No sooner was bishop Turnbull settled in the see, than he set about erecting
or founding a college in the city. For this purpose, a bull, at the request of
king James II., Mas procured from pope Nicholas V., constituting a university,
to continue in all time to come, in the city of Glasgow, "it being ane notable place, with gude air, and plenty of provisions for human life." The pope, by his apostolical authority, ordained that the doctors, masters, readers, and students of
the university of Glasgow, should enjoy all the privileges, liberties, honours, exemptions, and immunities, which he had granted to the city of Bononia. He likewise appointed William Turnbull, bishop of Glasgow, and his successors in that
see, chancellors of the university, and to have the same authority over the doctors, masters, readers, and scholars, as the chancellors of the university of Bononia. This bull is dated at Rome, January 7, 1450. By the care of the bishop and his chapter, a body of statutes was prepared, and a university established the following year, 1451.
The university consisted, besides the chancellor, of a rector, and masters of the four faculties, who had taken their degrees in other colleges; and students, who, after a course of study, might be promoted to academical degrees. That the classes in the university might commence with some degree of celebrity, a bull had been procured from the pope, and was now published, granting an universal indulgence to all faithful Christians, who should visit the cathedral of Glasgow in the year 1451. The first rector was David Cadzow, who was re-elected in 1452. During the first two years, upwards of a hundred members were incorporated, most of them secular or regular clergy, canons, rectors, vicars, abbots, priors, and monks. The clergy attended the university the more willingly, that the bishop had procured royal charters and acts of parliament, exempting them from all taxes and public burdens, and from their residence in their own cures. The whole incorporated members, students, as well as doctors and masters, were divided into four parts, called the Quatuor Nationes, according to the place of their nativity. The whole realm of Scotland and the isles was divided into four districts, under the names of Clydesdale, Teviotdale, Albany, and Rothsay; a meeting of the whole was annually called the day after St Crispin's day; and, being divided into four nations, each nation by itself chose a procurator and intrant, and the intrants meeting by themselves, made choice of a rector and a deputation of each nation, who were assistants and assessors to the rector. The rector and his deputation had various and important functions. They were judges in all criminal causes, wherein any member of the university was a party. Every member who either sued or answered before any other court, was guilty of perjury, and incurred the penalty of expulsion. The ecclesiastics in the university, of course, to whatever diocese they belonged, could no longer be called before their rural deans. All members were incorporated by the rector and deputation, after taking an oath to obey the rector and his successors, to observe the statutes, preserve the privileges of the university, and keep its secrets, revealing nothing to its prejudice, whatever station in society they might afterwards attain. The rector and deputies were also the council of the college. It was their business to deliberate upon, and digest all matters to be brought before the congregation of the doctors and masters, whose determinations in such cases were accounted, in respect of authority, next to the statutes. Two other office-bearers were chosen annually, on the day after St Crispin's, namely, a bursarius, who kept the university purse, and accounted for all his intromissions; and a promoter, whose business it was to see to the observation of the statutes, and to bring delinquents before the rector's court, Avhich had power to enforce the statutes, or to dispense with them, in certain cases. The second division of the university was
