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UNIVERSITIES
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UNIVERSITIES
.1 The See also:medieval Latin See also:term universitas (from which the See also:English word " university " is derived) was originally employed to denote any community or See also:corporation regarded under its collective aspect
.
When used in its See also:modern sense, as denoting a See also:body devoted to learning and See also:education, it required the addition of other words in See also:order to See also:complete the See also:definition—the most frequent See also:form of expression being " universitas magistrorum et scholarium " (or " discipulorum ")
.
In the course of See also:time, probably towards the latter See also:part of the 14th See also: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 See also:civil or ecclesiastical authority or by both
.
But the more See also: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 See also:official documents
.
It is necessary, however, to See also:bear in mind, on the one See also:hand, that a university often had a vigorous virtual existence See also:long before it obtained that legal recognition which entitled it, technically, to take See also: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 See also:stage of development, appears to have been simply a scholastic gild—a spontaneous See also:combination, that is to say, of teachers or scholars, or of both combined, and formed probably on the See also:analogy of the trades See also:gilds, and the gilds of aliens in See also:foreign cities, which, in the course of the r3th and 14th centuries, are to be found springing up in most of the See also:great See also:European centres
.
The See also:design of these organizations, in the first instance, was little more than that of securing mutual See also:protection—for the craftsman, in the pursuit of his See also:special calling; for the See also:alien, as lacking the rights and privileges inherited by the See also: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 See also:extortion of the townsmen and the other annoyances incident in medieval times to See also:residence in a foreign See also:state
.
It was a first stage of development in connexion with these See also:primary organizations, when the See also:chancellor of the See also:cathedral, or some other authority, began, as we shall shortly see, to See also:accord to other masters permission to open other See also:schools than the cathedral school in the neighbourhood of his See also:
In the See also:north of Europe such licences were granted by the Chancellor Scholasticus, or some other officer of a cathedral Meaning church; in the See also:south it is probable that the gilds of of masters (when these came to be formed) were at first "studium See also:free to See also:
The word Origin of universitas was originally applied only to the scholastic the term gild (or gilds) within the studium, and was at first not "univer- used absolutely; the phrase was always universitas
See also:sky... magistrorum, or scholarium or magistrorum et scholarium
.
By the See also:close of the medieval See also:period, however, the distinction between the terms studium generate and universitas was more or less lost sight of, and in See also: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 See also:account, not only of their organization, but also
See also:empire, which had down to that time kept alive the traditions of See also:pagan education, had been almost entirely swept away by the barbaric invasions
.
The latter century marks the period when the institutions which supplied their See also:place—the episcopal schools attached to the cathedrals and the monastic schools—attained to their highest degree of See also: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 See also:secular theory of the schools of paganism
.
The cathedral school taught only what was supposed to be necessary for the education of the See also:priest; the monastic school taught only what was supposed to be in See also:harmony with the aims of the See also:
On the whole, however, a clearly traced, although imperfectly continuous, See also:succession of distinguished teachers has inclined the See also:majority of those who have studied this obscure period to conclude that a certain tradition of learning, handed down from the famous school over which Alcuin presided at the great See also:abbey of St See also: 145 . 4 Puccinotti, Storia della Medicina, i . 317-26 . See also: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 See also:Bagdad a considerable collection of Greek See also:manuscripts, which seems to have given the earliest impulse to the study of the Hellenic pagan literature by the See also: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 See also:West . Of the existence of such versions we have See also:evidence, according to Jourdain,1 long See also:prior to the time when See also:Constantine the See also:African (d . 1087) began to deliver his lectures on the See also: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 See also:catholic spirit, and, at a time when See also:Jews were the See also:object of religious persecution throughout Europe, members of this See also: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 See also:kingdom of Naples . The great revival of legal studies which took place at Bologna about the See also:year r000 had also been preceded"by a corresponding activity elsewhere—at See also:Pavia by a famous school of Bologna . Lombard See also:law, and at See also:Ravenna by a yet more important school of Roman law . And in Bologna itself we have evidence that the See also:Digest was known and studied before the time of See also:Irnerius (11oo-3o), a certain Pepo being named as lecturing on the text about the year 1076 . The traditional See also:story about the " See also:discovery " of the See also:Pandects at See also:Amalfi in 1135 was disproved even before the time of See also:Savigny . Schulte has shown that the publication of the Decretum of See also: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 See also:supply, and it also contributed to meet a new and pressing demand . The neighbouring states of See also:Lombardy were at this time increasing rapidly in See also:population and in See also:wealth; and the greater complexity of their See also:political relations, their growing manufactures and See also:commerce, demanded a more definite application of the principles embodied in the codes that had been handed down by See also: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 See also:appearance of the Decretum of Gratian, largely See also:corn- 1e- piled from See also: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 See also:canon now claimed to take their stand See also:side by side with law. the enactments contained in the Corpus See also:Juris See also: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 See also: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 See also:Eugenius III . (1145-53), but the statement rests on no See also:good authority, and is in every way improbable . There is, however, another tradition which is in better harmony with the known facts . When See also: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 See also: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 See also: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 (See also: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 See also:security and freedom of the teacher and the taught, has been far from proving an unmixed benefit—the influence which the civil See also:power has thus been able to exert being too often wielded for the suppression of that very See also: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 See also: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 See also:absolute See also:necessity, under which residents in a foreign See also:city found themselves, of obtaining by combination that protection and those rights which they could not claim as citizens . These See also:societies were modelled, Denifle considers, not on the See also:trade gilds which rose in Bologna in the 13th century, but on the See also:Teutonic gilds which arose nearly a century earlier in north-western Europe, being essentially " spontaneous confederations of aliens on a foreign See also:soil." Originally, they did not include the native student See also: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 See also: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 See also:imitation and See also: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 See also:Italian students alone were subdivided into two—the other Tuscans and the See also:Lombards . In the centres formed by similar See also:secession from the See also:parent body a like subdivision took corn-place . At See also:Vercelli there were four universitates, corn- menities posed respectively of Italians, English, Provencals and in Italy Germans; at See also:Padua there were similar divisions into Italians, a See Savigny, Gesch. d. rom . Rechts, iii . 152, 491-92 . See also See also:Giesebrecht, Gesch. d . Kaiserzeit (ed . 1880), v . 51-52 . The story is preserved in a recently discovered metrical See also: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 . See also: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 See also: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 other—the last in order being that of the Tuscans, which was composed of students from See also:Tuscany, the Campagna and See also: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 See also:home associations of the foreign students, fostered, how-ever, by the See also:peculiar conditions of their university See also:life . As the Tuscan See also:division (the one least in sympathy, in most respects, with Teutonic institutions) was the last formed, so, Denifle conjectures, the See also: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 See also:head, the " rector schola- rium," an obvious imitation of the " rector societatum " guished from the " rector scholarum " or director of the studies, with whose See also: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 See also: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 See also: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 See also:office in some See also:department of the church or state—archdeacons, 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 See also:judgment among those on whom this discretionary power was bestowed . See also:Innocent IV., in according his See also:sanction to the new statutes of the university in 1253, refers to them as See also:drawn up by the " rectores et universitas scholarium Bononiensium." About the year 220o were formed the two faculties of medicine and See also:philosophy (or " the arts " 1) , the former being somewhat the earlier . It was See also:developed, as that of the civil law had been developed, by a succession of able teachers, among whom Thaddeus Alderottus was especially eminent . The See also:faculty of arts, down to the 14th century, scarcely attained to equal See also:eminence . The teaching of See also:theology remained for a long time exclusively in the hands of the See also:Dominicans; and it was not until the year 136o that Innocent VI. recognized Bologna as a " studium generale " in this See also:branch—in 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 See also:cardinal See also:legate, Anglicus, compiled, as chief director of ecclesiastical affairs in the city, an account Account of the university, which he presented to See also: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 See also:receipt of salaries from the See also: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 " See also: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 See also: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 See also:union of medicine and arts): the only connecting See also:link between them was the necessity of obtaining their degrees (after 1219) from the same chancellor, the See also: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 See also:house, with a certain fund for the See also:maintenance of a specified number of scholars, was all that was originally contemplated
.
Such was the character of that founded by Zoen, See also:bishop of See also:Avignon, in See also:February 1256 (O.S.), the same See also:month and year, it is to be noted, in which the See also:Sorbonne was founded in Paris
.
It was designed for the maintenance of eight scholars from the See also:province of Avignon, under the supervision of three canons of the church, maintaining themselves in the university
.
Each See also:scholar was to receive 24 Bolognese lire annually for five years
.
The college of See also:Brescia was founded in 1326 by See also:
The study origin of of See also: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. stimulus—in the first instance, from the memorable controversy between See also:Lanfranc and Berengar; in the second, from the no less famous controversy between See also:Anselm and See also:Roscellinus
.
A belief sprang up that an intelligent See also:apprehension of spiritual truth depended on a correct use of prescribed methods of argumentation
.
See also:Dialectic was looked upon as " the science of sciences"; and when, somewhere in the first See also:decade of the 12th century, William of See also:Champeaux
opened in Paris a school for the more advanced study of dialectic as an See also:art, his teaching was attended with marked success
.
Among his pupils was See also:Abelard, in whose hands the study made a yet more notable advance; so that, by the middle of the century, we find See also: Study of logic . gave place to canons See also:regular from St See also:Victor; and henceforth the school on the former See also: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 chancellor—a 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 See also:island, and it was only by degrees that they combined themselves into a society, and that special buildings were constructe |