THE CENTRE OF STUDIES. —
I. THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY
The University of A. developed from the Episcopal School, which as early as 1610 was spoken of as an already ancient and well-known institution.The date of the university’s foundation is commonly fixed in 1229, the year in which a group of professors and students from the University of Paris — those of the “English nation” — took refuge in A. due to disturbances there (cf. H. Deniffe-E. Chatelain, Chartularium Un. Paris., n. 89, note 2). According to tradition, the Episcopal School of A. was thus transformed into a university. A decree of Bishop Fulco in 1337 called the Studium generale Andegavense “honourable and ancient.” During the 14th and 15th centuries it was enriched with privileges by popes and kings, some of which were solemnly confirmed by John XXIII in the bull *Hodie ad* of 16 March 1412. Many of its alumni became bishops and chancellors of France; among its students was Pierre Roger de Beaufort, who later became Pope Gregory XI.
A. was pre-eminently a school of law, especially civil law. The other faculties — theology, medicine, and arts — received canonical establishment from Eugenius IV in the bull *In apostolicae dignitatis* of 8 October 1432.
The general statutes of 1373 were reformed in 1398 along the model of those of Orléans. The particular statutes of the faculty of theology were published on 14 November 1464; those of the faculty of medicine on 15 March 1484; and those of the faculty of arts in 1494.
By an act of 14 October 1405 the university “aggregated” the Dominican house of A. It took official part in the Councils of Pisa (1408), Rome (1412), Constance (1412), and Basel (1434). In 1494 it underwent reforms at the hands of the commissioners Nicolas de Hacqueville and Jacques Daniel. Its fame was such that it came to have 10,000 students, divided into ten “nations,” six of which — those of Anjou, Brittany, Maine, Normandy, Aquitaine, and France — persisted until the French Revolution, which marked the end of the ancient universities (1793). The faculty of theology, which remained untouched by Jansenist contagion and other errors, reached its greatest splendour in the 18th century, when only that of Paris was considered superior to it, so that the University of A. could be called “the second university of the kingdom.”
The archives were dispersed in the 16th century and during the Revolution. The surviving documents were published by Marcel Fournier, *Les Statuts et privilèges des Universités Françaises depuis leur fondation jusqu'en 1789*, I, Paris 1890, pp. 261-436.
II. THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY (*Université Catholique de l'Ouest*)
Its origins are owed to the initiative of Msgr. Freppel, Bishop of A. (1869-91), who, even before the law of 12 July 1875 on the freedom of higher education was published, set about reviving the ancient university in the new form of a “Catholic university.” The faculty of law, solemnly inaugurated on 15 November 1875, was the first of all the “free faculties” established in France after the Revolution; it was approved by Pius IX in a brief of 16 September 1875. The faculty of letters was opened in 1876; that of sciences in 1877; and that of theology in 1879. With the apostolic letter *Multiplices inter* of 14 August 1877, Pius IX canonically erected the faculties of A. into a Catholic University.The faculty of medicine, already envisaged in this letter, remained a project; however, its preparatory year is constituted by the course of *Études physiques, chimiques et biologiques*, now attached to the faculty of sciences.
Alongside these faculties, the *École supérieure d'agriculture et de viticulture* (1888) and the *École supérieure de commerce* (1909), with a *Section d'Études industrielles* (1920), also flourish.
The “university district” of A. comprises 12 dioceses: Quimper, Vannes, Saint-Brieuc, Rennes, Nantes, Luçon, A., Laval, Le Mans, Tours, Poitiers, and Angoulême (cf. the brief *Officiosissimis* of Pius X, 15 August 1913; AAS, 5 [1913], pp. 425-27). The archbishops and bishops of these dioceses bear the title of “protectors” and form the High Governing Council of the University (conseil des évêques protecteurs), of which the Bishop of A. is Grand Chancellor.
The new statutes, framed in accordance with the apostolic constitution *Deus scientiarum Dominus* (24 May 1931), were approved by the Holy See in a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities of 7 March 1936.
The Catholic University of A., which uses the seal of the ancient institution, is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and has as its principal patroness the Immaculate Virgin, whose privilege the ancient university recognized and defended from the beginning. Its secondary patron is St Thomas Aquinas. Its quarterly organ is the *Bulletin des Facultés catholiques de l'Ouest*.
COUNCILS OF A. — An important provincial synod was held in A. on 4 October 153 to consecrate the new bishop of the city, Talasius, recently elected. Twelve disciplinary canons were promulgated, the first of which maintained the jurisdiction of bishops over clerics and forbade the latter to have recourse to secular judges. The fourth forbade clerics to live with women who were not closely related to them. The sixth imposed excommunication on anyone who married an unfree woman. The ninth prohibited bishops from ordaining clerics belonging to another diocese.
Another synod — not usually included among the councils — was held in A. on 4 April 1062 in the chapel of Countess Hildegard, mother of Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou, to condemn the heresy of Berengar of Tours. Present were the bishops Hugh of Besançon, Bugrinus of Le Mans, and Eusebius of A. Matters would have taken a bad turn for Berengar had not his former protector, Eusebius of A., succeeded in securing acceptance of the conciliatory formula later accepted at Tours in 1065.