THE RENAISSANCE Tiibingen.—The University of Tubingen was founded in with the usual four faculties, and numbered John Reuchlin and Melanchthon among its teachers. (See TUBINGEN.) France.—The earliest 15th century university in France was that of Aix in Provence. It had originally been nothing more than a school of theology and law, but in 1409 it was reorganized as a studium generale on the model of Paris. Its students were divided into Burgundians, Provencals and Catalans.
The University of Poitiers was instituted by Charles VII. in 1431 with the design of creating a centre of learning less favour able to English interests than Paris had at that time shown herself to be. He conferred on Poitiers all the privileges collectively possessed by Paris, Toulouse, Montpellier, Angers and Orleans, and at the same time placing the university under special royal protection.
The University of Caen was founded under English auspices during the short period of the supremacy of the English arms in Normandy in the 15th century. Its charter (May 1437) was given by Eugenius IV., and the bishop of Bayeux was appointed its chancellor. After the expulsion of the English from France, it received a new charter. From this time the University of Caen was distinguished by its loyal spirit and firm resistance to ultra montane pretensions; and, although swept away at the French Revolution, it was afterwards restored, owing to the sense of the services it had thus once rendered to the national cause. Other French 15th century foundations are Bo.rdeaux (1441), Valence (1452), Nantes (1463), and Bourges Central and Northern Europe.—The University of Basle was opened in 1460, under the auspices of its own citizens, and Pius II. (Aeneas Sylvius) granted the charter (Nov. 12, 1459). During the first 7o years of its existence the university prospered, and its chairs were held by eminent professors, among them his torical scholars, such as Sebastian Brant and Jacob Wimpheling. But with the Reformation, Basle became the arena of contests which menaced the very existence of the university itself, the professors being, for the most part, opposed to the new movement with which the burghers warmly sympathized. Eventually, the
statutes were revised, and in the latter half of the 16th century the university may be said to have attained its apogee.
The University of Ingolstadt was founded on April 7, 1459. But it was not until 1472 that the work of teaching was actually commenced there. Some long-existing prebends, founded by for mer dukes of Bavaria, were appropriated to the endowment. Nowhere did the Reformation meet with more stubborn resistance, and it was at Ingolstadt that the Counter-Reformation com menced. In 1556 the Jesuits made their first settlement in the university.
At Trier and Mainz universities were established in the second half of the 14th century. Trier received its charter as early as 1450; but the first academical session did not commence until 1473. In 1722 the assembly of deputies, by a formal grant, re lieved the university from the difficulties in which it had become involved. Sixtus IV. granted the charter to Mainz (Nov. 23, 1476) at the request of Archbishop Diether, who was himself a great humanist.
Other foundations were those of Uppsala (1477) and Copen hagen (1479), which, although lying without the political boun daries of Germany, reflected her influence. The charter for Copen hagen was given by Sixtus IV. as early as The university founded at Wittenberg by Maximilian I. ( July 6, 1502) was the first established in Germany by imperial decree. Its charter is, however, drawn up with the traditional phraseology of the pontifical bulls, and is evidently not conceived in any spirit of antagonism to Rome. Wittenberg is constituted a studium generale in all the f our faculties-the right to confer degrees in theology and canon law having been sanctioned by the papal legate some months before, on Feb. 2, 1502. Wittenberg was the first academic centre north of the Alps where the Latinity and anti quated methods of the scholastic era were overthiown.