The name is absent

Middle Ages and Renaissance 217

At some time in the latter half of the twelfth century the
teachers of Civil and Canon Law at Bologna organized
themselves into a universitas (corporation) or guild. But
Bologna’s great contribution to university organization was
student sovereignty. The law students who flocked thither
were aliens without rights ; to rob or kill them was no crime
in Bolognese law. Hence at an early period the students, for
self-government and self-protection, organized “nations” or
guilds of their own. Their large contribution to Bolognese
prosperity, and their frequent threat to remove elsewhere, en-
abled these student nations to wrest concessions from the city,
including the right of jurisdiction under their own elected
officers. The earliest Bolognese professors, on the contrary,
were local citizens, and the same threat of secession soon
brought them also to heel. Students of Bologna not only
elected their professors and made their salary contracts, but
regulated the length, methods, and scope of their lectures.
Indeed the only statutory right which the professors retained
was that of examining candidates and admitting them to
degrees ; but even here they were forced to submit to student
regulations respecting the nature and conduct of the examina-
tion. At Bologna, students were more eager to learn than
teachers were to teach, and in subjects of direct professional
consequence such as Medicine and Law, this proved an excel-
lent system for keeping the professors up to the mark; at a
later age, and in the Arts course, its advantages became less
obvious.

The influence of Bologna on Latin America was exerted
through Spain. Lérida, the first Spanish University, was
deliberately founded on the Bolognese model in the year
1300. It was taken for granted that law students should be
self-governing, and liberal arts students insisted on the same
rights that were granted to canonists and civilians. The same
student government was extended to other universities of

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