genius, whose breadth of view, coupled with an acuteness and subtlety of intellect unparalleled in his time, a passionate love of truth, familiarity with all past achievements, and power in dialectics made him master in the great fields of scholastic philosophy and scholastic theology, and whose high courage, enthusiasm, and eloquence enabled him to kindle zeal for learning throughout Europe. It was Abelard who, after the defeat of his master, William of Champeaux, in philosophic discussion, and a short period of knight-errantry in philosophy, planted himself on the heights of St. Geneviève, at Paris, and there so dealt with the disturbing questions of the time as to gather about him students from the whole of Europe, even to the number of 5,000 and more. Most important of all in this connection, it was Abelard whose method of fearlessly, exhaustively, and impartially searching every question, and of drawing his pupils into the most faithful service of this sort, that opened the way for a university in the true sense of that term.

This view has able support. Père Denifle, most exhaustive worker in tals particular field, as quoted by Compayré, has said: "That Abelard's method was introduced into the schools and never departed thence can be doubted by none who will compare the works which preceded Abelard with those that succeeded him, notably, the Questiones, the Disputationes, the Summæ, composed by the professors of those times. We encounter this method again in the celebrated book which during several centuries has been, as it were, the text of theological instruction, I mean the Sentences, by Peter Lombard. The influence of the same method is felt even in the famous work which has been like the code of the schools of canon law, the Decretals of Gratian.”

To this Compayré adds:

*

“It is, therefore, permissible to conclude that we are not deceived in attributing to Abelard the first place in a study of the origin of the universities and the causes which gave them birth. Abelard was the real founder of the University of Paris, and by that fact promoter of all the universities created in its image. He was its founder in several ways: At first through his representation, by habituating foreigners to come to Paris for the purpose of studying there, and by assembling vast audiences around him; afterwards by so popularizing the studies and the methods that they were held in honor for centuries in the Parisian schools. He raised the level of instruction by substituting in the place of the old routine of the trivium and the quadrivium * the lofty lessons of reasoned theology and abstract philosophy. He was the first professor of superior instruction, and he did his work with an incomparable éclat.”

"Among his immediate pupils," says Crévier, "were 20 cardinals, 50 bishops and archbishops, and Pope Celestine II."

In like manner, though with characteristic conservatism, Rashdall says: "It was the teaching of William's great pupil and opponent, Abelard, that first attracted students from all parts of Europe and laid the foundation of that unique prestige which the schools of Paris retained throughout the mediaval period. And it was undoubtedly to the intellectual movement of which Abelard is the most conspicuous representative that the rise of the university must ultimately be ascribed."

*

(3) ECCLESIASTICAL NEEDS WERE ALSO CAuses.

In the medieval period diverse opinions in the great field of theology were a source of disturbance that often proved most painful and serious. And this diversity was the result of ignorance on the part of great numbers of the clergy. Paganism, pantheism, materialism, and other "isms," bred or imported, were in perpetual conflict. Heresies abounded. Even the sacred orders within the

church could not always understand the Scriptures exactly alike. There must needs be enlightenment on the one hand or suppression on the other, if the church would avoid the trials and periods of perpetual conflict.

To add to the embarrassments of the time the ghosts of those immortal Greeks, Plato and Aristotle, had appeared, and would not down at the bidding, Aristotle especially possessed for many who could read him an irresistible charm. And the coming by way of the Orient and in Arabian dress, while it gave zest to his appearance, yet, on the other hand, increased the difficulty of making his acquaintance. The printing press had not yet come, and the making of manuscript copies by the thousand was tedious and unsatisfactory. A common center or centers, where the living teacher could in person present, explain, and reenforce or overthrow the resurrected Grecian or any other philosophy whatsoever that had been or might be offered, was a necessity. The means of defense and of propagation were both in high demand, and the church wisely made itself efficient in the work of constituting Paris such a center.

(4) CIVIL GOVERNMENT WAS NO LESS IN NEED.

Kings and emperors must have for support and furtherance men not only richly endowed intellectually, but also thoroughly disciplined and duly versed in a knowledge of the world, past and present, in political and social science, in statesmanship, and in the great art of diplomacy. If only half conscious of this need, there would be more or less of a craving for some high agency or agencies to which the qualification of coworkers could be safely committed. And herein lies the secret of the readiness with which they were often brought into sympathy with generous plans for the founding and protection of institu tions of learning.

II. MORE DIRECT CAUSES.

(1) National needs and aspirations.-Whether the needs were at first realized or not, they existed and were bound to manifest themselves to men of necessity concerned in the welfare of their country-even to men selfish in the performance of their functions and desirous of its prosperity on their own account only, In this case there was at the time of which we are speaking the beginning of a very marked realization of such needs. The few men of genius and learning, of whom mention has already been made, had so brought to light the greatness and glory of other lands as to make thinking Frenchmen everywhere feel that they belonged to a nation of barbarians and to kindle in their hearts carnest aspirations for better conditions. It was a new order of patriotism, and was followed by a new readiness to further agencies that were designed to promote the intellectual development of a people of genius and of great possibilities.

(2) Municipal ambitions ready to be enlisted.-Paris was already recognized as one of the choice spots, if not the choicest, in all Europe. Nature had done her very best and left no desirable element wanting. And to all her endowments the genius of men supremely gifted had made beginnings, suggestive to their successors, which have resulted in a city the most charming in the world. But there were those who cherished for their beloved capital a loftier ambition than any that limited itself to supremacy in things material, who entertained the hope of making Paris the recognized seat of intellectual culture for all the nations; and these were ready to join hands as best they could for a beginning that would very surely realize, in course of time, their highest hopes and aspirations.

(3) The "cradle" already there.-Not in the school of Remigius, for which

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claims have already been made, and who is generally conceded to have been the first master of note who taught at Paris, for the school conducted by him was very certainly connected with a monastery, whereas the first cradle of the University of Paris" was rather in the non-monastic school conducted by the distinguished William of Champeaux, earliest important promoter of the scholastic philosophy, as before remarked, and who contributed so much to rescue Paris from the humiliating rôle of playing second in the great field of the highest culture to such lesser towns as Tours, Chartres, and Rheims.

In an important sense this Cathedral school was waiting to be made, or rather to be adopted, as the nucleus of a great university. It is not known that he had in view even the outline of such an institution-so grand in scale and purpose—or that anybody else had; but there was the germ, and there at length it fulfilled its high mission.

(4) Also men for the several departments.-There also, as in few other places in the world at that time, were the men for the different departments of a great institution--not ready, of course, in the sense of to-day, but in the sense of that day; men. as familiar as any of their time with what belonged to the general departments of letters, science, and philosophy; men who perhaps were foremost in the department of medicine, then crude enough in the absence of such modern discoveries as have made it a science; men up to the average, at least, in the department of jurisprudence, if not rivals of the masters who had already made Bologna the world center in law, and men whose eminence in theology had determined the Holy Father to make Paris a universal center for instruction in theology. And if not already at Paris in sufficient numbers to meet every demand, there was no place, as already observed, to which men equal to the high service could more easily be drawn. It is hardly too much to say the learned world was waiting to be called.

II. WHEN THE UNIVERSITY BEGAN.

The University of Paris began without formal action and developed so quietly as well as gradually at first that it is quite out of the question to name any particular date. What may be assumed as the beginning was not far, however, from the turning point between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Soon after the important work of Champeaux, as master of the cathedral school, and of Abelard, as apostle-general, masters multiplied, until there was one at least for school service in connection with about every church in Paris, and there is evidence that as early as the latter half of the twelfth century there was such informal association of masters for mutual advantage and such ingathering of students as would have constituted a university in effect had they been brought into cooperation at a common center. Even without such evidence it is safe to say that the closing years of the twelfth century saw the birth of the University of Paris.

In my judgment, after the most careful consideration of all the evidence within reach, including that offered by those who have written most recently and most fully, there was before the end of the twelfth century neither an organized society or guild of masters, nor any formal association of students, like the "nations" at that time formed at Bologna, and which there shaped the destinies of her university. By "formal" I do not mean provided with written statutes after the fashion of modern times, but simply an association, society, guild or what not, held together most informally by common consent after the manner of medieval times; and it does not appear that prior to 1200 there was so much of an association, whether of masters or of students, as this. The

authorities, both ecclesiastical and civil, were blindly reaching toward a university through statutes and decrees in favor of teachers and students as being classes of citizens that should have protection and furtherance.

There is evidence, however, that during the latter half of the twelfth century there had been such extraordinary development of the cathedral school that the university working forces concentrated themselves at that center more and more; so that, before formal and definite action of any sort, there was there, as nowhere else in Paris, the actual beginning of university work.

III. HOW THE UNIVERSITY BEGAN.

. Unlike the University of Bologna, which, although brought about by a few learned men, chief of whom was Irnerius, took its first step in organization among the students whom they had drawn from many quarters, and which thus naturally took the form of a student university, this one at Paris was begun as a union or society of teachers and was practically a master university.

The more systematic beginning appears to have been made during the first decade of the thirteenth century, and by the adoption of certain statutes, since lost, but which in substance prescribed the dress to be worn by masters, the observance of the accustomed order in lectures and disputations, and the attendance of masters upon the funerals of their fellow-members of the union. In explanation of the narrow range and exceeding simplicity of such statutes, it should be said that they were first regulations only, and such as were in common use in societies of many kinds-religious, benevolent, social, and industrial.

I. THE UNION OF MASTERS—INTERFERENCES.

There was also, at this time or thereabout, a recognition of the society, tantamount to its incorporation as a university, in the form of two bulls by Innocent III, himself once a master at Paris-the one sanctioning the restoration of an expelled master, and the other authorizing the society to name a syndic or proctor to represent it at the papal court. Independent of any authorization, the Roman law and common usage would have enabled them, as a social or religious guild only, to hold property and transact necessary business. Nevertheless the bulls were important on account of their putting the corporate rights of the society of masters beyond question; and it is not improbable that they were issued with special reference to repeated interference with their rights by the chancellor of the cathedral church, who appears to have been tyrannically disposed.

The conflicts with him had come of too great power on his part, coupled with an inclination to make frequent use of it. He could not only grant or refuse the licentia docendi, so absolutely necessary to a master's use of his powers and attainments, at his own will and pleasure, but also, in his capacity as ecclesiastical judge and head of the schools, strip a master of his license once duly conferred, or a student of his privileges as such. More yet; he could enforce his judgments by excommunication and even imprisonment; and with the concurrence of his bishop and chapter issue regulations for the government and discipline of masters and scholars in general. The masters appear to have had these two reserved rights, however: They could refuse to receive into their association, society, or union anyone so licensed who had not complied with its regulations and usages, and could require of a newcomer an oath of obedience to their society regulations when admitted, or incepted," as the phrase was-i. e., received with certain prescribed formalities at his cost.

No doubt, by way of retaliation for unjust judgments and privileges rendered and conferred by the chancellor, the masters sometimes unjustly dealt with his licensed master (“licentiate "), as they could, if they liked, by refusing to argue with him, if he would not submit to their rules; they could also reject as applicant for admission to their guild, although a master, any student who dared to attend the lectures of a master whom they had deprived of membership.

In this connection there is an interesting fact illustrative of the common experience of mankind, that indulgence in liberal powers tends to an increased desire for power, viz, that, in a year or two after the Pope's formal recognition of the masters as an institution, the chancellor demanded of the masters an oath of obedience to himself. Naturally, the powers at Rome were appealed to and were prompt to correct the abuse, relieving such as had taken the oath already, and forbidding the exaction of such oaths in future. Nor this alone; the Pope's bull of 1212 required the gratuitous granting of licenses deserved, and that they be accorded, not on the chancellor's sole judgment, as theretofore, but on the recommendation of a majority of the masters in any of the professional faculties, or by six selected masters in the Faculty of Arts, three of them to be named by the said faculty itself and three by the chancellor. Yet more, in the righting of wrongs sometimes nothing short of outrageous, there was to be no more imprisonment of scholars for slight offenses (even before conviction), with an appropriation of fines by the chancellor for his own benefit; no more punishment in the form of pecuniary penance, and no refusal to discharge from prison, notwithstanding the offer of sufficient bail.

II. THE CODE SUPPLIED BY COURÇON.

Moreover, in 1215 all these provisions were embodied in a permanent code imposed by the Cardinal (Robert de Courçon), and the masters were even authorized, within certain limitations, to form statutes for themselves and to administer oaths of obedience to them. But even this extraordinary support of the association of masters failed in large part of practical results. The bishop and chancellor were bent on defeating the purposes of the masters and did not yield obedience to the head of the church, and the old wrongs were continued. Even the efforts of the university men were treated as great offenses and were punished accordingly. The framing and adoption of constitutions, “lawful or unlawful, good or bad," without the approval of the bishop, chapter, or chancellor was prohibited, and finally, under charge of conspiracies, the association was excommunicated en masse.

A bull of Honorius III, issued in 1219 in pursuance of the liberal and consistent course hitherto pursued by the powers at Rome, ordering the immediate abolishment of the chancellor's prison and forbidding the excommunication of the association without a special license, having been disregarded, another, covering the same and other grounds, was issued in 1222.

The ground of these long-continued conflicts lay in the recognition by the bishop and chancellor-by the canons generally, as well—of the important fact that the educational forces gathering at Paris and steadily strengthening themselves by the addition of new masters and students in all the departments, were destined to a degree of independence under a common head, and were also certain to free themselves in time from the ecclesiastical despotism which had been planned. But, on the other hand. Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX, being more farsighted, and hence realizing that the true way to maintain their influence in a proper degree was to deal liberally with the new organization, stood by it with justice and firmness in every emergency.