History of The University of St Andrews - Foundation

Foundation

The University of St Andrews owed its origin to a society formed in 1410 by Laurence of Lindores, abbot of Scone, Richard Cornwall, archdeacon of Lothian, and the later bishop of Dunblane, William Stephenson, among others. In 1411 the Bishop of St Andrews, Henry Wardlaw, issued a charter which attracted the most learned men in Scotland as professors. In 1413 Avignon Pope Benedict XIII issued six bulls confirming the charter and constituting the society a university. Lectures took place in various parts of the town until 1430, when Wardlaw allowed the lecturers the use of a building called the Paedagogium, or St Johns, granted by Robert of Montrose to that end. Bishop Kennedy founded and richly endowed St Salvator's College in 1450, the foundation being confirmed by Pope Martin V; seven years later it gained the right to confer degrees in theology and philosophy, and by the end of the century was regarded as a constituent part of the university.

In 1512 Prior John Hepburn and Archbishop Alexander Stewart founded St Leonard's College on the site of the buildings which at one time served as a hospital for pilgrims. In the same year Archbishop Stewart nominally changed the original Paedagogium into a college and annexed to it the parish church of St Michael of Tarvet; but its actual erection into a college did not take place until 1537, when it was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Assumption. The outline of the ancient structure has survived, but various restorations have much altered its general character. It forms two sides of a quadrangle, the library and principal's residence standing on the north and the lecture rooms and the old dining-hall to the west.