Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/876

Rh discipline for the secular clergy, instead of for any one of the religious orders, for whose sole benefit all similar foundations had hitherto been designed. The statutes given to the society by Walter de Merton are not less noteworthy, as characterized not only by breadth of conception, but also by a careful and discriminating attention to detail, which led to their adoption as the model for later colleges, not only at Oxford but at Cambridge. Of the service rendered by these foundations to the university at large we have significant proof in the fact that, although representing only a small numerical minority in the academic community at large, their members soon obtained a considerable preponderance in the administration of affairs.

The university of Cambridge, although it rose into existence somewhat later than Oxford, may reasonably be held to have had its origin in the same century. There was probably a certain amount of educational work carried on by the canons of the church of St Giles, which gradually developed into the instruction belonging to a regular studium. In the year 1112 the canons crossed the river and took up their residence in the new priory in Barnwell, and their work of instruction acquired additional importance. Then, as early as the year 1224, the Franciscans established themselves in the town, and, some what less than half a century later, were followed by the Dominicans. At both the English universities, as at Paris, the Mendicants and other religious orders were admitted to degrees, a privilege which, until the year 1337, was extended to them at no other university. Their interest in and influence at these three centres was consequently proportionably great. In the years 1231 and 1233 certain royal and papal letters afford satisfactory proof that by that time the university of Cambridge was already an organized body with a chancellor at its head; and in 1229 and 1231 its numbers were largely augmented by migrations from Paris and from Oxford. Cambridge, however, in its turn suffered from emigration; while in the year 1261, and again in 1322, the records of the university were wantonly burnt by the townsmen. Through out the 13th century, indeed, the university was still only a very slightly and imperfectly organized community. Its endowments were of the most slender kind; it had no systematic code for the government of its members; the supervision of the students was very imperfectly provided for. An important step in the direction of reform in this last respect was, however, made in the year 1276, when an ordinance was passed requiring that every one who claimed to be recognized as a scholar should have a fixed master within fifteen days after his entry into the university. But the feature which most served to give permanence and cohesion to the entire community was, as at Oxford, the institution of colleges. The earliest of these was Peterhouse, first founded as a separate institution by Hugh Balsham, bishop of Ely, in the year 1286, with a code which was little more than a transcript of that given by Walter de Merton to his scholars at Oxford. About forty years later was founded Michaelhouse, and at nearly the same time (1326) Edward II. instituted his foundation of " king's scholars," afterwards forming the community of King's Hall. Both these societies in the 16th century were merged in Trinity College. To those succeeded Pembroke Hall (1347) and Gonville Hall (1348). All these colleges, although by no means conceived in a spirit of hostility to either the monastic or the Mendicant orders, were expressly designed for the benefit of the secular clergy. The foundation of Trinity Hall (1350) by Bishop Bateman, on the other hand, as a school of civil and canon law was probably designed to further ultramontane interests. That of Corpus Christi (1352), the outcome of the liberality of a guild of Cambridge townsmen, was conceived with the combined object of providing a house of education for the clergy, and at the same time securing the regular performance of masses for the benefit of the souls of departed members of the guild. But both Trinity Hall and Corpus Christi College, as well as Clare Hall, founded in 1359, were to a great extent indebted for their origin to the ravages caused among the clergy by the great plague of 1349.

Turning to France, or rather to the territory included within the boundaries of modern France, we find Montpellier a recognized school of medical science as early as the 12th century. William VIII., lord of Montpellier, in the year 1181 proclaimed it a school of free resort, where any teacher of medical science, from whatever country, might give instruction. Before the end of the century it possessed also a faculty of jurisprudence, a branch of learning for which it afterwards became famed. The university of medicine and that of law continued, however, to be totally distinct bodies with different constitutions. Petrarch was sent by his father to Montpellier to study the civil law. On 26th October 1289 Montpellier was raised by Nicholas IV. to the rank of a "studium generate," a mark of favour which, in a region where papal influence was so potent, resulted in a considerable accession of prosperity. The university also now included a faculty of arts; and there is satisfactory evidence of the existence of a faculty of theology before the close of the 14th century, although not formally recognized by the pope before the year 1421. In the course of the same century several colleges for poor students were also founded. The university of Toulouse is to be noted as the first founded in any country by virtue of a papal charter. It took its rise in the efforts of Rome for the suppression of the Albigensian heresy, and its foundation formed one of the articles of the conditions of peace imposed by Louis IX. on Count Raymond of Toulouse. In the year 1233 it first acquired its full privileges as a "studium generale" by virtue of a charter given by Gregory IX. This pontiff watched over the university with especial solicitude, and through his exertions it soon became a noted centre of theological and especially of Dominican teaching. As a school of arts, jurisprudence, and medicine, although faculties of each existed, it never attained to any reputation. The university of Orleans had a virtual existence as a studium generale as early as the first half of the 13th century, but in the year 1305 Clement V. endowed it with new privileges, and gave its teachers permission to form themselves into a corporation. The schools of Orleans had an existence, it is said, as early as the 6th century, and subsequently supplied the nucleus for the foundation of a university at Blois; but of this university no records now exist. Orleans, in its organization, was modelled mainly on Paris, but its studies were complementary rather than in rivalry to the older university. The absorbing character of the study of the civil law, and the mercenary spirit in which it was pursued, had led the authorities at Paris to refuse to recognize it as a faculty. The study found a home at Orleans, where it was cultivated with an energy which attracted numerous students. In January 1235 we find the bishop of Orleans soliciting the advice of Gregory IX. as to the expediency of countenancing a study which was prohibited in Paris. Gregory decided that the lectures might be continued; but he ordered that no beneficed ecclesiastic should be allowed to devote himself to so eminently secular a branch of learning. Orleans subsequently incorporated a faculty of arts, but its reputation from this period was always that of a school of legal studies, and in the 14th century its reputation in this respect was surpassed by no other