493 



UNIVERSITIES. 



UNIVERSITIES. 



494 



The oldest authentic document bearing upon the University of 

 Bologna is the privilege granted by the emperor Frederic I., at Ron- 

 caglia, in November, 1158. to all who travel in pursuit of learning, in 

 which the professors of law are mentioned in terms of high encomium. 

 Bologna is not named in this instrument, but history mentions no 

 other law-school as existing at that early period. The contents of this 

 privilege are twofold ; foreign scholars are declared to stand under the 

 emperor's immediate protection, and a special jurisdiction (their 

 teachers, or the bishop of the city) is constituted to judge in all com- 

 plaints against them. It seems universally admitted that the earliest 

 teacher of civil law at Bologna was Irnerius : he is said to have been 

 originally a teacher of philosophy, but to have acquired such a know- 

 ledge ef Justinian's compilations that he was invited by the Countess 

 Matilda to expound its doctrines from the professorial chair. Matilda 

 died in 1115 : between 1113 and 1115 the name of Irnerius appears 

 in a legal document as " causidicus" for the countess. From 1116 to 

 1118 he appears to have been employed in weighty missions by the 

 emperor Henry V. Under the emperor Frederic " the four doctors" 

 of Bologna were selected to investigate the rights of the crown, in 

 order to determine how far those claimed by the Lombard towns were 

 usurpations. These circumstances show that the reputation for legal 

 knowledge acquired by the law-teachers of Bologna had proved an 

 introduction to state employments, honours, and emoluments ; and 

 this attracted to the city in which they taught a large concourse of the 

 most intelligent and aspiring minds of Europe. The reputation of 

 having studied at Bologna was a passport to office throughout Christen- 

 dom. The earliest statutes and charters of the University of Bologna 

 are compacts entered into by the students for mutual support and 

 assistance, and immunities granted them by the popes and emperors. 

 The University of Paris was originally an association of teachers : it 

 was a corporation of graduates. The University of Bologna was 

 originally an association of students who had repaired from distant 

 loads to avail themselves of the instruction of a few celebrated 

 teachers : it was a corporation of students. Disputes between the 

 ' rates of the city, and between the students and professors, 

 which occurred about 1214, are the first occasions on which we hear 

 of a rector. From the history of these controversies it appears that 

 the students had previously been in the habit of electing the rector, 

 and that the right was confirmed to them for the future. At first 

 there wai merely a school of law in Bologna, and the jurists consti- 

 tuted the university, or rather the two universities of the Citramon- 

 tani and Ultramontani. In course of time teachers of philosophy and 

 medicine settled in Bologna, and the scholars of each class attempted 

 to form a university : their right to do so was successfully contested 

 by the jurists in 1295, bub in 1310 they were allowed to elect a rector 

 of their own. They called themselves " philosophi et medici," or 

 "artistac." In 1382 Innocent VI. founded a school of theology at 

 Bologna. From this time therefore there were four universities in 

 Bologna : two of law (which, however, were so intimately connected, 

 that they are generally spoken of as one), one of medicine and philo- 

 sophy, and one of theology. Each of these had its own independent 

 constitution. That of the law university is best known, and agrees in 

 its leading features with the others. The " universities" consisted of 

 the foreign students, who were admitted upon the payment of twelve 

 soldi entry-money, and obliged to renew annually their oath of 

 ence to the rector and the statutes of the university. The Bolognese 

 students could neither hold offices in the university nor vote in its 

 assemblies The foreign students were divided into Citramoutuii 

 and I'ltramontani : the former were divided into seventeen nations, 

 the latter into eighteen. The rector was chosen annually from among 

 the students by his predecessor in office, the rector's council, and a 

 number of electors chosen by the nations. A rector was taken from 

 each nation in rotation. The council consisted of at least one repre- 

 sentative of each nation : some had two. The university also elected 

 annually a syndic, to act for them in courts of law ; a notary ; a mas- 

 sarius, or treasurer (chosen from among the town bankers) ; and two 

 bidelli. The rector claimed exclusive jurisdiction in all civil cases in 

 which one or both of the parties were students, and in criminal cases 

 in which both were students. The professors were elected by the 

 students, to whose body they were reckoned, and all whose privileges 

 they enjoyed, except a vote at elections. They stood under the juris- 

 diction of the rector, who could fine or suspend them. The degree of 

 Doctor was conferred by those who had previously obtained it : it was 

 held to confer the privilege of teaching everywhere, the power of 

 discipline over the doctor's own pupils, the right to take part in the 

 conferring of all the degrees. At first there were only doctors of civil 

 Inw : the doctors of canon law appear later, and were long less 

 respected. In the 13th century the university began to create doctors 

 of medicine, of grammar, of philosophy and arts, and even of the 

 notarial art. Any student who had studied five years might be 

 licensed by the rector to expound a single title, or, if he had studied 

 six years, to expound a whole book of the Pandects. He was termed 

 > licentiate ; and after he had performed hi task, he was declared a 

 baccalaureus. Salaried professors appear in Bologna for the first time 

 about 1279. The doctors taught in their own houses or in halls hired 

 for the purpose : their method of tuition was by lectures, examina- 

 tions, and disputations. 



The history of_the University of Salerno ja much more obscure than 



the histories of the Universities of Paris and Bologna. Ordericus 

 Vitalis, whose annals close with the year 1141, speaks of Salerno as a 

 place long eminent for its medical schools. Its most celebrated 

 teacher, Constantino of Carthage (died 1087), was a privy councillor of 

 Louis Guiscard. This school was still flourishing in 1224, when the 

 University of Naples was established. All that can be inferred from 

 these scanty notices of the school of Salerno is, that the scientific 

 study of medicine was making rapid strides about the same time that 

 law began to be more systematically studied, and philosophical and- 

 literary pursuits to be regarded as the profession of a class whose 

 members might or might not be priests. [SALEENITANA SOHOLA, in 

 BIOG. Dtv.] 



A sense of the advantages of general knowledge had led to the 

 foundation of cathedral and cloister schools ; a sense of the use of 

 accomplished professional men led to the encouragement of the philo- 

 sophical and theological schools of Paris, the law school of Bologna, 

 and the medical school of Salerno. The peculiar constitution of society 

 and government at the period led to the peculiar form of incorporation 

 adopted by the schools of Paris and Bologna. The same social neces- 

 sities were working under the influence of similar social organisation 

 in many different places, and must necessarily have led, even without 

 communication, to similar results. But quarrels which broke out 

 repeatedly between the universities of Paris and Bologna and the civil 

 authorities of these cities, induced the teachers and students at 

 different times to emigrate in a body and settle in other towns. After 

 the breach was healed, they returned ; but m some instances celebrated 

 teachers preferred remaining in their new place of settlement, and in 

 others the government created a new university after their temporary 

 visitors had left them. Other universities owed their foundation to 

 the desire of princes, ecclesiastics, or municipal authorities to dissemi- 

 nate learning ; and others to a desire on the part of these authorities 

 to procure for their territories a share in the wealth diffused by the 

 resort of numerous foreigners to any celebrated school. Under the 

 influence of motives so various, the growth of universities throughout 

 Europe was rapid. Before the Reformation they were established in 

 many of the principal cities of Italy, France, the Germanic Empire, 

 the Peninsula, Great Britain, and even among the Slavonic nations 

 east of the Germans. In Great Britain the dates of foundation 

 were: Oxford, before 1149; Cambridge, uncertain; St. Andrews, 

 1412 ; Glasgow, 1454 ; Aberdeen, 1494 ; Edinburgh, 1582 ; and Dublin, 

 1591, are of subsequent foundation. 



In all of these institutions we recognise the leading features of 

 Paris or Bologna. All of them, apart from the consideration of 

 their academic character, were privileged corporations, with an 

 independent jurisdiction more or less limited, and the power of 

 making bye-laws. In most of them the division of the members of 

 the corporation into nations prevailed. In all of them the faculties of 

 philosophy (or arts), theology, law (civil and canon), and medicine were 

 more or less fully developed. Some contained within them all the 

 faculties ; some only two or more. Almost all had a faculty of arts, 

 which, even where it was politically the most powerful (as in the uni- 

 versity of Paris), was regarded as in a great measure preparatory to, 

 and therefore in its scientific character inferior to the others. In the 

 universities of spontaneous growth the privilege of conferring degrees 

 appears to have been claimed only in those faculties which were com- 

 pletely organised; in the factitious universities created by g..vn-n- 

 inents the right of bestowing degrees in all faculties appears to havo 

 been claimed, even where some of them only were completely 

 organised. In some of these bodies the students constituted the 

 corporation ; in others, the masters or teachers : the former appear to 

 have assimilated themselves to the model-university of Bologna ; the 

 latter, to that of Paris. The Italian universities, and the greater part, 

 if not all, of the French universities, except Paris, were corporations of 

 students. The Parisiau institutions were adopted in England, the 

 Germanic Empire, and the states on the Baltic. Spanish universities 

 have the appearance of being a compromise between the two principles : 

 in Salamanca the rector was elected by the scholasticus of the cathe- 

 dral from among the students, and the rector appointed the professors 

 and fixed their salaries. This division of the old universities into two 

 classes appears, like everything about those institutions, to have liad 

 its origin in the social necessities of the time and countries. This 

 legal faculty predominated iu the Italian universities, and the French 

 universities were called " university's des loix." The universities of 

 this type will be found to predominate in those countries in which the 

 Roman law prevailed, as contradistinguished from Teutonic Germany 

 and England, and the " pays coutumiers " of France in the countries 

 in which the old Roman civilisation had never been entirely extirpated, 

 as contradistinguished from those in which the Teutonic invaders 

 formed the majority of the population. In the f firmer there wn--. a 

 civilisation apart from the church ; in the latter there was no civili- 

 sation but what came through the church. In the former a 

 secular and independent spirit prevailed : the universities were 

 incorporations of grown men seeking secular learning. In the latter 

 a spirit of clerical domination prevailed : the universities were 

 corporations of teachers seeking to exercise the functions of 

 missionaries. 



The universities founded after the beginning of the Reformation 

 adopted the great outlines of the organisation of their predecessors : 



