What is the origin of universities in Europe?

Answer 1

The university system usually talked about when dealing with the history of universities in Europe is specific to chartered universities established in Western Europe, and other universities of the same structure. These were based on earlier, less formal schools where great teachers held classes, and some cities had numbers of them, attracting students from all over. The teachers organized themselves into universities similar to the guild system, and developed levels of undergraduates, bachelors, masters, and doctors, with standards and examinations for graduation. The University of Bologna was first to open, in 1088, and by the end of the Middle Ages, there were over seventy of them.

We do not have much real information as to when or how these earlier schools developed. The Salerno is worth studying in that regard, however, partly because we have some information about how it originated, and partly because it did not develop into a medieval university, both of which cast light on advanced schools of the time. There were schools of medicine in Velia, a nearby town, in the times of ancient Rome and Greece. These were still operating when the Roman Empire fell in the 5th century. The chaos of the times caused the teachers to move to Salerno, because it was a safer place to be, and they set up the Salerno Medical School there. It operated as a medical school throughout the Middle Ages, and only became a university in the 20th century. During part of the Middle Ages, there were people who regarded the school at Salerno as the best medical school in Europe.

Another University worth considering is the University of Constantinople. It was founded in 425 AD by the East Roman Empire. It was originally called the Πανδιδακτήριον, a Greek word that is transliterated as Pandidacterion, translates into the word university, and literally means "all disciplines."

Originally, it had 31 department chairs. It does not appear on the lists of medieval universities and is not counted by most historians as the first university. One reasons for this was that it was called Πανδιδακτήριον rather than university, which implies a school is not a university unless it has a name including the Latin word university, or some vernacular word derived from it. Another reason is clearly that the University of Constantinople was not given a charter by a pope or western king, but by the East Roman Empire. And another reason, far more important than either of these, is that it was not constituted as a university granting the same standard degrees the western universities gave.

From the histories of these schools, we can derive the fact that higher education was available both in the East and the West prior to the development of the western style universities, and that this education was equivalent, in many ways to university education. So the development of the university was not so much a development of education itself, but rather the development of a system of credentials. This is not insignificant, but rather is very important, because it enabled scholars to move about easily from one venue to another.