Western Civilization.p

The Founding of the Universities

The locus of that revival was a new institution: the uni-

versity. The first universities emerged from the same

regularizing impulses that inspired the consolidation of

feudal states and the reforms of Innocent III. The

twelfth century revival of learning had led to a prolifera-

tion of competing schools in such centers as Paris and

Bologna. Church and municipal authorities became

alarmed at the potential for disorder, and the masters

soon recognized the need for an organization that could

both protect their interests and ensure that new masters

were properly trained. By the mid-twelfth century, a

rudimentary guild system was beginning to evolve.

At Paris, the scholars soon found themselves in con-

flict with the cathedral chapter of Notre Dame, which

tried to control them, and the townspeople, who were

trying to protect their lives and property against the stu-

dents (see document 9.6). The students were

for the most part adolescent males who lived without

supervision and were capable of rape, theft, and murder.

They in turn complained of gouging by landlords and

tavern keepers. Such grievances were ignored, while at-

tempts to arrest student criminals often led to bloody ri-

ots. Each new outrage brought a flood of appeals to the

pope or the king. Between 1215 and 1231 a series of

statutes and charters were issued that established the

privileges of the university in both civil and canon law.

The situation at Oxford was not much different.

The English masters had gathered in a market town

that had no cathedral or other ecclesiastical organiza-

tion against which to rebel, but their relations with the

townsfolk were as envenomed as those at Paris. In

1209, after a violent riot, teaching was suspended and

many of the scholars departed for Cambridge to found

a separate university. Oxford’s privileges were guaran-

172Chapter 9

Illustration 9.6
St. Francis.In this fresco by Italian master Giotto
(1266?–1337), St. Francis renounces his patrimony. The decision
to abandon all worldly goods to live in poverty marked the be-
ginning of his ministry to the poor.

DOCUMENT 9.6

Privileges of the Students at Paris

The following privilege was granted to the students at Paris

by King Philip Augustus in 1200. It seeks to protect aca-

demic freedom by ensuring that students accused of crimes are

tried only by ecclesiastical courts.

Neither our provost nor our judges shall lay hands

on a student for any offense whatever; nor shall

they place him in our prison, unless such a crime

has been committed by the student that he ought

to be arrested. And in that case, our judge shall ar-

rest him on the spot, without striking him at all,

unless he resists, and shall hand him over to the

ecclesiastical judge, who ought to guard him in

order to satisfy us and the one suffering the injury.

... But if the students are arrested by our count at
such an hour that the ecclesiastical judge cannot
be found and be present at once, our provost shall
cause the culprits to be guarded in some student’s
house without any ill-treatment as is said above,
until they are delivered to the ecclesiastical
judge.... In order, moreover, that these decrees
may be kept more carefully and be established by
a fixed law, we have decided that our present
provost and the people of Paris shall affirm by
an oath, in the presence of the scholars, that
they will carry out in good faith all the above-
mentioned points.
Philip Augustus. “Privileges of the Students at Paris.”
Pennsylvania Translations and Reprints,vol. 2, pp. 5–7, trans.
Edward P. Cheyney. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1897.