Nation (university)

Students who were born within the same region usually spoke the same language, expected to be ruled by their own familiar laws, and therefore joined together to form the nations.

Jean Gerson was twice elected procurator for the French natio (i.e. the French-born students at the university) in 1383 and 1384, while studying theology at Paris.

"They affirmed that the English were drunkards and had tails; the sons of France proud, effeminate and carefully adorned like women.

The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel; the inhabitants of Brabant, men of blood, incendiaries, brigands and ravishers; the Flemish, fickle, prodigal, gluttonous, yielding as butter, and slothful.

"[5]The students who attended the medieval university in Oxford formed themselves into two constantly quarreling nations who were called the australes and the boreales.

One such came on 29 April 1388, when Welsh students, who were according to the chronicler Henry Knighton semper inquieti, fought with their northern counterparts.

Due to the Decree of Kutná Hora in 1409, the three foreign nations were merged into one and three other votes were for the Bohemian students.

[14] The ultramontane university was divided into fourteen different nations as early as 1265- the Gauls, Picards, Burgundians, Turonenses (those from Tours), Pictavienses (those from Poitiers), Normans, Catalans, Hungarians, Poles, Germans, Provençals, English, and Gascons, whereas the citramontane university was split into three nations: Romans, Tuscans and Lombards.

Nations were: German (also called Alemannian), Bohemian, Hungarian, Provençal, Burgundian, Spanish, Polish, English, Scottish, Venetian, Overseas (Venetian Greek Islands), Lombard (East Lombardy and West Veneto), Trevisan (North and East Veneto), Friulian, Dalmatian, Milanese, Roman, Sicilian, Anconitan, Tuscan, Piedmontese and Genoan.

Organizations termed nations exist also at other universities, although these are legally considered normal registered or unregistered associations.

Nowadays, nations organize social activities that at other universities are normally handled by student unions, such as bars, clubs, orchestras, sports societies, theater companies, and also some housing.