History
The first Jesuits were called to Warmia by its cardinal Hosius, in order to counter the widespread Protestant movement in Prussia and elsewhere in Central and eastern Europe. The Jesuits arrived 2 November 1564. They were strongly opposed by the largely Protestant Prussian burghers and caused a religious split in the country. Despite difficult material conditions throughout the 16th century, they quickly founded many educational establishments: gymnasium (1565), convictus nobilium - school for Polish szlachta (1565), Diocesan Seminary (1567), Papal Seminary (1578) and dormitory for poor students (1582). The 16th century foundation was designed for 20 Jesuits, but the number soon approached 80, which resulted in problems with the finances of the schools and suitable number of school-rooms.
The Collegium was opened in a former Fransciscan friary. Renovation of the buildings was possible by funds given by Bishopric of Warmia. The Collegium was located in the western part of the building, convictus in the northern, and in the eastern part was located a school. In the first years the gymnasium was not very big due to lack of classrooms. There were five standard "classes" (courses) in it, of which the lowest was "infirma", and the highest was "rhetoric". To the initial problems of the schools were added boycotting by the Protestants and some fights between German and Polish students.
The Collegium in Braniewo distinguished itself from the other Jesuit schools in Poland and all of Europe with a specific curriculum: from 1566 there were taught German language, mathematics, singing and dialectic apart from standard subjects. After opening of the Diocesal and Papal Seminary some theological courses were introduced, and in 1592 also philosophical courses, which was a sign of the high reputation of the school. The school was elite and the number of students was not high, fluctuating from 130 to 300. The Collegium had an international character; besides local Germans, students came from all over Europe, with the majority of Poles, since the 1580s Swedes and Ruthenians added by Antonius Possevinus.
The Collegium was temporally closed in 1626 due to war of Poland with Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus (Polish-Swedish War (1625–1629)), and reopened in 1637. In 1646 Matthaeus Montanus (Matthias Bergh), a canon of Warmia, funded a new, large schoolhouse. In the years 1665-1668 the school was closed again due to destructive Swedish invasion in Prussia and Poland, Swedish Deluge.
In the 18th century in the Collegium humanities, theology, mathematics and Greek and Hebrew languages were taught. In 1701 and later Polish Jesuits applied to Rome for changing the Collegium into full university, but without success. In 1743 they bought from the city of Braunsberg a location for a new schoolhouse, which was built in the next years.
At the time of the Partitions of Poland the prince-bishopric of Warmia with Braunsberg became a part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1772, and in 1773 the Society of Jesus was suppressed. The Prussian government turned the closed Collegium in 1780 into Gymnasium Academicum, from 1818 called Lyceum Hosianum, which in 1912 became a State Academy.
In 1945 Braunsberg returned to Poland and to its Polish name Braniewo.
Read more about this topic: Collegium Hosianum
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)