The term universitas, or university, which came in time to be applied to these associations of masters and apprentices in study, was a general Roman legal term, practically equivalent to our modern word corporation. At first it was applied to any association, and when used with reference to teachers and scholars was so stated. Thus, in addressing the masters and students at Paris, Pope Innocent, in 1205, writes: "Universis magistris et scholaribus Parisiensibus", that is, "to the corporation of masters and scholars at Paris." Later the term university became restricted to the meaning which we give it to-day.
The university mothers. Though this movement for association and the development of advanced study had manifested itself in a number of places by the close of the twelfth century, two places in particular led all the others and became types which were followed in charters and in new creations. These were Bologna and Paris. [9] After one or the other of these two nearly all the universities of western Europe were modeled. Bologna or Paris, or one of their immediate children, served as a pattern. Thus Bologna was the university mother for almost all the Italian universities; for Montpellier and Grenoble in southern France; for some of the Spanish universities; and for Glasgow, Upsala, Cracow, and for the Law Faculty at Oxford. Paris was the university mother for Oxford, and through her Cambridge; for most of the northern French universities; for the university of Toulouse, which in turn became the mother for other southern French and northern Spanish universities; for Lisbon and Coimbra in Portugal; for the early German universities at Prague, Vienna, Cologne, and Heidelberg; and through Cologne for Copenhagen. Through one of the colleges at Cambridge—Emmanuel—she became, indirectly, the mother of a new Cambridge in America—Harvard—founded in 1636. Figure 61 shows the location of the chief universities founded before 1600. Viewed from the standpoint of instruction, Paris was followed almost entirely in Theology, and Bologna in Law, while the three centers which most influenced the development of instruction in medicine were Salerno, Montpellier, and Salamanca.
[Illustration: FIG. 61. SHOWING LOCATION OF THE CHIEF UNIVERSITIES FOUNDED
BEFORE 1600]
While the earlier universities gradually arose as the result of a long local evolution, it in time became common for others to be founded by a migration of professors from an older university to some cathedral city having a developing studium. In the days when a university consisted chiefly of master and students, when lectures could be held in any kind of a building or collection of buildings, and when there were no libraries, laboratories, campus, or other university property to tie down an institution, it was easy to migrate. Thus, in 1209, the school at Cambridge was created a university by a secession of masters from Oxford, much as bees swarm from a hive. Sienna, Padua, Reggio, Vicenza, Arezzo resulted from "swarmings" from Bologna; and Vercelli from Vicenza. In 1228, after a student riot at Paris which provoked reprisals from the city, many of the masters and students went to the studium towns of Angers, Orleans, and Rheims, and universities were established at the first two. Migrations from Prague helped establish many of the German universities. In this way the university organization was spread over Europe. In 1200 there were but six studia generalia which can be considered as having evolved into universities—Salerno, Bologna, and Reggio, in Italy; Paris and Montpellier, in France; and Oxford, in England. By 1300 eight more had evolved in Italy, three more in France, Cambridge in England, and five in Spain and Portugal. By 1400 twenty-two additional universities had developed, five of which were in German lands, and by 1500 thirty-five more had been founded, making a total of eighty. By 1600 the total had been raised to one hundred and eight (R. 100, for list by countries, dates, and method of founding). Some of these (approximately thirty) afterwards died, while in the following centuries additional ones were created. [10]
PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES GRANTED. The grant of privileges to physicians and teachers made by the Emperor Constantine, in 333 A.D. (R. 26), and the privileges and immunities granted to the clergy (clerici) by the early Christian Roman Emperors (R. 38), doubtless formed a basis for the many grants of special privileges made to the professors and students in the early universities. The document promulgated by Frederick Barbarossa, in 1158 (R. 101), began the granting of privileges to the studia generalia, and this was followed by numerous other grants. The grant to students of freedom from trial by the city authorities, and the obligation of every citizen of Paris to seize any one seen striking a student, granted by Philip Augustus, in 1200 (R. 102), is another example, widely followed, of the bestowal of large privileges. Count Rupert I, in founding the University of Heidelberg, in 1386, granted many privileges, exempted the students from "any duty, levy, imposts, tolls, excises, or other exactions whatever" while coming to, studying at, or returning home from the university (R. 103). The exemption from taxation (R. 104) became a matter of form, and was afterwards followed in the chartering of American colleges (R. 187). Exemption from military service also was granted.
So valuable an asset was a university to a city, and so easy was it for a university to move almost overnight, that cities often, and at times even nations, encouraged not only the founding of universities, but also the migration of both faculties and students. An interesting case of a city bidding for the presence of a university is that of Vercelli (R. 105), which made a binding agreement, as a part of the city charter, whereby the city agreed with a body of masters and students "swarming" from Padua to loan the students money at lower than the regular rates, to see that there was plenty of food in the markets at no increase in prices, and to protect the students from injustice. An instance of bidding by a State is the case of Cambridge, which obtained quite an addition by the coming of striking Paris masters and students in 1229, in response to the pledge of King Henry III (R. 109), who "humbly sympathized with them for their sufferings at Paris," and promised them that if they would come "to our kingdom of England and remain there to study" he would assign to them "cities, boroughs, towns, whatsoever you may wish to select, and in every fitting way will cause you to rejoice in a state of liberty and tranquillity."
One of the most important privileges which the universities early obtained, and a rather singular one at that, was the right of cessatio, which meant the right to stop lectures and go on a strike as a means of enforcing a redress of grievances against either town or church authority (R. 107). This right was for long jealously guarded by the university, and frequently used to defend itself from the smallest encroachments on its freedom to teach, study, and discipline the members of its guild as it saw fit, and often the right not to discipline them at all. Often the cessatio was invoked on very trivial grounds, as in the case of the Oxford cessatio of 1209 (R. 108), the Paris cessatio of 1229 (R. 109), and the numerous other cessationes which for two centuries [11] repeatedly disturbed the continuity of instruction at Paris.
DEGREES IN THE GUILD. The most important of the university rights, however, was the right to examine and license its own teachers (R. 110), and to grant the license to teach (Rs. 111, 112). Founded as the universities were after the guild model, they were primarily places for the taking of apprentices in the Arts, developing them into journeymen and masters, and certifying to their proficiency in the teaching craft. [12] Their purpose at first was to prepare teachers, and the giving of instruction to students for cultural ends, or a professional training for practical use aside from teaching the subject, was a later development.
Accordingly it came about in time that, after a number of years of study in the Arts under some master, a student was permitted to present himself for a test as to his ability to define words, determine the meaning of phrases, and read the ordinary Latin texts in Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic (the Trivium), to the satisfaction of other masters than his own. In England this test came to be known by the term determine. Its passage was equivalent to advancing from apprenticeship to the ranks of a journeyman, and the successful candidate might now be permitted to assist the master, or even give some elementary instruction himself while continuing his studies. He now became an assistant or companion, and by the fourteenth century was known as a baccalaureus, a term used in the Church, in chivalry, and in the guilds, and which meant a beginner. There was at first, though, no thought of establishing an examination and a new degree for the completion of this first step in studies. The bachelor's degree was a later development, sought at first by those not intending to teach, and eventually erected into a separate degree.
When the student had finally heard a sufficient number of courses, as required by the statutes of his guild, he might present himself for examination for the teaching license. This was a public trial, and took the form of a public disputation on some stated thesis, in the presence of the masters, and against all comers. It was the student's "masterpiece," analogous to the masterpiece of any other guild, and he submitted it to a jury of the masters of his craft. [13] Upon his masterpiece being adjudged satisfactory, he also became a master in his craft, was now able to define and dispute, was formally admitted to the highest rank in the teaching guild, might have a seal, and was variously known as master, doctor, or professor, all of which were once synonymous terms. [14] If he wished to prepare himself for teaching one of the professional subjects he studied still further, usually for a number of years, in one of the professional faculties, and in time he was declared to be a Doctor of Law, or Medicine, or of Theology.