The formation of the universities of Paris and Bologna:

political, social, logical and theological tensions

Abstract

The article presents aspects of the movement that gave rise to the Universities of Paris and Bologna. This movement occurred due to the urban expansion due to the better living conditions in the cities the growing demand for cathedral schools the Church’s interest in maintaining its control in the education system the prestige that knowledge started to exercise with the nobility the importance that the presence of the students had with the local economy and a certain autonomy achieved by the students. Added to these conditions, the arrival of classic works, commented on and the influence it had on thinkers/theologians and teachers. Among the works, I highlight those of Aristotle that allowed the isolation of problems related to the questions that men asked about themselves about the world and about God. The possibility of this double path, theological on the one hand and logical, on the other, associated with the status that universities conferred on cities and their importance for the local economy culminated in tensions of different natures.