From The Contemporary Review. Mediaeval Universities. [Footnote 46]
[Footnote 46: This article is not written by a Catholic, which the reader will easily see from some of its expressions. With these exceptions the article is very interesting.—C. W.]
Universities are not mentioned in mediaeval documents before the beginning of the thirteenth century. At that period, however, they stand before the eyes of the historian already fully developed, and in the very prime of vigorous manhood, without offering any clue as to their birth and lineage, except such as they bear visibly imprinted in their very nature. This remark holds good only for the most ancient universities—Paris, Oxford, and Bologna—all the other institutions of the kind being easily traced to their foundation, and recognized as copies of the ancient types. There are, indeed, documents extant which refer the foundation of the three mentioned universities to a very respectable antiquity, and according to which Paris claims Charlemagne as its founder; Oxford, Alfred the Great; Bologna, the Emperor Theodosius II.; and Naples, the Emperor Augustus. But these documents are each and all the fabrications of later times, which, agreeably to mediaeval disregard of critical investigation, could easily spring up and find credence, because they supplied by fables what could not be gained by historic evidence, the halo of remote antiquity. Setting, therefore, apart these spurious credentials, we prefer to trace the lineage of our venerable institutions as near as possible to their source by reading and interpreting the record they bear of themselves.
Twice during the middle ages the church saved literature from utter ruin: first when barbarous nations overflooded Europe in the great migration, and a second time during the confusion which arose upon the death of Charlemagne. Science was indeed the enfant trouvé, to take care of which there was no one in the wide world but the church alone. Under its fostering care literature and learning started on a new career in the asylums erected in the schools of abbeys, monasteries, and convents—a career, however, characterized by a peculiar timidity, which shrank from a critical analysis of sacred and profane literature alike—abhorring the latter for its savor of heathenism, revering the former with too much awe to subject it to dissecting criticism. In this narrowness of space, this timidity of development, the youthful plant might have been stunted in its growth, but for the breath of life which the genius of human civilization imparted to its feeble offshoot to rear it to the full vigor of manhood. This inspiration again proceeded from the church, which made the very marrow of her substance over to the school, that it might feed on it and wax strong, so as to become the bearer of mediaeval civilization, the leader of society in science and education. At a period when the church had given form to its doctrines by investing them in a dogmatic garb, so as to remove them from beneath the ruder or careless touch of experimenting heresy, faith was satisfied, and in its satisfaction felt secure from any perilous raid on its domain. Hence, it became less timid in facing the dissecting-knife of the philosopher; nay, on the contrary, it soon detected the new additional strength it might derive from the disquisitions of philosophical science; and thus it came to pass that the dogma of the church left the bosom of the mother that gave it birth, and placed itself under the guardianship of the school. The result of this transmigration is but too evident. First of all, the interest of philosophical inquiry was duly regarded by obtaining by the side of faith its share in the cultivation of the human mind, and, on the other hand, the dogma or symbol of faith, which hitherto had evaded the grasp of human intellect, and therefore assumed the position of a power which, though not hostile, was yet not friendly to the aspirations of the human mind, now turned its most intimate and faithful ally. The motto of this alliance between dogma and philosophy—the well-known "Credo ut intelligam"—is the key-note of scholasticism. Thus, then, theology became the science of the school, when the dogma was completely confirmed and established, and the school sufficiently developed to receive it within its precincts; and this alliance, which produced a Christian philosophy in scholasticism, was the principal agent also in bringing about a new phase of the mediaeval school in the Studium Generale or University.
From the earliest centuries it had been a practice with the Christian church in newly converted countries to erect schools by the side of cathedrals. Where our Lord had his temple, science had a chapel close by. These cathedral schools became in the course of time less exclusively clerical, at the same rate as the chapters of cathedrals turned more secular in their tendencies. In consequence of this metamorphosis the cathedral school attracted a large number of secular students, while the monastic schools more properly limited themselves to the education of the clerical order. But for all that the cathedral school bore a decidedly clerical character. The bishop continued to be the head of the schools in his diocese, and through his chancellor (cancellarius) exercised over the students the same authority as over all others that stood under episcopal jurisdiction. Very often we meet with several or many schools connected with different churches of one and the same diocese. In this case each school had its own "rector," but all of them were subject to the supervision and jurisdiction of the bishop, or his representative the chancellor. Though they followed their literary and educational pursuits each within its own walls and independently of the others, yet on certain occasions they were reminded of their consanguinity of birth and their relationship to the church, when on festive celebrations, such as the feast of the patron saint of the diocese, rectors, teachers, and students of the different schools rallied round the banner of their diocesan, and appeared as one body under their common head, the bishop. Thus we see the cathedral schools brought nearer to each other by two agencies of a uniting tendency—the jurisdiction of the bishop and their relation to the church. That which had grown spontaneously out of the circumstances of the time awaited only the "fiat" of the mighty to accomplish its metamorphosis, and assume its final shape in the Studium Generale. The church required an able expositor of her dogmas, a subtle defender of her canonical presumptions, and both she found in the school. Popes then granted privileges and immunities to the cathedral and monastic schools of certain cities, and these schools, following the impulse and tendencies of the age, united in corporations and became universities. Under the circumstances it must appear a vain attempt to search for documentary evidence as to the first foundation of the three ancient universities. We can only adduce facts to show when and where such establishments are first mentioned, and yet we must not draw the conclusion that universities are contemporary with those documents which first bear direct testimony to their existence. For we all know that in primitive ages, when new institutions are gradually being developed, centuries may pass before the new-born child of a new civilization is christened, and receives that name which shall bear record of its existence to future generations. As far back as the eleventh century, we find at Paris schools connected with the churches of Notre Dame, St. Geneviève, St. Victor, and Petit Pont, but it appears doubtful whether they had been united in a Studium Generale before the end of the twelfth century. The first direct mention of a "university" at Paris is made in a document of the year 1209. Oxford may, in point of antiquity, claim equality at least with Paris; and the assumption that Alfred the Great planted there, as elsewhere, educational establishments is certainly not without some plausibility. Concerning the existence of monastic schools in that town previously to the twelfth century, not a doubt can be entertained; but to refer the foundation of Oxford University to the times of Alfred the Great is simply an anachronism. Oxford, quite as much as Paris, or rather more so, bears in the rudimentary elements of its constitution the unmistakable traces of its origin in the cathedral and monastic schools. Bologna was one of the most ancient law schools in Italy. Roman law had never become quite extinct in that country; and in the great struggles between spiritual and temporal power, ever and again renewed since the eleventh century, it was ransacked with great eagerness for the purpose of propping up the claims of either pope or emperor, as the case might be. The Italian law schools, therefore, enjoyed the patronage of powers spiritual and temporal, which raised them to the summit of fame and prosperity, and then again dragged them to the very verge of ruin by involving them in the struggles and consequent miseries of the two parties. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa well understood how to appreciate the vantage-ground which presented itself in the codices of the ancients for the support of imperial presumptions, and consequently he expressed his favor and good-will to the lawyers of Italy by confirming the ancient law school at Bologna—a confirmation which was combined with extraordinary privileges to professors and students sojourning in that town, or engaged on their journey there or back. Bologna may, therefore, be regarded as a privileged school or university since the year 1158, without, however, being such in the later acceptation of the term, that is, endowed with the four faculties. Concerning this distinction we shall have to advance a few remarks hereafter.
The term university (universitas), in its ancient signification, denotes simply a community, and may, therefore, be applied to the commune of a city. Hence, the distinction will be evident between the expression "Universitas Bolognae" and "Universitas Studii Bonnensis"—the commune of Bologna, and the community of the university of Bologna. The elder title of a university is Studium, a term applied to every higher school, and supplied with the epithet Generale either from the fact of divers faculties being taught, or students of all nations being admitted within its pale. The most distinctive trait of the Generale Studium is manifested in the social position it had gained as a corporate institution invested with certain rights and privileges, like all other guilds or corporations of the middle ages. The university was the privileged guild, the sole competent body from which every authority and license to teach science and literature emanated. The man upon whom it conferred its degrees was, by the very fact of gaining such distinction, stamped as the scholar, competent to profess and teach the liberal arts. The graduate, however, gained his social position not by the act of promotion, but by the privileges which the governing heads of church and state had connected with that act. Hence, it was considered an indispensable condition that a newly erected university should be confirmed in its statutes and privileges by the pope, the representative of the whole community of Christians. The universities having gained a social position, their members were henceforth not merely scholars declared as such by a competent body of men, but they also derived social advantages which lay beyond the reach of those who stood outside the pale of the university.
A short sketch of the universities erected in different European countries after the pattern of the three parent establishments may suffice to give our readers an idea of the zeal and emulation displayed by popes and emperors, princes and citizens, in the promotion of learning and civilization.
In the year 1204 an unfortunate event befell Bologna. Several professors, with a great number of scholars, removed from that place to Vicenza, where they opened their schools. This dismemberment of the university of Bologna must have had its cause in some—we do not learn exactly what— internal commotion. The secession was apparently of very little effect, for the university of Vicenza, to which it had given rise in 1204, ceased to exist in the year 1209, most probably in consequence of the professors and scholars returning to the alma of Bologna as soon as this could be opportunely done. A more detailed account has been handed down to us concerning the secession of 1215, when Rofredo da Benevento, professor of civil law, emigrated from Bologna to Arezzo, and erected his chair in the cathedral of that city. A crowd of scholars followed the course of the great master. From letters written by Pope Honorius between 1216 and 1220, it would appear that the citizens of Bologna, in order to prevent the dismemberment of their university, tried to impose upon the scholars an oath, by which they were to pledge themselves never, in any way, to further the removal of the Studium from Bologna, or to leave that school for the purpose of settling elsewhere. The students, however, refused to take this oath of allegiance, a refusal in which they were justified by the pope, who advised them rather to leave the city than undertake any engagement prejudicial to their liberties. The result was the rise of the university of Arezzo, where, besides the ancient schools of law, we find in the year 1255 the faculties of arts and medicine. From a similar dissension between the citizens and scholars seems to have been caused the emigration to Padua, where the secessionist professors and scholars established a university which soon became the successful rival of Bologna.
In the year 1222 the Emperor Frederick II., from spite to the Bolognese, and a desire of promoting the interests of his newly erected university of Naples, commanded all the students and professors at Bologna who belonged as subjects to his Sicilian dominions to repair to Naples. The non-Sicilian members of the Alma Bonnensis he endeavored to allure by making them the most liberal promises. At any other time this ungenerous stratagem might have resulted in the entire ruin of the university of Bologna; this city, however, being a member of the powerful Lombard League, could afford to laugh at Frederick's decrees of annihilation. As long as its founder and benefactor was alive, the university of Naples enjoyed a high degree of fame and excellence among the studia of Italy, for Frederick spared neither expense nor labor in the propagation of science and literature.