Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/875

Rh ring degrees only in the canon and civil law. The university maintained its existence throughout the period of the residence of the popes at Avignon (see ), and under the patronage of Leo X. could boast in 1514 of no less than eighty professors. This imposing array would seem, however, to be but a fallacious test of the prosperity of the academic community, for it is stated that many of the professors, owing to the imperfect manner in which they were protected in their privileges, were in the receipt of such insufficient fees that they were compelled to com bine other employments with that of lecturing in order to support themselves. An appeal addressed to Leo X. in the year 1513 represents the number of students as so small as to be sometimes exceeded by that of the lecturers ("ut quandoque plures sint qui legant quam qui audiant"). Scarcely any of the universities in Italy in the 14th century attracted a larger concourse than that of Perugia, where the study chiefly cultivated was that of the civil law. The university received its charter as a studium generale from Clement V. in the year 1308, but had already in 1306 been formally recognized by the civic authorities, by whom it was commended to the special care and protection of the "podesta." In common with the rest of the Italian universities, it suffered severely from the great plague of 1348-49; but in 1355 it received new privileges from the emperor, and in 1362 its first college, dedicated to Gregory the Great, was founded by the bishop of Perugia.The university of Treviso, which received its charter from Frederick the Fair in 1318, was of little celebrity and but short duration. It is doubtful, indeed, whether it continued to exist after the city became subject to the republic of Venice in the year 1339; but in 1409 the Venetian senate issued a decree that no subjects of the republic should resort for study to any city in its dominions save that of Padua, and from this date the studium at Treviso must be held to have been no longer in existence. The circumstances of the rise of the university of Florence are unknown, but the earliest evidence of academic instruction belongs to the year 1320. The dispersion of the university of Bologna, in the March and April of the following year, afforded a favourable opportunity for the creation of a studium generale, but the necessary measures were taken somewhat tardily, and in the mean time the greater number of the Bolognese students had betaken themselves to Siena. The charter of foundation for Florence was accordingly not granted until 31st May 1349, when Clement VI. decreed that there should be instituted a studium generale in theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and every other recognized faculty of learning, the teachers to be professors who had obtained the degree of doctor or master either at Bologna or Paris, or "some other studium generale of celebrity." On 2d January 1364 the university also obtained the grant of imperial privileges from Charles IV. On 14th February 1388 it adopted a body of statutes which are still extant, and afford an interesting study in connexion with the university history of the period. The university now entered upon that brilliant period in its history which was destined to so summary an extinction. "It is almost touching," says Denifle, "to note how untiringly Florence exerted herself at this period to attract as teachers to her schools the great masters of the sciences and learning." In the year 1472, however, under the influence of Lorenzo de Medici, it was decided that Florence was not a convenient seat for a university, and its students were removed to Pisa. The commencement of the university of Siena belongs to about the year 1241, but its charter was first granted by the emperor Charles IV., at the petition of the citizens, in the year 1357. It was founded as a studium generale in jurisprudence, the arts, and medicine. The imperial charter was confirmed by Gregory XII. in 1408, and the various bulls relating to the university which he subsequently issued afford a good illustration of the conditions of academic life in these times. Residence on the part of the students appears to have been sometimes dispensed with. The bishop of Siena was nominated chancellor of the university, just as, says the bull, he had been appointed to that office by the imperial authority. The graduates were to be admitted to the same privileges as those of Bologna or Paris; and a faculty of theology was added to the curriculum of studies. The university of Ferrara owes its foundation to the house of Este,—Alberto, marquis of Este, having obtained from Boniface IX. in 1391 a charter couched in terms precisely similar to those of the charter for Pisa. In the first half of the 15th century the university was adorned by the presence of several distinguished humanists, but its fortunes were singularly chequered, and it would appear for a certain period to have been altogether extinct. It was, however, restored, and became in the latter part of the century one of the most celebrated of the universities of Italy. In the year 1474 its circle of studies comprised all the existing faculties, and it numbered no less than fifty-one professors or lecturers. In later times Ferrara has been noted chiefly as a school of medicine.

Of the universities modelled on that of Paris, Oxford would appear to have been the earliest, and the manner of its development was probably similar. Certain schools, opened within the precincts of the dissolved nunnery of St Frideswyde and of Oseney abbey, are supposed to have been the nucleus round which the university grew up. In the year 1133 one Robert Pullen, a theologian of considerable eminence (but whether an Englishman or a Breton is un certain), arrived from Paris, and delivered lectures on the Bible. He was followed a few years later by Vacarius, a native of Lombardy, who as a student at Bologna had inherited the tradition of the teaching of Irnerius. Al though both the pope and King Stephen regarded the civil law at this time with considerable distrust, Vacarius maintained his ground, and the study became one of the recognized faculties at Oxford. Towards the close of the 12th century Giraldus Cambrensis describes the town as a place "where the clergy in England chiefly flourished and excelled in clerkly lore." In one respect, indeed, Oxford was more favoured than even Paris, for the town authorities could not pretend to assert any right of interference with the university such as that to which the French monarch and the court frequently laid claim. In the 13th century mention first occurs of university "chests." especially the Frideswyde chest, which were benefactions designed as funds for the assistance of poor students. Halls, or places of licensed residence, for students, also began to be established. In the year 1257, when the bishop of Lincoln, as diocesan, had trenched too closely on the liberties of the community, the deputies from Oxford, when preferring their appeal to the king at St Albans, could venture to speak of the university as "schola secunda ecclesiae," or second only to Paris. Its numbers about this time were probably some three thousand; but it was essentially a fluctuating body, and whenever plague or tumult led to a temporary dispersion a serious diminution in its numerical strength generally ensued for some time after. Against such vicissitudes the foundation of colleges proved the most effectual remedy. Of these the three earliest were University College, founded in 1249 by William of Durham; Balliol College, founded about 1263 by John Balliol, the father of the king of Scotland of the same name; and Merton College, founded in 1264. The last-named is especially notable as associated with a new conception of university education, namely, that of collegiate