page_title: University of Aberdeen
section_title: King's and Marischal Colleges
hierarchical_section_title: University of Aberdeen / History / King's and Marischal Colleges
caption_attribution_description: Kings College, Aberdeen about 1661. Wellcome states: Engraving from Gordon of Rothemays plan of Aberdeen. From: History of Scottish Medicine page 366 Available here in slightly different version on p138
context_page_description: The University of Aberdeen is a public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is an ancient university founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen and Chancellor of Scotland, petitioned Pope Alexander VI on behalf of James IV, King of Scots to establish King's College, making it Scotland's third-oldest university and the fifth-oldest in the English-speaking world.
  The university comprises three colleges - King's College, Marischal College, and Christ's College - that are now mainly ceremonial. The university as it is currently constituted was formed in 1860 by a merger between King's College and Marischal College, a second university founded in 1593 as a Protestant alternative to the former. The university's iconic buildings act as symbols of wider Aberdeen, particularly Marischal College in the city centre and the crown steeple of King's College in Old Aberdeen. There are two campuses; the predominantly utilised King's College campus dominates the section of the city known as Old Aberdeen, which is approximately two miles north of the city centre.
context_section_description: There appears to have existed in Old Aberdeen, from a very early period, a Studium Generate, or University, attached to the Episcopal Chapter of the See of Aberdeen. It is said to have been founded in 1157 by Edward, Bishop of Aberdeen, and although, according to Boece, it still existed at the period when King's College was founded, it is probable that it had in some way ceased to answer the purposes which it must have been designed to serve, since King James IV., in his letter to Pope Alexander VI., requesting him to found a University in Old Aberdeen, mentions as the chief motive for the undertaking, the profound ignorance of the inhabitants of the north of Scotland, and the great deficiency of properly educated men to fill the clerical office in that part of his kingdom.
  The first university in Aberdeen, King's College, formally The University and King's College of Aberdeen (Collegium Regium Abredonense), was founded on 10 February 1494 by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, Chancellor of Scotland, and a graduate of the University of Glasgow drafting a request on behalf of King James IV to Pope Alexander VI resulting in a Papal Bull being issued. It seems that James was keen to ensure that Scotland had as many universities as England at the time, and it was to possess all the privileges enjoyed by those of Paris and Bologna, two of the most highly favoured in Europe. The university, modelled on that of the University of Paris and intended principally as a law school, soon became the most famous and popular of the Scots seats of learning, largely due to the prestige of Elphinstone and his friend, Hector Boece, the first principal appointed in 1500. Its aim was to train doctors, teachers and clergy who would serve the communities of northern Scotland, as well as lawyers and administrators for the Scottish Crown. It was a collegiate foundation with 36 full-time staff and students and walls protecting it from the outside world. In 1497 the College established the first chair of medicine in the English-speaking world.
  The first book (there was no printing press in Scotland at the time) to be printed in Edinburgh and in Scotland was the Aberdeen Breviary, which was written by both Elphinstone and Boece in 1509.
  Following the Scottish Reformation in 1560, King's College was purged of its Roman Catholic staff but in other respects was largely resistant to change. George Keith, the fifth Earl Marischal, was a moderniser within the college and supportive of the reforming ideas of Peter Ramus and Andrew Melville. In April 1593 he founded a second university in the 'New Town', Marischal College. It is also possible the founding of another college in nearby Fraserburgh by Sir Alexander Fraser, a business rival of Keith, was instrumental in its creation. Aberdeen was highly unusual at this time for having two universities in one city: as 20th-century University prospectuses observed, Aberdeen had the same number as existed in England at the time (the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge).
  Initially, Marischal College offered the Principal of King's College a role in selecting its academics, but this was refused - the first blow in a developing rivalry. Marischal College, in the commercial heart of the city (rather than the ancient but much smaller collegiate enclave of Old Aberdeen), was quite different in nature and outlook. For example, it was more integrated into the life of the city, such as allowing students to live outwith the college. The two rival colleges often clashed, sometimes in court, but also in brawls between students on the streets of Aberdeen. Duncan Liddell endowed the first chair in mathematics at Marischal College in 1613, but the first professor wasn't appointed until 1626.
  As the institutions put aside their differences, a process of attempted (but unsuccessful) mergers began in the 17th century. During this time, both colleges made notable intellectual contributions to the Scottish Enlightenment. Both colleges supported the Jacobite rebellion and following the defeat of the 1715 rising were 
caption: An illustration of King's College in 1661.
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