Medieval university

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.

Antecedents

The university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting in Europe. For hundreds of years prior to the establishment of universities, European higher education took place in Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools (scholae monasticae), where monks and nuns taught classes. Evidence of these immediate forerunners of the university at many places dates back to the 6th century AD.

With the increasing growth and urbanization of European society during the 12th and 13th centuries, a demand grew for professional clergy within the Catholic Church. Following the Gregorian Reform's emphasis on canon law and the study of the sacraments, the Catholic bishops formed cathedral schools to train their clergy in canon law, and also in the more secular aspects of religious administration, including logic and disputation for use in preaching and theological discussion, and accounting to control the Church's finances more effectively.