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THE UNIVERSITY OF THE REFORMATION
Table 7 Overview of the number of regular professorships in the higher faculties
(1507-1516)
Faculty 1507 1508 (proposed) 1516
Theology 4 5 3
Law (Roman) 2 3 4
Law (Canon) 6 4 3
Medicine 1 2 1
Total 13 14 11
In 1507 four canonries of the Collegiate Church had been dedicated to teaching
ecclesiastical law, but by 1516 one canon had switched to civil law, as had Wolf¬
gang Stahelin, whose salary came from the state treasury. Christoph Scheurl,
the other regular professor of canon law on the Elector’s payroll in 1507, moved
to Nuremberg in 1511, and the new appointment, filled by Christian Beyer, was
in Roman law. In other words, whereas the Elector funded two professorships
each in canon law and civic law in 1507, by 1516 he instead supported three
Roman lawyers at the university, and a position in the same branch formerly
financed by the treasury — lectureship on the Jnstitutiones — was now largely
covered from the income of an endowed canonry (Table 6).
What we see on the eve of the Reformation in Wittenberg is, then, a fairly
typical late medieval university. But there are signs of the changing times.
Kenneth G. Appold identified the rise of early modern universities ex privile¬
gio, as opposed to the more purely medieval tradition ex consuetudine.*” Many
of the identifying marks — deliberate foundation by a territorial ruler; a more
public and secular (rather than quasi-monastic) character; decreased interna¬
tionality; or a more effective exercise of influence by the local sovereign, often
governed by pragmatic considerations (clearly visible in the refashioning of
the law school) — certainly apply to the Leucorea. Other traits, however, betray
a more traditional side. The university depended, in a medieval fashion, on
church endowment guaranteed by papal decree for more than half of its operat¬
ing costs (Table 8). The area where the traditionalism of Wittenberg was most
visible is the educational content it offered. The Leucorea was clearly scholastic
in orientation even if its intellectual climate included a significant Humanist
component. But there was a constant push for more of the latter.
37 APPOLD, Kenneth G., Academic Life and Teaching in Post-Reformation Lutheranism, in R.
Kolb (ed.), Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture: 1550-1675, Leiden, Brill, 2008, 65-115, here 66-75;
cf. Lück in TRE vol. 36, 232.
+ 21°