Foundation of the University
The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451 by Bishop William Turnbull (c1400-1454). Turnbull was born in the Borders, and studied in the recently founded University of St Andrews, and in continental universities. He enjoyed the patronage of the powerful Douglas family. He had important connections with the court of James II, holding the post of keeper of the privy seal. He was also known at the Papal Court of Nicholas V. The foundation of the university was intimately tied to the complex politics of contemporary Scotland, with its powerful feuding families. Turnbull was very determined, and diplomatic, widely travelled and with a breadth of vision. He used these qualities, as well as his connections with the royal and papal courts, to make the foundation of the university possible.
The Black Friars were associated with the University from the very beginning. Bishop Turnbull died three years after the foundation of the university. The foundation of the University was an event, but its growth and development was a long, gradual process, involving the coming together of several factors. The new, poorly endowed foundation had two immediate needs, premises and teachers. The first of these was provided by the Dominicans. Their priory was situated some few hundred yards south of the Cathedral, at the bottom of the modern High Street; the priory complex included a school for the teaching of the liberal arts, and a house studium. It was in these buildings that the first university meetings and business, and the first lecture, took place, and the priory continued to provide teaching facilities until the University gradually acquired its own permanent premises. The Dominican church was also used for university worship.
After temporary premises had been found, the next important provision was teachers. Initially these were drawn from the clergy, regular and diocesan, living in and around Glasgow, but as yet no Dominican was appointed to the teaching staff. A few years after the foundation of the university, extensions were made to the priory buildings. These extensions provided more room for the growing number of students attending the university, but the main purpose was to accommodate the young Dominicans who were now being assigned to the Glasgow Blackfriars. This was the result of the Order's recognition of the importance and the potential of the new university. The Glasgow priory was raised to the rank of studium generale; the teaching now being offered by the university complemented the studies in the priory. Scottish Dominicans qualified in theology were also assigned to the priory, some of whom became university teachers. They brought with them the ideas and intellectual concerns they had learned in the great European centres of learning.
Glasgow University was thus not an isolated institution, but part of a wider, international community, rooted in the intellectual tradition of mediaeval Europe, connected with the great universities of the twelfth century. William Turnbull was himself the product of such a tradition. The Dominicans who came to St Andrews, Glasgow and, shortly afterwards, to Aberdeen, brought with them the breadth of scholarship and intellectual enquiry current in the leading European centres of learning. Glasgow University was linked to, and became part of, this tradition. The Black Friars had a very important part to play in the making and continuance of this great tradition.