The previously unknown notion of the university as a self-governing academic institution did not appear until the Middle Ages and it can be argued that it was one of the most important advances in the history of ideas. Previous models of education and research establishments had existed, such as the Museum of Alexandria answerable to the king, the schools of Athens answerable to a single scholar and the madrasas of Islam whose activities were rigidly limited by religious law and the wishes of their founders [NOTE], but none of these cases are equivalent to the new concept of the European university.
Once cathedral schools moved beyond just training the clergy, they found themselves needing to hold on to respected teachers in order to attract fee-paying students. The result of this was a shift in power from the cathedral chapter to the scholars themselves. By the late eleventh century they were using new developments in civil and canon law to form a universitas or corporation (the actual term for an academic university was studium generale) in a similar manner to the craft guilds also appearing at this time [NOTE]. The vital concept was that a corporation had a distinct legal personality separate from its members that allowed them to show a single face to the outside world while independently being able to govern the workings of the corporation from within.
A city or state was willing to make considerable allowances for a whole group of scholars so the university was granted legal immunities and privileges, which could later be recognised internationally by the Pope who, for example, bestowed his benediction on Oxford in 1254 [NOTE]. Furthermore, the masters needed students and they could form a universitas of their own. Thus Bologna, usually recognised as the first university, was a corporation of students (universitas scholarium), while Oxford and Paris were corporations of masters (universitas magistrorum). No foundation documents exist for these earliest institutions but later in the Middle Ages universities were specifically set up by localities or rulers with charters that give a good idea of what was considered the usual form. Of the earliest universities, Bologna began as a secular law school for the study of the newly rediscovered Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian [NOTE] while Oxford and Paris both grew out of a loose association of clerical private teachers [NOTE]. Later disputes led to an exodus from Bologna of students and masters to Padua [NOTE] among other places, while Cambridge was founded after a similar migration from Oxford.
By the fourteenth century, the university had become the centrepiece of European intellectual life with new foundations appearing as kings and bishops attempted to enhance their own prestige. They were even willing to try and lure away scholars in established universities with the promise of safety and privileges such as when Henry III tried to tempt the masters of Paris over to England. [NOTE] As antiquity leant further authority, the earliest universities claimed mythical foundations. Alfred the Great was said to have endowed Oxford, Charlemagne to have founded Paris and, most ancient of all, the Roman Emperor Theodosius II to have given a charter to Bologna. [NOTE] Universities founded later needed to earn their position by the quality of their scholars and recognition by a pope or emperor. Not all of them, such as the short lived Piacenza [NOTE], succeeded. As for the students themselves, they were already moaning regularly about tuition fees [NOTE] and had given rise to the popular perception, reproduced by Chaucer in The Miller’s Tale and The Reeve’s Tale, of being pranksters or, according to Alvarus Pelagius [NOTE], good-for-nothing layabouts or violent thugs. The extremely long time away from home it could take to gain a degree, the need for funds or benefices to pay the fees and, probably, sheer boredom, meant the drop out rate was very high, with only a low proportion of students even completing a degree, let alone a doctorate in law, theology or medicine. On the other hand, the number who stayed for a year or two and left with a modicum of higher education to aid in finding a good career was quite great. It is estimated that the number of people gaining some sort of university experience in Western Europe before the Reformation is as high as 750,000 and they thus formed a substantial literate population [NOTE].
Another important factor in the development of the universities was their adoption by the mendicant orders. Both the Franciscans and Dominicans saw their mission as preaching and for this they required well-educated brothers who could engage difficult subjects with ease. An intellectual rivalry grew up between the two orders, which led to competition between them to get their brothers into the choicest university appointments. The interest that these rich and powerful orders had in the success of the universities further enhanced all parties’ prestige and provided a useful way for individual scholars to continue in their chosen careers. For, although an individual mendicant could have no money himself, he was looked after as a valued member of his order who furthermore paid the substantial tuition fees. Hence, for the student struggling through the many years of study required to finally gain the doctorate in theology, joining the friars might be a very good idea [NOTE].
The power of the mendicants did cause some difficulties, as their priorities did not always coincide with those of the universities. The orders wanted trained preachers with theology degrees and were not too concerned that they should receive the Master of Arts (the ‘MA’) degree first as regulations required. The universities, on the other hand, not least because they needed the students, tried to insist that an MA was an essential prerequisite for studying in the theology faculty. Hence the relationship between the mendicants and the universities was not easy and led at times to serious strife [NOTE].
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