The medieval university

This chapter focuses on the law students in Bologna and the masters of arts in Paris (late twelfth to late thirteenth centuries) to show how these foreigners adapted the guild model (universitas) to secure legal protections and privileges from alien cities. By organizing themselves into ‘universities’ modified for their purposes, they became corporations empowered to make autonomous decisions, write statutes, choose members, and act as one under an elected rector, with privileges legally recognized by secular and religious authorities, both local and supreme. After decades of struggling for legal recognition, the first universities used their new-found power to administer education itself. The universities of law students in Bologna took charge of even their professors’ obligations and salaries, whereas the masters of arts in Paris secured control of their membership, curricula, and students.