and permitted them to be tried
in civil suits by their own judges. This exemption from the ordinary
tribunals, and even from those of the church, was naturally coveted by
other academies; it was granted to the university of Paris by its
earliest charter from Philip Augustus, and to Oxford by John. From this
time the golden age of universities commenced; and it is hard to say
whether they were favoured more by their sovereigns or by the see of
Rome. Their history indeed is full of struggles with the municipal
authorities, and with the bishops of their several cities, wherein they
were sometimes the aggressors, and generally the conquerors. From all
parts of Europe students resorted to these renowned seats of learning
with an eagerness for instruction which may astonish those who reflect
how little of what we now deem useful could be imparted. At Oxford,
under Henry III., it is said that there were 30,000 scholars; an
exaggeration which seems to imply that the real number was very
great.[829] A respectable contemporary writer asserts that there were
full 10,000 at Bologna about the same time.[830] I have not observed any
numerical statement as to Paris during this age; but there can be no
doubt that it was more frequented than any other. At the death of
Charles VII. in 1453, it is said to have contained 25,000 students.[831]
In the thirteenth century other universities sprang up in different
countries; Padua and Naples under the patronage of Frederic II., a
zealous and useful friend to letters,[832] Toulouse and Montpelier,
Cambridge and Salamanca.[833] Orleans, which had long been distinguished
as a school of civil law, received the privileges of incorporation early
in the fourteenth century, and Angers before the expiration of the same
age.[834] Prague, the earliest and most eminent of German universities,
was founded in 1350; a secession from thence of Saxon students, in
consequence of the nationality of the Bohemians and the Hussite schism,
gave rise to that of Leipsic.[835] The fifteenth century produced
several new academical foundations in France and Spain.

A large proportion of scholars in most of those institutions were drawn
by the love of science from foreign countries. The chief universities
had their own particular departments of excellence. Paris was unrivalled
for scholastic theology; Bologna and Orleans, and afterwards Bourges,
for jurisprudence; Montpelier for medicine. Though national prejudices,
as in