Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/103

UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER CENTRES OF LEARNING 91 who in love and allegiance strove to make grateful return for what they owed their mother. Hence the double fact that so long as the unity of the Church and Faith remained intact the universities remained at the height of prosperity, and that at the time of the schism they almost all, with the exception of Wittenberg and Erfurt, ranged themselves loyally on the side of the Church. It was only when their original ecclesiastical and corporate constitutions were upset by violence that they began to turn to the new doctrines, and they only made common cause with these when their liberty was infringed and they had sunk to mere State institutions. The universities of the Middle Ages were free and independent corporations ; the basis of their success lay in the untrammelled freedom of curriculum both for masters and scholars. Independent of the State and of each other, they were spurred on by active and fruitful emulation. As in the different trade guilds the masters and apprentices were bound together in a compact body governed by its own laws and independent of outside influence, so the universities had their own separate codes and regulations, and their government was entirely within their own jurisdiction. The members were amenable only to their university code, which afforded complete protection ; they paid no taxes, and were ac- corded many privileges as tokens of respect to their learning. 1 There was perfectly free competition between the different teachers at nearly all the universities, and the right possessed by every ' doctor ' to teach gave 1 In 1445 the Leipsic professor, Johann Kone, declared in a public speech delivered before the Duke of Saxony : ' No king or minister has the right to interfere with our freedom and privileges. The univer- sities govern themselves, changing and modifying their statutes according to their necessities ' (Zarncke, Documents, 723).