The privileges which built up the universities were either local, bestowed to prevent removal elsewhere, or general, constituting them integral parts of Church and State. The State exempted members of the universities from financial and military services, save under exceptional circum stances: the Church bestowed the privilege of clergy, and above all the right to teach. When the student had demonstrated his ability to `de termine' and to 'define' the terms in the pre scribed trivial (see TRIVIUM ) texts he received the bachelor's degree. When he had demonstrated his ability to conduct a `disputation; that is, an exposition of the more advanced texts, through a public defense of a thesis, the master's or doctor's degree was conferred. This entitled the recipient to teach within the limits of the university. Toward the end of the thirteenth century Pope Nicholas III. granted to the University of Paris the right of endowing its graduates with the power of teaching everywhere, a privilege later conferred upon most universities. The degrees themselves were similar to and probably borrowed from the corresponding stages in the learning of a craft or in the organization of chivalry. The earlier stage was an apprenticeship, the close of which was marked by the conferring of the bachelor's degree; the following was a journeyman's period, during which the candidate pursued his studies, and at the same time practiced his art by teach ing the younger students the trivial studies. The master or doctor had the right to teach at least in his own and usually in any university, and dur ing the earlier period he was under obligations to teach in his own. In the course of time it be came customary to endow a select number of the graduates as permanent public teachers; these privileged and salaried graduates were designated professors, and instruction by professors more or less supplanted the original plan of teaching by graduates. The prirat-docent of the German uni versities now represents the modification of the old regent graduates.
The term 'faculty' was originally used in the most general sense of science or knowledge; later to indicate a department of study, as the Faculty of Arts. Then a more special connotation became not unusual. as synonymous with the 'consort= magistrorune or 'council of masters.' By ordi nary usage, however, the term was applied to the subordinate corporation of masters. or of masters and students in particular departments of learn ing. The University of Paris had at first only a Faculty of Arts, which existed in an organized form as early as 1169. In the thirteenth century Faculties of Theology, Medicine, and Canon Law were added. These, with the Faculty of Civil Law, constituted the organization of the typical mediaeval university, though not all universities had all faculties represented even at the Renais sance period. The primary units of organization of the universities were the nations, though by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries these were succeeded in importance by the faculties. In Paris the Faculty of Arts was divided into four nations. known as French, Picard. Norman, and German or English. After the thirteenth cen tury these four nations, under their respective procurators, and the three faculties subsequently added, under their deans, constituted the seven component parts of the university. The procura
tors and deans elected the rector of the univer sity, its highest officer. who possessed executive authority of a delegated nature. The rector with the procurators and the deans formed a court having cognizance of all matters relating to discipline, from which there was an appeal to the university and thence to the Parliament of Paris. The chancellor, after the rector, was the highest in authority. though that authority was confined to the conferring of degrees. Originally the chancellor was the immediate representative of the archbishop to whom had previously be longed the right of conferring the privilege of teaching. The details of organization, as well as the designation of the officers, varied con siderably in the early universities. though in gen eral they were all modeled on Paris or Bologna. In the latter city the anircrsitates were to be distinguished from the colleyia. The former were two in number, the ultramontani and the citramontani, which were composed exclusively of the students 'of law organized into constituent nations, thirteen in one case and fourteen in the other, each presided over by its procurator and counselors. The colleyia were organizations of professors and doctors that had control of the conferring of degrees. TheAe colleges were of the Doctors of Civil Law, Doctors of Canon Law, Doctors of Medicine, and, from the middle of the fourteenth century, Doctors of Theology. The general control of the Stadium Generale, how ever, was in the hands of the universities later combined into one.
The colleges, as they developed in other coun tries, were quite different institutions from those of Bologna. They arose through provisions that were made for poor students in connection with hospitals or monastic foundations. The necessity for sonic more domestic supervision of young stu dents, combined with the other tendency, led to the foundation of Halls. These in turn were en dowed with corporate privileges as well as prop erty, and the term college, previously a general term as universitas itself had been, was appro priated by these institutions. They soon assumed the character of boarding houses for all classes of students, where they were privately trained and prepared for public lectures. In some universities the lectures came to be given in the college, first the extraordinary, then the ordinary, until the general university lectures almost disappeared, and no student was admitted except as a member of a college. Many of these colleges were identified with particular faculties, or even departments of faculties. Probably the earliest college of all, which served as a type for the others, was the college of the Sorbonne (q.v.), founded about 1250 in the University of Paris, which came to be iden tified with the theological faculty.
Details concerning the early history of the uni versities, their development and their present or ganization will be found in the articles on the in dividual universities. The early organization of universities has been best adapted to the needs of the present by the German universities, and is•more specifically treated in that section.