MEDLEVAL UNIVERSITIES. The university, in a modern sense, originated during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as an outgrowth of schools which had existed prior to that time in connection with cathedrals and monasteries.
Throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries there had grown up a new interest in dialectic, logic, and philosophy through the many theologi cal controversies aroused by the earlier sehoolmen and the heresies of the times: in Roman law through the controversies between the Holy Roman Empire and the Italian municipalities and the growing importance of ea f1011 law in Church administration; and in medicine on ac count of the Crusades and the contact with the East and with Saracen learning. When a teacher of eminence appeared, such as AlAard or Peter Lombard at Paris, or Trnerius at Bologna, a large number of students were attracted. This student body is said to have numbered 30,000 at Paris at the time of Such a place of learning and concourse of students was called a stadium, or later a stadium generale to distinguish such a one from the more selected elientHe and func tion of the monastic or cathedral school. The addition of the subject matter of philosophy to the previous religious discussions, the new meth ods of treatment. and the greater freedom of thought were responsible for the building up of the first universities of Northern Europe, and the most influential of all mediteval universities, that of Paris.
The students were no longer necessarily des tined for monastic or clerical life, though most of them were. At least the discipline was much less strict, and the students would not adapt them selves to the closely regulated life of monastery or cathedral. The students were no longer drawn from a restricted area, but were admitted from any region, and great numbers flocked to schools in foreign lands. Civil and canon law, medicine and theology were now added to the seven lib eral arts.
The determining characteristic of the universi ties, however, was their specialization; each of the earlier universities was especially strong in some one line. At Salerno, in Southern Italy, in the early part of the eleventh century, the monks had given special instruction in medicine, and the fame of this new seat of learning spread with the First Crusade. During the twelfth centu
ry great attention was paid to the study of Ro man law, especially in Northern Italy. where the instruction centred in Bologna, and notably so during the life of the great teacher Irnerius. In Paris theology was the subject of interest beyond all others, though the majority of students there were students of the liberal arts, not yet qualified for the study of theology.
These groups of students and teachers, drawn together from the most distant regions, were con trolled by no monastic rules, were amenable to no political authorities, and were practically without protection in their rights and privileges if any then existed. Organization was necessary, and the natural tendency was to organize on the basis of nationality. The 'nations' were the first or ganizations, and they, through their dele gated made the central organization of the body as a whole. Even before organization, as well as afterwards, such a body of students was termed a stadium generale. To the organiza tion the term unirersitas (corporation) was given, but never by itself alone. The terms most frequently used were unirersitas magistrorum, or universitas magistrarum et seholarium, or mai rersitatis eollegium. In the course of time the various nations and faculties, each at first a uni versitas, were united into one, the distinctions be tween the terms stadium qcnerale and universitas were lost sight of, and the latter term was used alone to indicate the general body instead of the constituent parts.
One great difference existed between the uni versities of Southern and those of Northern Eu rope. In the former, modeled as they were after Bologna, the students constituted the corpora tion; in the latter, modeled after Paris, the teach ers controlled, if they did not always completely constitute, the corporation. The great reason for this distinction was that the students of the southern universities, especially those of Bologna, were mature students of law, capable of self government, both on account of their age and the subject of study; while in the north they were the more youthful students of arts, many enter ing Paris at the age of twelve or thirteen.