Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/106

 94 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE 800 students were enrolled. In the year 1492 the philosophical lectures were given by 33 different professors, and to those 47 more were added within another year. In 1490 the number of bachelors who had to read up Petrus Lombardus was so great that they could not meet at the same place and hour, but had to be taken in separate groups. The profes- sors of philosophy at Vienna in 1453 numbered 82, and in 1476 there were 105 oral lecturers. Among the 770 students registered there in 1451, no less than 404 were from the Ehenish Provinces. 1 Never before or since did such enthusiasm for learning prevail in Germany. Berlin alone seemed to lag behind in the intellectual awakening. In all the country districts, too, there was a mental stirring and awakening such as had never been known in Germany before and has never prevailed since. In the Mark of Brandenburg alone German culture had as yet taken little root. In his address at the founding of the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in 1503, the Elector Joachim said : ' A man of distinguished learning is as rare among us as a white crow.' In cor- roboration of this we add what Joachim's father said of the Mark of Brandenburg : ' There is no part of Germany where there are more murders, cruelty, and quarrelling than in our Mark.' Trithemius, the abbot of Sponheim, who sojourned some time at the 1 It would be interesting to know the exact number of students from each province in Germany attending the universities ; but the statistics are wanting. It is, however, known that from the Duchy of Hesse alone 1,832 students attended the three universities of Heidelberg, Leipsic, and Erfurt from 1451 to 1515 (Stolzel, xii. 42-44 ; Gredy, Geschichte der chemaligen freien Beichstadt Odernhcini (Mentz, 1883, p. 220). On lieuchlin's cabalistic errors, see our statement, vol. ii.