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 organization—it possessed no less than twenty-eight colleges—it closely resembled the English universities; while its active press afforded facilities to the author and the controversialist of which both Cambridge and Oxford were at that time almost destitute. It embraced all the faculties, and no degrees in Europe stood so high as guarantees of general acquirements. Erasmus records it as a common saying, that “no one could graduate at Louvain without knowledge, manners and age.” Sir William Hamilton speaks of the examination at Louvain for a degree in arts as “the best example upon record of the true mode of such examination, and, until recent times, in fact, the only example in the history of universities worthy of consideration at all.” He has translated from Vernulaeus the order and method of this examination. In 1788 the faculties of jurisprudence, medicine and philosophy were removed to Brussels, and in 1797 the French suspended the university altogether.

In Germany the conditions under which the new centres were created reflect and illustrate the history of the country in a remarkable manner. Those connected with the rise of the university of Leipzig are especially noteworthy, it having been the result of the migration of almost the entire German element from the university of Prague. This element comprised (1) Bavarians, (2) Saxons, (3) Poles (this last named division being drawn from a wide area, which included Meissen, Lusatia, Silesia and Prussia), and, being represented by three votes in the assemblies of the university, while the Bohemians possessed but one, had acquired a preponderance in the direction of affairs which the latter could no longer submit to. Religious differences, again, evoked mainly by the preaching of John Huss, further intensified the existing disagreements; and eventually, in the year 1409, King Wenceslaus, at the prayer of his Bohemian subjects, issued a decree which exactly reversed the previous distribution of votes,—three votes being assigned to the Bohemian nation and only one to all the rest. The Germans took deep umbrage, and seceded to Leipzig, where, a bull having been obtained from Alexander V. (September 9, 1409), a new “studium generale” was founded by the landgrave of Thuringia and the margraves of Meissen. The members were divided into four nations—composed of natives of Meissen, Saxony, Bavaria and Poland. Two colleges were founded, a greater and a smaller, but designed, not for poor students, but for masters of arts—twelve being admitted on the former and eight on the latter foundation.

At Rostock, in the north, the dukes John and Albert of Mecklenburg conceived the design of founding a university

from which the faculty of theology should be excluded. Pope Martin V., to whom they applied for his sanction, was scarcely in a position to refuse it, absorbed as he was with the pacification of Italy, the consolidation of his own temporal power, and the restoration of his almost ruinous capital. The university was accordingly founded as proposed in 1419; but in 1431 Eugenius IV. instituted a faculty of theology, and two colleges were founded with the same design and on the same scale as at Leipzig. Six years later the whole academic community having incurred the papal ban was fain to migrate to Greifswald, returning, however, to Rostock in 1443, but with one important exception, that of a master of arts named Henry Rubenow, who remained to become burgomaster of the former city, and succeeded in persuading Duke Wratislaw of Pommern to make it the seat of a university. Calixtus III. granted a bull in 1456, but it was stipulated that the rector should be a

bishop, and the professorial chairs were also made partially dependent for endowment on canonries. Greifswald thus became exposed to the full brunt of the struggle which had ensued when the endeavour to nationalize the German church was terminated by the Concordat of Vienna (1448). Of its original statutes only those of the arts faculty are extant.

The universities of Freiburg in Baden and Tübingen in Württemberg, on the other hand, reflect the sympathies of

the Catholic party under the Austrian rule. They alike owed their foundation to the countess Matilda, by whose persuasion her husband, the archduke of Austria,

known as Albrecht VI., was induced to found Freiburg in 1455, and Count Eberhard (her son by a former marriage) to found Tübingen in 1477. The first session at Freiburg opened auspiciously in 1460 under the supervision of its rector, Matthew Hummel of Villingen, an accomplished and learned man, and its numbers were soon largely augmented by migrations of students from Vienna and from Heidelberg, while its resources, which originally were chiefly an annual grant from the city council, were increased by the bestowal of canonries and prebends in the neighbouring parishes. Erasmus had made Freiburg his residence from 1529 to 1535, during which time he may have originated a tradition of liberal learning, but in 1620, under the rule of the archduke Maximilian, the control of the Humanistic studies and of the entire faculty of philosophy was handed over to the Jesuits, who also gained possession of two of the chairs of theology. Although Strassburg since 1872 has been able to offer considerable counter-attractions, Freiburg has held her own, and numbers over 1600 students. The university of Tübingen was founded in 1477 with four faculties—those of theology, law, medicine and the arts—and numbered

scholars such as John Reuchlin and Melanchthon among its teachers; while in the last century it was famous both for its school of medicine and that of theology (see ). Its general condition in the year 1541-1542, and the sources whence its revenues were derived, have been illustrated by Hoffmann in a short paper which shows the fluctuating nature of the resources of a university in the 16th century—liable to be affected as they were both by the seasons and the markets.

The earliest 15th-century university in France was that of Aix in Provence. It had originally been nothing more than a

school of theology and law, but in 1409 it was reorganized under the direction of the local count as a studium generale on the model of Paris. The sphere of its activity is indicated by the fact that the students were divided into Burgundians, Provençals and Catalans. The

next foundation, that of Poitiers, had a wider significance as illustrating the struggle that was going on between the French crown and the Roman see. It was instituted by Charles VII. in 1431, almost immediately after his accession, with the special design of creating a centre of learning less favourable to English interests than Paris had at that time shown herself to be. Eugenius IV. could not refuse his sanction to the scheme, but he endeavoured partially to defeat Charles's design by conferring on the new “studium generale” simply the same privileges as those possessed by Toulouse, and thus placing it at a disadvantage in comparison with Paris. Charles rejoined by an extraordinary exercise of his own prerogative, conferring on Poitiers all the privileges collectively possessed by Paris, Toulouse, Montpellier, Angers and Orleans, and at the same time placing the university under special royal protection. The foundation of the university of Caen, in the diocese of Bayeux, was attended by conditions almost

exactly the reverse of those which belonged to the foundation of that at Poitiers. It was founded under English auspices during the short period of the supremacy of the English arms in Normandy in the 15th century. Its charter (May 1437) was given by Eugenius IV., and the bishop of Bayeux was appointed its chancellor. The university of Paris had by this time completely forfeited the favour of Eugenius by its attitude at the council of Basel, and Eugenius inserted in the charter for Caen a clause of an entirely novel character, requiring all those admitted to degrees to take an oath of fidelity to the see of Rome, and to bind themselves to attempt nothing prejudicial to her interests. To this proviso the famous Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges was Charles's rejoinder in the following year. On the 18th of May 1442 we find King Henry VI. writing to Eugenius, and dwelling with satisfaction on the rapid progress of the new university, to which, he says, students had flocked from all quarters, and were still daily