Philosophy in Universities Lives in Various Forms

Why Philosophers Created Universities

The inhabitants of medieval towns were organized into guilds and corporations. Rights and obligations were determined by one’s membership in a specific corporation: cobblers, armorers, weavers, and the like. The only ones excluded from these groups were those engaged in forbidden professions: an executioner or a brothel keeper could not enter a church and often lived apart from society. Everyone else attended church, where they would keep the symbols of their guild. A peculiar feature of the Western clergy was that they belonged not just to the Church but to distinct orders, each with its own statutes. It was possible, of course, to serve in a diocese based on general canon law, but the true centers of knowledge production were the monasteries, some of which housed the first universities. These universities later acquired their own buildings through the funding of their founders and students.

The term universitas litterarum, literally "a community of scholarly pursuits," also emerged as a corporation. The word "university," simply meaning "community," implied that anyone could be admitted regardless of origin. Thus, the early defining traits of a university were: 1) it accepted anyone who met the qualifications, no matter where they came from; 2) it sustained itself financially as an independent corporation, free from the influence of local authorities or other guilds; 3) it operated under its own laws, distinct from those of other corporations, and all members of the university were required to abide by them.

Another medieval name for universities, studium generale (general school), compared university education to the training of guild artisans, such as gunsmiths or weavers; just like guilds, universities had “masters” (magisters), issued licenses, and conducted exams. However, education at a university was “general,” which meant both accessible to all and focused on studying subjects of broad utility, such as law and medicine.

Naturally, every medieval guild was subject to judicial authority. However, over European universities, only one court held sway—the Church, through the local bishop or, if necessary, the Roman pope. This subordination to the Church allowed universities to develop rapidly: whereas local laws could vary between neighboring cities, canonical church law was uniform across the West, and students were assured of protection as clerics.

By 1198, the University of Paris had received a papal bull from Pope Celestine III, which granted all professors and students the status of clergy. In 1200, the French king Philip II Augustus recognized the university’s autonomy and exempted its members from secular laws. This recognition stemmed from a scandalous event: after a tavern brawl, several students were killed by the police during their arrest. In response, the university threatened to cease issuing diplomas, without which clerics could not advance in the Church hierarchy. Such a protest was undesirable for either the Church or secular authorities, as the royal court continually relied on educated graduates. By 1215, Pope Innocent III declared university education essential for significant ecclesiastical offices, and aspiring students from across Europe flocked to Paris.

In England, university autonomy was similarly recognized during this period, following a strike that lasted five years. Oxford professors were accused of murdering a woman and were arrested, prompting the university's colleges to demand their immediate release. The term "college," from the Latin collegium, meaning "elected together," referred to those admitted to the corporation at roughly the same time. Oxford professors viewed themselves as directly answerable to the pope and refused negotiations with secular authorities. Lacking income, some of them moved to the continent, while others relocated to the school at Cambridge, which also gained university status as a result.

The key point in these events is that universities, with rare exceptions like the University of Naples founded by Frederick II, were established by papal bull, automatically conferring clerical status on all university professors. In the Eastern Christian world, educational institutions also received direct patriarchal charters, such as the 1586 stavropegion granted to the Lviv Brotherhood and its schools, which allowed them to bypass the local bishop. Professors in these institutions, known as kathegetes or didaskaloi, were part of the patriarch’s administrative structure.

From the outset, universities established the lecture as the primary form of study, combining attention to texts with direct commentary. Students would follow along with the lecturer using a prepared text, a practice that continued almost until the 19th century. This skill was not only required of students: in many medieval and Renaissance depictions of the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary is shown holding a book during her conversation with the Archangel Gabriel. She was reading biblical prophecies, and the archangel explained how they would be fulfilled. While the Virgin could be considered immaculate and capable of understanding all prophecies, the clarity of the symbols did not negate the fact that the archangel, like a professor, interpreted these symbols through words. In the same way, a professor demonstrates how to apply acquired knowledge in harmony with the overarching logic of the world order. This can be compared to how modern students carefully study syllabi at the start of each semester.

Universities were never solitary entities; alongside them existed monastic schools, lower grammar schools that served local purposes and thus did not require papal recognition, and, starting with the Renaissance, private lessons and self-education. But all these types of educational institutions shared a common feature: the multimedia nature of the learning experience. Lectures were delivered as commentary on texts available to the students, and diagrams and tables were often employed to explain and discuss common topics. This visual and oral clarity became the foundation of disputations—debates unknown to Eastern wisdom. This is why the medieval West, rather than the medieval East, excelled in the development of critical knowledge. While Aristotle’s works were translated from Arabic and troubadour poetry drew inspiration from the love poetry of the Caliphate, the Islamic world did not engage in disputations beyond theological debates, which, no matter how intense, were not public disputations but private investigations of religious truths. In this regard, Orthodox Byzantium stood closer to the Islamic world than to Catholic Western Europe: it was embroiled in theological disputes, in which even emperors would participate, setting aside state affairs to formulate dogmas. Yet these disputes aimed to resolve matters definitively: some would be declared orthodox, others heretical, and life would proceed.

The second Italian university after Bologna (founded in 1088) was the University of Arezzo, opened in 1215. It arose simply because Bologna could no longer accommodate all who wished to study, and Tuscany was a convenient location for many aristocrats, particularly the Ghibellines—supporters of imperial, rather than papal, authority—who wanted to train their children as lawyers to ensure their faction's superiority over the Guelphs, who had strong ecclesiastical backing. Thus, the University of Arezzo was not only the first local but also the first partisan school.

In 1222, the University of Padua was founded for a different reason: some Bologna professors were dissatisfied with restrictions on their academic freedom and the prohibition on expressing their true opinions. To attract students, the new university expanded its curriculum to include not only medicine and law but also all the liberal arts. In Padua, philosophy became a separate field of study, not just one of the general courses; it was contrasted with dialectics, the mere art of reasoning, and included elements of natural and even experimental knowledge.

In Padua, one corporation supported the jurists, while another backed the theologians and physicians. To strengthen the common intellectual foundation between theologians and physicians, philosophy instruction was expanded.

Another feature of Italian universities was the existence of nations: students from Italy and those from other parts of Europe had separate funds for paying their living and educational expenses. This system allowed students to influence the curriculum, something that did not exist in the Sorbonne, for example, even though, in both universities, the importance of medicine elevated the popularity of Averroes, the Arab commentator on Aristotle and court physician in Islamic Andalusia. His ability to describe the world as an autonomous system resonated with future physicians, though it troubled scholastic theologians. For scholasticism, knowledge had a cause beyond the system itself, and thus autonomy within the system was inconceivable.

In France, the University of Toulouse was founded in 1229, while Montpellier followed in 1289. Count Raymond had defeated the Albigensians, a group of severe mystics who shunned life’s pleasures and often exhibited both fanaticism and unyielding confidence in their beliefs. As with any victory, many of the vanquished, though virtuous, suffered. The Pope set a condition for consolidating this victory: to establish a university in Toulouse, where theologians could preach sound doctrine, skillfully argue their points, and demonstrate what true theology should be, free from extremes.

The University of Montpellier, on the other hand, emerged in a different fashion. The city had long been a hub of education, particularly in medicine, law, and the liberal arts, so it was a matter of unifying these existing schools into a single institution. Thus, the University of Montpellier, born from this merger, became one of Europe's foremost centers for medical knowledge for centuries to come. It also fostered philosophy and all sorts of intellectual freedoms that flourished at the crossroads of the arts. Among its students were François Rabelais, the poet-astrologer Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus), and his brother Jean Nostredame, a jurist and prosecutor of Provence, who penned the biographies of the troubadours.

In 1290, the University of Lisbon opened its doors. King Denis I of Portugal, himself a troubadour and a lover of the arts, founded the institution to help organize the nation's economy. He was displeased by the endless litigation over land disputes, the inability to properly organize markets, and the incessant blackmail between rival factions. Thus, he envisioned a university whose graduates, with their authority, could resolve these conflicts.

In Spain, the University of Salamanca was founded in 1218, transforming a school attached to the cathedral that had previously been dedicated to training future clerics in theology. King Alfonso IX, having experienced failures in war and diplomacy, sought to strengthen his kingdom by first establishing the continent’s first parliament and then founding a university that would train clergy for the entire realm. Together, the parliament and university became the twin pillars for extending a unified system of ecclesiastical and civil law across the kingdom.

The University of Naples, founded in 1224, was the brainchild of the enlightened Emperor Frederick II, created during his reign as King of Sicily. It was the first entirely state-funded university—students paid nothing for their education, and were provided with housing and sustenance by the king. It was also the first university established without papal approval, as Frederick took every opportunity to diminish the Pope’s influence. The purpose of this institution was to create a legal system for the entire world, sustained by its graduates, who would be trained as lawyers. Frederick envisioned ruling all the territories once held by the Roman Empire and even more, and he nearly succeeded. He was crowned in Jerusalem and held dominion over half of Europe.

Since these lawyers were to operate in various contexts and among different social classes, their education extended beyond law to include rhetoric, equipping them with the skills to persuade and debate. Frederick II, a passionate hunter, astrologer, bibliophile, and patron of the arts, outlawed civil wars and ordered the demolition of the castles of those who participated in them. He abolished many aristocratic privileges, and to those who opposed him, he decreed that their tongues be cut out and they be impaled—after all, they neither knew how to speak wisely nor how to adhere strictly to their duties.