The Arts Faculty was the successor of the old cathedral-school instruction
in the Seven Liberal Arts, and was found in practically all the
universities. The Law Faculty embraced civil and canon law, as worked out
at Bologna. The Medical Faculty taught the knowledge of the medical art,
as worked out at Salerno and Montpellier. The Theological Faculty, the
most important of the four, prepared learned men for the service of the
Church, and was for some two centuries controlled by the scholastics. The
Arts Faculty was preparatory to the other three. As Latin was the language
of the classroom, and all the texts were Latin texts, a reading and
speaking knowledge of Latin was necessary before coming to the university
to study. This was obtained from a study of the first of the Seven Arts--
Grammar--in some monastery, cathedral, or other type of school. Thus a
knowledge of Latin formed practically the sole requirement for admission
to the mediaeval university, and continued to be the chief admission
requirement in our universities up to the nineteenth century (R. 186 a).
In Europe it is still of great importance as a preparatory subject, but in
South American countries it is not required at all.

Very few of the universities, in the beginning, had all four of these
faculties. The very nature of the evolution of the earlier ones precluded
this. Thus Bologna had developed into a _studium generale_ from its
prominence in law, and was virtually constituted a university in 1158, but
it did not add Medicine until 1316, or Theology until 1360. Paris began
sometime before 1200 as an arts school, Theology with some instruction in
Canon Law was added by 1208, a Law Faculty in 1271, and a Medical Faculty
in 1274. Montpellier began as a medical school sometime in the twelfth
century. Law followed a little later, a teacher from Bologna "setting up
his chair" there. Arts was organized by 1242. A sort of theological school
began in 1263, but it was not chartered as a faculty until 1421. So it was
with many of the early universities. These four traditional faculties were