Which city is historically linked to the origin of the term 'universities'?

Which city is historically linked to the origin of the term 'universities'?

• A. Paris
• B. Bologna
• C. Oxford
• D. Naples

Answer: (B)

The word university comes from the Latin universitas, meaning a whole or complete body. In medieval Europe that term was used to describe the corporate group of masters and students that formed a university. Bologna embodies this origin best: its scholars organized themselves as a single legal entity—universitas magistrorum et scholarium—and this formulation of the body of teachers and learners gave the term its institutional sense. Because Bologna’s university is among the oldest and its chartered identity as a corporate entity popularized the word, the city is historically linked to the origin of the term.

The word university comes from the Latin universitas, meaning a whole or complete body. In medieval Europe that term was used to describe the corporate group of masters and students that formed a university. Bologna embodies this origin best: its scholars organized themselves as a single legal entity—universitas magistrorum et scholarium—and this formulation of the body of teachers and learners gave the term its institutional sense. Because Bologna’s university is among the oldest and its chartered identity as a corporate entity popularized the word, the city is historically linked to the origin of the term.