arriving.[1] Ten years later, when the English had been expelled, its charter was given afresh by Charles in terms which left the original charter unrecognized; both teachers and learners were subject to the civil authorities of the city, and all privileges made previously conferred in cases of legal disputes were abolished. From this time the university of Caen was distinguished by its loyal spirit and firm resistance to ultramontane pretensions; and, although swept away at the French Revolution, it was afterwards restored, owing to the sense of the services it had Bordeaux, Valence, Nantes. thus once rendered to the national cause.[2] No especially notable circumstances characterize the foundation of the university of Bordeaux (1441) or that of Valence (1452), but that of Nantes, which received its charter from Pius II. in 1463, is distinguished by the fact that it did not receive the ratification of the king of France, and the conditions under which its earlier traditions were formed thus closely resemble those of Poitiers. It seems also to have been regarded with particular favour by Pius II., a pontiff who was at once a ripe scholar and a writer upon education. He gave to Nantes a notable body of privileges, which not only represent an embodiment of all the various privileges granted to universities prior to that date, but afterwards became, with their copious and somewhat tautological phraseology, the accepted model for the great majority of university charters, whether issued by the pope or by the emperor, or by the civil authority. The bishop of Nantes was appointed head of the university, and was charged with the special protection of its privileges Bourges. against all interference from whatever quarter.[3] The bull for the foundation of the university of Bourges was given in 1465 by Paul II. at the request of Louis XI. and his brother. It confers on the community the same privileges as those enjoyed by the other universities of France. The royal sanction was given at the petition of the citizens; but, from reasons which do not appear, they deemed it necessary further to petition that their charter might also be registered and enrolled by the parlement of Paris.
Founded about the same time, and probably in a spirit of direct rivalry to Freiburg, the university of Basel was opened Basel. in 1460 under the auspices of its own citizens. The cathedral school in that ancient city, together with others attached to the monasteries, afforded a sufficient nucleus for a studium, and Pius II., who, as Aeneas Sylvius, had been a resident in the city, was easily prevailed upon to grant the charter (November 12, 1459). During the first seventy years of its existence the university prospered, and its chairs were held by eminent professors, among them historical scholars, such as Sebastian Brant and Jacob Wimpheling. But with the Reformation, Basel became the arena of contests which menaced the very existence of the university itself, the professors being, for the most part, opposed to the new movement with which the burghers warmly sympathized. Eventually, the statutes were revised, and in the latter half of the 16th century the university may be said to have attained its apogee. Before he had signed the bull for the foundation of the university of Basel, Pope Pius, at the request of Duke William of Bavaria, had issued another bull for the foundation of a university at Ingolstadt Ingolstadt. (7th April 1459). But it was not until 1472 that the work of teaching was actually commenced there. Some long-existing prebends, founded by former dukes of Bavaria, were appropriated to the endowment, and the chairs in the different faculties were distributed as follows: theology 2, jurisprudence 3, medicine 1, arts 6—arts in conjunction with theology thus obtaining the preponderance. As at Caen, twenty-two years before, an oath of fidelity to the Roman pontiff was imposed on every student admitted to a degree.[4] That this proviso was not subsequently abolished, as at Caen, is a feature in the history of the university of Ingolstadt which was attended by important results. Nowhere did the Reformation meet with more stubborn resistance, and it was at Ingolstadt that the Counter-Reformation was commenced. In 1556 the Jesuits made their first settlement in the university.
The next two universities took their rise in the archiepiscopal seats of Treves and Mainz. That at Treves received its charter Treves. as early as 1450; but the first academical session did not commence until 1473. Here the ecclesiastical influences appear to have been unfavourable to the project. The archbishop demanded 2000 florins as the price of his sanction. The cathedral chapter threw difficulties in the way of the appropriation of certain livings and canonries to the university endowment; and so obstinate was their resistance that in 1655 they succeeded in altogether rescinding the gift on payment of a very inadequate sum. It was not until 1722 that the assembly of deputies, by a formal grant, relieved the university from the difficulties in which it had become involved. The Mainz. university of Mainz, on the other hand, was almost entirely indebted to the archbishop Diether for its foundation. It was at his petition that Sixtus IV. granted the charter, 23rd November 1476; and Diether, being himself an enthusiastic humanist, thereupon circulated a letter, couched in elegant Latinity, addressed to students throughout his diocese, inviting them to repair to the new centre, and dilating on the advantages of academic studies and of learning. The rise of these two universities, however, neither of which attained to much distinction, represents little more than the incorporation of certain already existing institutions into a homogeneous whole, the power of conferring degrees being superadded.
Nearly contemporaneous with these foundations were those of Upsala (1477) and Copenhagen (1479), which, although Upsala and Copenhagen. lying without the political boundaries of Germany, reflected her influence. The charter for Copenhagen was given by Sixtus IV. as early as 1475. The students attracted to this new centre were mainly from within the radius of the university of Cologne, and its statutes were little more than a transcript of those of the latter foundation.
The electorates of Wittenberg and Brandenburg were now the only two considerable German territories which did not possess Wittenberg. a “studium generale,” and the university founded at Wittenberg by Maximilian I. (6th July 1502) is notable as the first established in Germany by virtue of an imperial as distinguished from a papal decree. Its charter is, however, drawn up with the traditional phraseology of the pontifical bulls, and is evidently not conceived in any spirit of antagonism to Rome. Wittenberg is constituted a “studium generale” in all the four faculties—the right to confer degrees in theology and canon law having been sanctioned by the papal legate some months before, on the 2nd of February 1502. The endowment of the university with church revenues duly received the papal sanction—a bull of Alexander VI. authorizing the appropriation of twelve canonries attached to the castle church, as well as of eleven prebends in outlying districts—ut sic per omnem modum unum corpus ex studio et collegio praedictis fiat et constituatur. No university in Germany attracted to itself a larger share of the attention of Europe at its commencement. And it was its distinguishing merit that it was the first academic centre north of the Alps where the antiquated methods and barbarous Frankfort-on-the-Oder. Latinity of the scholastic era were overthrown. The last university founded in Germany prior to the Reformation was that of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. The design, first conceived by the elector John of Brandenburg, was carried into execution by his son Joachim, at whose request Pope Julius II. issued a bull for the foundation, 15th March 1506. An imperial charter, identical in its contents with the papal bull, followed on the 26th of October. The university received an endowment of canonries and livings similar to that of Wittenberg, and some houses in the city were assigned for its use by the elector.
- ↑ Bekynton's Correspondence, i. 123.
- ↑ De la Rue, Essais hist. sur la ville de Caen, ii. 137-140.
- ↑ Meiners i. 368.
- ↑ Paulsen, in speaking of this proviso as one “die weder vorher noch nachher sonst vorkommt,” would consequently seem to be not quite accurate. See Die Gründung der deutschen Universitäten, p. 277.
