European Medieval University Research

Education is the focus of all the governments in the modern world and the task to provide the higher education is mainly laid upon the university, which, however, originated from the Medieval Europe instead of China. In order to clarify its development process, we are supposed to discuss the Medieval university-predecessor of modern ones, which will undoubtedly benefit our further understandings to this significant educational institute.This thesis contains three chapters.The first chapter concerns the background in which the university comes into being and the rise of the university. We brief the readers in the situations of education during the early Middle Ages. Then we analyse the general causes which impel the emergences of the university, including individual devotion of schorlors, support of ecclesiastical and loyal power. Among numbers of learned men, the author tends to focus on a person-Abelard, who is essentially important to the rise of the university. We furnish the information about his influences, life, characters and teathing method and point out that his students compose the main part of the academic assemblies as the way he teachs is applied extensively in the Medieval university. Then we turn to the discussion upon the attitude of the pope and king to the university plus the reason to it, study the interaction between the individual and general causes. Consequently we give a relatively concise list of foundations of the Medieval universities.The second chapter looks at the government of the early Medieval universities. Firstly, the author paid attention to the privileges of the university, as provides the prerequisite and basis of the democratical government system there. Then followed the introduction of nation and faculty-the main institutes in the medieval university. Afterwards, the author analyses the concrete method of government. The academic degree system forms the last section of this chapter.The third chapter pays attention to the general spirit and influence of the Medieval universities, especially the characters of the teachers and students as well as the inclinations of this major orgnisation during those distant epochs.