The Church and Oxford University.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 36, 4 September 1902, Page 3

The Church and Oxford University.

In an address delivered to the Oxford Medioal Graduate Olubi and published by the Bntith Medical Journal, Dr. Ferguson, of Cheltenham, reviews the history ot medicine and the history of Oxford, telling the modern world Borne plain facts as to how the Church helped learning in the Middle Ages. He points out how the monks of Osney and the Augustinian Canons of St. Frideswyde had founded schools, and how Vaoarius, from Bologna, and Robert Pullen, from Paris, taught respectively Law and Divinity, and how the University then granted its first degree to Edward Rioh, afterwards Archbishop and finally St. Edmund of Canterbury. We (Catholic Time*) would add that the Robert Pullen here mentioned was practically the founder of the University, and was also the first Fnglish Cardinal. Strange to say, he is not well known, even among the Catholio body, He studied at the University of Paris in company with such men bb Cardinal Stephen Langton, Cardinal Lothario (afterwards Pope Innocent III.), and Cardinal Robert Curzon, the real founder of the University of Paris. Cardinal Pullen returned to his native land and taught first at Exeter and later at Oxford, where he established the principle of Cardinal Curzon of bringing together the different branches of knowledge under the title of ' Universitus Literarum.' So great was his reputation that Pope Innocent 11. invited him to Rome, Pope Lucius 11. made him Papal Chancellor, and Pope Celestine 11. created him Cardinal-priest in 1142— the first English Cardinal. Dr. Fergusson, in his address, Bays that he grudges the name of University to medisevel Bologna, and, in a measure, he is right. Bologna was a great school of law aa Salerno was a school of medioine. Paris was undoubtedly the first University where the faculties of Divinity, Law, and Medicine could be studied at the same place. The new system was due to an English Cardinal, Robert Curzon, or, as the French histories of the University call him, 'Robert de Courgon, un Anglais.' This great man Bhowed the Trench King Philip Augustus the advantages of concentrating the different schools of learning in one place, and prevailed on him to establish the faculties of Jurisprudence and Medicine alongside thoae of Divinity and Arts. This was a master stroke, and in a short time the University of Paris affiliated to itself no less than 63 colleges, and gained such widespread renown that the students who flocked to it from all parts of Christendom frequently outnumbered the regular citizens. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX., in the Bull ' Parenß Seientiarum,' compared it to the city of letters mentioned in the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Joahua. Pope Innocent 111. rewarded Robert Curzon by creating him Cardinal under the title of St. Stephen on the Coelsan Hill, and later Rent him to England and also to France as Apostolic Delegate. Finally Cardinal Curzon represented the Pope in the Cruaaderß* Army, and he died far from his own land at Damietta by the mouth of the Nile.