ScienceEurope
The universities
An institution that outlived everything else from the Middle Ages
See it on the timeline →In depth
The decisive thing was corporate right: the university was a legal person with privileges of its own, independent of town and bishop. The curriculum was largely Aristotle in Arabic-Latin translation, and the scholastic method — set claim against counter-claim and resolve — trained a systematic argument that later science built on.
For children
Bologna, Paris and Oxford were founded as self-governing associations of teachers and students, with the right to decide their own teaching. The form has survived nearly a thousand years, almost unchanged.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org