Popes and sovereigns granted privileges by charter to the various universities. The term ‘university’ originally signified a ‘corporation’ of students and teachers, and the students were usually grouped according to ‘nations.’ The teaching body was divided into four or five ‘faculties.’ The course in arts included the seven liberal arts and portions of Aristotle; in civil and canon law, the _Corpus Juris Civilis_ of Justinian and the _Decree_ of Gratian respectively; in medicine, the treatises of Greek and other medical writers; and in theology, mostly the _Sententiæ_ of Peter the Lombard. The texts were read and explained by the lecturers, and a practical training in debate was furnished. While the courses and methods were narrow and formal, the mediæval university contained the germ of modern inquiry and did much to foster independence of thought and action. [Sidenote: In general a product of all that was best in the Middle Ages.] =The Rise of Universities.=--A most important effect upon subsequent education came through the foundation of the mediæval universities. These institutions grew out of the old cathedral and monastic schools, but found their models largely in the liberal and professional courses of the Moorish colleges. In general, they came into existence through the many broadening influences of the later Middle Ages. Their rise was intimately connected with the stimulus of the Moslem presentation of Greek philosophy and science, with the interest in dialectic and theological discussions, which led to the development of scholasticism, with the reaction from ‘otherworldliness’ resulting from the ideals of chivalry, and with the growth of cities and wealth, and the consequent emphasis upon secular interests and knowledge (see chap. xi). However, while they were all more or less the product of the same factors, no two sprang from exactly the same set of causes, and special conditions played a part in the evolution of each university. [Sidenote: Causes of the medical school at Salerno.] =The Foundation of Universities at Salerno, Bologna, and Paris.=--The oldest of these institutions, that at Salerno, near Naples, was simply a school of medicine, and originated through the survival of the old Greek medical works in Southwestern Italy, and through the attraction of the mineral springs and salubrity of this particular place. By the middle of the eleventh century Salerno was well known as the leading place for medical study. It was, however, never chartered as a regular university, although in 1231 Frederick II recognized it as the school of medicine for the university he had created at Naples some seven years earlier. [Sidenote: Origin of the courses at Bologna] [Sidenote: in civil law] [Sidenote: and canon law.]