(18) For an account of that remarkable work see German
translation by Manitius, Leipzig, 1912.

Many of the translators of the period were Jews, and many of the works
were translated from Hebrew into Latin. For years Arabic had been the
learned language of the Jews, and in a large measure it was through them
that the Arabic knowledge and the translations passed into South and
Central Europe.

The Arab writer whose influence on mediaeval thought was the most
profound was Averroes, the great commentator on Aristotle.

THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES

THE most striking intellectual phenomenon of the thirteenth century is
the rise of the universities. The story of their foundation is fully
stated in Rashdall's great work (Universities of Europe in the Middle
Ages, Oxford, 1895). Monastic and collegiate schools, seats of learning
like Salernum, student guilds as at Bologna, had tried to meet the
educational needs of the age. The word "university" literally means
an association, and was not at first restricted to learned bodies. The
origin appears to have been in certain guilds of students formed for
mutual protection associated at some place specially favorable for
study--the attraction generally being a famous teacher. The University
of Bologna grew up about guilds formed by students of law, and at
Paris, early in the twelfth century, there were communities of teachers,
chiefly in philosophy and theology. In this way arose two different
types of mediaeval university. The universities of Northern Italy were
largely controlled by students, who were grouped in different "nations."
They arranged the lectures and had control of the appointment of
teachers. On the other hand, in the universities founded on the Paris
model the masters had control of the studies, though the students, also
in nations, managed their own affairs.

Two universities have a special interest at this period in connection
with the development of medical studies, Bologna and Montpellier. At
the former the study of anatomy was revived. In the knowledge of the
structure of the human body no advance had been made for more than a
thousand years--since Galen's day. In the process of translation from
Greek to Syriac, from Syriac to Arabic, from Arabic to Hebrew, and from
Hebrew or Arabic to Latin, both the form and thought of the old Greek
writers were not infrequently confused and often even perverted, and
Galen's anatomy had suffered severely