Corporate Body - Universidad de Alcalá (1499-1836, Madrid, España)
Identification
Type:
Corporate Body
Preferred form:
Universidad de Alcalá (1499-1836, Madrid, España)Other forms
Fechas de Existencia:
from 1499 to 1836
History:
The University of Alcalá was founded by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros a few years after being named archbishop of Toledo and according to the College-University model, in which the College, under the advocacy of San Ildefonso, was both see of the college community and head of the university at the same time, with a single rector. Pope Alexander VI issued the foundational bull on April 13, 1499, but the political circumstances that force Cisneros to occupy the regency delayed the project implementation so that the classrooms would not be opened until 1508. Cisneros is not the first archbishop of Toledo who had the initiative to create a university in his diocese and in the town of Alcalá. Archbishop Gonzalo García Gudiel obtained a Sancho IV privilege on May 20, 1293, granting the city a Study of General Schools with the same exemptions as the Valladolid study. However, there are no documentary references about its proper functioning. The second initiative corresponds to Archbishop Alonso Carrillo de Acuña, son of the Counts of Buendía, to whom Pope Pius II, by bull of July 17, 1459, authorized the erection of three chairs of arts. Archbishop Carrillo, a student in the College San Clemente of Bologna, also founded the convent of San Diego and the church of Saints Justo and Pastor in Alcalá, which would later receive the title of Magistral and would be linked to the College University through the figure of the abbot, dean of the University at the same time. The University of Alcalá initially gathered the legacy of the cathedral schools in which the priority was the study of theology as a point of reference for the approach of other disciplines and evolved to the liberal state model. The interventionist policy of Chales III was decisive for the control by the State of the University management, thanks to the separation of the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso and the University of Alcalá. After several frustrated attempts to transfer it to the Court, the University of Alcalá was definitively closed in 1836 and its income and teaching staff were transferred to the new University of Madrid. Along with the College of San Ildefonso, Cardinal Cisneros introduced several schools for poor students in 1510. He justified the erection of these schools so that the students who came to Alcalá did not have to abandon their studies due to lack of resources. On March 23, 1513 he established various constitutions for these schools: "Madre de Dios" or of theologists, "San Pedro and San Pablo", for Franciscan religious, "Santa Catalina, Santa Balbina, San Dionisio and San Ambrosio" or of artists, for logicians and sumulistas (person in charge of the summary that contains the elementary principles of logic), physicists and metaphysicians, "San Eugenio y San Isidoro", for grammarians and Greeks, and "San Lucas", College Hospital for sick students. Constitutions predicted that new schools would be created as rents allowed it. Thus, the "San Jerónimo" or trilingual (around 1525) and "San Lorenzo" grammarians (around 1538) were created by rectors of the College of San Ildefonso. In order to be accepted in these schools it was necessary to prove poverty, and those who acquired a livelihood could not continue. Preference was given to the diocesan of Toledo, without excluding those of Alcalá. The cardinal appointed several patrons who could present up to forty three schoolboys. Some religious orders: Dominicans, Trinitarians, Carmelites, Mercedarios, Jesuits, kept students in those convents or schools created by them, but there were hardly any documentary evidence in the Section: lawsuits and proceedings before the Scholastic Audience. Maybe they own the Colegio de la Compañía de Jesús, of which there is more news for having been the headquarters of the University for 20 years, which had the administration of all its assets at that time. In addition to the regular colleges, other schools emerged in Alcalá. They were founded by some bishops, in order to provide their diocesans with good theological training for the prestige that the studies of Theology had achieved in Alcalá, or for people who, in their own right, set up and provided schools for their relatives or students from their own home areas. Of these secular colleges documentation is conserved: "San Jerónimo" or of Lugo, "Santa Maria de Regla and of the Saints Justo y Pastor" or of León, "San Martín and Santa Emerenciana" or of Aragon, "San Ciriaco and Santa Paula" or from Málaga", Santos Justo y Pastor" or from Tuy, "Sta. Justa y Rufina", or from Andalusian students, "San Jorge" or from the Irish, "San Clemente mártir" or from La Mancha, "San Juan Bautista" or from Biscay, "Sta. Catalina mártir "or from the Greens, "Santiago" or from the Knights Manrique, "San Cosme y San Damián" or from Mena. The school denominated as "of the King" had a royal foundation, under the patronage of "San Felipe y Santiago". In view of the precarious situation of the schools and exhausted their incomes, they had to be reestablished in order to reduce their number. The reform made by García de Medrano incorporates that of St. Catalina or the Greens, the schools of San Cosme and San Damián, San Clemente Mártir with its additions, and Santos Justo y Pastor in 1666; that of Díaz de Rojas adds that of San Ciriaco and Santa Paula or of Malaga, those of Aragón, León and Lugo in 1779. One last school was going to be erected in Alcalá in 1777. The foundation of this new school in Alcalá under the advocacy of the Immaculate Conception, an expression of the devotions of its founder, Charles III, was motivated by the need to implement the plans of grouping the schools extolled by the aforementioned Reform. In it, all the Cisneros schools met, except the one of San Pedro and San Pablo. In 1821 the University of Alcalá de Henares was transferred to Madrid with the name of "Central University", after a failed attempt in 1813, within the framework of a process of centralization and nationalization of the university studies. The transfer quickly became effective, drafting a new internal regulation and inaugurating the new facilities in November 1822. However, the return of the Old Regime meant the failure of this first trial and in July 1823 the university studies returned to Alcalá de Henares. Only after the death of Ferdinand VII the University would definitively move to Madrid, by decree of the Queen of 1836.
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- Archivo Histórico Nacional (73379)