is, in England, a corporation whose power of granting (p. 005)
certain degrees is recognised by the State; but nothing of this is
implied in the word "University." Its literal meaning is simply an
association. Recent writers on University history have pointed out
that _Universitas vestra_, in a letter addressed to a body of persons,
means merely "the whole of you" and that the term was by no means
restricted to learned bodies. It was frequently applied to municipal
corporations; Dr Rashdall, in his learned work, tells us that it is
used by medieval writers in addressing "all faithful Christian
people," and he quotes an instance in which Pisan captives at Genoa in
the end of the thirteenth century formed themselves into a
"Universitas carceratorum." The word "College" affords us no further
enlightenment. It, too, means literally a community or association,
and, unlike the sister term University, it has never become restricted
to a scholastic association. The Senators of the "College of Justice"
are the judges of the Supreme Court in Scotland.

We must call in a third term to help us. In what we should describe as
the early days of European universities, there came into use a phrase
sometimes written as _Studium Universale_ or _Studium Commune_, but
more usually _Studium Generale_. It was used in much the same sense in
which we speak of a University to-day, and a short sketch of its (p. 006)
history is necessary for the solution of our problem.

The twelfth century produced in Europe a renewal of interest and a
revival of learning, brought about partly by the influence of great
thinkers like St Anselm and Abelard, and partly by the discovery of
lost works of Aristotle. The impulse thus given to study resulted in
an increase in the numbers of students, and students were naturally
attracted to schools where masters and teachers possessed, or had left
behind them, great names. At Bologna there was a great teacher of the
Civil Law in the first quarter of the twelfth century, and a great
writer on Canon Law lived there in the middle of the same century. To
Bologna, therefore, there flocked students of law, though not of law
alone. In the schools of Paris there were great masters of philosophy
and theology to whom students crowded from all parts of Europe. Many
of the foreign students at Paris were Englishmen, and when, at the
time of Becket's quarrel with Henry II., the disputes between the
sovereigns of England and Franc