Universitas, of which University is the English exponent, is often used by the best Latin writers to denote the whole of anything in contradistinction to its component parts, and is applied equally to persons and things. Thus Cicero employs the expression universitas generis humani, to denote the human race or mankind as a whole; while he designates the units forming this aggregate singuli, individui. In like manner he uses universitas rerum for the whole of things—for all things viewed as making one whole (totus mundus). In the technical language of the civil law, it was likewise applied both to persons and things: in the former signification (convertible with collegium) it denoted a plurality of persons associated for a continued purpose, and may be inadequately rendered by society, company, corporation; in the latter, it denoted a certain totality of individual things, constituted either by their mutual relation to a certain common end, or by a mere legal fiction. The universities, or corporate bodies at Rome were very numerous. Thus we find incorporations of priests, of farmers of the public revenue, bakers, carpenters, musicians, &c. In the language of the middle ages, universitas was applied either loosely to any understood class of persons, or strictly to the members of a municipal incorporation, or to the members of a general study.1 In this application, it was used to denote either the whole body of teachers and learners, or the whole body of learners, or the whole body of teachers and learners divided either by faculty, or by country, or by both together; its specific meaning being determined by the words with which it was connected. In the fourteenth century, the terms magistro- rum et scholarium and the like, which had hitherto been joined with universitas, were discontinued, and the word came to be used simply by itself, or in combination with studium or studium generale; as universitas studii Ozo-niensis, Parisiensis, &c. The term in ecclesiastical language was frequently applied to a number of churches united under the superintendence of one archdeacon, and to the college of canons in a cathedral. It is thus used to denote the body of canons of the church of Pisa, in a papal Rescript of the year 688; and from such a body the transition was easy to the masters and scholars of a seminary of education.2

University, in its academical signification, has been defined "a universal school, in which are taught all branches of learning, or the four faculties of Theology, Law, Medicine, and the Arts, and in which degrees are conferred in these faculties." This we believe to be the meaning most commonly attached to the word university; and as it arises from inattention to the original application of the term, it will be necessary for us to endeavour to point out its true signification. Like many other terms of extensive application, it has undergone various modifications of meaning, till its origin and primary use seem to have been utterly forgotten. By the nations of modern Europe, it has been applied to the highest seminaries of learning in their respective countries, whether these embraced "the whole circle of the sciences," or were limited to one or two faculties; and we accordingly find that the idea attached to the word varies in extent and comprehensiveness with the institution to which it is applied. Those who have formed their notion of the word merely from the English universities, commonly suppose that a university "necessarily means a collection and union of colleges; that it is a great corporation, embodying in one the smaller and subordinate collegiate bodies." The author of A Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review,3 asserts that "the university of Oxford is not a national foundation. It is a congeries of foundations, originating, some in royal munificence, but more in private piety and bounty. They are moulded, indeed, into one corporation; but each one of our twenty colleges is a corporation by itself." The inaccuracy of this opinion will appear from our account of that distinguished seminary. It is indeed sufficiently refuted by the fact, that many universities exist in which there are no colleges. This is the case with most of the German universities; and in the Scottish universities there are now no foundations which bear any resemblance to the English colleges. Edinburgh, though called a college, is a university, and has nothing in common with the English meaning of the term college; and the colleges at St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, are corporations chiefly endowed for the principals and professors, and, but to a small extent, for the students. Trinity College, Dublin, is a college with the privileges of a university, possessing however a munificent endowment for the provost, fellows, and scholars. It is important, besides, to bear in mind, that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge existed before a single college was endowed; and that the universities would continue to exist, with all their rights and privileges unimpaired, even if the property of all the colleges were confiscated, and their buildings levelled with the ground. Another error—that universities were so called because they professed to teach universal learning—though maintained by men of such erudition as Mosheim, Tiraboschi, and Dr Waddington, and assented to by Hallam, is a mere quibble upon the word. The University of Paris, as well as Oxford and Cambridge, existed at first only in the faculty of arts; Salerno and Montpellier originally contained the single faculty of medicine; and even Bologna was celebrated for 200 years, as a school of law, before it contained any provision for lectures in theology. The teaching of the civil law was prohibited in Paris from 1220 till 1679; and other instances might easily be adduced in which the study of particular faculties was forbidden in particular universities. It is true that most of the modern universities embrace the "whole circle of learning," as contained in the four faculties of arts, theology, law, and medicine; but this was not the case in the thirteenth century, when the term universities was first applied to academical institutions. University may therefore be defined "the whole members of an incorporated body of persons, teaching and learning one or more departments of knowledge, and empowered by the constituted authorities to confer degrees in one or more faculties."

It is impossible to fix the period when universities, in the modern acceptation of the term, were first established. Previously to the age of Charlemagne, Europe had sunk into the grossest barbarism, in consequence of the migrations of the northern and eastern tribes, and the devastating

---

1 The oldest word for an unexclusive Institution of higher education was studium and studium generale; terms employed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and retained in those which followed. The term studium generale, like universitas, did not mean originally that all was taught, but that what was taught was taught to all; "generalitas ad universitatem non pertinet scientiarum, sed ad publicum causae docendi." (Petri Gregorii Toloosani De Republica, lib. xviii., c. i., sect. 87.) 2 The substance of this account of the word universitas is taken chiefly from Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Education, No. vi. 3 To this Discussion, and to two others by Sir William, we have been largely indebted in compiling the following article. 4 Dr Copleston, late bishop of Llandaff. Oxford, 1810, &c. The oldest of the European universities were those of Paris and Bologna; the former for several centuries so celebrated as a school of theology as to be designated the "first school of the church," and the latter equally famous for the study of Roman jurisprudence. Of these two seminaries, as forming the models on which the other universities which subsequently sprung up in various parts of Europe were established, it will be necessary for us to give a somewhat detailed account. Omitting altogether the question of priority, we shall begin with the University of Paris, because we believe its claim to precedence, on the ground of antiquity, to be equally well-founded with that of its rival, and because its form and constitution were in a great measure adopted by the founders of the two great English universities.