In ancient Rome, the College of Pontiffs or Collegium Pontificum was a body whose members were the highest-ranking priests of the polytheistic state religion. Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. ... Polytheism is belief in, or worship of, multiple gods or divinities. ...
The Pontiffs assembled in the Regia. Regia in the Roman Forum The Regia is one of the oldest buildings at the Roman Forum. ...
The most famous college was the Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, founded in 1517 by Busleiden, after the model of the College of the Three Languages at Alcalá, the celebrated foundation of Cardinal Ximenes for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
The famous school of Zwickau in Saxony was organized between 1535 and 1546 by Plateanus, a native of Liège, on the model of the school of the Brethren of the Common Life in Liège.
John Sturm had studied in the same school at Liège, in the Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, and in the University of Paris, and from these schools he derived most of the details of his gymnasium at Strasburg, which was one of the most typical and most celebrated of early Protestant schools.
According to the Roman law, that which was due to the collegium was not due to individuals composing it; that which was an indebtedness of the collegium was not the debt of individuals.
The application of universitas to an academic or literary institution is first found in a Decretal of one of the popes establishing a medieval university for the teaching of religion, literature, science, and the arts.
A collegium or universitas was, under the Roman law, managed by its officers and agents under regulations established by the corporate body itself, and these regulations might be such as were agreed upon by the members, subject only to the limitation that they were not contrary to the public law.