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 UNIVERSITIES

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UNIVERSITIES

logna was Joannes Andrea (1270-1348), whose daugh- ter Novella sometimes lectured in his stead. At Paris the obligation of celibacy for masters in medi- cine was removed by Cardinal EstouteviUe in 1452, for those in law by the statutes of 1600. The first rector at Greifswald (1456) was married, as was also the rector at Vienna in 1470. In other German universities the requirement of celibacy remained longer in force, owing in part, at least, to the fact that many of the chairs were endowed with the revenues of canonries; but this did not imply that laymen were excluded from university positions. .

An important element in the student body and in the entire Ufe of the university was contributed by the religious orders. In Italy they had long been the recognized teachers of theology, and when the faculty of theology was estabUshed at Bologna in 1260, they supphed the professors and the majority of the students. The Dominicans settled at Paris in 1217 and at Oxford in 1221; the Franciscans at Paris in 1230 and at O.xford in 1224. At both universities the Carmelites and Augustinians also had their con- vents. The members of these orders in their com- munity life enjoyed many advantages; a permanent home in which their material needs were provided for, regular hours of study, discipline, and religious practice; and for each order the bond of membership was a source of strength and sohdarity. It is not then surprising that the regulars took high rank as scholars and teachers. Of the secular clerks some lived in apartments, others with their masters, and others again, the "martinets", with the townsmen. The students frequently banded together and lived in a rented hall (hospicium) under the management of one of their own number, a bachelor or a master elected by them as principal. For the poorest students colleges were established and endowed with burses by generous founders. Between 1200 and 1500 Paris had sixty colleges; Oxford, eleven; Cambridge, thir- teen. The founders were mostly bishops, canons, or other ecclesiastics; but the laity, including the sover- eigns, did their share (see Oxford, University of: I. Origin and History). At Bologna the most famous was the College of Spain founded by Egidio Albornoz, Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo (d. 1367). The colleges at the German universities were pri- marily for the benefit of the teachers, though scholars also were received. The college residents at Paris were students in arts or theology; they were known as socii (fellows) and were governed by a master, or by several masters if the students belonged to different faculties. The masters were required to hold repetitions on the subjects treated in the uni- versity schools and "faithfully to instruct the scholars in life and in doctrine". This tutoring gradually became more important than the university lectures, and attracted to the colleges large numbers of stu- dents besides the holders of burses or scholarships; by the middle of tlie fifteenth century almost the whole university resided in the colleges, and the public lecture halls served only for determinations and incep- tions. In this way the Sorbonne, originally a hospice for poor clerks, Isecame the centre of theological teaching at Paris. The university, however, claimed and exercised the right of visit at ion and of disciplinary enactments; in 1457 it ohligc-d the martinets to live in or near some college, and forbade the migration of scholars from one master's house to another; and in 1486 it enacted that teachers in colleges should be appointed by the faculty of arts.

With the founding of the colleges, discipline im- proved. The earlier university regulations dealt chiefly with academic matters, leaving the students quite free in other resjjccts. According to all accounts this freedom meant licence in various forms — fighting, drinking, and graver offences against morality. With due allowance for the exaggerations of some writers

who charge the scholars with every crime, it is clear from the college statutes that there was much need of refoira. It should, however, be remembered that in any age the boisterous and lawless elements are more conspicuous than the serious, conscientious student; and it is doubtless to the credit of the medie- val university, as a social factor, that it succeeded in imposing some sort of disciphne upon the motley throngs which it undertook to teach. When the reform did come, it fairly rivalled, in minuteness and strictness, the monastic mode of hfe. But it did not prevent the survival of certain practices, e. g. the initiation or deposition of the bejamius (yeUow-bill), the medieval form of hazing; nor did it establish perfect tranquiUity in the university.

Agitations of a more serious nature affected the development of the universities. Both Paris (1252- 1261) and Oxford (1303-1320) were embroiled in struggles with the mendicant friars (q. v.). Repeated conflicts with the town, notably the "Slaughter" of 1354 at Oxford, turned eventually to the benefit of the university, which, as Rashdall says (II, 407), "thrived on her own misfortunes". It was the chan- cellor who profited most and whose jurisdiction was gradually extended until, in 1290, it included "all crimes committed in O.xford where one of the parties was a scholar, except pleas of homicide and may- hem" (Rashdall, II, 401). In 1395, a Bull of Boni- face IX exempted the university from all episcopal and archiepiscopal jurisdiction; but in consequence of the archbishop's opposition the Bull was revoked by John XXIII in 1411, only to be renewed by Sixtus IV in 1479. The conflict between Nominalism (q. v.) and Realism was in itself a scholastic feud; yet it was closel}' connected with the "reform" inaugurated by Wyclif ; and while Wyclif may be regarded as a cham- pion of intellectual freedom, it is interesting to note among his errors condemned at Constance (1415) and by Martin V (1418\ the proposition that "universi- ties with their studies, colleges, graduations, and masterships, were introduced by vain heathenism; they do the Church just as much good as the devil does" (Denzinger-Bannwart, "Enchiridion", n. 609).

In the calmer appreciation of modern historians the medieval university was a potent factor for enlight- enment and social order. It aroused enthusiasm for learning, and enforced discipline. Its training sharp- ened the intelligence, yet subjected reason to faith. It was the centre in which the philosophy and the jurisprudence of antiquity were restored and adapted to new requirements. From it the modern university has inherited the essential elements of corporate teaching, faculty organization, courses of study, and academic degrees; and the inheritance has been trans- mitted through the manifold upheavals which sub- merged the ancient learning and rent Christendom itself asunder.

III. Renaissance and Reformation. — The effect of the "new learning" on the German universities was revolutionary. At first the Humanist professors got on fairly well with the re.st of the faculty; but when they asserted their superiority as representatives of the only real knowledge, bitter attacks and recrimina- tions ensued. The Humanists ridiculed the barbarous Latin of the university and the wTctchcd translations of Aristotle used in commentaries and lectures. Then they assailed the Schohistic method of teaching with its endless hair-splitting and disputations, and strove to substitute rhetoric for dialectic. Finally they struck at the content itself, declaring that much time was spent in gaining very little knowledge of hardly any value. All these charges were drawn up in publications marked by brilliant style and sharp invective; e. g. the "Epistola" obscurorum virorum", written against the professors of arts and theolo^, especially those at Leipzig and Cologne. This vio-