CORPUS VIVENS: HIERARCHIES OF KNOWING IN THE UNIVERSITY BETWEEN THE XII AND XIV CENTURIES

Abstract

Starting from the juridical category of Universitas elaborated by medieval jurisprudence between the thirteenth and the fourteenth century to codify the persona repraesentata, this essay proposes a genealogical analysis of some of the fundamental moments in the rise of University as an institution, thus showing the impossibility of understanding its structure through the register of modern public law and insisting on its constituent and jurisdictional autonomy. The scrutiny develops through three issues that are decisive for grasping the ways in which knowledge is instituted and regulated in the experience of University, drawing attention to the conflicts and disputes that have marked its achievements as much as its failures: the renaissance of Aristotelianism, the success of the practice of quaestio disputata, the rediscovery of Roman law. While focusing on the affinities and on the alliances between these three dimensions, yet the essay’s leading argument rests in particular on the third one, thus attempting to show how the experience of University should be understood as a properly institutional process by virtue of the linguistic power of law and its ability to create forms of life in common.

Keywords

• genealogia
• saberes
• universidade