LOVANIO, UNIVERSITY OF. — Founded on 9 Dec. 1425 by Pope Martin V at the request of John IV, Duke of Brabant, to attract to the ducal capital the young people of the Low Countries who were making their way to Cologne and especially to Paris. Already on 7 Mar. 1432 Pope Eugenius IV granted the establishment of a Faculty of Theology.
From 1425 to 1797 the University maintained its original religious and civil character, continuing to depend both on the authority of the Holy See and on that of the national powers, and remained the only university in the Low Countries until the founding of that at Douai (1560) for the Walloon provinces and of that at Leyden (1575) for the Protestant provinces of the North that had become independent. In the Faculty of Theology, Adrian Florensz (later Pope Adrian VI) distinguished himself by his teaching. Under Charles V (1515–55), L. became an important centre of Humanism; the industry of Brussels settled and developed there. It was visited by Thomas More; Erasmus resided there; J. Busleyden founded the famous Collegium Trilingue; it led the struggle against Luther and counted eminent theologians such as Driedo, Latomus, Tapper, Hessels; it published an edition of the Vulgate (1547), a Dutch version of the Bible (1548) and an Index of Prohibited Books (1547). It took part in the Council of Trent and promoted the establishment of new dioceses under Philip II (M. Dierckx, De-oprichting der nieuwe bisdommen in de Ne-derlanden onder Filips II, Antwerp-Utrecht 1950).
The Spanish period of the University (1555–98; 1633–1715) was marked by continual disturbances and wars, except during the time of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella (1598–1633). Nevertheless, there were then the revision of the Vulgate and the publication of the Plantin Polyglot, and the struggle against the Calvinists continued, although some doctors, such as Baius, were influenced by them. Likewise, the arrival of the Jesuits in L. gave rise to a series of conflicts between them and the University, both on the legal and on the doctrinal level. The greatest distinction for the old institution was conferred by the professor Justus Lipsius, who had definitively returned to Catholicism. With King Philip IV (1633) a period of wars with the kings of France began again for the Low Countries, and L. suffered greatly, while the internal tranquillity of the University was disturbed by the publication of the posthumous work Augustinus by the Bishop of Ypres, Cornelius Jansenius (q.v.). Other currents of thought agitated the teaching body, in regard to laxist moral theology, while in the Faculty of Arts Cartesian ideas were spreading (Fromondus), and in canon law Zeger van Espen upheld opinions contrary to the rights of the Holy See. The University, however, for the most part did not cease to defend strict orthodoxy and expelled from its midst those who did not accept the bull Unigenitus (1729).
With the Austrian period (1715–94) there was an ever greater interference by the State in the University. Joseph II, indeed, established there his famous General Seminary, which ended in failure, and transferred to Brussels the Faculties of Law, Medicine and Arts. Scarcely had it been restored to its prerogatives, on 10 Mar. 1790, when the University was suppressed and sacked by the French on 25 Oct. 1797; the Library was sold at auction, the professors dispersed, the revenues confiscated, and many of its colleges demolished or reduced to ruins.
The Dutch government attempted to revive it in the form of a State university (1816–30), adding to it a philosophical college for the clergy. After the Belgian revolution had secured freedom of teaching, Belgian Catholics were able to revive it, thanks to the efforts of the episcopate and the secular clergy, who knew how to create in the population a movement of sympathy and obtain the necessary funds. On 10 Dec. 1835 the University resumed possession or use in L. of part of its ancient buildings.
Among the magnificent rectors who presided over its activity, two especially deserve to be remembered: the first is F.-X. de Ram, distinguished historian, who gave the University its new organization; as representative of the episcopate, he practically had in hand the administration of the mother institution; he broadened its horizons, for alongside the Faculty of Theology there came to be those of Law, Medicine, Philosophy and Letters and Sciences; and later there were added the Polytechnics, Institutes of Agronomy and Commerce, and the Higher Institute of Philosophy; always with the desire to recruit the greatest number of professors from among the best Catholic laymen of the nation.
No less important was the rectorship of Mgr. La-deuze, brilliantly carried out in the field of patrology.
On 25 Aug. 1914 there was the devastation of L. and the burning of the Library by German armies; but soon followed its marvellous revival: the civic character of the University, the extension of the teaching of the sciences and of medicine, the new university clinics, the new university centre at Heverlé, the linguistic division. If such extraordinary development has compelled it to accept State subsidies, nevertheless its independence, recognized for free universities, has not been impaired.