e led to the recall of English students
from the domain of their King's enemy, there grew up at Oxford a great
school or Studium, which acquired something of the fame of Paris and
Bologna. A struggle between the clerks who studied at Oxford and the
people of the town broke out at the time of John's defiance of the (p. 007)
Papacy, when the King outlawed the clergy of England, and this
struggle led to the rise of a school at Cambridge. In Italy the
institutions of the Studium at Bologna were copied at Modena, at
Reggio, at Vicenza, at Arezzo, at Padua, and elsewhere, and in 1244 or
1245 Pope Innocent IV. founded a Studium of a different constitution,
in dependence upon the Papal Court. In Spain great schools grew up at
Palencia, Salamanca, and Valladolid; in France at Montpellier,
Orleans, Angers, and Toulouse, and at Lyons and Reims. The impulse
given by Bologna and Paris was thus leading to the foundation of new
Studia or the development of old ones, for there were schools of
repute at many of the places we have mentioned before the period with
which we are now dealing (_c._ 1170-1250). It was inevitable that
there should be a rivalry among these numerous schools, a rivalry
which was accentuated as small and insignificant Studia came to claim
for themselves equality of status with their older and greater
contemporaries. Thus, in the latter half of the thirteenth century,
there arose a necessity for a definition and a restriction of the term
Studium Generale. The desirability of a definition was enhanced by the
practice of granting to ecclesiastics dispensations from residence in
their benefices for purposes of study; to prevent abuses it was
essential that such permission should be limited to a number of (p. 008)
recognised Studia Generalia.

The difficulty of enforcing such a definition throughout almost the
whole of Europe might seem likely to be great, but in point of fact it
was inconsiderable. In the first half of the thirteenth century, the
term Studium Generale was assuming recognised significance; a school
which aspired to the name must not be restricted to natives of a
particular town or country, it must have a number of masters, and it
must teach not only the Seven Liberal Arts (of which we shall have to
speak later), but also one or more of the higher studies of Theology,
Law and Medicine (_cf._ Rashdall, vol. i. p. 9). But the title might
still be adopted at will by ambitious schools, and the interventio