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Elke Weik, University of Leicester, [email protected] The Birth of the University – An Emergent Institutionalist Perspective FIRST DRAFT – MARCH 2009 The present paper investigates processes of institution building. In contrast to most of what presently is discussed in this field, I want to establish and apply an emergent perspective, i.e. a perspective that views institution building as a long term process that is not dependent on the activities of individual actors. As I will argue in the paper, the emergent perspective can be portrayed as the more intuitive, more modest but hopefully more realistic perspective on institution buidling. If we define institutions with Giddens (1993) as entities with a large time-space extension, it is difficult to see how particular actors, who by definition can only cover a small time-space extension, can found institutions. The present discussion concerning institutional entrepreneurship obviously takes its clues from the founding of organizations, but in theoretical terms organizations are a very different case. My suspicion is that the managerialist bias of Management and Organization Studies coupled with the strong individualist touch of UK and US national culture – where many authors originate from – leads the field to some notions that may not prove effective in the long run. As a case study, I have chosen the foundation of the University of Paris in the latter half of the 12th century. The University of Paris not only was the most prestigious university in the 1 Elke Weik, University of Leicester, [email protected] Middle Ages but also became the role model after which all later European universities were fashioned. By choosing such a temporally distant foundation process, I also try to leave behind modern assumptions concering institutions and institution building and focus on the overall characteristics of the process. Modernity, as Zucker (1983) states, is characterised by an institutional self-dynamics with more and more institutions being established in more and more areas of life. This ubiquity of institutions, I believe, may sometimes prevent us from distinguishing institutional processes from other processes, for example organizational or entrepreneurial ones. In contrast, my focus on the Middle Ages – a time with a comparatively low degree of institutionalization – may draw the contours more clearly. I will describe the foundation of the University of Paris as an analytical narrative focusing on the interplay of existing institutions as well as the relationship between culture and institutional logics. My sources are both primary and secondary. The 12th century is, of course, much more poorly documented than modern times. Still, with regard to my specific research topic, we are lucky to have an autobiography of one of the key actors – Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum – and about one million words of his philosophical writings. The autobiography, as all autobiographies, follows the rules of the genre and thus cannot be taken as a pure report of facts. However, as it was published in Abelard’s lifetime, we may assume that he could not diverge too much from the truth, and indeed modern scholars have yet to find an outright lie in his account. Apart from Abelard’s writings in the Latin original and a German (Abaelard, 1987) and English translation (Abelard, 1972), I have used small extracts from other original sources, but have mostly relied on the works of established modern scholars of medieval history and philosophy. Thus, for university history I draw on Cobban (1971), Koeppler (1939), Le Goff (1986), Müller (1996), Gabriel (1969) and Rüegg (1992) as 2 Elke Weik, University of Leicester, [email protected] well as on three classics of university history, Denifle (1885), Compayré (1893) and Rashdall (1886; 1936), for scholastic philosophy on Clanchy (2000), Flasch (1987), Schmidinger (1992) and Makdisi (1974), for Abelard on Clanchy (2000), Compayré (1893) and LeGoff (1986). THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY: CULTURAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT “A complete history of the universities of the Middle Ages would be in fact a history of medieval thought…”(Rashdall, 1936:3). The university as we know it today has its origins in the Middle Ages; it may, in fact, be its proudest cultural “invention”. While later universities were founded by decree (ex privilegio) and have thus a clearly marked beginning, the oldest universities grew slowly out of custom (ex consuetudine) – a much more intesting process from an institutionalist perspective. Among these, the universities of Paris and Bologna were considered the first, both with regard to age and importance. No exact date or founding document can be established for them, but they served as models for subsequent universities. I will limit my research to the University of Paris, whose magisterial and faculty organization still lies at the basis of modern universities, and to the latter half of the 12th century, where this university emerged as a recognisable body. Before we start with this particular time and place, however, I think it is necessary to dispel some cliches and prejudices that modernity has cultivated vis-à-vis the Middle Ages. The 11th and 12th centuries were a time of rupture and transformation. European population doubled between 1050 and 1200 leaving a huge number of people without subsistence and infrastructure (Herlihy, 1971; LeGoff, 1986). Traditional institutions did not just fade, they burst, creating insecurity and disillusion. Families could not provide for their children (except the firstborn), and the community had no place or work for them either. People started moving 3 Elke Weik, University of Leicester, [email protected] around, sometimes banding together for criminal purposes, but often as vagantes, a group that also formed an vociferous part of the students of the time. The contemporary vulgar songs and troubadour lyrics were full of irony and parody rejecting the Church and its magnates, the king, religious practices and Christian marriage. At the same time, the frustration was also vented against perceived outsiders. In 1007, the first heretics were burnt, and the first crusade started in 1096. Towards the end of this period, however, new forms begin to take shape: Cities rose, and with them the new classes of merchants, bankers, craftsmen, artists, and university teachers. Guilds were formed, and in the nobility the feudal system was further developed. In fact, many authors use the term “renaissance” to describe the remarkable cultural, intellectual and institutional achievements of the 12th century. The Catholic Church, in whose lap the universities were to develop, was not unaffected by the turmoils. Its monasteries, the traditional places of learning, had been following the rule of St. Benedict, but came under increasing critique for not being sincere and strict enough. The 11th century saw a serious crisis of the atrophied monasteries (Suso Frank, 1987). This dissatisfaction found two outlets. The first was for monks to leave the monastery altogether and, following the example of the desert hermits, to live as hermits in the forests. The second were the reformation movements of Cluny and later Citeaux, which aimed at “restoring” the monastic ideal of austerity and asceticism. The pre-university stage The high mobility of the population was a boon for the newly established or growing cities. However, if people did not want to settle and become citizens, but move on after a certain time, the lack of citizenship had serious consequences. Basically, these people had no rights and no means to act in a legally meaningful way. The problem was the same for merchants as 4 Elke Weik, University of Leicester, [email protected] for university teachers and students, and they responded with the same solution, viz. by forming an association or guild. This association was called “universitas” and referred to any trade, not just university people. Paris and Bologna were the first places to have a “studium generale”, which meant they accepted students from everywhere and offered at least one of the higher faculties (i.e. Theology, Medicine, Law). Paris at the time offered education in the Arts and Theology, while Bologna focussed on Law and Salerno on Medicine. Students who graduated from these places had the – very important – right to teach anywhere else without further examination. This ius ubique docendi was to become the most coveted privilege. It could only be granted by the Pope as the Church was the only internationally recognised body to guarantee such a right. The notions of universitas and studium generale did not merge fully until the 15th century. Till then, the studium generale was the location we would today identify as university, while universitas referred to the associations of masters and students respectively. The universitas magistrorum, i.e. the association of masters, was the more important in Paris and gave rise to the magisterial organization of universities, which later was to become the universal model. Bologna, in contrast, had a student centred administrative organization in which students employed their masters and occupied the superior decision-making positions. In the 13th century, the universitas magistrorum branched into different facultates or scientiae (for theology, the arts, and medicine respectively), which then slowly grew together to form the university, at least in their dealings with externals. Internally, the faculties kept their own exclusive procedures for quite a while. In the middle of the 12th century, the monasteries still taught as they always had, but mostly did so in the countryside. In the cities, cathedral schools had emerged for the same purpose. 5 Elke Weik, University of Leicester, [email protected] At Paris, there were three: the cathedral schools of Notre-Dame, those of the cloister of Ste. Geneviève and those of the cloister St. Victor. Ste. Geneviève was the home of the Artist Faculty, Notre-Dame of mainstream theology, and St.

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