ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN EUROPE
ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN EUROPE

Summary/Abstract: The first universities had been founded by noblemen who had an interest in their own education or by scholars with an interest in the education of others. In the 13th century the majority of the universities had been established by scholars or students, since the 14th century, however the universities were established by princes. After the Middle Ages the absolutist rulers took over the governance of higher education, but the university succeeded to a certain degree in defending its feudal corporate independence. Yet the universities and later on the national systems of higher education developed as elements of a supranational order just as the absolutist states and the national states themselves. With the national state‘s development in the 19th and with the expansion of democracy in the 20th century universalistic principles gained authority in the political order and consequently in the higher education.

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