THE HISTORY OF OUR UNIVERSITY 2: From Vineyards, Jurisdiction and the University Prison
This article was originally published in German. The English version is an automatic translation and may contain errors. The German original is authoritative.
The remarkable world of the old Universität Würzburg
Universities as corporations with their own jurisdiction, students in the student prison and vineyards owned by the university – what sounds like a historical film was reality at the JMU for centuries. And traces of it exist to this day.
When I first heard that the JMU still owns land and agricultural areas today, I was honestly surprised. Seminar rooms, libraries, canteens – of course. But vineyards? The reason for this goes back several centuries.
In the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, a university was far more than a place of knowledge transmission. It was an independent corporation with special rights, its own administration – and its own property. "Medieval universities were not state authorities like today," explains Dr. Marcus Holtz, Head of the University Archive. "They had their own privileges, their own sources of income and their own land holdings."
Universität Würzburg therefore owned estates, fields and vineyards. The university financed its teaching operations from these revenues – independently of the city or the territorial ruler. "The fact that JMU still owns agricultural property today goes directly back to this period," says Holtz. Many other traditional universities lost this property over the centuries; Würzburg did not lose it entirely.
A University as Judge
Even more unusual from today's perspective is the university's own jurisdiction. Alongside municipal and ecclesiastical courts, there were university courts that were responsible for members of the university.
"Professors and students had a special legal status," Holtz explains. They were exempt from certain levies and were not prosecuted by the city for minor offences, but by the university itself. Women were excluded from this – simply because they were unfortunately not permitted to study at that time.
These special rights existed until around 1800. With secularisation and the university's transfer to Bavaria, jurisdiction was centralised. "From that point on, the university was essentially only permitted to impose disciplinary penalties," says Holtz.
And yes – there was a student prison
This disciplinary authority also included the Karzer, a university-owned prison. Students could be detained there for rule violations – for example, for unauthorised duels, nocturnal disturbances of the peace, or other breaches of university regulations.
In the 19th century, however, the Karzer increasingly lost its terror. "A stay in the Karzer had almost become part of a student's biography," Holtz explains. The detention was time-limited and apparently not always strictly supervised. "The university official responsible for the Karzer was not consistently rigorous," Holtz continues. Contemporary accounts suggest that food and drink found their way to the detainees – and occasionally even visitors. Who knows, perhaps there were even something like little Karzer parties.
What was originally intended as punishment thus developed into a peculiar part of student everyday culture. It was not romantic, but neither was it a high-security prison.
What remains of it
Today, little remains of the former special legal status. The university now has only clearly regulated disciplinary measures. The historical property, however, remains visible.
The history of JMU thus shows a university that was once simultaneously an educational institution, a legal space and an economic enterprise – with vineyards and its own detention cells. A past that casts the university's everyday life today in a new light.