Oude Universiteit Leuven

Item

Country

BE

Name of institution (English)

State Archives in Leuven (State Archives of Belgium)

Name of institution (official language of the state)

Language of name of institution

deu
dut
fra

Contact information: postal address

Vaartstraat, 24, 3000 Leuven

Contact information: phone number

0032 (0)16314954

Contact information: web address

Contact information: email

rijksarchief.leuven@arch.be

Reference number

BE-A0518.37

Type of reference number

Archival reference number

Title (English)

Old University of Leuven

Title (official language of the state)

Oude Universiteit Leuven

Language of title

dut

Creator / accumulator

Universiteit Leuven

Date(s)

1426/1797

Language(s)

dut

Extent

171.39 linear metres

Type of material

Textual Material

Scope and content

The Oude Universiteit Leuven fonds preserved at the State Archives in Leuven mainly comprises administrative records related to this Belgian university, organised into five archives: central administration; faculties (Theology, Law, Medicine, and Arts); colleges and other academic foundations; committees appointed for the maintenance and exercise of the University's privileges; and commission in charge of the administration of the assets belonging to the extinct university (1797-1813). The fonds includes a section containing eleven enrollment books of students (Inschrijvingsregisters van de studenten aan de Oude Universiteit Leuven) from 1426 to 1794. Scattered among these long lists of old students of the University of Leuven, it is possible to find references to New Christians who attended this institution. It is the case of the brothers Bernardo Micas and João Micas (alias Joseph Nasi) (no. 24: Liber Quartus Intitularum, fols. 131 and 160), who enrolled in the University of Leuven in 1540 and 1542, respectively.

Archival history

The archives of the Medieval and Early Modern University of Leuven had an eventful history. When the French troops approached Leuven in 1794, a substantial part of the archives was taken abroad for safety, as far as Denmark. The documents that remained in Leuven were confiscated by the French after the dissolution of the university in 1797 and stored at the State Archives in Brussels.
The records that were taken away by Jan Frans Van de Velde, professor of Theology, librarian, and archivist of the university, underwent a real odyssey. The French discovered one part and added it to the confiscated archives in Brussels. A second part made its way to a seminary at 's-Hertogenbosch, where it remained hidden until about 1909; in 1983, it became property of the University of Leuven again due to an exchange. A third part ended up in the archives of the Seminary of the Diocese of Gent and was deposited at the KU Leuven (University of Leuven) in 2001. When a State Archives repository was set up in Leuven in 2001 (in one of the former university colleges), the archives were transferred from Brussels.
The Archives service of the KU Leuven preserves the largest part of the charter treasure (nearly 375 charters) and other archival material which mostly originates from the central administration, the faculty of theology, and some colleges. In 1909 the diocese of Hertogenbosch returned the bull of foundation it preserved since 1794. Only a few years later, when the Germans invaded Leuven in August 1914, this bull was lost in the blaze of the university library.
In order to make this scattered picture complete, we should remark that some discrete items of limited volume are still preserved elsewhere, for instance at the Belgian Royal Library in Brussels
The Oude Universiteit Leuven (1425-1797) fonds stored in the University of Leiden is not extensive, but it does contain three hundred charters. The largest part of the University Archives from the ancient regime resides in the State Archives.
These fonds were included in the Memory of the World Register by UNESCO, in 2013.
Sources:

Administrative / Biographical history

The University of Leuven (currently named KU Leuven) was founded by the papal bull "Sapientie immarcessibilis", issued by Pope Martin V on December 9, 1425. The city of Leuven had requested permission for the foundation of the university with the support of John IV, Duke of Brabant, and the city’s clergy.
The University of Leuven initially comprised four faculties: Humanities ("Artes"), Canon Law, Civil Law, and Medicine. In 1432, the Pope granted permission to add a faculty of Theology to the University of Leuven.
Ever since it was founded, the University has had its headquarters in what is now known as the University Hall. The building had been built in 1317 and was initially meant to serve as the cloth makers’ hall of Leuven. In 1425, it became the seat of the University, where various services and the Rector and Vice-Rectors' offices were located, as well as lecture halls and meeting rooms for the faculties. The Hall was also the seat of the University court.
A little over a century after it was founded, the University was attended by about 2,000 students, 200 of them from abroad.
Remarkable figures such as Erasmus, anatomist Vesalius, cartographer Mercator, mathematician Gemma Frisius and pedagogy scholar Vives studied in Leuven. After the Reformation, the University of Leuven remained loyal to the Catholic Church, regardless of some tensions with Church authorities over its history.
The University had a growing impact on Leuven. The numerous colleges and pedagogieën where the students lived and studied were often built with the support of donors and established throughout the city centre.
In 1797, under French rule, the University of Leuven was closed. It only reopened twenty years later, in 1817. Then, King William I of the Netherlands renamed it the State University of Leuven. However, on the initiative of the Belgian bishops, it became again a Catholic institution in 1834.
In the late 1960s, the University was divided into two: the Dutch-speaking Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (now KU Leuven) and the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), whose official language was French and that ended up being established in Louvain-la-Neuve (in the Walloon provinces) and Woluwé (Brussels).

Access points: locations

Access points: persons, families

Access points: subject terms

Access points: document types

System of arrangement

The Inschrijvingsregisters van de studenten aan de Oude Universiteit Leuven section is composed of 11 books arranged chronologically.

Access, restrictions

Links to finding aids

Author of the description

Kevin Soares, 2022

Bibliography

Item sets