Brewer's: U'niversity

First applied to collegiate societies of learning in the twelfth century, because the universitas litcraman (entire range of literature) was taught in them—i.e. arts, theology, law, and physic, still called the “learned” sciences. Greek, Latin, grammar, rhetoric, and poetry are called humanity studies, or humaniores literce, meaning “lay” studies in contradistinction to divinity, which is the study of divine things. (See Cad.)

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