Document PDF - Asociatia Tinerilor Istorici din Moldova

FINANCING THE UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN THE EARLY MODERN TIMES
BASED ON THE EXAMPLE OF STUDENTS FROM KOŠICE
IN PRESENT-DAY EASTERN SLOVAKIA 1
Iulia CAPROŞ
Financing university studies: general facts
The question of fi nancing university studies has piqued the interest of a number of scholars
in the fi eld of university history 2 . Beside the direct fi nancial support provided by parents
or relatives and wages from different jobs, the following fi nancing possibilities have been presented
and commented upon: scholarships based on colleges or bursas, ecclesiastical or
princely benefi ces, scholarship foundations of different kinds, testamentary donations, and
fi nancial support obtained from different institutions such as monastic centers or the administration
of towns. The fi rst colleges, meant by their founders to be charitable institutions offering
accomodation for a number of poor students, initially originated in Paris, Oxford, and
Cambridge, and later spread to other university towns. However, this type of support hardly
covered more than the cost of lodging and additional sponsorship was necessary. At the same
time, the number of students who could benefi t from it was rather limited. 3 Another possibility
for fi nding fi nancial support for studies were the ecclesiastical benefi ces offered by the pope,
local bishops or other patrons. However, the amount of research carried out on this issue is not
suffi cient to permit for general conclusions to be drawn concerning the numbers of students
and the conditions that made these benefi ces accessible to them. A further possibility was
what Paul Trio and others refer to as ‘fl ying grants’ (bursae volantes), by which a founder, in
a testamentary disposition, provided one or more students with a certain long-term fi nancial
support (usually paid on a yearly basis) and entrusted the administration of this type of stipend
foundation to an individual or an institution, for example to the town council. This type of grant
usually demanded several conditions to be met by the grantee and sometimes even specified
the institution or the faculty for the promoted study 4 .
Stipend foundations (Studienstiftungen) already appear in European towns in the middle
of the fourteenth century, however, a real increase in their numbers took place in the second half
of the fi fteenth century. 5 Another form of fi nancial aid for study expenses was patronage, which
represented a a temporary bequest of money or other goods (clothes or books) to university
students. 6 Rich individual patrons (kings, princes, or individuals of lesser rank) or institutions
have been identifi ed as patrons. These included urban administration, religious institutions, or
student-confraternities, the latter established exclusively for the purpose of offering fi nancial
support to students. Urban councils in German towns already had the practice of fi nancing the
university studies of their inhabitants beginning with the fi fteenth century when the number of
sponsored students is still low but the tendency is developing continuously. 7 While before that
1
This article is based on the material provided in the chapter four of my doctoral thesis, defended at the Central
European University from Budapest, Hungary, in 2010.
2
TRIO 1984, 1-24 with further bibliographical references.
3
SCHWINGES 1986, 527-564.
4
TRIO 1984, 4ff.
5
WRIEDT 1993, 35ff.
6
TRIO 1984, 10ff.
7
For the example of the town of Braunschweig see the well documented study by Martin Kintzinger: KINTZ-
INGER 1990, 466f.
– 204 –