Medieval university

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 the Kingdom of Italy (then part of the Holy Roman Empire), the

Kingdom of England

, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Spain, and the Kingdom of Portugal between the 11th and 15th centuries for the study of the arts and the higher disciplines of theology, law, and

medicine

.de Ridder-Symoens (1992), pp. 47–55 During the 14th century there was an increase in growth of universities and colleges around Europe. These universities evolved from much older

Christian

cathedral schools and monastic schools, and it is difficult to define the exact date when they became true universities, though the lists of studia generalia for higher education in Europe held by the Vatican are a useful guide.

The word originally applied only to the scholastic guilds—that is, the corporation of students and masters—within the , and it was always modified, as , , or . Eventually, probably in the late 14th century, the term began to appear by itself to exclusively mean a self-regulating community of teachers and scholars recognized and sanctioned by civil or ecclesiastical authority.

From the Early Modern period onward, this

Western

-style organizational form gradually spread from the medieval Latin west across the globe, eventually replacing all other higher-learning institutions and becoming the pre-eminent model for higher education everywhere.

Antecedents

The university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting. Prior to the establishment of universities, European higher education took place for hundreds of years in

Christian

cathedral schools or monastic schools (''scholae monasticae''), in which

monk

s and

nun

s taught classes. Evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the 6th century AD.

With the increasing growth and urbanization of European society during the 12th and 13th centuries, a demand grew for professional clergy. Before the 12th century, the intellectual life of Western Europe had been largely relegated to

monasteries

, which were mostly concerned with performing the liturgy and prayer; relatively few monasteries could boast true intellectuals. Following the Gregorian Reform's emphasis on canon law and the study of the sacraments, bishops formed cathedral schools to train the clergy in Canon law, but also in the more secular aspects of religious administration, including logic and disputation for use in preaching and theological discussion, and accounting to control finances more effectively.

Pope Gregory VII

was critical in promoting and regulating the concept of modern university as his 1079 Papal Decree ordered the regulated establishment of cathedral schools that transformed themselves into the first European universities.

Learning became essential to advancing in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and teachers also gained prestige. Demand quickly outstripped the capacity of cathedral schools, each of which was essentially run by one teacher. In addition, tensions rose between the students of cathedral schools and burghers in smaller towns. As a result, cathedral schools migrated to large cities, like

Bologna

,

Rome

and

Paris

.

Syed Farid Alatas has noted some parallels between

Madrasah

s and early European

college

s and has thus inferred that the first universities in Europe were influenced by the Madrasahs in

Islamic Spain

and the Emirate of Sicily. George Makdisi, Toby Huff and Norman Daniel, however, have questioned this, citing the lack of evidence for an actual transmission from the Islamic world to Christian Europe and highlighting the differences in the structure, methodologies, procedures, curricula and legal status of the "Islamic college" (''madrasa'') versus the European university.

Establishment

Hastings Rashdall set out the modern understanding of the medieval origins of the universities, noting that the earliest universities emerged spontaneously as "a scholastic Guild, whether of Masters or Students... without any express authorization of King, Pope, Prince or Prelate."

Among the earliest universities of this type were the University of Bologna (1088), University of Paris (1150), University of Oxford (1167), University of Modena (1175), University of Palencia (1208), University of Cambridge (1209),

University of Salamanca

(1218), University of Montpellier (1220), University of Padua (1222), University of Toulouse (1229), University of Orleans (1235), University of Siena (1240), University of Valladolid (1241) University of Northampton (1261),

University of Coimbra

(1288), University of Pisa (1343), Charles University in Prague (1348), Jagiellonian University (1364), University of Vienna (1365),

Heidelberg University

(1386) and the University of St Andrews (1413) begun as private corporations of teachers and their pupils.

In many cases universities petitioned secular power for privileges and this became a model. Emperor

Frederick I

in ''Authentica Habita

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