Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/320

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268

FREIBURG


268


FREIBURG


called Glareanus, the renowned Latinist, musician, and geographer; John Hartung, professor of Greek and Hebrew. In the theological faculty, which usuallj' employed three lecturers in the sixteenth century, taught (at least for a short period) the following eminent scholars: Geiler of Kaisersberg, one of the university's earliest students; Johann Eck; Thomas Murner; Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had however never studied there, etc. The faculty of law, to which six regular professors were assigned in the sixteenth century, was long famous throughout Europe, tlianks to Ulrich Zasius, the founder of modern political science. At this period three professors constituted the medical faculty, whose statutes had been sketchetl by Hummel himself. As a rule the students lived with their professors in residences or boarding-houses


(the so-called Bursen), of which there were seven at Freiburg, including the "Alte Burse", the "Domus Carthusiana", and the "Collegium Sapientife". The university having attained so rapidly to renown, it was but natural that many of its professors should have been appointed to offices of high intellectual importance. From Freiburg the Chapter of .Augs- burg chose two, and Vienna three of its prince-bishops; the Chapters of Constance, Augsburg, Basle, and Speyer many of their suffragans, and the University of Vienna one of its chancellors.

During the widespread confusion of the Reforma- tion period which exercised so deleterious an effect on many of the German universities, Freiburg succeeded by its judicious and cautious attitude in maintaining its ground. It is indeed a fact that several of its prp- fessors were in correspondence with Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin; that many others were suspected of favouring their innovations; that the senate itself censured Glareanus for inveighing so fiercely against Luther, Oecolampadius, and the other reformers in his lectures; still the university in general remained


true to the ancient Faith, and through its influence the town became a bulwark of Catholicism. The imiver- sity refused henceforth to enrol any students who had studied in Wittenberg or Leipzig, and after 1.567 only those who declared on oath their acceptance of the Tridentine Confession of F^aith were admitted. To secure a still more Catholic atmosphere. Archduke Ferdinand invited the Jesuits in 1577 to found a college in Freiburg, and to incorporate it in the uni- versity. This scheme, however, aroused such ener- getic opposition, especially from Jodocus Lorichius, professor of theology and founder of the Collegium Pacis {Burse zum Friedcn) that it had to be laid aside. On 5 November, 1520, shortly after the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, the Jesuits were introduced into the university on the strength of a fiat of Arch- duke Leopold in spite of the opposition of the senate, and entrusted with the whole faculty of arts and tem- porarily with two of the theological chairs. From the rector.ship and quajstorship, however, they were ex- cluded, although the cathedral pulpit was soon re- signed into their hands. The most renowned of the Jesuit professors at I<'reiburg was the astronomer, Christopher Scheiner (q. v. ) , who left Freiburg finally in 1630. The frequent change of the fathers was inileed injurious to the university, at which too many re- mained but a very short time; thus, in the faculty of arts alone, no fewer than 123 different Jesuits were employed as lecturers during the 153 years preceding the suppression of the order.

The seventeenth century, especially the Thirty Years War and the predatory wars of Louis XIV, brought the university to the brink of ruin. Almost all its fimtled property was lost, as well as a great por- tion of its income from the parishes, now sadly im- poverished by pillage and fire. The professors were frequently compelled to wait years for their stipend, and in 1648 the number of students had fallen to 46. Emperor Leopold was the first to take steps to remove the financial difficulties, but, when the town was ceded to the I'^rench by the Peace of Nimwegen (1679), the majority of the professors and students migrated to Constance. The Jesuit fathers remained and opened in 1684 astudium galliccmum vmder the patronage of Louis XIV, but it was not until some years later that the old personnel of the university could initiate academic courses in Constance. After the Peace of Ryswik (1697), the professorate returned from Con- stance to Freiburg, when the old contentions, which had so often broken out between the university and the Society of Jesus, were settled by the so-called " Viennese Transaction" of forty articles. According to this agreement, the Jesuits were stiU excluded from the rectorate, and were refused the precedence, which they had claimed; on the other hand they received the building of the "Alte Burse", which they had previ- ously occupied, as their private property, and in addi- tion an increased annual stipend, as well as all arrears of salary.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the out- look of the university was far from hopeful, and in 1713 the members were compelled to seceile once more to Constance, returning in 1715. Emperor Charles VI later increased the revenue of the university, who.se staff again included many illustrious professors — the jurists Stapf, Egermayer, Waizenegger, and Rein- hart; the physicians Blau, Strobel, and Baader; the Jesuits NicasiusGramniatici and Steinmayer — but the university never reached the educational level of the halcyon days of the sixteenth century. After the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, their college build- ings together with their church (built 1630-40) and Gytmiasium Academicum were annexed in 1777 by Empress Maria Theresa to the university. The im- portance of the Albertina waxed greater with the increasing prosperity of the country. The new cur- riculum of studies, which Maria Theresa caused to be