Egyetem volt-e a "kolozsvári Báthory Egyetem"?

Abstract

In a recent discussion the status of the college extensively called `Báthory-University of Kolozsvár' (Cluj-Napoca) was disputed concerning its supposed institutional and spiritual connections to the present University of Szeged. In the course of the discussion Mihály Balázs has pointed out correctly that this college cannot be regarded as a university, not even by using contemporary concepts. This paper is the result of a research that took place at the PhD-program in History of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, during the autumn term of 2007. It was inspired by the discussion mentioned, but was not meant to form a part of it. The authors' goal was to deal with the issue in a new perspective, considering the history of the Jesuit Order and general university history.
The concepts and system of 16-17th century higher education differ considerably from the stricter structures of the subsequent era. Constitutional fluidity also characterizes the education of the Jesuit Order, in spite of its centralized establishment. Within the diversity of higher schools, the Order itself performed higher education in four different ways. At older universities it took over either single departments or whole faculties. In the case of its own foundations, grammar schools with philosophy and theology courses (academic gymnasia) and complete universities with two faculties (Jesuit Universities) can be mentioned.
István Báthory founded the twin institution of the Kolozsvár college at Vilnius, Lithuania. The genesis of the two schools on the one hand shows parallels in temporal proximity and in the gradual development of the educational degrees. On the other hand, however, inquiring their foundational diplomas, we find that while the college of Vilnius became a complete university with promotional rights, royal and papal confirmation, only an irregularly working `academic gymnasium' could arise in Kolozsvár. Although Báthory expressed his will to develop it into a university right at the time of the foundation, this was not followed by further steps.
These steps would include the obtaining of a papal confirmation. Since, despite the fact that the two Hungarian Jesuit universities founded later in the 17`h century, namely Nagyszombat and Kassa (Trnava and Kosice), did not gain papal approval because of the political distance between the Roman Curia and the Hungarian high clergy, the absence of such approval in the case of Kolozsvár, due to the different relationship between Báthory and Pope Gregory XIII, unambiguously indicates that the college must have lacked university rank. Therefore the `academic gymnasium' of Kolozsvár, which was finally closed in 1603, does not have institutional continuity with the University of Szeged, neither can the latter really identify itself in spiritual terms with a school founded mainly for the reason of confessional propagation. Connection can merely be traced in the common ambitions of the founders for improving national higher education.