From that epoch dates, in reality, the foundation of the University. A school of medicine had existed there for nearly a century, but to the influx of Moorish and Hebrew learning must be attributed the reputation soon obtained by that institution throughout Europe. The majority of its professors belonged to those two nationalities. They brought with them the experience, the methods, the remedies, and the instruments of the most eminent and successful practitioners of the Peninsula. Many of them from time to time visited the colleges of Granada and Toledo for the purpose of adding to their stock of information, and of profiting by the superior facilities those schools afforded. A broad and catholic spirit controlled the organization and the policy of the University. Sectarian prejudice was unknown. Teacher and scholar were free to worship according to their belief, or to entertain and express the most radical philosophical opinions. Intellectual attainments and marked ability were the principal qualifications for admission to the Faculty. The Lords of Montpellier, and subsequently the Kings of France, were the patrons of the school. They conferred upon it at different times great and extraordinary privileges. The rights it had enjoyed under the Count were confirmed by the sovereign. Philip of Valois, in 1331, by a special edict placed its doctors under the royal protection. Charles VI., in 1350, granted its beadles permission to carry silver maces as symbols of its dignity. The Duke of Aragon, in 1364, exempted it from taxation. The patents of Charles VIII., in 1484, transferred all causes in which the professors and students were interested to the jurisdiction of the Governor of Montpellier. The execution of legal process could only be made in the presence of the Chancellor. To the officers of the Faculty were committed the supervision and inspection of the apothecary shops of the city, in order to insure the purity of the medicines dispensed. At Montpellier were performed the first public anatomical demonstrations of Christian Europe. The surgical investigations of the School of Salerno had been principally confined to the lower animals. Moorish and Hebrew operators carried into France the advanced ideas of Mohammedan Spain, which, in defiance of ancient prejudice and mediæval superstition, sought for the knowledge of the location and functions of the human organs in the intelligent and systematic dissection of the human body. In the thirteenth century, the corpse of a criminal was every year given to the Faculty of Montpellier for this purpose. Two hundred years elapsed before similar demonstrations were authorized by the University of Paris.