[493] These "pfahlburgers" were subjects of ecclesiastical or secular princes who, in order to escape the burdens of this relation, contrived to get themselves enrolled as citizens of neighboring cities. While continuing to dwell in regions subject to the jurisdiction of their lords, they claimed to enjoy immunity from that jurisdiction, because of their citizenship in those outside cities. The pfahlburgers were a constant source of friction between the towns and the territorial princes. The Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV. (1356) decreed that pfahlburgers should not enjoy the rights and privileges of the cities unless they became actual residents of them and discharged their full obligations as citizens. CHAPTER XXI. UNIVERSITIES AND STUDENT LIFE The modern university is essentially a product of the Middle Ages. The Greeks and Romans had provisions for higher education, but nothing that can properly be termed universities, with faculties, courses of study, examinations, and degrees. The word "universitas" in the earlier mediaeval period was applied indiscriminately to any group or body of people, as a guild of artisans or an organization of the clergy, and only very gradually did it come to be restricted to an association of teachers and students--the so-called _universitas societas magistrorum discipulorumque_. The origins of mediaeval universities are, in most cases, rather obscure. In the earlier Middle Ages the interests of learning were generally in the keeping of the monks and the work of education was carried on chiefly in monastic schools, where the subjects of study were commonly the seven liberal arts inherited from Roman days.[494] By the twelfth century there was a relative decline of these monastic schools, accompanied by a marked development of cathedral schools in which not only the seven liberal arts but also new subjects like law and theology were taught. The twelfth century renaissance brought a notable revival of Roman law, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy; by 1200 the whole of Aristotle's writings had become known; and the general awakening produced immediate results in the larger numbers of students who flocked to places like Paris and Bologna where exceptional teachers were to be found.