Universities

A 17th Century engraving of the Sorbonne by an unknown artist.

This image is of the Sorbonne, a famous building constructed in 1257 as part of the University of Paris. The university was founded in the latter half of the 12^th century, one of the first such institutions to be established in Europe (“University of Paris”). The powerful connection between education and the church remained in many ways, an explicit example being that the members of universities were technically considered clergy (Wiesner-Hanks 35). These universities were attended by the elite and cultivated a culture of scholars who could communicate and share ideas with others around the world, as they were all educated in Latin. The number of universities grew steadily, from fifteen or twenty in 1300 to more than fifty only two centuries later (Wiesner-Hanks 35). In Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789 Merry Wiesner-Hanks provides a quote from a 1442 petition to establish a university that demonstrates some of the reasons that they flourished in this time (36). The petitioners highlight the amount of influence and fame that a university would bring in from around the world, and that it will not only develop the wit of their own citizens but attract strangers from other lands to share their own knowledge. The curriculum in these universities focused on “law, medicine, theology, and philosophy […] along with a more general curriculum—the ‘liberal arts’” (Wiesner-Hanks 35). As the Renaissance gained momentum, university teachers began to embrace humanistic education, which focused on the literature and history of the Greeks and Romans. Humanistic education and thought would propagate itself, and it did, becoming one of the defining characteristics of the Renaissance (Wiesner-Hanks 37).