Nauczanie uniwersyteckie w świetle przywileju fundacyjnego Kazimierza Wielkiego

In the Middle Ages there functioned two models of organizing the University life. On one hand there was the corporate model which provided for the organization of the scholars according to the guild pattern: the scholars elected their Rector from among themselves and, on the basis of the agreed tuition fee, employed professors. In the collegial model, in its turn, these were the professors who made up their own community. Casimir the Great selected the first of the two aforementioned models while founding his University in which he planned to form three faculties: of law, medicine and liberal arts. He failed however to receive the acceptance of the Pope for creating the faculty of theology. Hence the founding document contains no mention of such faculty. The King conceived of law as the most significant line of studies. Casimir the Great thought it particularly necessary to entrust the judiciary with the qualified lawyers. In addition, he urgently needed the latter to develop diplomatic activities in the international scene. It was however due to unfavourable circumstances that during this monarch’s life only the faculty of liberal arts began to function. What facilitated its functioning was the fact that the faculty did not appear on intellectual desert. It could resort to the potential previously formed by the Cathedral School as well as school attached to the parish of Our Lady, the school being characterized by high educational level. The instruction that was given in the discussed faculty encompassed a traditional area of trivium, i.e. grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, as well as quadrivium including arithmetics, geometry, astronomy and music. Although upon the death of its founder the Cracow Academy suspended its activities, there were some scholars who managed to be awarded baccalaureati in the Academy’s artes. This testifies to the fact that Casimir the Great’s concept referring to the Academy’s profile of studies was, at least to some extent, materialized