Vienna's university waited nineteen years for the pope to allow theology
Duke Rudolf IV founded the University of Vienna on 12 March 1365, but Pope Urban V refused to approve its theology faculty, probably under pressure from Emperor Charles IV, who did not want a rival to his own university in Prague. Full papal assent arrived only in 1384, and the first building opened a year later.
After Prague in 1347 and Kraków in 1364, Vienna was Central Europe's third university, and it is usually called the oldest in today's German-speaking world. By the mid-15th century it had more than 6,000 students, the most in the Holy Roman Empire. Its structure mixed hierarchy and self-government: masters and doctors formed four faculties, while all members were grouped into four academic nations whose leaders elected the rector. Students had little voice and needed a master or doctor to lodge an appeal on their behalf.
The Reformation, epidemics and the first Ottoman siege of Vienna drained enrolment. Ferdinand I brought in the Jesuits in 1551, and Ferdinand II merged their college into the university in 1623. Jesuit influence faded only in the mid-18th century, when Maria Theresa put the university under the monarchy's control. Her son Joseph II abolished academic dress, opened enrolment to Protestants and Jews by 1782, and made German the language of instruction.
Women entered in stages. Philosophy opened to them in 1897 and medicine three years later; law followed in 1919, then Protestant theology in 1923, while the Catholic theologians held out until 1946. Elise Richter became the first woman to earn a habilitation there and in 1907 became a professor of Romance languages. The present main building on the Ringstrasse, by Heinrich von Ferstel, went up between 1877 and 1884. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, huge numbers of staff and students were thrown out on political or racial grounds. In April 1945, 22-year-old Kurt Schubert got Soviet permission to restart teaching.
A 2002 reform returned full legal capacity after more than 250 years of state control and split off medicine into a separate university. Associated scholars include Sigmund Freud, Gregor Mendel, Erwin Schrödinger and Karl Popper. The Vienna Philharmonic marked its 650th anniversary at the 2015 New Year's Concert. It enrols around 85,000 students.
Source: University of Vienna
