Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Historical universities

This is topic Historical universities - fact hunting in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :

An important piece of setting for my upcoming stories will be a university, sitting on the top of a hill above the city. This is a fantasy setting but I try to give it more of a historical setting than a fantasy.

So I will need to come up with a believable historical university. Words such as refectory and dormitory come to mind but other than that I'm a bit blank. I'm willing to accept any idea people have on the subject.

So let me have it.

Posted by mrmeadors (Member # 6378) on :

Well, having gone to a historical college that sits on a hill overlooking a city myself, I can tell you that there are tunnels beneath that particular college. We joked and said it was where the nuns and priests used to meet, LOL. They use it now for maintenance stuff now--or so they say

. That particular college used to be an all boys college, and all the teachers were priests and nuns. The central building of the college has towers and clocktowers. The clock tower is closed and locked (of course we says it's haunted by the ghost of a girl who had been insane and was locked up in there a hundred fifty years ago). The building is brick with slate roofs. Other things on campus that always attracted students attention and therefore, stories would pop up about them: There is a greenhouse and also a little brick building which once upon a time was where the bread for the college was baked. There is a story that someone was murdered in the bakery and it was never used again. And of course, the college cemetery which was literally right in the middle of things, a little place with the thin stone headstone that were typical in the early 1800s. You would walk past it several times a day to get to classes and dorms. All the building were named after priests and nuns who did significant things in history or for the school. And they are all "Whatever Hall". There was the rectory for the priests that currently worked there, and students were invited sometimes to have dinner or even a beer if they were of age. THen there was the rectory for the retired priests. The one for the retired priests was set a bit apart from the main part of the school, and seemed a bit more private. But it was niiiiiiice. THe place where the working priests lived was like a regular home place, but the retired priests, that was pretty modern and fancy, they had every luxury.

Melanie

[This message has been edited by mrmeadors (edited July 04, 2011).]

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Well, you could just look up Oxford University on Wikipedia and once you've read how it is arranged and how it was run in the past, you could just move it up onto the top of a hill above the city.

Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :

Answering this question also depends on how you define a university. The oldest educational institutions go much further back than the European model, which are based on the Arabian model of universities that transmitted and built upon ancient greek and roman knowledge.

So part of this question depends on the setting of your story. But in both European and Arab models, the university was closely tied, and in many cases sprung from, religious institutions. So it would be accurate to have whatever religion predominates your setting closely woven into your university.

[This message has been edited by Osiris (edited July 04, 2011).]

Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :

I'm interested in any time period but no, religion will not be a part of it. It might contain a small shrine but that's it.

[This message has been edited by MartinV (edited July 04, 2011).]