Benjamin Rush was a pragmatist who understood the potential and the needs of the new country where he lived. The utopian republic "destined by heaven to exhibit to the world the perfection which the mind of man is capable of receiving from the combined operations of liberty and learning"(6), demanded the active participation of energetic and sensible citizens to fulfill its destiny of men capable of applying their intellectual talents to practical purposes. The educational model he proposes in his Plan, with its emphasis on a utilitarian rather than a purely speculative approach to education could be the eighteenth century rewrite of a scenario, which originated in Bologna almost a millennium ago. The engaging prose of one of the pioneers of the history of higher education, Hastings Rashdall, establishes important affinities between the early American context and the intellectual and politic renewal that took place in Bologna around the year 1000. It could be an emblematic summary explaining the friendship and fruitful cooperation between Dickinson and the University of Bologna over these past thirty-five years:
"The intellectual Renaissance of the twelfth century found the Italian cities just entering upon this struggle for independence, the Lombard cities awoke to a consciousness of their recovered liberty, and the revival of intellectual activity took a political, or at least civil, direction. Just as the demand of the cloisters north of the Alps for speculative knowledge- for knowledge for its own sake, knowledge apart from all relation to social life manifested itself in a revival of metaphysical speculation... so in the commercial and political society of the Italian cities there arose a demand for fruitful knowledge, for science applied to the regulation of social life - for civilization."(7)
Felsine, as the Etruscan called it, was an important town situated in the fertile plain of the Po River. When the Romans conquered northern Etruria, they recognized immediately the strategic role the city could play in furthering their territorial and political expansion, and changed its name to Bononia. There, the Via Aemilia connected the eastern parts of the Empire and its western provinces, and intersected the road which, winding through the Apennines linked Rome to the Brenner Pass and allowed movement of soldiers and goods between the imperial capital and the vast territories beyond the Alps. The town rapidly became a bustling commercial market and economic hub, a center of negotium where pragmatic and ambitious Roman merchants could try their luck and become rich quickly. Bologna was full of opportunities. Its citizens were enterprising and pragmatic, two characteristics which lead us to imagine that some type of formal training for the future businessman was given in Bologna. This interest in practical education was sustained from the fifth to the tenth centuries under the Lombard then Frankish rulers, in the form of free lay schools organized after the late Roman models. Historians agree that in northern Italy the successive waves of conquest sharpened the opposition between rural communities, governed by custom and urban communities, which held to the principles of Roman law formalized in writing in the sixth century by the Emperor Justinian in the Corpus iuris civilis, or Justinian code. Towards the end of the eleventh century, the process of urbanization accelerated and for over two hundred years, Bologna was going to be the center of the revival of Roman jurisprudence. This scholarly endeavor was strongly connected to and stimulated by a concrete political situation, namely the rivalry that opposed the Papacy and the German emperors. During the eleventh century, the conflict was bitter. The three main actors, Henry V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Gregory VII, and Matilda, Great Countess of Tuscany have today acquired a mythical dimension through their poetic transfiguration in Dante's Divine Comedy. In fact, the root of the conflict was a banal inheritance dispute based on a differing interpretation of legal documents. All parties involved had a vested interest in encouraging scholars to develop their mastery over the body of legal texts inherited from Rome and to refine a systematic method of exegesis, which could be used to support their respective claims. In the second half of the eleventh-century, the name of a Bolognese lawyer, Master Pepone, appears recurrently in several imperial documents. The role he really played in making Bologna the first permanent school dedicated to the specialized study of law is difficult to determine. In the absence of convincing documentary evidence, it is tempting to imagine him as the mentor of the man who has been traditionally credited with the rebirth of legal studies in medieval Europe, and as the founder of the University of Bologna and artisan of its notoriety, the famous Irnerius.
We know very little about Irnerius. He was a native of Bologna, but his date of birth; his social background or details about his education are a mystery. He was a strong supporter of the imperial cause. In 1118, he took an active part in the election of the anti-pope Gregorius VIII against Pope Gelasius II. But the extant documents span only a dozen years -between 1112 and 1125- and relate to the later part of his life. He must have been a successful and proud teacher. Odofredus, the first official chronicler of the University of Bologna reports that when Irnerius was asked on his death bed to nominate his successor, he responded with a playful distich naming his four favorite students, Bulgarus, Martinus, Ugo and Jacopus, whose names are found in the list of the doctors who taught in Bologna during the twelfth century(8). Irnerius' fame has survived through the centuries due to the notices his admirers and followers recorded in their chronicles. They all praise the magnitude of Irnerius' scholarly contribution and recognize him as the one who made medieval Bologna into the center of legal studies(9). In his Chronica, the German Burkhardt von Upsberg underlines Irnerius' intellectual originality and the impact he had on legal studies:
"...Master Irnerius revived the law books which had been neglected for a long time. Nor had anyone studied them. He did so at the request of the Countess Matilda. He arranged then in the same order in which they had been arranged by the Emperor Justinian interpolating a few words in some places."(10) The passage goes on. While describing in detail Irnerius' revisions to each one of the sections of the Justinian code, Burchardt insists in particular on the addition of "few words in some places"(11). These are the comments the Bolognese master wrote on each one of the articles of the original Justinian code adopting the exegetic method which up to then had been mainly reserved to the reading of sacred texts, and applying it to the interpretation of legal documents. He trained his students in this novel exercise. The foursome we have already encountered, in turn, practiced perfected, refined and disseminated their master's methodological approach all through medieval Europe, making it the distinctive mark of the much-admired "school of Bologna".
Irnerius' innovations in the field of civil jurisprudence found an echo in the other branch of legal practice, canon law, the legal system used to regulate the institutions of the Catholic Church. Within the walls of the camaldunensian monastery of San Felice, situated just outside the walls of Bologna, lived a young monk, Gratian, who, perhaps, had studied and practiced the art of gloss under Irnerius. About 1140, his voluminous Decretum or Concordance of Discordant Canons started to circulate in Bologna. It contained a comprehensive outline of church laws with an exhaustive list of all the cases -real or imaginary- that could be envisioned and an outline of possible solutions to resolve them. In accordance with the rules of dialectic, each case was divided into quaestiones, which were resolved with the help of Biblical and patristic quotations. The appearance of the Decretum changed the study of canon law, transforming " an ill defined department of theology into an independent legal science"(12). Gratian had many followers and his Decretum was, in turn, commented upon and enriched to become under the title of Corpus iuris canonicis a parallel to Irnerius' Corpus iuris civilis.
This cursory overview of the legal monuments of two Bolognese scholars explains the growing fame of the Bologna studium during the twelfth century. Let's consider the curriculum in around 1150. First, theology is not taught in the Bolognese studium. Specialized religious schools attached to the churches of the mendicant orders were dedicated to that task. The Bologna studium is a secular institution. This independence is quite striking at the time, especially when compared to the structure of the other two contemporary universities, Paris and Oxford, both famous for their theologians and both controlled by the Church. Secondly, the liberal arts, which had flourished in Bologna up until the eleventh century, are now taught almost exclusively to meet the needs of law students. The reading of classical literature is drastically reduced while the emphasis is placed on "useful" texts of authors such as Cicero and Quintilian. As Helene Wieruszowski concludes: "grammar and rhetoric became the lower and higher branch, respectively, of what an American scholar, Louis Paetow, has called the business course of the Italian schools."(13) Typically, a student was first trained in elementary grammar, then in the ars dictaminis, or epistolary composition, which, in Bologna was specifically centered on judicial rhetoric and the drafting of legal documents(14). At the turn of the eleventh century and for over one hundred years, legal studies reigned in Bologna and shaped the growth of the university.
As we all know, the best curriculum does not suffice to make an institution alive. The soul of any school is its students and its faculty. The great German Emperor, Frederick I of Hohenstaufen, known as Barbarossa, certainly shared this belief when in 1155 he issued a decree, Authentica Habita, giving students and teachers the privilege to travel freely and safely in order to pursue their scholarly training(15). In the Italian communes - and Bologna was no exception to the rule - life for an outsider was not easy. There was one law for citizens, and another set of regulations, much harsher, for aliens. The system of guilds structuring professional life within the city reinforced the exclusion of foreigners from any economic activity. Barbarossa's privilege contained measures protecting scholars from possible reprisals at the hands of the communal government, and from unfair treatment by the citizen. One of the most important advantages granted to students was the right to be tried by their own professors instead of by communal magistrates when a lawsuit was brought against them. These imperial policies are considered by historians as the original nucleus of the charter of the University of Bologna. Combined with the fame of the Bolognese scholars and the geographical position of the city, they explain why foreigners flocked to the city to pursue their education and obtain the highly regarded title of Doctor of Law, the key opening the door to extremely lucrative careers.
Who were these students of civil or canon law? Many of them were men who held already important positions in their own countries, either in princely courts or within the hierarchy of the Church. In their thirties and forties, they were mature and purposeful people with experience of the world. When they reached Bologna, they tended to associate with their fellow countrymen and gathered themselves very early in "nations" according to their place of origin and their native language. For example, we hear of the Lombard nation as early as 1191. They considered themselves as professionals and by the beginning of the thirteenth century, following the model, which, at the time, regulated all professional and industrial activities; they federated themselves in a trade guild, or universitas. The term universitas had no academic connotation. It was simply, as noted by Nardi "an association of members of a certain profession within a city, formed to defend members' interests by appointing their own representatives and by special jurisdictions reserved to themselves"(16). By 1230-1240, these various national universitates clustered into two independent entities. The cismontane university included all the students coming from Italy (this side of the Alps), while the ultramontane university incorporated those who came from "beyond the Alps." Each one was led by a rector elected by the members of the universitas. The students who happened to be native Bolognese were excluded from the universitas since, as citizens of Bologna, they enjoyed the protection of the Comune. Yet, they could take the courses offered by the various professors and receive a doctoral degree. The professors were also excluded from the universitas structure since they, too, were citizens of Bologna. They had their own guild, the collegium doctorum and had to take an oath not to leave the city's studium and go teach in a more lucrative position. The rectors, on the contrary, were strongly attached to the freedom of movement that was explicit in Frederick's decree. The doctors and the Comune on their side were threatened by the growing strength of the students' organizations and tried repeatedly to curb their development. The early history of the University of Bologna is shaped by the rivalries between these various groups. Eventually, the students gained control of the studium. The statutes of the collegium doctorum were deleted and new ones were dictated by the student-universities, and the Bolognese doctors were reduced to what one of them describes as "an almost incredible servitude". Indeed the university statutes have been characterized as "a piece of legislation for a student's Utopia"(17). The Statutes of the University of Bologna (1317)(18) give a flavor of the academic atmosphere at the time when the institution was enjoying its highest fame:
article 44: "No doctor of the two laws is allowed to begin his morning lecture before the bell at Saint Peter's finishes ringing for the morning mass; he must be in or around the school; after the bell, he must start lecturing immediately under the penalty of IX Bolognese solidi for each trangression. He is forbidden to extend, continue or complete his lecture beyond the ringing of the bell of tierce, he is not allowed to reserve one or several glosses for correction, recitation or completion after the aforementioned bell"
article 45: "we rule that no doctor... should absent himself beyond the boundaries of the city of Bologna... but he can do this when he has a plausible reason for such an absence and has begged the permission of his students"(19).
As we can see, committees of students controlled every aspect of classroom discipline and professorial behavior. They were also controlling professors' salaries. At first teachers were totally dependent financially on their students who paid them directly through fees, called collectae. The normal practice was for a professor to employ - with a financial incentive at the key - a couple of students who would negotiate with their peers how much each one were to pay to hear the lectures of the professor. The amount of the stipend was highly variable. When a professor was able to draw many students to his lectures, he could become quite well-off. The famous Azo (c. 1150-1230) for example is reported to have had so many students that he had to teach from the pulpit projecting on the facade of the basilica of Santo Stefano while his students stood in the square in front of the church(20). Franciscus Accursio (1182-1260), a renown jurist and glossator whose glossa ordinaria was one of the best seller of the time(21) amassed a considerable fortune which he did not hesitate to augment by lending money to penniless students pocketing a handsome interest meanwhile. Other teachers still were rounding up their collectae by renting rooms in their homes to their students(22). On the other hand, if students were dissatisfied with a professor, they could boycott his courses and reduce him and his family to extreme straights. The precariousness of the economic status of the teaching profession is summarized in the statement Petrus Peregrossi makes about his students: "all desire to know but none to pay the price"(23). On the other hand, no student could enroll in the Bolognese studium without choosing first a professor who would act as his "protector". But above all, professors had the exclusive prerogative of granting the final degree, the licentia docendi.
Teachers and students entertained very complex personal relationships, but the tight control the members of the universitas exerted over the collegium doctorum did not keep them from respecting one another and even developing strong and positive emotional ties. This awkward balance of powers that regulated the interaction between teachers and students was unique to Bologna. At first, the university was operating independently, according to its own idiosyncratic system and did not have to respond to any other entity, whether secular, like the Comune, or religious, like the Church. But in 1219, Pope Honorius III, on the pretense of maintaining academic standards, decreed that only the Archdeacon of Bologna could grant the licentia docendi, the official degree. By 1300, the authority that had once belonged to the rectors of the two universitas and to the professors was given to the Archdeacon of Bologna who, from then on, was de facto the Chancellor of the University. The structures of academic life had passed under the control of the Church. In 1280, in an effort to protect the citizens who were bringing so many foreigners to Bologna and thus were one of the reasons for the prosperity of the city, the Comune started to pay teachers a salary, an unprecedented event that soon was imitated all through Europe. These two shifts were momentous. They resulted for both professors and students in a significant loss of the structural and intellectual independence they had enjoyed earlier, and set the stage for the decline of the supremacy of Bologna in legal studies. The re-introduction of the study of the liberal arts (trivium and quadrivium) as an independent curriculum and the development of a school of medicine in the thirteenth century coincide with this institutional crisis.
All through the Middle Ages, the liberal arts and the medical arts were closely linked. While the trivium had become ancillary to the study of law, medical writers were thoroughly trained in it. The mastery of Latin (grammar and rhetoric) was needed to read the texts, and expertise in logic was necessary to comment on them according to the syllogistic method of the time. Astrology and natural philosophy were also considered as necessary in understanding of medicine(24). This is why in the thirteenth century medical students and the students of the liberal arts formed into a universitas of their own; separate from the already existing law university. The first medical degree was awarded in 1268(25). Just as for jurisprudence, an outstanding personality launched the reputation of Bologna's medical school. Taddeo Alderotti was a florentine doctor highly respected for his understanding of the medical literature of his time, namely the Aristotelian texts on physiology, Galen's compendium known under the title of Ars parva, Hippocrates' Aphorisms and the more recent Islamic medical treatises, in particular Avicenna's Canon. He also was recognized as a successful practitioner and received exceptionally high fees for his clinical consultations(26). In 1260, he started to teach in Bologna, but instead of reading, explaining and commenting on the texts from a purely literary and abstract point of view, as was the custom, he illustrated his points with clinical comments based on the direct observations of patients. Soon, professors of medicine from the studium were employed by municipal authorities to provide medico-legal opinions. By the first decade of the fourteenth century, autopsies were performed.(27) As early as 1315, Mondino da Luzzi (1276-1328) wrote down the protocols he used during these autopsies. He organized his remarks methodically in a didactic treatise, his Anatomia which, for over two centuries, was used as the most authoritative textbook on the subject. One year later, dissections were openly practiced in Bologna for didactic purposes. This approach based on practice, awakened a special interest in surgery, and teachers such as Dino del Garbo(28) were among the first ones in Italy and in Europe to produce compendia of surgery, making the medical school of Bologna the rival of the celebrated french schools of Montpellier and Paris(29). Paradoxically, while efforts were made to structure the medical curriculum on principles that would become the tenets of modern science, the medical school of Bologna maintained a chair in astrology. Its most famous holders, Cecco d'Ascoli, known as "the prince of astrologers", died at the stake, victim of the Inquisition in the same year as Dino del Garbo. Was it a sign of the stars? Medical teaching in Bologna increasingly focused on direct observation of the human body. In 1563, the construction in the Archiginnasio- the permanent seat of the new University of Bologna - of an "anatomical theater ", a space specifically conceived to permit the observation of dissections and exclusively dedicated to the study of anatomy, is the concrete conclusion in this long evolution.
What was the daily life of a university student in Bologna?
The Collegio di Spagna, with its harmonious buildings organized around cortili is certainly the best preserved and most genuine example of academic architecture still extant in Europe, and provides the visitor with a good sense of the physical environment in which students lived. During its formative years however, the Bologna studium was dispersed in various buildings in the city. The professors usually taught out of their own homes or in rooms they had rented for that purpose. General assemblies were held, for the jurists, first in the monastery of Saint Proculus, then in the church of San Domenico. The "artists" and medical students assembled in the church of the Holy Saviour, then later, in the church of San Francesco. Before the formation of residential colleges under the aegis of a "nation", students were usually housed in rooms they rented from private citizens. The Statutes of the city of Bologna (circa 1274) indicate that the rents were controlled, but that the renters had to meet certain conditions in order to obtain lodgings.
Administratively, the rector was the leader of the institution. He was elected by his peers for a limited term, but many restrictions narrowed the choice of possible candidates(30). His responsibilities were onerous. Not only did he supervise students and teachers, but he was also in charge of all the numerous activities connected with academic life. He oversaw the work of the beadles, the notaries, the secretaries, the lawyers, the bookkeepers as well as managed all the people in charge of the production, selling and lending of school books (scriptors, illuminators, binders, cutters of parchment, booksellers). The position, however, was of high prestige and the rector had his own arms, wore an ermine hood, and enjoyed special privileges. For the rest, academic life was organized around work days and vacation days, around lectures and examinations, around individual study in the library and communal rituals such as the awarding of degrees, that is to say, pretty much as it is today. School was in session from October 18, day of the feast of Saint Luke, to the end of August, or the beginning of September. There were ten days vacation at Christmas, two weeks for Easter and three days, later on expanded to three weeks, for Mardi Gras. In addition, as with other corporations, students and teachers were off on numerous religious holidays, and lessons were not taught on Sundays. The academic day started one hour after sunrise. The most important subjects called "ordinary readings" were taught at that time. Usually, there were two such "readings", each lesson lasting about two hours. In the afternoon, there was another lesson, or "extraordinary reading" dedicated to minor subjects, followed by repetitiones, what we would call today study group. During Lent, however these were replaced by practical exercises in which students learned how to defend a thesis or present an argument. Examinations took place during the last two years of a given course of studies(31). The first test or principium allowed successful students to become reading bachelors (bacchalarius legens) and to be candidates for the licentia docendi. When ready, and in consultation with their master, the candidate would notify the rector or the chancellor who would check the individual's academic, moral and financial records. Often called "private" or "rigorous" examination, this second examination tested the candidate's capacity to defend a precise question or punctum relative to his discipline in front of a jury of masters. Each member of the jury had a vote. A positive final vote gave the candidate the title of licentiatus. Yet, in order to teach at the university, he still had to pass a third examination. The inceptio was more a corporate ritual than a test and there was no possibility of failing it. It took place in San Pietro, Bologna's cathedral where the soon-to-be master made a speech and defended publicly a thesis against opponents he had selected himself among his fellow-students. He was then presented to the Archdeacon of Bologna, who, after a complimentary oration, bestowed upon him the insignia of the profession, an open book, a gold ring, and the biretta, or magisterial cap. After the ceremony, all the members of the "universitas", preceded by the university pipers and trumpeters escorted the new professor in a triumphal march through the streets of Bologna(32).
To conclude: "Rooted in Tradition, Experimenting with Innovation"; could the polarity implicit in the somewhat catchy title of this presentation be a characteristic shared through the centuries and over the continents by two very different institutions? In the case of the University of Bologna, first the law school, then the medical school gained their notoriety precisely because Irnerius, Gratian, Taddeo and many others were able to deal constructively with this tension. From the tradition of the Justinian code, Irnerius developed a new, larger vision of what teaching law entailed. His followers trained their students not only to memorize a code, but to understand and reflect upon the theoretical and abstract principles it introduced. This intellectual discipline and methodological approach fostered a novel way to think about jurisprudence and shaped modern political thinking. In the field of medical studies, the practice of reading the canonical literature in the light of its practical application to the human anatomy established the basis of modern scientific thought. As far as Dickinson is concerned, we can certainly learn from these lessons and strive to shape our future as a happy equilibrium between a high quality liberal arts tradition, which will give our students the conceptual frame, the habits of mind and the drive to understand the world around them, while we support innovative measures that will allow them, as Benjamin Rush had dreamed, to put their intellectual skills and their moral energy at the service of the Republic and more globally, of the entire world.
Sylvie G. Davidson
Dickinson College
June 2000
2. See Rush, op. cit., p. 15
3. See Rush, op. cit., p. 16
4. Rush, B. op. cit. p.
5. The manuscript reads:" Mathematics, natural philosophy including chemistry", but this last word is crossed out. It appears that Rush's idea did not agree with the trustees, and chemistry was not taught at the College until later.
6. Rush, B. , op. cit. , , pp. 5-11
7. Rashdall, H., The Universities of Europe in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by Powicke and Emden, Oxford, 1936, p. 97
8. Cited in Besta, Opera di Irnerio, Rome 1889
" Bulgarus os aurum, Martinus copia legum,
Mens legum est Ugo, Jacopus id quod ego"
(Bulgarus' words are golden,Martinus knows all the laws,
Ugo understands their meaning, and Jacopus is just like me")
9. Cited in H. Rashdall, The Universities in Europe, London, 1883, vol. 1, p. 111:
"Dominus Yrnerius qui fuit apud nos lucerna juris. id est primus qui docuit in civitate ista..."( Master Irnerius was a beacon of the law among us and has been the first one to teach it in this city)
10. See Burchard of Upsberg, Chronica in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, XXIII. Translated by H. Wieruszowski, The Medieval University, New York, 1966, pp. 164-165
11. Irnerius' Instituta , are divided in different sections, the Digesta , the Pandecta , the Codex , and the Autentica
12. See Wieruszowski, op. cit. p. 65
13. op.cit. p. 66
14. See H. Rashdall, op.cit. " The Origins of the Jurist Universities" pp.142-175
15. See, Nardi, P. "Relations with Authority" in Rüegg, W. gen. ed. A History of the University in Europe, Cambridge, 1992, vol. 1, pp. 77-107
16. op. cit., p. 81
17. Wieruszowski, H. op.cit. p. 71
18. The earliest University statutes are lost. We know that a body of statutes received papal approval in 1253. The earliest extant code was drafted in 1317. They were revised and expanded in 1346, then again in 1432.
19. See Denifle, H. , "Die Statutem der Juristen-Universität Bologna", in Archiv fur Literatur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, (1887), pp. 316, 322. Translated by Wieruszowski, H. , op. cit. , p. 170-171
20. See Rasdhall, op. cit., vol.1, note 4, p. 217
21. Accursius' glossa was an exhaustive commentary and contained more than 96.000 glosses on the entire Corpus iuris civilis. See A. Garcia y Garcìa , " The faculties of Law" in A History of the University in Europe, op. cit. pp. 388-407
22. See Verger, J. "Teachers" in A History of the university in Europe, op. cit. pp. 144-168
23. See Wieruszowski, op. cit. , note 3, p. 165
24. See, Siraisi, N. ,'Pietro d'Abano and Taddeo Alderotti: Two Models of Medical Culture", in Medioevo, 2, (1985). pp. 139-62
25. See Siraisi, N. , "The faculty of Medicine", in A History of the University in Europe, op. cit., pp. 360-387
26. Dante mentions his name in his Convivio ( I. X. 10) and criticizes his italian translation of the Nichomachean Ethics . Taddeo is also reported to have asked a per diem of 100 golden ducats- an astronomic figure- to attend the Pope in Rome(Villani, Vite d'uomini illustri fiorentini, Florence, 1826, p. 24)
27. See Siraisi, N, "The Faculty of Medicine", in A History of the University in Europe, op. cit., pp.360-387
28. He died in 1327
29. Guy de Chauliac, the author of the most famous medieval surgical treatise La Grande Chirurgie dedicated it to the physicians of Montpellier ( where he had studied) Bologna and Paris.
30. Candidates had to be at least twenty five years old, unmarried, and had to have studied at Bologna for a number of years. They also had to have a personal fortune, since they had to entertain lavishly and to keep their rank alongside the highest municipal officers, the prelates and the nobility.
31. students had to attend lessons for 6-8 years before being candidate for a civil law degree, 5-6 years for canon law, 4-5 years for the liberal arts and medicine.
32. The ceremony surrounding the inceptio or intronization of the new doctor was quite costly and sometimes students had to wait several years before they could afford it. Others would obtain their doctoral degree in a less prestigious university in order to contain the costs.