Page:Balthasar Hübmaier.djvu/77

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1523]
The Years of Preparation
33

member of the Freiburg faculty. Here he might have remained but for a quarrel that broke out between the university and Eck concerning the latter's salary. The pupil espoused his teacher's quarrel with more zeal than discretion, and the result was that both soon left the university. Eck received an appointment in the University of Ingolstadt, and his influence was sufficient to secure a position also for his devoted pupil and friend.

The University of Ingolstadt had been established in 1472 by Duke Lewis the Rich, and was already a famous institution. It became still more celebrated through Eck's connection with it, and by the end of the sixteenth century is said to have had four thousand students. The town is a small one, and though now one of the great fortresses of the southern frontier of the German Empire, is a place of slight commercial importance, and its population of about twenty thousand is little if any in excess of its mediæval size. Being thus outstripped in growth by other towns, it became less desirable as an educational centre, and since 1826 the university has been merged in that of Munich.

The original university building, however, is still