Concept
Medieval university
Overview
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 Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, and the Kingdoms of England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Scotland between the 11th and 15th centuries for the study of the arts and the higher disciplines of theology, law, and medicine. 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 universitas originally applied only to the scholastic guilds—that is, the corporation of students and masters—within the studium, and it was always modified, as universitas magistrorum, universitas scholarium, or universitas magistrorum et scholarium. 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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The reestablishing this ancient order was the object of several statutes enacted in England during the course of the fourteenth century, particularly of what is called the statute of provisors; and of the pragmatic sanction, established in France in the fifteenth century. In order to render the election valid, it was necessary that the sovereign should both consent to it before hand, and afterwards approve of the…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Medieval university is.
The whole of the polity and economy of every country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic custumary, from the feudal institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and discipline by the Roman law. From hence arose the several orders, with or without a monarch (which are…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
States what Medieval university is.
That society then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons call homogalaktes…
Aristotle, Politics
States what Medieval university is; the author is tied to Medieval university in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Medieval university
Related ideas
- Heidelberg University
- Aristotelian physics
- Merton College, Oxford
- Holy See
- Philosophy
- Isaac Newton
- Bachelor of Arts
- Johannes Kepler
- Byzantine Empire
- Isagoge
- Latin
- University of St Andrews
- Mathematics
- Middle Ages
- Law
- Medicine
- Autonomy
- University
- Madrasa
- Bologna
- Western world
- Western culture
- Thomas Aquinas
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Place in the tradition
Part of Scholasticism.