The oldest authentic document bearing upon the University of Bologna is the privilege granted by the emperor Frederic I., at Ron caglia, in November, 1158, to all who travel in pursuit of learning, in which the professors of law are mentioned in terms of high encomium. Bologna is not named in this instrument, but history mentions no other law-school as existing at that early period. The contents of this privilege are twofold ; foreign scholars are declared to stand under the emperor's immediate protection, and a special jurisdiction (their teachers, or the bishop of the city) is constituted to judge in all com plaints against them. It seems universally admitted that the earliest teacher of civil law at Bologna was Irnerius: he is said to have been originally a teacher of philosophy, but to have acquired arch a know ledge of Justinian's compilations that he was invited by the Countess Matilda to expound its doctrines from the professorial chair. Matilda died in 1115: between 1113 and 1115 the name of Irnerius appears in a legal document as " causidieus" for the countess. From 1116 to 1118 he appears to have been employed in weighty missions by the emperor Henry V. Under the emperor Frederic " the four doctors" of Bologna were selected to investigate the rights of the crown, in order to determine how far those claimed by the Lombard towns were usurpations. These circumstances show that the reputation for legal knowledge acquired by the law-teachers of Bologna had proved an introduction to state employments, honours, and emoluments ; and this attracted to the city in which they taught a large concourse of the most intelligent and aspiring minds of Europe. The reputation of having studied at Bologna was a passport to office throughout Christen dom. The earliest statutes and charters of the University of Bologna are compacts entered into by the students for mutual support and assistance, and immunities granted them by the popes and emperors. The University of Paris was originally an association of teachers : it was a corporation of graduates. The University of Bologna was originally an association of students who had repaired from distant lands to avail themselves of the instruction of a few celebrated teachers : it was a corporation of students. Disputes between the magistrates of the city, and between the students and professors, which occurred about 1214, are the first occasions on which we hear of a rector. From the history of these controversies it appears that the students had previously been in the habit of electing the rector, and that the right was confirmed to them for the future. At first there was merely a school of law in Bologna, and the jurists consti . tuted the university, or rather the two universities of the Citramon tani and Ultramontani. In course of time teachers of philosophy and medicine settled in Bologna, and the scholars of each class attempted to form a university : their right to do so was successfully contested by the jurists in 1295, bu5 in 1310 they were allowed to elect a rector of their own. They called themselves " philoaophl et medici," or "artiste." In 1362 Innocent VI. founded a school of theology at Bologna. From this time therefore there were four universities In Bologna : two of law (which, however, were so intimately connected, that they are generally spoken of as one), one of medicine and philo sophy, and one of theology. Each of these had Its own independent constitution. That of the law university is best known, and agrees in its leading features with the others. The " universities" consisted of the foreign students, who were admitted upon the payment of twelve soldi entry-money, and obliged to renew annually their oath of obedi ence to the rector and the statutes of the university. The Bolognese students could neither hold offices in the university nor vote in its assemblies. The foreign atudents were divided into Citramontanl and Ultmmontaui : the former were divided into seventeen nations, the latter Into eighteen. The rector was chosen annually from among the students by his predecessor in office, the rectors council, and a number of electors chosen by the nations. A rector was taken from each nation in rotation. The council consisted of at least one repre sentative of each nation : some bad two. The university also elected annually a syndic, to act for them In courts of law; a notary ; a mas &Mille, or treasurer (chosen from among the town bankers); and two bidelll. The rector claimed exclusive jurisdiction in all civil cases in which one or both of the parties were students, and in criminal cases in which both were students. The professors were elected by the students, to whose body they were reckoned, and all whose privileges they enjoyed, except a vote at elections. They stood under the juris diction of the rector, who could fine or suspend them. The degree of Doctor was conferred by those who had previously obtained it : it was held to confer the privilege of teaching everywhere, the power of discipline over the doctor's own pupils, the right to take part in the conferring of all the degrees. At first there were only doctors of civil law : the doctors of canon law appear later, and were long less respected. In the 13th century the university began to create doctors of medicine, of grammar, of philosophy and arta, and even of the notarial art. Any student who had studied five years might he licensed by the rector to expound a single title, or, if be had studied six years, to expound a whole book of the Pandects. He was termed a licentiate; and after he had performed his task, lie was declared a baccalaureus. Salaried professors appear in Bologna for the first time about 1279. The doctors taught in their own houses or in halls hired for the purpose : their method of tuition was by lectures, examina tions, and disputations.
The history of the University of Salerno is much more obscure than the histories of the Universities of Paris and Bologna. Ordericus Vitalis, whose annals close with the year 1141, speaks of Salerno as a place long eminent for its medical schools. Its most celebrated teacher, Constantine of Carthage (died 10S7), was a privy councillor of Louis Guiacard. This school was still flourishing lu 1224, when the University of Naples was established. All that can be inferred from these scanty notices of the school of Salerno is, that the scientific study of medicine was making rapid strides about the same time that law began to be more systematically studied, and philosophical and• literary pursuits to be regarded as the profession of a class whose members might or might not be priests. [SALERNITANA SCUOLA, in BIOG. Div.] A sense of the advantages of general knowledge had led to the foundation of cathedral and cloister schools ; a sense of the use of accomplished professional men led to the encouragement of the philo sophical and theological schools of Paris, the law school of Bologna, and the medical school of Salerno. The peculiar constitution of society and government at the period led to the peculiar form of incorporation adopted by the schools of Paris and Bologna. The same social neces sities were working under the influence of similar social organisation in many different places, and must necessarily have led, even without communication, to similar results. But quarrels which broke out repeatedly between the universities of Paris and Bologna and the civil authorities of these cities, induced the teachers and students at different times to emigrate in a body and settle in other towns. After the breach was healed, they returned; but in some instances celebrated teachers preferred remaining in their new place of settlement, and in others the government created a new university after their temporary visitors had left them. Other universities owed their foundation to the desire of princes, ecclesiastics, or municipal authorities to dissemi nate learning ; and others to a desire on the part of these authorities to procure for their territories a share in the wealth diffused by the resort of numerous foreigners to any celebrated school. Uuder the influence of motives so various, the growth of universities throlighout Europe was rapid. Before the Reformation they were established in many of the principal cities of Italy, France, the Germauie Empire, the Peninsula, Great Britain, and even among the Slavonic nations east of the Germans. In Grcat Britain the dates of foundation were :—Oxford, before 1149; Cambridge, uncertain; St. Andrews, 1412; Glasgow, 1454; Aberdeen, 1494; Edinburgh, 1532; and Dublin, 1591, are of subsequent foundation.
In all of these institutions we recognise the leading features of Paris or Bologna. All of them, apart from the consideration of their academic character, were privileged corporations, with an independent jurisdiction more or less limited, and the power of making bye-laws. In most of them the division of the members of the corporation into nations prevailed. In all of them the faculties of philosophy (or arts), theology, law (civil and canon), and medicine were more or less fully developed. Some contained within them all the faculties; some only two or more. Almost all had a faculty of arts, which, even where it was politically the most powerful (as in the uni versity of Paris), was regarded as in a great measure preparatory to, and therefore in its scientific character inferior to the others. In the universities of spontaneous growth the privilege of conferring degrees appears to have been claimed only in those faculties which were com pletely organised; in the factitious universities created by govern ments the right of bestowing degrees in all faculties appears to have been claimed, even where some of them only were completely organised. In some of these bodies the students constituted the corporation ; in others, the masters or teachers : the former appear to have assimilated themselves to the model-university of Bologna ; the latter, to that of Paris. The Italian universities, and the greater part, if not all, of the French universities, except l'aris, were corporations of students. The Parisian institutions were adopted in England, the Germanic Empire, and the statea on the Baltic. Spanish universities have the appearance of being a compromise between the two principles: in Salamanca the rector was elected by the scholasticus of the cathe dral from among the students, and the rector appointed the professors and fixed their salaries. This division of the old universities into two classes appears, like everything about those institutions, to have bad its origin in the social necessities of the time and countries. The legal faculty predominated iu the Italian universities, and the French universities were called " universites des, lois." The universities of this type will be found to predominate in those countries in which the Roman law prevailed, as contradistinguished from Teutonic Germany and England, and the " pays eoutuuders " of France—in the countries in which the old Roman civilisation had never been entirely extirpated, as contradistinguished from those in which the Teutonic invaders formed the majority of the population. In the former there was a civilisation apart from the church ; in the latter there was no civili sation but what came through the church. In the former a secular and independent spirit prevailed : the universities were incorporations of grown men seeking secular learning. In the latter a spirit of clerical domination prevailed : the universities were corporations of teachers seeking to exercise the functions of missionaries.