''Authentica habita'',"Authentica Habita."
''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...

'', 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 20 Sep. 2010. or ''Privilegium Scholasticum'', was a document written in 1155 ca. by the Emperor

Frederick I Barbarossa Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (german: link=no, Friedrich I, it, Federico I), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt o ...

. In it, he set out for the first time some of the rules, rights and privileges of students and scholars. It is an important precursor to the formation of

medieval universities A medieval university was a corporation organized during the Middle Ages for the purposes of higher education. The first Western European institutions generally considered to be universities were established in present-day Italy (including the ...

in Europe. Scholars from all over Europe had begun to travel to

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

to study civil and canon law, and newly rediscovered works of Roman law, from the mid-11th century. As foreigners there, they found themselves without legal protection. A particular difficulty was the practice of the Right of

Reprisal A reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of international law to punish another sovereign state that has already broken them. Since the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP 1), reprisals in the laws of war are extreme ...

, where their property could be seized on foot of debts incurred by their countrymen. The document grants several rights and protections to scholars including: # Similar immunities and freedoms as those held by the clergy, provided they conformed to certain attributes, such as clerical dress; # Freedom of movement and travel for the purposes of study; # Immunity from the right of reprisal; and # The right to be tried by their masters, or the Bishops court, rather than local civil courts. The document was subsequently confirmed by Pope Alexander III. The emperor incorporated the document into Justinian’s Codex, the extant body of Roman law, indicating its significance. One medieval commentary to the document exists, written by Bartolomeo Bolognini in 1492. See also

Pearl Kibre Pearl Kibre (September 2, 1900 — July 15, 1985) was an American historian. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1950 for her work on medieval science and universities. Early life and education Pearl Kibre was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ...

's "Scholarly privileges in the Middle Ages".

References

See also