The masters and students of the arts faculty formed their own legal corporation, or university, as did the teachers and students of the medical faculty, and so on.' Thus a faculty of arts was a 'university' as was any faculty of medicine or faculty of theology.

'In short, the scholars' universitas, however influential we might think it was, long remained a guild, pure and simple: 'At the outset it was applied to a single group that formed a legally recognized self-governing association. In a sense all scholars were regarded as members, though not as governing members, of the Universitas of Masters and Scholars.' The universitas prescribed the studies which were to lead to the master's chair but it did not attempt to interfere with the discipline of the scholars. Although the word universitas later acquired the meaning of a 'guild of scholars' specifically, even then it still was strictly a guild it was nothing like a university: 'The universitas was in its origin a voluntary association of indvidual masters rather than a single educational institution conducted by an organized staff. The word universitas originally meant an 'incorporated' guild of any kind. However, it cannot be overemphasized that although the Latin word universitas is usually translated as university, the early universitasР’В was totally unlike a university in its purpose, structure, and functions. 'First of all, it is clear that the earliest three 'universities'- the universitas guilds of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford-appear at approximately the same time in history, the late twelfth or early thirteenth century regardless of scholarly tradition, none has been demonstrated with any certainty to be significantly earlier than the others.

From this guild, later in the twelfth century, the University of ParisР’В began. Early in the twelfth century a universitas magistrorum et scholariumР’В (a guild of masters and scholars) grew up around Notre Dame cathedral.

Guild system definition