Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/878

Rh her numbers owing to the counter attractions of the great stadium of Slavonia.

The university of Cracow in Poland was founded in May 1364, by virtue of a charter given by King Casimir the Great, who bestowed on it the same privileges as those possessed by the universities of Bologna and Padua. In the following September Urban V., in consideration of the remoteness of the city from other centres of education, constituted it a "studium generale" in all the faculties save that of theology. It is, however, doubtful whether these designs were carried into actual realization, for it is certain that, for a long time after the death of Casimir, there was no university whatever. Its real commencement must accordingly be considered to belong to the year 1400, when it was reconstituted, and the papal sanction was given for the incorporation of a faculty of theology. From this time its growth and prosperity were continuous; and with the year 1416 it had so far acquired a European reputation as to venture upon forwarding an expression of its views in connexion with the deliberations of the council of Constance. Towards the close of the 15th century the university is said to have been in high repute as a school of both astronomical and humanistic studies.

The Avignonese popes appear to have regarded the establishment of new faculties of theology with especial jealousy; and when, in 1364, Duke Rudolph IV. founded the university of Vienna, with the design of constituting it a "studium generale" in all the faculties, Urban V. refused his assent to the foundation of a theological school. Owing to the sudden death of Duke Rudolph, the university languished for the next twenty years, but after the ac cession of Duke Albert III., who may be regarded as its real founder, it acquired additional privileges, and its prosperity became marked and continuous. Like Prague, Vienna was for a long time distinguished by the comparatively little attention bestowed by its teachers on the study of the civil law.

No country in the 14th century was looked upon with greater disfavour at Rome than Hungary. It was stigmatized as the land of heresy and schism. When, accordingly, in 1367 King Louis applied to Urban V. for his sanction of the scheme of founding a university at Fünfkirchen, although theological learning was in special need of encouragement in those regions, Urban would not con sent to the foundation of a faculty of theology; he even made it a condition of his sanction for a "studium generale" that King Louis should first undertake to provide for the payment of the professors. We hear but little concerning the university after its foundation, and it is doubtful whether it survived for any length of time the close of the century, having been about that period absorbed in all probability in the university of Ofen. The foundation of this university is also involved in considerable obscurity, and its original charter is lost. We only know that it was granted by Boniface IX., at the request of King Sigismund, in the year 1389. In the first half of the 15th century it ceased for a long period to exist, but was revived, or rather founded afresh, by King Mathias Corvinus, an eminent patron of learning, in the last quarter of the century. " The extreme east of civilized continental Europe in mediaeval times," observes Denifle, "can be compared, so far as university education is concerned, only with the extreme west and the extreme south. In Hungary, as in Portugal and in Naples, there was constant fluctuation, but the west and the south, although troubled by yet greater commotions than Hungary, bore better fruit. Among all the countries possessed of universities in mediæval times, Hungary occupies the lowest place a state of affairs of which, however, the proximity of the Turk must be looked upon as a main cause."

The university of Heidelberg received its charter (23d October 1385) from Urban VI. as a "studium generale" in all the recognized faculties save that of the civil law,—the form and substance of the document being almost identical with those of the charter granted to Vienna. It was granted at the request of the elector palatine, Rupert I., who conferred on the teachers and students, at the same time, the same civil privileges as those which belonged to the university of Paris. In this case the functionary invested with the power of bestowing degrees was non resident, the licences being conferred by the provost of the cathedral at Worms. But the real founder, as he was also the organizer and teacher, of the university was Marsilius of Inghen, to whose ability and energy Heidelberg was indebted for no little of its early reputation and success. The omission of the civil law from the studies licensed in the original charter would seem to show that the pontiff's compliance with the elector's request was merely formal, and Heidelberg, like Cologne, included the civil law among its faculties almost from its first creation. No mediaeval university achieved a more rapid and permanent success. Regarded with favour alike by the civil and ecclesiastical potentates, its early annals were singularly free from crises like those which characterize the history of many of the mediaeval universities. The number of those admitted to degrees from the commencement of the first session (19th October 1386 to 16th December 1387) amounted to 579. Owing to the labours of the Dominicans, Cologne had gained a reputation as a seat of learning long before the founding of its university; and it was through the advocacy of some leading members of the Mendicant orders that, at the desire of the city council, its charter as a "studium generale" (21st May 1388) was obtained from Urban VI. It was organized on the model of the university of Paris, as a school of theology and canon law, and "any other recognized faculty,"—the civil law being incorporated as a faculty soon after the promulgation of the charter. In common with the other early universities of Germany—Prague, Vienna, and Heidelberg—Cologne owed nothing to imperial patronage, while it would appear to have been, from the first, the object of special favour with Rome. This circumstance serves to account for its distinctly ultramontane sympathies in mediaeval times and even far into the 16th century. In a report transmitted to Gregory XIII. in 1577, the university expressly derives both its first origin and its privileges from the Holy See, and professes to owe no allegiance save to the Roman pontiff. Erfurt, no less noted as a centre of Franciscan than was Cologne of Dominican influence, received its charter (16th September 1379) from the anti-pope Clement VII. as a "studium generale" in all the faculties. Ten years later (4th May 1389) it was founded afresh by Urban VI., without any recognition of the act of his pretended predecessor. In the 15th century the number of its students was larger than that at any other German university—a fact attributable partly to the reputation it had acquired as a school of jurisprudence, and partly to the ardour with which the philosophic controversies of the time were debated in its midst.

The collegiate system is to be noted as a feature common to all these early German universities; and, in nearly all, the professors were partly remunerated by the appropriation of certain prebends, appertaining to some neighbouring church, to their maintenance.

Throughout the 15th century the relations of the Roman pontiffs to the universities continued much the same, although the independent attitude assumed at the great councils of Constance and Basel by the deputies from the