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UNIVERSITIES
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French (i.e. Francigenae, comprising both English and Normans), Provençals (including Spaniards and Catalans). When, accordingly, we learn from Odofred that in the time of the eminent jurist Azo, who lectured at Bologna about 1200, the number of the students there amounted to some ten thousand, of whom the majority were foreigners, it seems reasonable to conclude that the number of these confederations of students (societates scholarium) at Bologna was yet greater. It is certain that they were not formed simultaneously, but, similarly to the free gilds, one after the other—the last in order being that of the Tuscans, which was composed of students from Tuscany, the Campagna and Rome. Nor are we, again, to look upon them as in any way the outcome of those democratic principles which found favour in Bologna, but rather as originating in the traditional home associations of the foreign students, fostered, however, by the peculiar conditions of their university life. As the Tuscan division (the one least in sympathy, in most respects, with Teutonic institutions) was the last formed, so, Denifle conjectures, the German “university” may have introduced the conception which was successively adopted by the other nationalities.

In marked resemblance to the gilds, these confederations were presided over by a common head, the “rector scholarium,” The rector. an obvious imitation of the “rector societatum” or “artium” of the gild, but to be carefully distinguished from the “rector scholarum” or director of the studies, with whose function the former officer had, at this time, nothing in common. Like the gilds, again, the different nations were represented by their “consiliarii,” a deliberative assembly with whom the rector habitually took counsel.

While recognizing the essentially democratic character of the constitution of these communities, it is to be remembered Mature age of the students. that the students, unlike the majority at Paris and later universities, were mostly at this time of mature years. As the civil law and the canon law were at first the only branches of study, the class whom they attracted were often men already filling office in some department of the church or state—archdeacons, the heads of schools, canons of cathedrals, and like functionaries forming a considerable element in the aggregate. It has been observed, indeed, that the permission accorded them by Frederick I. of choosing, in all cases of dispute, their own tribunal, thus constituting them, to a great extent, sui juris, seems to presuppose a certain maturity of judgment among those on whom this discretionary power was bestowed.

Innocent IV., in according his sanction to the new statutes of the university in 1253, refers to them as drawn up by the Formation of the universitates. “rectores et universitas scholarium Bononiensium.”

About the year 1200 were formed the two faculties of medicine and philosophy (or “the arts”[1]), the former being somewhat the earlier. It was developed, as that of the civil law had been developed, by a succession of able teachers, among whom Thaddeus Alderottus was especially eminent. The faculty of arts, down to the Faculties instituted. 14th century, scarcely attained to equal eminence. The teaching of theology remained for a long time exclusively in the hands of the Dominicans; and it was not until the year 1360 that Innocent VI. recognized Bologna as a “studium generale” in this branch—in other words, as a place of theological education for all students, with the power of conferring degrees of universal validity.

In the year 1371 the cardinal legate, Anglicus, compiled, as chief director of ecclesiastical affairs in the city, an account of the university, which he presented to Urban V. Account of the university by Anglicus. The information it supplies is, however, defective, owing to the fact that only the professors who were in receipt of salaries from the municipality are mentioned. Of these there were twelve of civil law and six of canon law; three of medicine, three of practical medicine and one of surgery; two of logic, and one each of astrology, rhetoric and notarial practice. The professors of theology, who, as members of the religious orders, received no state remuneration, are unmentioned. The significance of the term “college,” as first employed at Bologna, differed, like that of “university,” from that which it subsequently acquired. The collegia of the doctors no more connoted the idea of a place of residence than did the universitates of the students. There were the College of Doctors of Civil Law, the College of Doctors of Canon Law, the College of Doctors in Medicine and Arts and The universities at Bologna. (from 1352) the College of Doctors in Theology. Though the professors were largely dependent upon the students, they had separate organizations of their own, the college alone was concerned in the conferment of degrees. Each faculty was therefore at Bologna entirely independent of every other (except for the union of medicine and arts): the only connecting link between them was the necessity of obtaining their degrees (after 1219) from the same chancellor, the archdeacon of Bologna. The decline in the reputation of the studium from about 1250 was largely due to the successful efforts of the doctors to exclude all but Bolognese citizens from membership of the doctoral colleges (which alone possessed the valuable “right of promotion”), and from the more valuable salaried chairs. They even attempted and partially succeeded in restricting these privileges to members of their own families.

Colleges as places of residence for students existed, however, at Bologna at a very early date, but it is not until the The earliest colleges. 14th century that we find them possessing any organization; and the humble domus, as it was termed, was at first designed solely for necessitous students, not being natives of Bologna. A separate house, with a certain fund for the maintenance of a specified number of scholars, was all that was originally contemplated. Such was the character of that founded by Zoen, bishop of Avignon, in February 1256 (O.S.), the same month and year, it is to be noted, in which the Sorbonne was founded in Paris. It was designed for the maintenance of eight scholars from the province of Avignon, under the supervision of three canons of the church, maintaining themselves in the university. Each scholar was to receive 24 Bolognese lire annually for five years. The college of Brescia was founded in 1326 by William of Brescia, archdeacon of Bologna, for poor foreign students without distinction as to nationality. The Spanish college, founded in 1364, for twenty-four Spanish scholars and two chaplains, is noted by Denifle as the one college founded in medieval times which still exists on the Continent.

Of the general fact that the early universities rose in response to new wants the commencement of the university of Paris Origin of university of Paris. supplies us with a further illustration. The study of logic, which, prior to the 12th century, was founded exclusively on one or two meagre compends, received about the year 1100, on two occasions, a powerful stimulus—in the first instance, from the memorable controversy between Lanfranc and Berengar; in the second, from the no less famous controversy between Anselm and Roscellinus. A belief sprang up that an intelligent apprehension of spiritual truth depended on a correct use of prescribed methods of argumentation. Dialectic was looked upon as “the Study of logic. science of sciences”; and when, somewhere in the first decade of the 12th century, William of Champeaux opened in Paris a school for the more advanced study of dialectic as an art, his teaching was attended with marked success. Among his pupils was Abelard, in whose hands the study made a yet more notable advance; so that, by the middle of the century, we find John of Salisbury, on returning from the French capital to England, relating with astonishment, not unmingled with contempt, how all learned Paris had gone well-nigh mad in its pursuit and practice of the new dialectic.

Abelard taught in the first instance at the cathedral school at Notre Dame, and subsequently at the schools on Teaching of Abelard. the Montagne Ste Geneviève, of which he was the founder, and where he imparted to logic its new development. But in 1147 the secular canons of Ste Geneviève

  1. The arts course of study was that represented by the ancient trivium (i.e. grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (i.e. arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) as handed down from the schools of the Roman empire. See J. B. Mullinger's History of the University of Cambridge, i. 24-27.