From schools to something new
The medieval university was an invention of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Earlier schools, attached to cathedrals and monasteries, taught students under the authority of a bishop or abbot. Their spread in towns, along with growing demand for trained lawyers, clerics and administrators, drew many students to a handful of cities where famous teachers were working. Out of this crowd, the first universities took shape. Few have a precise founding date, because most developed gradually before receiving formal recognition.
The word itself comes from the Latin universitas, meaning a group or corporation. In the first instance it did not refer to a building or a campus. It referred to a community of people, masters or students, banded together for protection and common purposes, much as craftsmen formed guilds.
Bologna: a university of students
Bologna, in northern Italy, is traditionally linked with the study of Roman and church law, and it became a center for this in the twelfth century. Its students were often adults, sometimes already experienced, and many came from other places. As outsiders they had few legal protections in town, so they organized themselves into associations. These student groups hired teachers, set rules for lectures and negotiated with the city. The pattern, often described as a “student university,” differed from Paris, where the masters held the power.
Paris: a university of masters
Paris grew around cathedral and other schools on and near the Seine, and was famous for theology and the arts, meaning the liberal arts and philosophy. Here the teachers formed the corporation, controlling who could join the guild of masters. In the early thirteenth century, a dispute between the masters and the town, along with the church authorities, led to a period of disruption, and the king and the pope took part in settling it. These conflicts helped secure privileges for the masters, though the exact details are debated.
Paris also became the model for many later universities. Colleges, originally endowments providing lodging for poorer scholars, developed there and in other cities and later became teaching institutions in their own right.
Oxford and the English case
Oxford is often said to have developed in the late twelfth century, perhaps partly because English students were no longer easily able to study in Paris at certain times. Cambridge followed, traditionally explained by a dispute in Oxford that sent some scholars elsewhere, although the details are uncertain. The University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge came to dominate English higher learning, and both eventually developed college systems. Many other universities appeared across Europe over the next two centuries, in places such as Salamanca, Padua, Montpellier, Prague and Krakow, as rulers and popes saw benefits in having one.
Charters and privileges
Recognition mattered. A university’s power came from privileges granted by popes, kings or local lords, including freedom from certain taxes, legal rights for students and the right of masters to confer degrees. A particularly important privilege allowed a graduate to teach anywhere, without further examination. The right to teach everywhere gave a degree from a major university prestige across Europe. Another privilege was the use of clerical status, which protected students in court and meant they were tried under church rather than local law, a source of tension with townspeople.
Faculties and subjects
Most universities had a common structure. Students normally started in the faculty of arts, studying the trivium and quadrivium and the logic and natural philosophy introduced through new translations. After that, a student might go on to one of the higher faculties:
- Theology, the most prestigious and longest course
- Canon law and civil law, especially strong in Italy
- Medicine, with medical faculties teaching physicians in a few leading centers
Not every university offered all these subjects. Bologna was known for law, Paris for theology, and others for medicine. The shared use of Latin and common textbooks let students and masters move across borders, and the scholastic method of posing and answering questions shaped teaching in all the faculties.
Students, masters and degrees
The terms “student,” “bachelor,” “master” and “doctor” first described stages of an apprenticeship in teaching. A student in arts studied for several years, listened to lectures and took part in debates. The bachelor was a more advanced student who might assist in teaching. To become a master, one needed to pass an examination and receive a license to teach from the church authority. The ceremony of admission to the masters’ guild, called inception, was a public event.
Length of study varied. Higher degrees in theology took many years, and fewer students finished than began. Many left earlier for careers in the church, courts or royal service, with or without a degree. Early students were mostly young men, and women were not admitted as students, a barrier that lasted throughout the period.
Why it mattered
Universities gave Europe a lasting institution for training professionals and for organizing knowledge, with fixed curricula, recognized degrees and a corporate identity that could outlast individual teachers. They did not displace other forms of learning, such as monastic and cathedral teaching, but they added a new level on top. Many features, from the academic gown to the degree system, still trace back to these medieval beginnings, though their meaning has changed greatly since.