institution by Hugh Balsham, bishop of Ely, in the year 1284, its earliest extant code being that given in 1344 by Simon de Montacute, which was little more than a transcript of that drawn up by Walter de Merton for his scholars at Oxford. In 1323 was founded Michaelhouse, and two years later, in 1326, Edward II. instituted his foundation of “king's scholars,” afterwards forming the community of King's Hall. Both these societies in the 16th century were merged in Trinity College. To these succeeded Pembroke Hall (1347) and Gonville Hall (1348). All these colleges, although by no means conceived in a spirit of hostility to either the monastic or the mendicant orders, were expressly designed for the benefit of the secular clergy. The foundation of Trinity Hall (Aula)[1] in 1350 by Bishop Bateman, on the other hand, as a school of civil and canon law, was probably designed to further ultramontane interests. That of Corpus Christi (1352), the outcome of the liberality of a gild of Cambridge townsmen, was conceived with the combined object of providing a house of education for the clergy, and at the same time securing the regular performance of masses for the benefit of the souls of departed members of the gild. But both Trinity Hall and Corpus Christi College, as well as Clare Hall, founded in 1359, were to a great extent indebted for their origin to the ravages caused among the clergy by the great plague of 1349. In the latter half of the same century, the coming change of feeling is shown by the fact that the chancellor was under the necessity of issuing a decree (1374) in order to protect the house of the Carmelites from molestation on the part of the students.
Returning to France, or rather to the territory included within the boundaries of modern France, we find Montpellier Montpellier. a recognized school of medical science as early as the 12th century. William VIII., lord of Montpellier, in the year 1181 proclaimed it a school of free resort, where any teacher of medical science, from whatever country, might give instruction. Before the end of the century it possessed also a faculty of jurisprudence, a branch of learning for which it afterwards became famed. The university of medicine and that of law continued, however, to be totally distinct bodies with different constitutions. Petrarch was sent by his father to Montpellier to study the civil law. On 26th October 1289 Montpellier was raised by Nicholas IV. to the rank of a “studium generale,” a mark of favour which, in a region where papal influence was so potent, resulted in a considerable accession of prosperity. The university also now included a faculty of arts; and there is satisfactory evidence of the existence of a faculty of theology before the close of the 14th century, although not formally recognized by the pope before the year 1421. In the course of the same century several colleges for poor students were also founded. The university of Toulouse is to be Toulouse. noted as the first founded in any country by virtue of a papal charter. It took its rise in the efforts of Rome for the suppression of the Albigensian heresy, and its foundation formed one of the articles of the conditions of peace imposed by Louis IX. on Count Raymond of Toulouse. In the year 1233 it first acquired its full privileges as a “studium generale” by virtue of a charter given by Gregory IX. This pontiff watched over the university with especial solicitude, and through his exertions it soon became noted as a centre of that Dominican teaching which involved the extermination of the Catharists. As a school of arts, jurisprudence and medicine, although faculties of each existed, it never attained to any reputation. The university of Orleans had a virtual existence Orleans. as a studium generale as early as the first half of the 13th century, but in the year 1305 Clement V. endowed it with new privileges, and gave its teachers permission to form themselves into a corporation. The schools of the city had an existence long prior—as early, it is said, as the 6th century—and subsequently supplied the nucleus for the foundation of a university at Blois; but of this university no records are extant.[2] Orleans, in its organization, was modelled mainly on Paris, but its studies were complementary rather than in rivalry to the older university. The absorbing character of the study of the civil law, and the mercenary spirit in which it was pursued, had led the authorities at Paris to refuse to recognize it as a faculty. The study found a home at Orleans, where it was cultivated with an energy which attracted numerous students. In January 1235 we find the bishop of Orleans soliciting the advice of Gregory IX. as to the expediency of countenancing a study which was prohibited in Paris. Gregory decided that the lectures might be continued; but he ordered that no beneficed ecclesiastic should be allowed to devote himself to so eminently secular a branch of learning. Orleans subsequently incorporated a faculty of arts, but its reputation from this period was always that of a school of legal studies, and in the 14th century its reputation in this respect was surpassed by no other university in Europe. Prior to the 13th century it had been famed for its classical learning; and Angers, which received Angers. its charter at the same time, also once enjoyed a like reputation, which, in a similar manner, it exchanged for that of a school for civilians and canonists. The roll of the university forwarded in 1378 to Clement VII. contains the names of 8 professors utriusque juris, 2 of civil and 2 of canon law, 72 licentiates, 284 bachelors of both the legal faculties, Avignon. and 190 scholars. The university of Avignon was first recognized as a “studium generale” by Boniface VIII. in the year 1303, with power to grant degrees in jurisprudence, arts and medicine. Its numbers declined somewhat during the residence of the popes, owing to the counter-attractions of the “studium” attached to the Curia; but after the return of the papal court to Rome it became one of the most frequented universities in France, and possessed at one time no less than Cahors. seven colleges. The university of Cahors enjoyed the advantage of being regarded with especial favour by John XXII. In June 1332 he conferred upon it privileges identical with those already granted to the university of Toulouse. In the following October, again following the precedent established at Toulouse, he appointed the scholastic us of the cathedral chancellor of the university. In November of the same year a bull, couched in terms almost identical with those of the Magna Charta of Paris, assimilated the constitution of Cahors to that of the oldest university. The two schools in France which, down to the close of the 14th century, most closely resembled Paris were Orleans and Cahors. The civil immunities and privileges of the latter university were not, however, acquired until the year 1367, when Edward III. of England, in his capacity as duke of Aquitaine, not only exempted the scholars from the payment of all taxes and imposts, but bestowed upon them the peculiar privilege known as privilegium fori. Cahors also received a licence for faculties of theology and medicine, but, like Orleans, it was chiefly known as a school of jurisprudence. It was as a “studium generale” in the Grenoble. same three faculties that Grenoble, in the year 1339, received its charter from Benedict XII. The university never attained to much importance, and its annals are for the most part involved in obscurity. At the commencement of the 16th century it had ceased altogether to exist, was reorganized by Francis of Bourbon in 1542, and in 1565 was united to the Perpignan. university of Valence. The university of Perpignan, founded, according to Denifle, in 1379 by Clement VII. (although tradition had previously ascribed its origin Orange. to Pedro IV. of Aragon), and that of Orange, founded in 1365 by Charles IV., were universities only by name and constitution, their names rarely appearing in contemporary chronicles, while their very existence becomes at times a matter for reasonable doubt.
To some of the earlier Spanish universities—such as Palencia, founded about the year 1214 by Alphonso VIII.; Huesca, Palencia, Huesca, Lerida. founded in 1354 by Pedro IV.; and Lerida, founded in 1300 by James II.—the same description is applicable; and their insignificance is probably indicated by the fact that they entirely failed to attract foreign students.
