PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

The article scrutinizes the ideas about the academic communities typical for the Latin world of the 13th and 14th centuries. It focuses on the ‘metaphorical vocabulary’ of academic corporations that was formed at that time within the framework of the Ars Dictaminis and was widely used to substantiate the status of university communities. These metaphors significantly supplemented the vague legal concepts that described academic communities (studium/studium generale, universitas). The most widespread metaphors of higher education institutions included such images as house of scholarship, seeds of knowledge, and treasure. All of them had deep roots in the Holy Scripture, but became widespread thanks to ‘exemplary’ texts included in rhetorical manuals and summae. With their help, social reality was interpreted within the framework of rhetoric as an epistemic system, often overlapping with the spheres of law and theology. The paper considers these metaphors in the context of their distribution, within the networks of local political and cultural ties drawing on cases of two Iberian universities – those of Lisbon (founded between 1288 and 1290) and Lleida (founded in 1300).