Abstract

The article argues that lecture catalogues in the form of a periodically issued programme of courses at universities were a phenomenon which occurred in the process of confessionalisation between concurring Protestant universities. They were first introduced at Dillingen, Helmstedt, Leiden, Jena and perhaps also Herborn, at the end of the 16th century. Early lecture catalogues were representative single-sheet prints which tried to personalise and specify the statutorily codified ordo studiorum. By combining a scholarly preface and an objective presentation of the curriculum, they also aimed at recurrently demonstrating the confessional and educational integrity and capacity of a university. At Protestant universities, research and teaching became increasingly differentiated by the economisation of teaching and the introduction of the collegia privata. This process changed and dissolved the strictly regulated ordo studiorum during the 17th century. Protestant universities of Lutheran character in particular competed with each other and were forced to create distinct profiles. Lecture catalogues served as an ideal and permanent medium of advertising to gain and establish this profile. Therefore, most Protestant universities issued lecture catalogues as early as the 17th century and distributed them at the Frankfurt and Leipzig Trade Fairs. Not all lecture catalogues have survived and it sometimes remains obscure whether they were printed at all after their official introduction. The university of Jena has the highest number of extant lecture catalogues (about 80%) from the 17th century. Contest and competition did not similarly develop at Catholic universities. Course programmes were not as much differentiated since the Jesuits, in adhering to their ratio studiorum from 1599, maintained the old pattern of a fixed and uniform curriculum until the second half of the 18th century. It was not until the 1780s that Catholic universities introduced lecture catalogues when individual teaching programmes were developed after the dissolution of the Jesuit order.