University (Civ6)/Civilopedia

An institution of higher learning since the first c. 1100 AD, the modern university has its roots in the Catholic cathedral and monastic schools dating back to the 6th Century. With the exception of the University of Paris (founded c. 1150), most of the early universities were begun by the kings and queens of the land – at Bologna (1088), Oxford (1167), Modena (1175), Cambridge (1209) Padua (1222), Krakow (1364) and many others – as an alternative (and curb to) the Catholic schools. In contrast (and defiance) to the Catholic Church, these public universities espoused academic freedom; the first such was the Constitutio Habita in 1155 of the University of Bologna, which granted rights and protections to the scholars studying there as guaranteed by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. The universities offered studies in law, medicine, logic, philosophy, certain sciences, and the classics then; now young scholars can get degrees in Buddhist literature, bioengineering, and even game design.