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Universities

Universities first appeared in Europe during the Middle Ages. By 1400, a total of 29 existed throughout the continent. Another 46 opened their doors over the next 200 years, mostly in Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. Like their modern counterparts, Renaissance universities offered advanced education and provided a setting for research. They made an immense contribution to scholarship and trained many of the leaders of society.

FUNCTIONS AND STRUCTURE

Cities and towns opened new universities for a variety of reasons. Some acted in response to the rising demand for trained professionals. Others gained political or economic benefits from having a school. Regardless of the reasons for their founding, all universities shared certain common features.

Functions. Renaissance universities trained many students for careers in government, law, medicine, and the clergy. The growing governments of the day required educated civil servants, lawyers, and judges. The demand for physicians to work in cities, towns, and royal households drew large numbers of students to study medicine. Other students earned degrees in theology* to prepare for careers in the church.

Some cities and towns founded universities for financial reasons. Attending a local school cost students far less than traveling to a distant town. Thus, building a university could help citizens save money. In addition, it might produce income for the town by attracting out-of-town students who would purchase food, lodging, and other necessities.

Notes

Cracow: 1364, stopped 1370, renewed 1400
Ferrara: 1391, stopped 1402, renewed 1442
Florence: 1348, moved to Pisa 1473
Lisbon-Coimbra: 1290 at Lisbon; settled in Coimbra, 1537
Salamanca: 1400s
Uppsala: 1477, stopped 1515, renewed 1595
Würzburg: 1561–1583

Universities also brought prestige to cities and their rulers by highlighting their commitment to learning. Many governments played an active role in higher education. They controlled the appointments and salaries of professors and the subjects taught. In many cases, they forbade citizens to study at foreign universities in order to increase enrollment at the local school. After the Protestant Reformation*, many towns set specific religious requirements for students and professors.

Structure. At all Renaissance universities, students attended lectures for several years and then took examinations to qualify for a degree. Receiving an advanced degree in a particular subject gave the student the right to teach it. A bachelor's degree in the arts required 1 to 3 years of study, a doctorate in law or medicine took 5 to 7 years, and a doctorate in theology required more than 12 years. In practice, some students graduated in less than the required time.

All lectures, debates, and examinations were conducted in Latin. Professors focused on the great works in their field. For example, philosophy centered on the writings of ARISTOTLE and medicine on those of GALEN. Because of this uniformity in content, students could easily switch their studies from one university to another.

Some universities emphasized certain subjects and levels of training. Schools in Paris and Oxford focused on arts and theology. The Italian universities, by contrast, stressed law and medicine at the doctoral level. By the early 1400s they had completely ceased to offer bachelor's degrees. Universities also varied greatly in size. Paris, the largest, had 12,000 to 15,000 students and several hundred teachers. Large Italian universities boasted between 1,500 and 2,000 students and perhaps 100 professors. The typical university had 30 to 40 professors teaching 300 to 500 students.

Humanism. The influence of humanism* dramatically changed the course of studies at Renaissance universities. In the early 1400s professors began teaching ancient Latin and Greek texts and stressing the use of the original languages. For example, they read the works of Aristotle in Greek rather than relying on Latin translations from the Middle Ages. Some even produced new, more accurate Latin versions of these texts.

Humanist professors also considered texts in their historical context. Legal scholars, for instance, looked at Roman law against the background of ancient Roman society. French universities, in particular, favored this approach.

PROMINENT UNIVERSITIES

Three of the top universities of the Renaissance were Oxford University in England, the University of Paris, and the University of Padua in Italy. Founded in the Middle Ages, all three became major centers of scholarship and influenced intellectual activity across Europe.

Oxford. Formal lectures began at Oxford in the 1100s, and by 1310 the school had grown to some 2,000 students. During the Middle Ages, Oxford was largely free from government rule. The masters (teachers) elected their own head and voted on school regulations.

In the 1500s, however, the university lost most of its independence. At that time, the English king HENRY VIII became involved in a dispute with the Roman Catholic Church over his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In 1530 the king asked Oxford for an opinion about the dispute, and the university hesitated to support him. When Henry broke with the church over the matter, Oxford found itself in an awkward position. As England became increasingly Protestant, Henry and his successors saw Oxford as a center of pro-Catholic feeling. They took measures to ensure that the university remained loyal to the English church. They also tried to control the curriculum. In 1570 Oxford lost the right to appoint its own leaders.

During the Renaissance Oxford's curriculum expanded, partly as a result of humanist influences. In the mid-1400s wealthy nobles introduced humanist ideas to Oxford by donating many books from their libraries, especially Italian texts, to the school. Not long afterward, Oxford began hiring permanent lecturers to teach certain subjects, such as theology, in place of the recent graduates who had formerly served as teachers. During the 1600s the school added new professorships in several fields, including geometry, history, and Arabic.

Paris. The University of Paris included four faculties: arts, church law, medicine, and theology. Established around 1200, the school fell into a decline in the early 1400s. However, a series of reforms in the mid-1400s made it the best university in northern Europe.

Like Oxford, the University of Paris was caught up in the politics of the Protestant Reformation. Catholic clergy members controlled the course of study in Paris. They promoted a tradition known as Scholasticism, which stressed logic, natural philosophy, and ethics*. Humanist critics attacked this course of study. They called for the teaching of rhetoric* and ancient languages and literature. However, most members of the faculty opposed the humanists and warned against the dangers of allowing them to set the curriculum.

In 1521 the university condemned the teachings of the Protestant reformer Martin LUTHER. The king, FRANCIS I, who saw himself as a tolerant and cultured ruler, tried to protect humanists and religious reformers. He occasionally opposed the powerful Faculty of Theology, which had considerable influence over matters of faith. However, he also reacted against critics who went too far in attacking the Catholic Church. In 1543 Francis approved the Articles of Faith, a document that bound faculty members to uphold Catholicism. Despite reforms in the late 1500s that allowed new subjects in the curriculum, Scholastic thought dominated the University of Paris until the 1700s.

Padua. Founded in the 1200s, the University of Padua became the most famous university in Italy. Its importance grew after Venice conquered Padua in 1405. The leaders of Venice strongly supported the school in Padua. They decided that it would be the only university in the state and threatened to fine any Venetian who studied elsewhere.

After a drop in enrollment in the late 1400s, the state took measures to strengthen the school. They added professorships, raised salaries, recruited leading teachers from other universities, and restricted the number of local instructors on the faculty. These reforms helped keep key positions filled with distinguished scholars from around Europe.

The University of Padua suffered a severe setback in 1509, when the city's leaders briefly threw off Venetian rule. Professors and students fled the city, and the university closed down. It did not reopen until 1517, after Venice had recaptured Padua and all the other territory it had lost. The Venetians quickly rebuilt the school, and by the 1560s it boasted an enrollment of some 1,600 students.

Padua was particularly influential in the field of medicine. In 1537 the medical scholar Andreas VESALIUS came to the school to teach anatomy. Through techniques such as dissecting* human bodies, he revolutionized his field. Padua also established the first professorship in the study of "simples," or medicinal plants. In the 1540s it opened one of the first botanical gardens in Europe.

In addition to medicine, Padua had leading schools of natural philosophy (also known as natural science), law, and mathematics. Galileo GALILEI taught mathematics there from 1592 to 1610. Many famous thinkers studied at Padua, including Francesco GUICCIARDINI, Giovanni PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, and Pier Paolo VERGERIO. The renowned German philosopher NICHOLAS OF CUSA obtained a doctorate from Padua in 1423. William HARVEY, the English scientist who discovered the circulation of blood, received his medical degree there in 1603. Other outstanding graduates hailed from Spain, Greece, Hungary, and even America.

(See also Academies; Classical Scholarship; Education; Humanism; Ideas, Spread of.)

* theology

study of the nature of God and of religion

* Protestant Reformation

religious movement that began in the 1500s as a protest against certain practices of the Roman Catholic Church and eventually led to the establishment of a variety of Protestant churches

* humanism

Renaissance cultural movement promoting the study of the humanities (the languages, literature, and history of ancient Greece and Rome) as a guide to living

Student Nations

Beginning in the Middle Ages, university students formed themselves into groups called "nations" based on their homelands. Each nation elected a member to represent it to the host city. The University of Paris, for example, included four nations: France, Normandy, Picardy, and Germany. For a while, student nations exercised considerable power and were even able to help choose their own professors. However, during the Renaissance, the nations lost much of their influence. Civil governments took control of the appointment of professors and other aspects of universities.

* ethics

branch of philosophy concerned with questions of right and wrong

* rhetoric

art of speaking or writing effectively

* dissect

to cut open a body to examine its inner parts