mushrooming Jesuit colleges. The universities now consisted almost entirely of
theology and law students, seeking places in church and state; Spain was the
first society in history to be swamped by doctorates. This was a case of genuine
credential inflation; the arts degrees were displaced by advanced degrees after
1550, with increasing emphasis on legal degrees as a ticket to administrative
positions in the government. The big three universities monopolized the mar-
ket, with increasing inbreeding by particular colleges within them (Kagan,
1974: 369; Elliot, 1970: 317). Graduates of Salamanca, Alcalá, and Valladolid
held a majority of top clerical and secular positions in the Habsburg admini-
stration, and a complete monopoly in royal councils and provincial courts of
justice. Poorer provincial nobility flocked to the universities, causing enormous
expansion and an escalation of degree requirements, but without breaking the
monopoly of the wealthy aristocrats holding favored connections. The result
was a large floating population of penurious petitioners, living on hopes of
patronage. The king even prohibited graduates of the non-major universities
from coming to Madrid, but with little success. It is this atmosphere that is
described in the outburst of Spanish novels at this time, from Lazarillo de
Tor mes (1554) to Quevedo and Cervantes in the early 1600s; and it was this
“intellectual proletariat” which underlay the literary production.
After 1620 the system went into decline. By 1660 student numbers had
fallen by half, with decline continuing into the early 1800s. The great outburst
of foundations came to an end, and no new universities were founded after
1620 until 1830. Of the 25 or more founded in the 1500s, half failed and
many of the others limped into the 1700s with 30 students or fewer. The major
universities fell in size along with the others. The expansionary phase had
carried the intellectual life of Spain from the time of Cisneros and Las Casas
down to Suarez. With the downturn of the intellectual base, creativity dried
up as well. Spain’s conservative authoritarianism was not congenital; it tri-
umphed when organizational expansion ended.
The Intersection of Movements in France
The Jesuits epitomize what could be constructed on this situation. There were
new material bases supporting multiple competing intellectual circles. Creativ-
ity is the making of new combinations by moving opportunistically through
such a structure, transcending narrowly polarized loyalties and borrowing
from enemies for new purposes. The Jesuit order sprang from Spain, but its
intellectual base was far wider. Its schools now dominated education in the
Catholic world. Their grand college at La Flèche was founded in 1607 in a
château given by King Henri IV, along with sumptuous endowment, to cele-
brate the return of the Jesuits to France after their expulsion in 1595 (Chauvin,582 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Western Paths