University of Constantinople

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For pre-1922/1930 name of a university founded in the Ottoman Empire era and still operating today, see Istanbul University.
Surviving part of the Magnaura

The Imperial University of

Medieval Greek: Πανδιδακτήριον).[1]

The Pandidakterion was refounded in 1046[2] by Constantine IX Monomachos who created the Departments of Law (Διδασκαλεῖον τῶν Νόμων) and Philosophy (Γυμνάσιον).[3]

At the time various economic schools, colleges, polytechnics, libraries and fine arts academies also operated in the city of Constantinople.

History

Colossus of Barletta, statue identified with either Leo I, Marcian or Theodosius II, founder of the University of Constantinople.

Byzantine society on the whole was an educated one. Primary education was widely available, sometimes even at village level and uniquely in that era for both sexes. Female participation in culture was high. Scholarship was fostered not only in Constantinople but also in institutions operated in such major cities as Antioch and Alexandria.[4]

The original school was founded in 425 by Emperor Theodosius II with 31 chairs for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric and other subjects, 15 to Latin and 16 to Greek. The university existed until the 15th century.[5]

The main content of higher education for most students was rhetoric, philosophy and law with the aim of producing competent, learned personnel to staff the bureaucratic postings of state and church. In this sense the university was the secular equivalent of the Theological Schools. The university maintained an active philosophical tradition of Platonism and Aristotelianism, with the former being the longest unbroken Platonic school, running for close to two millennia until the 15th century.[citation needed]

Depiction of a philosophy lesson in the university from the 12th century Madrid Skylitzes.

The School of

Mehmet II
following the conquest of the city. Both of these institutions are still operational today.

Matthaios Kamariotis, lecturer of the university, became the first director of Phanar Greek Orthodox College, which was established in 1454.[7]

Status

The Pandidakterion refounded in 1046 is generally recognized as a "university" in that it was, like modern universities, an institution of higher learning with chairs in many fields of study, but some scholars have argued that it was not a "university" because it lacked the corporative structure of the medieval universities of Western Europe, which used the Latin term universitas magistrorum et scholarium for the communities of masters and students that came to define the institutional character of European universities.[8][9] Nonetheless, the Dictionnaire encyclopédique du Moyen Âge also identifies the Pandidakterion founded in 425 as a "university institution".[9]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-89241-588-6
    : "The fifth century marked a definite turning point in Byzantine higher education. Theodosios ΙΙ founded in 425 a major university with 31 chairs for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric and other subjects. Fifteen chairs were assigned to Latin and 16 to Greek. The university was reorganized by Michael III (842–867) and flourished down to the fourteenth century".
  2. ^ John H. Rosser, Historical Dictionary of Byzantium, Scarecrow Press, 2001, p. xxx.
  3. ^ Aleksandr Petrovich Kazhdan, Annabel Jane Wharton, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, University of California Press, 1985, p. 122.
  4. ^ Peter Rietbergen, Europe: A Cultural History, Routledge, 1998, p. 101.
  5. ^ Myriobiblos
  6. ISBN 978-0-19-925246-6
  7. ^ Kostas Gavroglu, The Sciences in the European Periphery During the Enlightenment, 2001, p. 46
  8. institutions of higher education comparable to the universities of the later Middle Ages in Western Europe
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 2-204-05866-1
    , p. 1553:

    Le nom "université" désigne au Moyen Âge occidental une organisation corporative des élèves et des maîtres, avec ses fonctions et privilèges, qui cultive un ensemble d'études supérieures. L'existence d'une telle institution est fort contestée pour Byzance. Seule l'école de Constantinople sous Théodose Il peut être prise pour une institution universitaire. Par la loi de 425, l'empereur a établi l'"université de Constantinople", avec 31 professeurs rémunérés par l'État qui jouissaient du monopole des cours publics.

External links
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