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THE OTHER UNIVERSITIES OF EUROPE. 233
by political events as by the geographical position of their
country to be especially called to the great task of trans­
mitting the culture of the Arabs to Christian Europe; and
they might well hope that as a result of the stimulating
effect of the rich treasures of knowledge left them by their
Semitic predecessors they would long sustain an important
part amongst the establishments for advanced teaching.
If, notwithstanding this, they produced no enduring in­
fluence on the development of the sciences and if, after a
brief period of prosperity, which like a friendly gleam of
light illuminates the history of the 16th century, they sank
into a condition of intellectual torpidity which robbed them
of the power of independent movement, the fault lies in that
political and religious oppression which here reached an
unexampled height. Even in the worst days of despotism
and of superstition there was no lack of latent intellectual
life ever ready to bloom afresh ; but the buds were crushed
under foot and could only advance to maturity if removed
from their native soil.
The old English universities of Oxford and Cambridge
were gradually developed out of the schools which existed
in those places as early as the 12th century.* It is un­
certain when they assumed the academic character. In
the first decades of the 13th century they appear already
as organized corporations—in fact as universities. Medical
science was certainly taught in these institutions along with
other branches of knowledge, but only as part of a general
philosophical education. For this purpose one teacher of
the subject sufficed to point out to the students the most
important facts in connection with it. The same conditions
•obtained at the universities of St. Andrews founded in
1411, Glasgow founded in 1450, and Aberdeen founded in
1494.
The first university on German soil was erected in the
* H.C.MAXWELL LYTE : A History of the University of Oxford from the
earliest times to 1530, London 1886.—JAMES BASS MULLINGER : The University
of Cambridge, Cambridge 1873.