges, which not only represent an embodiment of all the various privileges granted to universities prior to that date, but afterwards became, with their copious and somewhat tautological phraseology, the accepted model for the great majority of university charters, whether issued by the pope or by the emperor, or by the civil authority. The bishop of Nantes was appointed head of the university, and was charged with the special protection of its privileges Bourges, against all interference from whatever quarter .3 The bull for the foundation of the university of Bourges was given in 1465 by Paul II. at the request of Louis XI. and his brother. It confers on the community the same privileges as those enjoyed by the other universities of France. The royal sanction was given at the petition of the citizens; but, from reasons which do not appear, they deemed it necessary further to petition that their charter might also be registered and enrolled by the parlement of Paris. Founded about the same time, and probably in a spirit of direct rivalry to Freiburg, the university of Basel was opened Basel. in 146o under the auspices of its own citizens. The cathedral school in that ancient city, together with others attached to the monasteries, afforded a sufficient nucleus for a studium, and Pius II., who, as Aeneas Sylvius, had been a resident in the city, was easily prevailed upon to grant the charter (November 12, 1459). During the first seventy years of its existence the university prospered, and its chairs were held by eminent professors, among them historical scholars, such as Sebastian Brant and Jacob Wimpheling. But with the Reformation, Basel became the arena of contests which menaced the very existence of the university itself, the professors being, for the most part, opposed to the new movement with which the burghers warmly sympathized. Eventually, the statutes were revised, and in the latter half of the 16th century the university may be said to have attained its apogee. Before he had signed the bull for the foundation of the university of Basel, Pope Pius, at the request of Duke William of Bavaria, had issued another bull for the foundation of a university at Ingol- stadt (7th April 1459). But it was not until 1472 Ingot- stadt. that the work of teaching was actually commenced stadt there. Some long-existing prebends, founded by former dukes of Bavaria, were appropriated to the endowment, and the chairs in the different faculties were distributed as follows: theology 2, jurisprudence 3, medicine 1, arts 6 arts in conjunction with theology thus obtaining the preponderance. As at Caen, twenty-two years before, an oath of fidelity to the Roman pontiff was imposed on every student admitted to a degree.' That this proviso was not subsequently 1 Bekynton's Correspondence, i. 123. ' De la Rue, Essais hist. sur la Dille de Caen, ii. 137-140. ' Meiners i. 368. Paulsen, in speaking of this proviso as one " die weder vorher noch nachher sonst vorkommt,' would consequently seem to be not quite accurate. See Die Grandung der deutschen Universitaten, p. 277.abolished, as at Caen, is a feature in the history of the university of Ingolstadt which was attended by important results. No-where did the Reformation meet with more stubborn resistance, and it was at Ingolstadt that the Counter-Reformation was commenced. In 1556 the Jesuits made their first settlement in the university. The next two universities took their rise in the archiepiscopal seats of Treves and Mainz. That at Treves received its charter as early as 1450; but the first academical session did not Treves. commence until 1473. Here the ecclesiastical influences appear to have been unfavourable to the project. The arch-bishop demanded 2000 florins as the price of his sanction. The cathedral chapter threw difficulties in the way of the appropriation of certain livings and canonries to the university endowment; and so obstinate was their resistance that in 1655 they succeeded in altogether rescinding the gift on payment of a very inadequate sum. It was not until 1722 that the assembly of deputies, by a formal grant, relieved the university from the difficulties in which it had become involved. The university of Mainz, on the other hand, was almost entirely indebted to the archbishop Diether for its foundation. It was at his petition that Sixtus IV. granted the charter, 23rd November 1476; and Diether, being himself an enthusiastic humanist, thereupon circulated a letter, couched in elegant Latinity, addressed to students throughout his diocese, inviting them to repair to the new centre, and dilating on the advantages of academic studies and of learning. The rise of these two universities, however, neither of which attained to much distinction, represents little more than the incorporation of certain already existing institutions into a homogeneous whole, the power of conferring degrees being superadded. Nearly contemporaneous with these foundations were those of Upsala (1477) and Copenhagen (1479), which, 'although lying without the political boundaries of Germany, Upsaia reflected her influence. The charter for Copenhagen and was given by Sixtus IV. as early as 1475. The copen- students attracted to this new centre were mainly hagen. from within the radius of the university of Cologne, and its statutes were little more than a transcript of those of the latter foundation. The electorates of Wittenberg and Brandenburg were now the only two considerable German territories which did not possess a "studium generale," and the university founded at Wittenberg by Maximilian I. (6th July 1502) is notable as the first established in Germany by virtue of an imperial as distinguished from a papal decree. Its charter is, however, drawn up with the traditional phraseology of the pontifical bulls, and is evidently not conceived in any spirit of antagonism to Rome. Wittenberg is constituted a " studium generale " in all the four facultiesthe right to confer degrees in theology and canon law having been sanctioned by the papal legate some months before, on the 2nd of February 1502. The endowment of the university with church revenues duly received the papal sanctiona bull of Alexander VI. authorizing the appropriation of twelve canonries attached to the castle church, as well as of eleven prebends in outlying districtsut sic per omnem modum unum corpus ex studio et collegio prcedictis fiat et constituatur. No university in Germany attracted to itself a larger share of the attention of Europe at its commencement. And it was its distinguishing merit that it was the first academic centre north of the Alps where the antiquated methods and barbarous Latinity of the scholastic era were overthrown. prank_ The last university founded in Germany prior to the sort-on-Reformation was that of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. The the-wen design, first conceived by the elector John of Brandenburg, was carried into execution by his son Joachim, at whose request Pope Julius II. issued 'a bull for the foundation, 15th March 1506. An imperial charter, identical in its contents with the papal bull, followed on the 26th of October. The university received an endowment of canonries and livings similar to that of Wittenberg, and some houses in the city were assigned for its use by the elector. Mainz. Witten-berg. The first university in Scotland was that of St Andrews, founded in 1411 by Henry Wardlaw, bishop of that see, and st modelled chiefly on the constitution of the university Andrews. of Paris. It acquired all its three collegesSt - Salvator's, St Leonard's and St Mary'sbefore the Reformationthe first having been founded in 1456 by Bishop James Kennedy; the second in 1512 by the youthful Arch-bishop Alexander Stuart (natural son of James IV.), and John Hepburn, the prior of the monastery of St Andrews; and the third, also in 1512, by the Beatons, who in the year 1537 procured a bull from Pope Paul III. dedicating the college to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Assumption, and adding further endowments. The most ancient of the universities of Scotland, with its three colleges, was thus reared in an atmosphere of medieval theology, and undoubtedly designed as a bulwark against heresy and schism. But " by a strange irony of fate," it has been observed, " two of these colleges became, almost from the first, the foremost agents in working the overthrow of that church which they were founded to defend." St Leonard's more especially, like St John's or Queens' at Cam-bridge, became a noted centre of intellectual life and Reformation principles. That he " had drunk at St Leonard's well " became a current expression for implying that a theologian had imbibed the doctrines of Protestantism. The university of Glasgow. Glasgow was founded as a " studium generale " in 1453, and possessed two colleges. Prior to the Reformation it acquired but little celebrity; its discipline was lax, and the number of the students but small, while the instruction was not only inefficient but irregularly given; no funds were provided for the maintenance of regular lectures in the higher faculties; and there was no adequate executive power for the maintenance of discipline. The university of Aberdeen, which was founded in 1494, at first possessed only one college, Aberdeen. namely, King's, which was coextensive with the university and conferred degrees. Marischal College, founded in 1593 by George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal, was constituted by its founder independent of the university in Old Aberdeen, being itself also a college and a university, with the power of conferring degrees. Bishop Elphinstone , the founder both of the university and of King's College (1505), had been educated at Glasgow, and had subsequently both studied and taught at Paris and at Orleans. To the wider experience which he had thus gained we may probably attribute the fact that the constitution of the university of Aberdeen was free from the glaring defects which then characterized that of the university of Glasgow.' But in all the medieval universities of Germany, England and Scotland, modelled as they were on a common type, the absence of adequate discipline was, in a greater or less degree, a common defect. In connexion with this feature we may note the comparatively small percentage of matriculated students proceeding to the degree of B.A. and M.A. when compared with later times. Of this disparity the table on next Degrees column, exhibiting the relative numbers in the unitaken at versity of Leipzig for every ten years from the year Leipzig. 1427 to 1552, probably affords a fair average illustrationthe remarkable fluctuations probably depending quite as much upon the comparative healthiness of the period (in respect of freedom from epidemic) and the abundance of the harvests as upon any other cause.The German universities in these times seem to have admitted for the most part their inferiority in learning to older and more favoured centres; and their consciousness of the fact is aspectof shown by the efforts which they made to attract in- aerman structors from Italy, and by the frequent resort of the medieval more ambitious students to schools like Paris, Bologna, waver- Padua and Pavia. That the took their rise in any they S spirit of systematic opposition to the Roman see (as Meiners and others have contended), or that their organization was something external to and independent of the church, is an assertion somewhat qualified by the foregoing evidence. Generally speaking, they were eminently conservative bodies, 1 Fasti 4herdonenses. Pref. p. xvi. 761 Matricu- Percentage of Years. lations. Years. B.A. M.A. B.A's. -, M.A's. 1427-1430 737 1429-1432 151 28 20.4 3.8 1437-1440 715 1439-1442 199 50 27.8 6.9 1447-1450 8o8 1449-1452 274 (50) 33.9 1457-1460 1,447 1459-1462 559 81 38.6 5.6 1467-1470 1,137 1469-1472 410 61 36.o 5.4 1477-1480 1,163 1479-1482 458 49 39.4 4.2 1487-1490 1,858 1489-1492 714 62 38.4 3.4 1497-1500 1,288 1499-1502 497 59 38.5 4.6 15071510 1,948 15091512 510 65 26.1 3.4 15171520 1,445 1519-1522 247 35 17.0 2.4 1527-1530 419 1529-1532 77 33 18.4 7.9 1537-1540 686 1539-1542 122 27 17.8 3.9 1547-1550 1,318 1549-1552 200 72 15.2 5.5 14,969 4418 672 29.5 4.5 High reputation of Italian profes- sors. and the new learning of the humanists and the new methods of instruction that now began to demand attention were alike for a long period unable to gain admission within academic circles. Reformers such as Hegius, John Wessel and Rudolphus Agricola carried on their work at places like Deventer remote from university influences. That there was a considerable amount of mental activity going on in the universities themselves is not to be denied; but it was mostly of that unprofitable kind which, while giving rise to endless controversy, turned upon questions in connexion with which the implied postulates and the terminology employed rendered all scientific investigation hopeless. At almost every universityLeipzig, Greifswald and Prague (after 1409) being the principal exceptionsthe so-called Realists and Nominalists represented two great parties occupied with an internecine struggle. At Paris, owing to the overwhelming strength of the theologians, the Nominalists were indeed under a kind of ban; but at Heidelberg they had altogether expelled their antagonists. It was much the same at Vienna and at Erfurt the latter, from the ready reception which it gave to new speculation, being styled by its enemies " novorum omnium portus." At Basel, under the leadership of the eminent Johannes a Lapide, the Realists with difficulty maintained their ground. Freiburg, Tubingen and Ingolstadt, in the hope of diminishing controversy, arrived at a kind of compromise, each party having its own professor, and representing a distinct " nation." At Mainz the authorities adopted a manual
In Italy, almost without exception, it was decided that these controversies were endless and that their effects were pernicious. It was resolved, accordingly, to expel logic, and allow Abandon-its place to be filled by rhetoric. It was by virtue of meat of this decision, which was of a tacit rather than a formal logical character, that the expounders of the new learning in studies the 15th centurymen like Emmanuel Chrysoloras, in Italy. Guarino, Leonardo Bruni, Bessarion, Argyropulos and Vallacarried into effect that important revolution in academic studies which constitutes a new era in university learning, and largely helped to pave the way for the Reformation? This discouragement of the controversial spirit, continued as it was in relation to theological questions after the Reformation, obtained for the Italian universities a fortunate immunity from dissensions like those which, as we shall shortly see, distracted the centres of learning in Germany. The professorial body also attained to an almost unrivalled reputation. It was exceptionally select, only those who were in receipt of salaries being permitted, as a rule, to lecture; it was also famed for its ability, the institution of con- current chairs proving an excellent stimulus. These chairs were of two kinds" ordinary " and " extraordinary "the former being the more liberally endowed and fewer in number. For each subject of importance there were thus always two and sometimes three rival chairs, and a powerful and continuous emulation was thus maintained among the teachers. " From 2 For an excellent account of this movement, see Georg Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums (2nd ed., 2 vols., 188o). the integrity of their patrons, and the lofty standard by which they were judged," says Sir W. Hamilton, " the call to a Paduan or Pisan chair was deemed the highest of all literary honours. The status of professor was in Italy elevated to a dignity which in other countries it has never reached; and not a few of the most illustrious teachers in the Italian seminaries were of the proudest |
