The University of Bologna.

For a proper understanding of the development of the universities, it is desirable to glance at the growth of the prototypes of all universities, Bologna and Paris. The causes which made these institutions possible are the same. When the crusades had thoroughly leavened the social and mental structure of Europe, the municipalities of Lombardy demanded a corps of trained administrators to cope with the problems of a vigorous trading policy and intense political strife. This tendency was localized by the pitching of Irnerius and an able body of successors who maintained the glory of the school. At the beginning of the 13th century there were 10,000 students in Bologna; toward the end of the century the number had doubled. The town of course did its utmost to keep the trade of these foreigners, even to the extent of binding the professors by oath not to teach elsewhere but in Bologna. The extortions and injustice to the students at last brought about voluntary associations based on geographical lines, which ultimately became the University of Bologna. The mediaeval conception of universitas is the civil law idea of corporation, college, corps, i. e., a juristic personality. The thirty-five or forty student-organizations called nations had acquired corporate rights at the end of the 12th century. The University of Bologna as an institution of learning is known as studium (sc., generale) Bononie. There were down to the 16th century two universities, those of Citramontani with 17 nations, and those of Ultra-Montani with 18 nations. At the head of each of these two universities there was a "rector," many of whose functions are exercised by the president of this university in historical succession. The English universities copied this institution from Paris, where it was an adaptation from the Bolognese model. The degrees given were principally those of Doctor of Laws (Civil Canon). The professors had formed a corporation (collegium) which had the power of examining candidates for the license to teach law, and those who had passed this examination and had instruction for a year, were recommended to the archdeacon of the Bishop of Bologna, who made them Doctor of Laws by delivery of a cap, book and ring.

There were no university lecture-rooms, no colleges of any kind; these, together with a fixed tuition fee, are later improvements to universities. The students paid their tuition fees to the professors, and absolutely forebade any "cutting" on their part without previous permission from the rector of the students. The students had the power to compel townsmen to let buildings to them at terms fixed by students and townsmen. This blessing is great, but greater still from the "sign-ragging" standpoint. Students were judged by the university court.

JAY.