ubique docendi.” It was a still further development when it began to be recognized that, without a licence from either pope, emperor or king, no “studium generale” could be formed possessing this right of conferring degrees, which originally meant nothing more than licences to teach.
In the north of Europe such licences were granted by the Chancellor Scholasticus, or some other officer of a cathedral Meaning of “studium generale.” church; in the south it is probable that the gilds of masters (when these came to be formed) were at first free to grant their own licences, without any ecclesiastical or other supervision. But in all cases such permissions were of a purely local character. Gradually, however, towards the end of the 12th century, a few great schools claimed from the excellence of their teaching to be of more than merely local importance. Practically a doctor of Paris or Bologna would be allowed to teach anywhere; while those great schools began to be known as studia generalia, i.e. places resorted to by scholars from all parts. Eventually the term came to have a more definite and technical signification. The emperor Frederick II. set the example of attempting to confer by an authoritative bull upon his new school at Naples the prestige which the earlier studia had acquired by reputation and general consent. In 1229 Gregory IX. did the same for Toulouse, and in 1233 added to its original privileges a bull by which any one who had been admitted to the doctorate or mastership in that university should have the right to teach anywhere without further examination. Other studia generalia were subsequently founded by papal or imperial bulls; and in 1292 even the oldest universities, Paris and Bologna, found it desirable to obtain similar bulls from Nicolas IV. From this time the notion began to prevail among the jurists that the essence of the studium generale was the privilege of conferring the jus ubicunque docendi, and that no new studium could acquire that position without a papal or imperial bull. By this time, however, there were a few studia generalia (e.g. Oxford) whose position was too well established to be seriously questioned, although they had never obtained such a bull; these were held to be studia generalia ex consuetudine. A few Spanish universities founded by royal charter were held to be studia generalia respectu regni. The word Origin of the term “university.” universitas was originally applied only to the scholastic gild (or gilds) within the studium, and was at first not used absolutely; the phrase was always universitas magistrorum, or scholarium or magistrorum et scholarium. By the close of the medieval period, however, the distinction between the terms studium generale and universitas was more or less lost sight of, and in Germany especially the term universitas began to be used alone.[1]
In order, however, clearly to understand the conditions under which the earliest universities came into existence, it is necessary History of learning before the university era. to take account, not only of their organization, but also of their studies, and to recognize the main influences which, from the 6th to the 12th century, served to modify both the theory and the practice of education. In the former century, the schools of the Roman empire, which had down to that time kept alive the traditions of pagan education, had been almost entirely swept away by the barbaric invasions. The latter century marks the period when the institutions which supplied their place—the episcopal schools attached to the cathedrals and the monastic schools—attained to their highest degree of influence and reputation. Between these and the schools of the empire there existed an essential difference, in that the theory of education by which they were pervaded was in complete contrast to the simply secular theory of the schools of paganism. The cathedral school taught only what was supposed to be necessary for the education of the priest; the monastic school taught only what was supposed to be in harmony with the aims of the monk. But between the pagan system and the Christian system by which it had been superseded there yet existed something that was common to both: the latter, even in the narrow and meagre instruction which it imparted, could not altogether dispense with the ancient text-books, simply because there were no others in existence. Certain treatises of Aristotle, of Porphyry, of Martianus Capella and of Boetius continued consequently to be used and studied; and in the slender outlines of pagan learning thus still kept in view, and in the exposition which they necessitated, we recognize the main cause which prevented the thought and literature of classic antiquity from falling altogether into oblivion.
Under the rule of the Merovingian dynasty even these scanty traditions of learning declined throughout the Frankish Revival in time of Charlemagne. dominions; but in England the designs of Gregory the Great, as carried out by Theodorus, Bede and Alcuin, resulted in a great revival of education and letters. The influence of this revival extended in the 8th and 9th centuries to Frankland, where Charlemagne, advised and aided by Alcuin, effected a memorable reformation, which included both the monastic and the cathedral schools; while the school attached to the imperial court, known as the Palace School, also became a famous centre of learned intercourse and instruction.
But the activity thus generated, and the interest in learning which it served for a time to diffuse, well-nigh died out amid the anarchy which characterizes the 10th century in Latin Christendom, and it is at least questionable whether any real connexion can be shown to have existed between this earlier revival and that remarkable movement in which the university of Paris had its origin. On the whole, however, a clearly traced, although imperfectly continuous, succession of distinguished teachers has inclined the majority of those who have studied this obscure period to conclude that a certain tradition of learning, handed down from the famous school over which Alcuin presided at the great abbey of St Martin at Tours, continued General causes of formation of first universities. to survive, and became the nucleus of the teaching in which the university took its rise. But, in order adequately to explain the remarkable development and novel character which that teaching assumed in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, it is necessary to take account of the operation of certain more general causes to which the origin of the great majority of the earlier universities may in common unhesitatingly be referred. These causes are—(1) the introduction of new subjects of study, as embodied in a new or revived literature; (2) the adoption of new methods of teaching which were rendered necessary by the new studies; (3) the growing tendency to organization which accompanied the development and consolidation of the European nationalities.
That the earlier universities took their rise to a great extent in endeavours to obtain and provide instruction of a kind beyond Rise of university of Salerno. the range of the monastic and cathedral schools appears to be very generally admitted, but with respect the origin of the first European university—that of Salerno in Italy, which became known as a school of Salerno medicine as early as the 9th century—the circumstances are pronounced by a recent investigator to be “veiled in impenetrable obscurity.”[2] One writer[3] derives its origin from an independent tradition of classical learning which continued to exist in Italy down to the 10th century. Another writer[4] maintains that it had its beginning in the teaching at the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, where the study of medicine was undoubtedly pursued. But the most authoritative researches point to the conclusion that the medical system of Salerno was originally an outcome of the Graeco-Roman tradition of the old Roman world, and the Arabic medicine was not introduced till the highest fame of the Civitas Hippocratica was passing away. It may have been influenced by the late survival of the Greek language in southern Italy, though this cannot be proved. In the first half of the 9th century the emperor at Constantinople sent to the Caliph
