Dominican education and University at the end of the Middle Ages ('Chusei makki ni okeru dominikokai kyoiku to daigaku')

While conflicts between universities and mendicant orders in the late Middle Ages have drawn reseachers' attention, their cooperation is still overlooked. In order to focus on the latter aspect, this artcile examines a case of the College of Notre-Dame de la Pitié, established in 1491 for the sake of basic learning for Dominican novices, and its founder Barthélemy de Riguetis, a Dominincan and professor of theology at the University of Avignon. Our argument is mainly based on analysis of the foundation charter and the statute of the institution. In the first part of the article, we trace Barthélemy's career up to the foundation of the College in reviewing the situation of the Avignon Dominican convent and the University of Avignon in that period. As prior and professor, he had a considerable influence in the city. He already attempted to set up his College in the 1480s. The second part examines the organization and education of the College. The College provided an educational programme which focuses on the intellectual and disciplinary training of Dominican novices, independent of the University. Its main object is to make up for a shortcoming in the Dominican educational system, namely, an insufficient rudimentary learning of young friars. Barthélemy's project belongs to a stream of similar attempts by individual Dominicans to improve schooling devices for the Order's new recruits. It is undeniable, however, that the relationship with the University is essential to the College of Notre-Dame de la Pitié, which constitutes the main subject of the third and last part of this paper. Curiously enough, from the beginning, the College's foundation was not secure due to some Dominican friars of the Avignon convent who did not welcome the initiative of their prior. In order to deal with this potential menace from his Dominican colleagues, the founder took advantage of his ties with the University. Indeed, it is non-Dominican members at the University like priors of a students' confraternity who played a major role as procurators for protection and supervision of the College. What we observe here is an seemingly paradoxical way of being for a Dominican educational institution, which reflects various alterations the Order's teaching system experienced during the last two centuries of the Medieval period.