[4] After Constantinople's founding in 330, teachers were drawn to the new city and various steps were taken for official state support and supervision, but nothing lastingly formal in the way of state-funded education emerged.
These chairs continued to receive official state support for the next century and a half, after which the Church assumed the leading role in providing higher education.
Some of these private teachers included the diplomat and monk Maximos Planudes (1260–1310), the historian Nikephoros Gregoras (1291–1360), and the man of letters Manuel Chrysoloras, who taught in Florence and influenced the early Italian humanists on Greek studies.
The medieval Greek world knew no autonomous and continuing institutions of higher education comparable to the universities of the later Middle Ages in Western Europe.
But higher education, both general and professional, was provided by private teachers, by members of professional groups, and by officially appointed teachers paid by the state.Le nom "université" désigne au Moyen Âge occidental une organisation corporative des élèves et des maîtres, avec ses fonctions et privilèges, qui cultive un ensemble d'études supérieures.