University of Dillingen - Seminary

Seminary

In the summer of 1585 a seminary was founded by Pope Gregory XIII to provide for the religious needs of Upper Germany. Its students, 20-25 in number, were young men of parts, who, after completing the course of humanities and dialectics, pledged themselves to take their degrees at the university. The students promised under oath to enter the ecclesiastical state and not to join any religious order without leave from the pope. Their expenses were defrayed by the Holy See.

This seminary existed up to the year 1798 and educated more than 4,000 priests. Through the efforts Bishop Henry von Knöringen and several member the secular clergy, a diocesan seminary accommodating twelve students was founded in 1610; its rules were identical with those of the papal seminary. A third seminary under the title of St. Joseph owed its origin to the contributions of Cardinal Otto and other benefactors. It received poor students who could no longer be accommodated in the convictus itself; they lived in special lodgings and were not obliged to receive Holy orders. Finally, another seminary for clerics was built as a supplement to the existing papal seminary; but in 1747 it was transferred to Pfaffenhausen under Bishop Joseph. In 1582 the total number of students, including those in the gymnasium, was 600; in 1618 it was 306, and in the year of the suppression of the Society of Jesus, only 210 attended, of whom 116 were studying theology, 25 jurisprudence, 74 philosophy. The gymnasium counted 125 students. The scholars did not belong exclusively to the Diocese of Augsburg; they came from all parts of Germany, and from Poland, Italy, France, and Switzerland.