Page:A Catalogue of Graduates who have Proceeded to Degrees in the University of Dublin, vol. 2.djvu/20

 xiv INTRODUCTION. it will be soeu from what Ayliffo has said in the extract given in note A, as well as from what has been stated and explained by Professor Bluntschli, that the name of University did not originate in a * Universitas Studiorum.' Its primary and etymological meaning is an aggregate whole ; it is the generic name of a body corporate. In Paris it was applied to a body of teachers ; in Bologna to a body of learners ; and in Oxford and Cambridge to a like body of masters and scholars. It is quite true (as Dr. Todd observes) that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were first incorporated by Act of Par- liament, about twenty years before the date of the Charter of Queen Elizabeth, under w'hich the University of Dublin was founded. But he has not adverted to the reasons which made it expedient to have this Act passed. They are stated by Sir E. Coke.* He states that each of the Universities had divers courts, jurisdictions, and powers, by the Charters of the Kings of this realm, divers of which were not grantable by Charter, but by Parliament only; which being espied, Queen Elizabeth, who (he says) excelled all others of her sex in knowledge, both divine and human, for the love and affection that she had to her Universities, and with a view to settle and secure their rights and privileges, and quiet all controversies, procured the passing of this Act, in order to confirm these rights and privi- leges. They were incorporated by a certain name in the Act, "albeit" (as Coke adds) "they were ancient corporations be- fore." The Act refers to the Letters Patent previously made by the Queen or by any of her progenitors or predecessors, " to either of the said corporated bodies severally." Throughout, it recognises them as corporations theretofore and then subsisting, and confirms all their powers, rights, and privileges, that they might prosper in their study with quietness, and be free from vexatious controversies. The Letters Patent of King James I. (a.d. 1613) may here be adverted to. The main purpose seems to have been political,
 * 4th Inst. 227.