page_title: Palacký University Olomouc
section_title: Founding of the Jesuit University
hierarchical_section_title: Palacký University Olomouc / History / Founding of the Jesuit University
caption_attribution_description: Solar clock at the Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic
context_page_description: Palacký University Olomouc is the oldest university in Moravia and the second-oldest in the Czech Republic. It was established in 1573 as a public university led by the Jesuit order in Olomouc, which was at that time the capital of Moravia and the seat of the episcopacy. At first it taught only theology, but soon the fields of philosophy, law and medicine were added.
  After the Bohemian King Joseph II's reforms in the 1770s the university became increasingly state-directed, while today it is a public university. During the Revolution of 1848 university students and professors played a very active role on the side of democratisation. The conservative king Francis Joseph I closed most of its faculties during the 1850s, but they were reopened by an act of the Interim National Assembly passed on 21 February 1946. This act also extended the name from University of Olomouc to Palacký University Olomouc, naming it for František Palacký, a 19th-century Moravian historian and politician.
  Today the university is an example of an old university in a small town, like Yale University in New Haven and the University of Tübingen in Tübingen.
context_section_description: On 22 December 1573 Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor appointed Jan Grodecký to be Bishop of Olomouc and at the same time gave the Olomouc Jesuit College the right to award university degrees. The first rector was Hurtado Pérez (Mula, Spain 1526  – Olomouc 1594). University education itself started on 3 October 1576, when the Englishman George Warr started to lecture on philosophy. In the same year the first students were officially enrolled in the university's registry and the students were "subdued" in an admission ceremony, which was supposed to relieve them of base morals.
  In 1578 the authority of the university was expanded by the creation of a special papal seminary (Latin: Seminarium Pontificium called in Latin: Collegium Nordicum (a second Collegium Nordicum was established in Braunsberg; the one in Olomouc lasted until 1741) The previous sphere of responsibility, which had covered Silesia, Poland, Hungary and the Austrian lands as well as Moravia, was now broadened to include Germany, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The aim of the seminary was to create devoted and well-educated Catholic priests who would then return to their homelands, and there promote and protect the Catholic Church's interests and objectives.
  In 1581 the university received an Imperial Privilege from the emperor Rudolf II, whereby degrees awarded by the Jesuit University had the same value as those from any comparable university. At the same time the privilege established university jurisdiction over students and professors, which meant that university members enjoyed a form of clerical immunity and could not face trial before civil courts even in respect of criminal proceedings. In 1582 the Bishop and Jesuits forced the Protestant school in Olomouc to close. Meanwhile, the bishop, Stanislav Pavlovský, called for the establishment of faculties of law and medicine. He was able to convince the rector, Bartoloměj Villerius, to support his proposal. Later in the 1588 the emperor Rudolf II, in a document written in the Czech language, gave his support for establishment of all these faculties; however the idea failed at the time due to lack of finance. In 1590 the university had about 600 students, while by 1617 their number exceeded one thousand. In the era before the Battle of White Mountain Olomouc University was composed of a grouping of connected and comprehensive colleges and dormitories. The areas taught were humaniora (preparation for university-level studies), philosophy (liberal arts), and theology.
  Rudolf II was succeeded in 1612 by his brother, the Emperor Matthias who sought to install the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand of Styria on the Bohemian throne (which was conjoined with that of the March of Moravia), but in 1618 the Protestant Bohemian and Moravian noblemen, who feared losing religious freedom (two of the Protestant churches being already forcibly closed), started the Bohemian Revolt. Consequently, the Jesuits were driven out of Olomouc and the university ceased operating, only to be restored in 1621 after the revolt was crushed. The Jesuits and the university benefited considerably from the defeat of Protestants: most of the Protestant nobles were either executed or expelled after the Revolt and their properties were confiscated. Prior to the Revolt the university was mostly funded from donations of patrons. However, the new Emperor Ferdinand II gave the university several substantial estates which he had confiscated from the defeated rebels. Foremost among these was the manor of Nový Jičín which provided a good income. Other properties donated by the Emperor included a farm formerly owned by Jan Adam Prusínovský, a relative of the founder of the Jesuit college. From 1622 the entire education system of the Czech Crown lands was placed under Jesuit control, including even the University of Prague and the University of Wrocław (Silesia was also a Czech Crown land at the time). By 1631 the university had some 1100 students of which around thirty were annually conferred Doctor of Philosophy title. The lectures on mathematics allured
caption: A sundial commemorating the quatercentenary of Olomouc University (1573–1973) on the facade of the Faculty of Philosophy
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK DX7590 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "230", "Image YResolution": "230", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:02 21:22:34", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "930", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6372", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1250", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:04:28 08:08:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:04:28 08:08:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "103/10", "EXIF ApertureValue": "53/10", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "17/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "137/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2448", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1872", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "804", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "80", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "82", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}