552 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
treatment of the subject; is full of learning and original research, but repetitious and contentious. Denitle intended to write three more volumes. — * S. S. LACKIE : The llise and Constit. of Uni versities, etc., Camb., 1892. — G. COMPAYRE : Abelard and Origin and Early Hist, of Universities, N. Y., 1893. —*H. RASHDALL : The Universities of Europe in the M. A., 2 vols., Oxford, 1895. — P. SCHAFF : The Univ. Past, Present and Future, in Lit. and Poetry, pp. 256-278.
The university appears in Europe as an established institution in the twelfth century. It quickly became the restless centre of intellectual and literary life, the work shop of learning and scientific progress. Democratic in its constitution, it received men from every rank and sent them forth with new ideas and equipped to be the leaders of their
Origin. — The universities were a product of the medi aeval mind, to which nothing in the ancient world, in any adequate way, corresponded. They grew up on the soil of the cathedral and conventual studies, but there was no organic continuity between them and the earlier schools. They were of independent growth, coming into being in response to a demand, awakened by the changed circum stances of life and the revival of thought in Europe. No clatter and noise announced their coming, but they were developed gradually from imperfect beginnings into thor oughly organized literary corporations.
Nor were the universities the immediate creation of the Church. Church authority did not bring them into being as it did the Crusades. All that can be said is that the men who wrought at their foundations and the lower superstruc tures were ecclesiastics and that popes were wise enough early to become their patrons and, as in the case of Paris, to take the reins of their general administration into their own hands. The time had come for a specialization of studies in the departments of human knowledge, the arts, law, medi cine, and theology, which last, according to Jacob of Vitry, " alone can be called a liberal art, since it alone delivers the human soul from its woes."
The universities owed their rise to the enthusiasm of
§ 90. THE UNIVERSITIES. 553
single teachers1 whose dialectic skill and magnetism at tracted students wherever they happened to be. Bologna through Irnerius and other teachers, and Paris through a group of men, of whom Abaalard was the most prominent figure, were the centres where the university idea had its earliest and most substantial realization. These teachers satisfied and created a demand for specialization in educa tion.
Due credit must not be withheld from the guilds whose organization furnished a pattern for the university, espe cially in the case of Bologna. The university was the literary guild, representing a like-minded community of intellectual interests and workers. It is also possible that some credit must be given to Arabic influences, as in the case of the school of medicine at Salerno.
The first universities arose in Italy, the earliest of all being Salerno and Bologna. These were followed by Paris and other French universities. England came next, and then Spain. Prague was the first to embody the idea in Central Europe. The distinctively German universities do not date beyond the second half of the fourteenth century, Vienna, 1365, Erfurt, 1379, Heidelberg, 1385, Cologne, 1388. The three Scotch universities, St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, were established in the fifteenth century. That century also witnessed the birth of the far northern Univer sities of Copenhagen and Upsala. By the end of the fif teenth century there were nearly eighty of these academic institutions. Some of these passed out of existence and some never attained to more than a local celebrity.
Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Padua, Oxford, Cambridge, and other universities owed their existence to no papal or royal charter. Toulouse, 1229 and Rome, 1244 were the first to be founded by papal bulls. The University of Naples was founded by the emperor, Frederick II., 1224. The Spanish
1 " A teacher inspired by a love of teaching gathered around him a circle of scholars eager to learn. Other teachers followed, the circle of listeners increased, and thus, by a kind of inward necessity, an enduring school was founded." Savigny, XX. 58.