Jesuit Schools and Universities in Europe 1548–1773

Abstract

Paul F. Grendler, noted historian of European education, surveys Jesuit schools and universities throughout Europe from the first school founded in 1548 to the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. The Jesuits were famed educators who founded and operated an international network of schools and universities that enrolled students from the age of eight or ten through doctoral studies. The essay analyzes the organization, curriculum, pedagogy, culture, financing, relations with civil authorities, enrollments, and social composition of students in Jesuit pre-university schools. Grendler then examines the different forms of Jesuit universities. The Jesuits did almost all the teaching in small collegiate universities that they governed. In large civic–Jesuit universities the Jesuits taught the humanities, philosophy, and theology, while lay professors taught law and medicine. The article provides examples ranging from the first Jesuit school in Messina, Sicily, to universities across Europe. It features a complete list of Jesuit schools in France.

The Early Jesuits’ Transformative Vision of Education in the Context of Colonization from Their Sixteenth-Century Beginnings to Their Suppression in 1773: A Longue Durée Synthesis and Online Interactive Map Locating the Colleges

“…47 However, the Jesuits provide early examples from the sixteenth century of a model of schooling that worked in partnership with rulers, rich supporters, and financial support from local civil governments. 48 It was an extensive Jesuit practice in Europe for schools to, apart from an initial endowment, depend on annual financial support from local civil governments, turning them into semi-public schools. 49 The schools were free and did not accept any payment from students, and the Jesuit teachers could not accept salaries and had vows of poverty; there were also noble-boarding schools.…”