210 UNIVERSITY had its own courts and its representatives in the states general. During the wars of the league it lost its political importance, and in 1793, by a decree of the convention, it was suppressed. Napoleon I., by the law of 1806 and the decrees of 1808 and 1811, established a national organization embracing all public instruction under the name of the university of France, at the head of which was a grand master assisted by a university council. This comprised several sections called academies, each embracing several departments, and each governed by a rector assisted by an academical council. This great institution monopolized all higher instruction until 1875, when the law permitting the establishment of universities independent of the state was passed. But the university of France is still maintained, and in 1875 had subordinate to it 16 academies, with the following centres: Aix, Besancon, Bordeaux, Caen, Chambery, Clermont, Dijon, Douai, Grenoble, Lyons, Montpellier, Nancy, Paris, Poitiers, Rennes, and Toulouse. A com- plete academy, like that of Paris, has the five faculties of theology, law, medicine, acience, and letters ; but most of the other provincial centres have only three or four faculties. The academy of Paris has a very large corps of pro- fessors and usually from 7,000 to 8,000 stu- dents. The provincial academies average about 1,500 students. The university of France, which alone has the power to confer degrees, is now under the direct control of the minister of education. A new Roman Catholic univer- sity was projected in Paris in 1875. The other universities of Franco, all of which were sup- pressed with that of Paris in 1793, and some of which were afterward reestablished as acad- emies, were as follows : Montpellier, celebrated as a medical school, founded in 1176; Tou- louse, famous as a school of law, 1228 ; An- gers, 1246; Lyons, 1290; Orleans, 1309; Gro- noble, 1339, removed to Valence in 1452 ; Avignon and Perpignan, 1340; Orange, 1365; Aix, 1409 ; Dole, 1422, removed to Besancon in 1676; Poitiers, 1431; Caen, 1433; Bordeaux, 1441; Valence, 1452 ; Nantes, 1463; Bourges, 1463; Rheims, 1547; Douai, 1568; Besancon, 1676 ; Pau and Dijon, 1722 ; Nancy, 1769. Of nearly equal antiquity with the university of Paris is that of Bologna, which attained fame as a law school under Irnerius early in the 12th century. Some writers have endeavored to connect it with a school established there in the 5th century by Theodosius II. and revived by Charlemagne, but it had no claim to be called a university before the 12th century. A sim- ilar claim of the university of Pavia to have been founded by Charlemagne in 774 rests on no better foundation. Bologna was granted a charter of privileges in 1158 by Frederick Bar- barossa. The students were divided into two universities, citramontani or natives of Italy, and ultramontani or foreigners, the former divided into 17 and the latter into 18 nations. Each nation had a presiding officer called a counsellor, except the German, which had instead two procurators. Toward the close of the 12th century rectors were chosen, one for each university, by the combined votes of the counsellors and of electors chosen from the university at large. For a long time the students of arts and of medicine were enrolled in the university of law, and it was not till 1816 that their right to form a separate university was acknowledged. A university of theology was established in 1362, the members of which were all doctors, the students being enrolled among the scholars of art. Degrees were con- ferred at Bologna at a very early period. The first teachers were called dominiu, magitter, causidicus, and judex. Eight years' study was required for the degree of doctor of civil law, and six years' for that of canon law. These degrees were conferred upon learned men and women alike, and the latter were even permit- ted to hold professorships until a late period. Fixed salaries were paid to professors at Bo- logna as early as the 13th century, and in the 17th century the city expended annually about 40,000 crowns in salaries. The university of Salerno was as celebrated in medicine as that of Paris in theology and science, and that of Bologna in law. It attained its greatest fame in the 12th century, although it existed as a school several centuries earlier. Students were obliged to study logic for three years in this university before beginning the study of medi- cine, which occupied them five years longer, and they were not then admitted to a degree until they had practised for a year under a skilled physician. As at Bologna, women as well as men were admitted to the privileges of the university, and in the llth, 12th, and 18th centuries several of its female graduates were noted as physicians and as writers of medical treatises. (See MEDICINE, vol. xi., p. 848.) Of the present Italian universities, those classified in the accompanying table are royal universi- ties, maintained by the government. In these the faculty of theology has been abolished by act of parliament, and women are admitted as students in all the faculties. The univer- sity of Rome is known ns the Collogio della Sapienza. Four other universities, Camerino (founded in 1727), Perugia (1307), Ferrara (1321), and Urbino (1671), are maintained by their respective provinces. The following universities, some of which were once flour- ishing institutions, no longer exist: Vicenza (founded 1204), Arezzo (1215), Vercelli (1228), Piacenza (1248), Cremona (1413), Florence (1488), Milan (1565), and Mantua (1625). Next after Paris and Bologna, the univer- sities of Oxford and Cambridge became cele- brated. About 1200 the great French and Italian schools were largely resorted to by English students; but by the middle of the 13th century Oxford was second only to Paris in the number of its students and the brilliancy of _its scholarship. Its students were never divided into nations, but were governed as one
