Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/353

327 UNIVERSITY OF ALCALA. 327 national sentiment, so as to bear rich fruit for pos- chapter teritj. This was particularly the case with the 1— institution at Alcala. It soon became the subject of royal and private benefaction. Its founder be- queathed it, at his death, a clear revenue of four- teen thousand ducats. By the middle of the sev- enteenth century, this had increased to forty-two thousand, and the colleges had multiplied from ten to thirty-five."*^ The rising reputation of the new academy, which attracted students from every quarter of the Penin- sula to its halls, threatened to eclipse the glories of the ancient seminary at Salamanca, and occasioned bitter jealousies between them. The field of let- ters, however, was wide enough for both, especially as the one was more immediately devoted to thea- logical preparation, to the entire exclusion of civil jurisprudence, which formed a prominent branch of instruction at the other. In this state of things, their rivalry, far from being productive of mischief, might be regarded as salutary, by quickening liter- ary ardor, too prone to languish without the spur of competition. Side by side the sister universities went forward, dividing the public patronage and estimation. As long as the good era of letters lasted in Spain, the academy of Ximenes, under the influence of its admirable discipline, maintained a reputation inferior to none other in the Penin- ■is Quintanilla, Archetypo, lib.3, liberal grants and immunities to cap. 17. — Oviedo, Quincuagenas, Alcala on more than one occasion. MS., dial, de Ximeni. Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 43, Ferdinand and Isabella conceded 45.