Medieval university

A medieval university is a corporation organized during the High Middle Ages for the purposes of higher learning.

The first Western European institutions generally considered to be universities were established in the Kingdom of Italy, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Spain, and the Kingdom of Portugal between the 11th and 14th centuries for the study of the Arts and the higher disciplines of Theology, Law, and Medicine. These universities evolved from much older Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools, and it is difficult to define the exact date at which they became true universities, although the lists of studia generalia for higher education in Europe held by the Vatican are a useful guide.

"The word universitas originally applied only to the scholastic guilds— that is, the corporation of students and masters— within the studium, and it was always modified, as universitas magistrorum, or universitas scholarium, or universitas magistrorum et scholarium. In the course of time, however, probably toward the latter part of the 14th century, the term began to be used by itself, with the exclusive meaning of a self-regulating community of teachers and scholars whose corporate existence had been recognized and sanctioned by civil or ecclesiastical authority."

From the early modern period onwards, this Western-style organizational form gradually spread from the medieval Latin west across the globe, eventually replacing all other higher-learning institutions and becoming the preeminent model for higher education everywhere.

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