99 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Universities
of the thirteenth century, when it seemed necessary to furnish a corporate counterbalance of teachers to the increased strength of the university students. Since, however, the teachers were chosen by the students, who paid them in cooperation with the city magistracy, they were so far from being independent that the rector scholariwm was also rector studii and subjected even the professors to his jurisdiction. In the early fourteenth century the students of arts (including medicine) formed a third university alongside the other two; and when, in 1360, Innocent VI. founded a studium generale in theologia, the masters of theology formed a corporation, their students joining the university of arts.
Parallel with, and in imitation of Paris, the University of Oxford developed with the twelfth century, its peculiarity being that its chancellor, as the
representative of the bishop, was anal-
4. Early ogous to the chancellor at Paris, and
‘“‘ General ”’ also exercised the functions of the rec- Schools. tor. The chief “ general schools” up to the middle of the thirteenth century were Reggio, Modena, Vicenza, Padua, and Vercelli in Italy, and Orléans and Angers in France, all primarily legal schools, the Church itself being a great legal institution. Cambridge, like its parent Oxford, possessed all four faculties. Medical schools were developed at Salerno and Montpellier, the latter also adding in the thirteenth century faculties of arts and law. Another group of universities was designedly founded, on the model of Paris or Bologna, by the pope or the secular prince, or both together; in this class belonged the institutions at Palencia, Salamanca, and Lisbon-Coimbra. These universities, which were national rather than international, numbered thirteen at the close of the Middle Ages.
Italy took the lead in the establishment of universities, but with the exception of Naples (founded with four faculties by Frederick II. in 1224) and Rome (established for theology and law by Innocent IV. in 1224-45), all owed their origin to the economic and political needs of the municipalities. They were devoted first to law and then to medicine, and during this period numbered twenty. In France Toulouse was the first university to be founded on the model of Paris (1229), and its establishment by the pope led to the theory that no university could be founded without the sanction of the pope or of his secular coregent, the head of the Holy Roman Empire. Toulouse was followed in the fourteenth century by Avignon, Cahors, Grénoble, and Orange, and by eight others in the succeeding century. The history of German universities begins with the foundation of the university of Prague by Charles IV. in 1348, followed by those of Vienna (1365), Heidelberg (1386), Cologne (1388), and Erfurt (1392). In 1402 Bishop John of Egloffstein founded the University of Wurzburg, but it did not outlive him, being permanently reestablished by Prince-bishop Julius in 1582; and in 1409 the landgraves of Thuringia founded the University of Leipsic, while Rostock was established in 1419. Outside the bounds of Germany Prague and Vienna inspired the kings of Poland and Hun-
gary to found the less successful universities of Cracow, Fiinfkirchen, and Ofen-Pest, while the Netherlands received their first university in Louvain in 1425. A second period of founding universities in Germany began in the fifteenth century, inspired by the solicitude of princes anxious to render their power supreme through the introduction of Roman law rather than by love of learning. To this category belong Greifswald (1456), Freiburg (1457), Basel (1460), Ingolstadt and Treves (1472), and Tubingen and Mainz (1477). The last medieval universities founded in Germany were those of Wittenberg (1502), and Frankfort-on-the-Oder (1506). Outside Germany, universities were founded at Upsala in 1477 and at Copenhagen in 1478, at St. Andrews in 1413, Glasgow in 1450, and Aberdeen in 1494. The German universities were governed by the masters of the four faculties, each faculty being headed by a dean, and the entire uni- 5. Organ- versity by a rector who was originally
ization. elected by all the masters and scholars, but later by the “‘ governing masters ”’ alone. The offices rotated semiannually. Only
the fourteenth-century universities had ‘‘ nations,”’ which included masters as well as scholars; but the ‘‘ nations’”’ disappeared in the fifteenth century, though still retaining a formal existence at Leipsic until 1830. The universities were impossible without generous foundations, their income often being derived from the incorporation of a collegiate church; the theologians and jurists were generally ecclesiastical prebendaries. The staff of teachers was not large; two to four theologians, three to six jurists, two physicians, and twenty to thirty teachers of the arts. Lectures and residence alike were had in the ‘ colleges,” or university buildings, whenever possible; and besides the salaried, or “‘ governing,’ masters, there were unsalaried teachers, some of them seeking the experience required for further promotion, others waiting for a salaried appointment.
Public lectures were delivered by the salaried masters, while in the colleges and halls the salaried (public) and unsalaried (private) teachers combined for private instruction, this being either the training of the younger scholars for the lectures, or the
repetition of lectures previously de- 6. Instruc- livered publicly. Theological lectures tion and were based on the “ Sentences” of
Degrees. Peter the Lombard, juristic on the
Corpus juris, medical on Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, and arts on Aristotle. The lectures were supplemented by public and private disputations. These were required weekly from the faculty of arts, while the teachers in the higher faculties were also bound to dispute in turn. Public inaugural disputations were required from the candidates for degrees. The whole course of instruction was shaped to give proficiency in teaching, and hence arose the degrees of “‘ master” and “ doctor,” the former preferred in France and the latter in Italy. ‘‘ Master’ was also synonymous with the later “ professor.”” The German universities accepted both titles, though “‘ master’ was finally restricted to the faculty of arts. After the
Universities