• Akademic peregrination
• Akademic titles
• Bachelor
• Dean
• Doctor
• Fakulty
• Matriculation
• Matriculation fee
• Jurisdiction
• Chancellor
• College
• Licenciate
• Matricula
  
• Master
• Prague University of Law
• Provost
• Prosopography
• Rector
• Secession
• Statutes
• University
• University nation
• University of the Bolognese type
• University of the Parisian type
• Vice-chancellor

The migration of doctors, masters and students, often in groups, from one university to another. The motivation for such moves might be a yearning for education, an attempt at assertiveness, the following of a favourite teacher or "merely" a desire to know another university town and country. The preconditions for academic peregrination were provided by the use of Latin as the universal teaching language, and a commonly recognised system of university titles.

Sometimes also referred to as grades within the University - the hierarchy of titles used at all universities. On the basis of examinations, these guaranteed a roughly comparable level of education and intellectual capability on the part of graduates. It was thanks to this that university titles had universal validity. The terms doctor and master were used for educated even in earlier times, but in the university environment first encompassed specific content and a place in the hierarchy. A student who graduated regularly from the prescribed lectures obtained the lower title of bachelor (baccalarius), which entitled him to further teaching and participation in debates. A higher degree was obtained through a thorough mastery of the discipline, proven through examinations. These higher grades were divided into two groups: ecclesiastical authority lent the title of licenciate, entitling its bearer to education (licentia docendi), while the titles of master (magister) in faculties of arts and doctor (doctor) in other "higher" faculties, which could be obtained only after first obtaining the title of licenciate, allowed admittance to the teaching staff of the given faculty. It is necessary to recall that the awarding of any title was linked to a sizeable fee.

One of the academic titles..

The elected head of a faculty. The function is similar to that of a rector, but related only to the given faculty. Elected from the ranks of the teaching staff, as a rule for a period of one semester. At universities of the Bolognese type the dean either did not appear due to the non-existence of faculties) or had only minimal, purely administrative, powers.

One of the academic titles.

In classical Latin (facultas) "opportunity, occasion", appearing only in the 12th century in the sense of "field, subject, discipline". The teachers and students of schools in a single field began to come together, and during the 13th century formed faculties. Their main role was to unify the teaching plan and final examinations. Faculties established in this way, in which teachers had decisive power, later came together to form universities. The first and clearly most famous faculty was the Faculty of Arts in Paris. Alongside this faculty of artists other faculties of lawyers, medical doctors and theologians then appeared. This model of four faculties was later applied at almost all universities north of the Alps (universities of the Parisian type). At a series of universities, however, there were - at least initially - only one, two or three faculties. Faculties of Arts were understood in earlier historiography to have been lower, graduation from these being a precondition for study in other "higher" faculties. This, however, does not reflect the medieval reality. The higher faculties, particularly those of Laws, often accepted students without prior education in the arts. At universities of the Bolognese type faculties as self-governing institutions did not exist at all, and the word facultas was used merely as an abstract term for the organisation of education and examination in particular subjects.

The inscription of a given individual into a matricula or register. This is a legal act, showing that the inscribed person is a member of the corporation concerned, with all attendant rights and duties. In the case of university matriculae it was only after inscription that the student became a fully-fledged member of the university corporation and could take advantage of the attendant university privileges. During inscription the matriculated person swore obedience to the rector or statutes, and allegiance and loyalty to the university.

A sum paid for matriculation. The amount varies with time and place, but also with the social status of the person being matriculated. For poor students the fee was often waived, while students from higher social classes paying higher matriculation fees obtained privileged status, including special benches in classrooms - the scamna nobilium.

Judicial authority, in the case of a university concentrated in the hands of the acting rector. One of the most important university privileges. Every member of the university had the right to be tried by the - generally gentler - Rector's Court (and moreover university trials did not conduct examination by right of torture). The majority of universities, however, first had to fight for this freedom in their struggles with the cities. The range of punishments which could be inflicted by a university court was markedly limited - verbal rebuke, fines, imprisonment or expulsion from the university. The recourse of appeal from the Rector's Court was the Court of the University Chancellor, i.e. in Prague the Archbishop. It was thence that all more serious cases were to be referred, such as capital offences. Clerics and monastics were excluded from the rector's legal jurisdiction, which was subservient to canon law.

The ecclesiastical supervisor of the university, as a rule a bishop, archbishop, or an ecclesiastical dignitary nominated by such. The office of chancellor was not limited to a specific terms, and was linked to the concurrent holding of the given ecclesiastical office. It was not part of the university autonomy. The right of the chancellors varied considerably between universities - from a purely formal relationship to real administration (particularly at English universities, where the office of rector was entirely absent). In Prague, the chancellor of the University (from 1372 of both Universities) was the Archbishop of Prague, and among his roles was ensuring ecclesiastical oversight of promotions and permissions to receive tuition (the licenciate), as well as being the resort of appeal for the Rector's Court (see jurisdiction). From the beginning in particular, however, Chancellor Arnošt of Pardubice intervened in university life in a positive sense far more, helping this newly created institution to life. Later the chancellors passed the practical elements of their function to a named representative, the vice-chancellor.

A house providing accommodation, food and all other amenities to students or staff, generally founded by donation. The residents of the house, the collegiates, again formed a self-governing, privileged corporation, which created its own statutes and elected its own leader, the provost. To a considerable extent the colleges imitated monasteries, both structurally (cross hall, bedrooms, chapel, library) and in terms of community life (mandatory celibacy, daily programme, internal organisation). The Latin word collegium otherwise originally indicated any group of people with a common aim. It was the Church which first narrowed its significance to ecclesiastical communities (chapters, monasteries). A part of the college foundation was its feudal property, which assured its financial and material future, The founder often also designates a preferred group of future collegiates, most often defined regionally but sometimes also by nationality, discipline or social standing. Colleges often became teaching venues and the seats of university organs.

OOne of the academic titles.

Generally, an official book into which members of a given corporation were inscribed (see matriculation). In the university environment there are matriculae of university nations, the faculty matriculae and the rectorial matriculae, i.e. the registers of the university as a whole. The oldest surviving rectorial matricula in Central Europe is generally held to be that of the Prague University of Law. Various college matriculae also existed.

One of the academic titles.

A university founded in 1372 when members of the earlier Faculty of Laws at the Prague University, after a dispute with the other faculties, elected their own rector. This established the independent University of Laws, which soon gained its own college from Charles IV, maintained its own matricula, and in its self-government copied the Bolognese model to a consdierable extent, most obviously in that the rectors were always students. The university nevertheless felt itself to be part of a single Prague body of intellect (studio Pragensis), and respected the Archbishop of Prague as its chancellor. Its zenith was in the 1380's, but from the end of the 1390's it began to decline in numbers, and after the issuing of the Kutná Hora Decree (albeit that it is questionable whether this also related to the University fo Laws directly) it. The last matriculation was in 1418. Legal higher education was restored in Prague only 200 years later, and of course in entirely different circumstances.

The head of a university college.

A modern method of historical research that aims to create so-called "collective biographies". For each member of a precisely defined, larger group of historic figures a brief biography is created on the basis of source material. These vignettes are created to a standard model, in order that they can be worked through statistically. Evaluations are now made almost exclusively with the aid of computers and common database programs, which must however be tailored to need (through the creation of tables, auxiliary programs, coded fields, help systems etc.). Thanks to the database it is possible to place a broad range of questions regarding the individual phenomena researched, or combinations thereof, within the extent of the whole. Computers also enable rapid graphic processing, the database can also serve as a dictionary of biography, and, not least, enable immediate answers to be obtained to newly asked questions. Prosopography has been used as a method since the 1960's, particularly in research into social elites. R. C. Schwinges' Deutsche Universitätsbesucher im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert, published in 1896, is generally regarded as the pioneering work in the field of university prosopography.

The elected head of the university self-government with his own jurisdiction. The Latine word rector generally indicates any superior, manager or administrator; God, for example, is referred to as the administrator of the world (rector mundi), an emperor as administrator of an empire (rector imperii), a priest as administrator of a church (rector ecclesie) and a teacher as the superior of a group of boys (rector puerorum). At the same time, the majority of universities were administered by an elected rector (and even within the university milieu one can encounter the more general meaning of the word - e.g. a provost is referred to as the rector of a college, a dean as the rector of a faculty etc.). The term of office of a university rector varied from one month to two years; in Prague it was one year, or later, in the "three faculty" university, a single semester (as was also the case in other contemporary Central European universities). The rector represented the university to the outside world, administered its finances, oversaw the rectorial matricula and was also meant to defend the university's privileges, ensure that the university's statutes were observed, call university councils or assemblies of the entire university, and, not least, operate the rectorial jurisdiction over members of the university. At universities of the Parisian type the post of rector could be filled only by a master or doctor, and the election was in the hands of the staff, while at student universities of the Bolognese type the rector was always a student, exceptionally a bachelor still studying, elected using a complex system by the representatives of the university nations. There were also universities with no rector, which had either an analogous post with a different name (e.g. the primicerius at Avignon), or with all administration in the hands of the university chancellor (e.g. at Oxford, Cambridge or Montpellier).

An organised departure as a form of protest by the university corporation or part thereof from the university town. This was the most common and most effective weapon of the university in its fight for autonomy. Secession thus represented a loss of prestige and, in particular, a heavy economic blow to the university town. On the other hand, however, it might be that thanks to the secession only some of the staff and their students a new university appeared (e.g. at Cambridge after secession from Oxford, at Padua after secession from Bologna, or at Leipzig after secession from Prague).

The autonomous legal articles of a given corporation. A university, as a legally autonomous corporation, drew up its own legal articles, which all members of the university were then obliged to respect. The approval and acceptance of statutes was in general by an assembly of the entire university community, while the rector was meant to ensure that they were adhered to. While at the Parisian universities an entire collection of statutes was never published (only ad hoc instruments known as "singular statutes"), the majority of universities in Central Europe followed the Bolognese model of statutes as a complex set of university articles, a "university code". In addition to university statutes there were of course statutes for other corporations - faculties, národůnations, colleges etc.

An educational institution, in the Middle Ages also (and above all) a legally autonomous corporation of masters and students (at universities of the Parisian type) or of students alone (at universities of the Bolognese type). The first universities appeared around the year 1200, and the causes for this can be found in a range of factors: education was no longer limited to episcopal schools, but a range of private schools appeared, ensuring a certain social rise for their teachers. Thanks to the Arabs, new stimuli (such as Aristotelism and Arabic medicine) arrived in Europe. Law and medicine in particular became the domain of the laity. In Paris a university appeared that joined all of the earlier schools together under the leadership of their masters. In Bologna a university appeared as a corporation of students. Local ecclesiastic and secular rulers initially resisted the foundation of universities, believing that these would weaken their power, but soon the universities found supporters in emperors, kings, and in particular popes. While the earlier, spontaneously created universities had to fight to gradually extend their privileges (the most effective weapon in their possession being secession), the newer universities, founded 'from above', obtained their benefits directly at their establishment from their founders. Of the universities' privileges mention should at least be made of their rights to elect their own government, award academic titles and create their own legal norms (statutes), their institutional independence and their unlimited freedom of thought and opinion, the special university legal system (jurisdiction) and their freedom from tithes and taxes. University privileges were not only collective in character, but related personally to every member of the university corporation. The university as a universal, Christian institution, affirmed by the pope or emperor, was universally recognised, and all used Latin as their teaching language and employed the same system of examinations to award universally valid university grades.

A corporation of students (or students and masters) at a university, these generally coming from the same country, and as a rule speaking their mother tongue amongst themselves. The nations originated as societies of students originally from the same country who has come independently of one another to the university town for the purpose of gaining an education. These societies - thanks to their common mother tongue - orientated the newly arrived in the university, the university town and in their very studies. Gradually, however, the nations became corporations defending the interests of their members against students from other countries, and in particular against the local urban population. The nations gained a firm organisational shape at Bologna as early as during the 12th century. University nations in universities of the Bolognese type were purely student bodies, and the whole university was actually a kind of federation of such nations. The nations had a decisive influence on the election of university dignitaries, including the rector. Complex rotational principles ensured that none of the thirteen nations could be marginalised for any length of time, while at the same time ensuring that the nations were represented among the university leadership according to their size. As a rule, at universities of the Parisian type four nations appeared on the model of the Faculty of Arts in Paris (as was the case in Prague), but their division was from the outset administrative, and included both masters and students. Within these defined nations more nationalistically oriented groups or provinces often appeared. At some universities (such as Cracow, Erfurt and Cologne) university nations did not appear at all.

A university, whose fully fledged members or at least decision makers are students (universitas scholarium). The rector is elected by the representatives of the university nations from the ranks of the students, or from the still studying bachelors. The students also have a conspicuous influence on tuition, and teachers are essentially only rented by the university. Such a university comprises self-governing university nations, and the importance of the faculty is thus purely organisational. These are often single-discipline universities, most often of laws. The students are in the main adults, relatively mobile, and sometimes in receipt of various ecclesiastical prebends. Universities of the Bolognese type predominated in Italy and Spain, and among those in Central Europe can be counted the Prague University of Law and, with a certain care, the "first foundation" of the University of Cracow.

A university, whose members could be teachers and students (universitas magistrorum et scholarium), but where all university administration was nevertheless in the hands of the masters and doctors, including of course the post of rector. The basic organisational units are self-governing faculties; university nations are created from above, and often, particularly in the early period, had neither an autonomous character nor significant influence. The basic university model comprises four faculties and often four university nations, too. It is dominated by studies of the seven liberal arts, with theology occupying an exclusive position. The students are relatively young, and more often than at universities of the Bolognese type have no provision made for them, and are less wealthy. They are extremely dependent on their tutors. Universities of the Parisian type were predominant in France, England and across Central Europe during the Middle Ages. The later development of the university followed on from the Parisian rather than from the Bolognese model.

The nominated representative of the chancellor.