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22g THE MIDDLE AGES.
which were founded in the 14th century* Regarded
singly, none of these academies had at any time many
students. The witty remark was made about Orange, as
we are told by Golnitz, that the whole university consisted
of three persons, the Rector, the Secretary and the
Beadle.t So too the academies at Perpignan, Aix, Dole,
Caen, Poitiers, Valance, Lyons, Bordeaux, Bourges and
Nantes which arose before or during the 16th century
never attained to any greater importance.
The political and social development of France was of
such a nature as to cause the small provincial universities
to give way on all sides to Paris which formed the centre of
all intellectual life. This university arose from the union
of the mutually independent schools for higher education in
Paris in which, as early as the 12th century, law, medicine
and several other sciences were taught. JOHN of Salisbury |
has left us accurate information about the management of
these schools, and the studies which were pursued at
them.t It is not known how it came about that the
teachers of these subjects entered into an alliance among
themselves and formed an association. Probably it was
in 1209, at the instance of Pope INNOCENT III., who
ordered the masters in the various sciences to frame laws,;
for their own use.§ In 1215 the Magistri of the four chief
branches of learning represented corporations—faculties in
our sense of the word—and had their own separate
statutes. || It was not, however, until 1254 that they were
united into a university. Besides being divided into faculties,
another division into four "nations" existed at Pans j
as early as the 13th century, an arrangement obviously]
modelled upon that of the Italian universities. This
appears to have exercised greater influence on academic
* G. BAYLE: Les me'decins d'Avignon, Avignon 1882, p. 43 et seq.
f A. GOLNITZ: Ulysses Belgico-Gallicus, Leyden 1631, p. 468.
t JOHANNES SARESBERIENS.S: Metalog, lib. ii, c. 10, Ed. MIONB (Patrol.
lat. Bd. 199, p. 867).
§ A. F. THERY : Histoire de l'education en France, Paris 1858.
|| BULHLUS: Historia universitatis Parisiensis, Paris• 1665-73, T. iii, p. 81.