PARES | Spanish Archives

Identification

Type:

Corporate Body

Preferred form:

Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso (Alcalá de Henares, 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. From 1836 to 1845 the University of Madrid was consolidated and there are documents bound in several volumes, which extend the dates of the documents beyond the suppression of the institution.

Carmona de los Santos, María. Guía de fondos de instituciones docentes. Archivo Histórico Nacional. Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Centro de Publicaciones. 1999. 84-369-3301-X. [Objeto Digital].

DBpedia

Library of Congress National Authority File

CCBAE: Registro de autoridad de Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso (Alcalá de Henares)