Noo is noo come. Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department of Kings College London and the LMU in Munich online at

W.W. History of Philosophy.net. Today's episode, Straw Men, the Rise of the Universities.

With a huge influx of scientific and philosophical literature we discussed last time, an educational

ideal of the early medieval ages drifted out of reach.

No longer would it be possible for any one person, no matter how intelligent and industrious, to master all available

human knowledge.

Ironic, then, you might say, that it was at just about the same time in the late 12th and

early 13th centuries that we see the rise of the medieval

universities. The very name university, after all, seems to promise the opportunity of

comprehensive education.

It is a place where you can study all things.

But as it turns out, that is not what the medieval word meant.

The term Universitas had nothing to do with universal knowledge, nor for that matter did it refer to a place.

This is not to say that the medieval university had nothing in common with our modern day institutions. To the contrary, a list of the customs and practices that still survive from medieval universities could include the wearing of academic gowns, the division of teaching staff into faculties and of teaching sessions into lectures and seminars, the observing of summer holidays, the provision of student housing, the hazing of first-year students, examinations, endowed chairs, the awarding of bachelor's and master's

degrees, and such administrative terms as Chancellor and Rector.

Also, medieval university students drank a lot.

Yet the fact that we still use the word university can be misleading.

Originally, Universitas just meant a group of people who banded together for collective action.

It was applied to many such groups, not only scholarly ones.

So when the medievals called these scholars at Bologna, Paris, or Oxford,

a Universitas, it was because those scholars had joined

forces, at first to seek informal protection of their interests from the church or secular governments

...