FREIBURG
268
FREIBURG
called Glareanus, the renowned Latinist, musician, and
geographer; John Hartung, professor of Greek and
Hebrew. In the theological faculty, which usuallj'
employed three lecturers in the sixteenth century,
taught (at least for a short period) the following
eminent scholars: Geiler of Kaisersberg, one of the
university's earliest students; Johann Eck; Thomas
Murner; Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had however
never studied there, etc. The faculty of law, to which
six regular professors were assigned in the sixteenth
century, was long famous throughout Europe, tlianks
to Ulrich Zasius, the founder of modern political
science. At this period three professors constituted
the medical faculty, whose statutes had been sketchetl
by Hummel himself. As a rule the students lived
with their professors in residences or boarding-houses
(the so-called Bursen), of which there were seven at
Freiburg, including the "Alte Burse", the "Domus
Carthusiana", and the "Collegium Sapientife". The
university having attained so rapidly to renown, it
was but natural that many of its professors should
have been appointed to offices of high intellectual
importance. From Freiburg the Chapter of .Augs-
burg chose two, and Vienna three of its prince-bishops;
the Chapters of Constance, Augsburg, Basle, and
Speyer many of their suffragans, and the University of
Vienna one of its chancellors.
During the widespread confusion of the Reforma- tion period which exercised so deleterious an effect on many of the German universities, Freiburg succeeded by its judicious and cautious attitude in maintaining its ground. It is indeed a fact that several of its prp- fessors were in correspondence with Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin; that many others were suspected of favouring their innovations; that the senate itself censured Glareanus for inveighing so fiercely against Luther, Oecolampadius, and the other reformers in his lectures; still the university in general remained
true to the ancient Faith, and through its influence the
town became a bulwark of Catholicism. The imiver-
sity refused henceforth to enrol any students who had
studied in Wittenberg or Leipzig, and after 1.567 only
those who declared on oath their acceptance of the
Tridentine Confession of F^aith were admitted. To
secure a still more Catholic atmosphere. Archduke
Ferdinand invited the Jesuits in 1577 to found a
college in Freiburg, and to incorporate it in the uni-
versity. This scheme, however, aroused such ener-
getic opposition, especially from Jodocus Lorichius,
professor of theology and founder of the Collegium
Pacis {Burse zum Friedcn) that it had to be laid aside.
On 5 November, 1520, shortly after the outbreak of
the Thirty Years War, the Jesuits were introduced
into the university on the strength of a fiat of Arch-
duke Leopold in spite of the opposition of the senate,
and entrusted with the whole faculty of arts and tem-
porarily with two of the theological chairs. From the
rector.ship and quajstorship, however, they were ex-
cluded, although the cathedral pulpit was soon re-
signed into their hands. The most renowned of the
Jesuit professors at I<'reiburg was the astronomer,
Christopher Scheiner (q. v. ) , who left Freiburg finally in
1630. The frequent change of the fathers was inileed
injurious to the university, at which too many re-
mained but a very short time; thus, in the faculty of
arts alone, no fewer than 123 different Jesuits were
employed as lecturers during the 153 years preceding
the suppression of the order.
The seventeenth century, especially the Thirty Years War and the predatory wars of Louis XIV, brought the university to the brink of ruin. Almost all its fimtled property was lost, as well as a great por- tion of its income from the parishes, now sadly im- poverished by pillage and fire. The professors were frequently compelled to wait years for their stipend, and in 1648 the number of students had fallen to 46. Emperor Leopold was the first to take steps to remove the financial difficulties, but, when the town was ceded to the I'^rench by the Peace of Nimwegen (1679), the majority of the professors and students migrated to Constance. The Jesuit fathers remained and opened in 1684 astudium galliccmum vmder the patronage of Louis XIV, but it was not until some years later that the old personnel of the university could initiate academic courses in Constance. After the Peace of Ryswik (1697), the professorate returned from Con- stance to Freiburg, when the old contentions, which had so often broken out between the university and the Society of Jesus, were settled by the so-called " Viennese Transaction" of forty articles. According to this agreement, the Jesuits were stiU excluded from the rectorate, and were refused the precedence, which they had claimed; on the other hand they received the building of the "Alte Burse", which they had previ- ously occupied, as their private property, and in addi- tion an increased annual stipend, as well as all arrears of salary.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the out- look of the university was far from hopeful, and in 1713 the members were compelled to seceile once more to Constance, returning in 1715. Emperor Charles VI later increased the revenue of the university, who.se staff again included many illustrious professors — the jurists Stapf, Egermayer, Waizenegger, and Rein- hart; the physicians Blau, Strobel, and Baader; the Jesuits NicasiusGramniatici and Steinmayer — but the university never reached the educational level of the halcyon days of the sixteenth century. After the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, their college build- ings together with their church (built 1630-40) and Gytmiasium Academicum were annexed in 1777 by Empress Maria Theresa to the university. The im- portance of the Albertina waxed greater with the increasing prosperity of the country. The new cur- riculum of studies, which Maria Theresa caused to be
