Making the global big. The academic roots of global size building

ABSTRACT

Today, the term ‘global’ has become a pervasive description of universities that aim to alleviate their importance and reach. The global looks inherently big. By relating to a spherical shape it attributes size in two distinct ways: it signifies the comprehensive and extensive reach of a theme or issue as well as the spherical centrality of an organisation. The paper argues that such perceptions of the global as big do not simply derive from the size of a terrestrial body. Rather, it excavates the historic roots of global size-building and the complicity of science and the university therein. It draws on two historic case studies: the formation of globality in the ‘cordial agreement’ between the Hohenstaufen emperors and medieval scholars and the conquering globality in the ‘symbiotic relationship’ between the Spanish Empire and cosmography. While distinct as historical cases they structure globality in a way that nurtures contemporary perceptions of the global. The historic genesis shows that the university is not merely sized through the global but that the university establishes a common knowledge space that makes the global emblematically big. The global sizing of the university today is just as much the story of the academisation of the globe.

KEYWORDS:

• Global
• higher education
• internationalisation
• Renaissance
• Middle Ages
• stratification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The Authentica Habita was reconstructed through various transcriptions. The following interpretation is built on Stelzer’s (1978) careful and extensive discussion of a transcription in a decree attachment held by Harvard law School Library MS 64, the oldest found to date.

2 Paris was not part of King Frederick’s realm.

3 Destroying a seal was a disgrace towards the emperor himself and had severe consequences, once his factual presence was reinstated. Milan, which had destroyed Frederick’s seal in 1153 was besieged in 1166 and was forced to surrender and to do penance for their deeds (cf. Görich 2007).

4 Frederick Barbarossa used a golden and a wax seal to legitimate decrees. His seal as king was manufactured in 1152, his seal as Emperor most likely before he travelled to Rome. As the decree has been lost, we do not know which seal he used. Both seals were similar. The imperial seal expanded the depiction of Frederick in width emphasising his presence. It showed him gowned in Byzantine tradition (Fees 2015, 122). Yet, both depict an orbis mundi (cf. Fees 2015, 110).

5 For the role of Rome as center of the world see Cosgrove (2001, 46ff). We know from the opening of the grave of Frederick II. that the pomum contained earth from various parts of the empire. So we can assume that the globe referred to the worldly spheres. Rome is primarily symbolic and not a territorial claim.

6 Crusades were a constant reminder of this compassion.

7 ‘Scientia illuminatur mundus ad obediendum deo et nobis [the Emperor], eius ministris, vita subiectorum informatur’ (Stelzer 1978, 165)

8 for a genealogy of internationality with regard to universities see Bloch, Mitterle, and Peter (2016)

9 In the second half of the 15th century painting ‘La Messe de saint Grégoire’ (Louvre) possibly by Pierre Spicre we find a triregnum with an orb cruciger at its apex (cf. Sirch 1975, 117). We also find a globus cruciger on top of a papal tiara in a 13th century mosaic of Gregor IX – the opponent of the Hohenstaufen (Paravicini Bagliani 1998, Fig. 16 no page). I have no idea what to make of it. But this orb has clearly not been used as a widely known iconographic symbol of papal power at the founding time of the European universities (Schramm 1958).

10 Charles’ chancellor Gatterina, according to Schramm (1958, 150; translated by author). The quote however should be read ambiguously. Kintzinger (2011, 216) argues that this worldly rule, as monarchia, is directed towards regulative and factual rather than a universal but only symbolic rule.

11 From the painting – presumably a copy of the lost original – it is unclear what kind of stick Charles is holding. A similar painting by Peter Paul Rubens who had known the original depicts a scepter.

12 The Latin is grammatically incorrect. Rosenthal (1971) assumes that it was half-heartedly translated from a French reference to Dante’s discussion of the columns as border – ‘plus oultra’ – because a Burgundian slogan did not fit well with his Spanish subjects. Kintzinger (2011, 208, 220) explains that Charles’ imperial court was essentially ‘inter-national’. Charles thus had to balance the interests of the materialising nations he ruled over. The Latinisation aimed at transcending the slogan into a universal language.

13 The painting provides further cosmographic alliteration, such as the combination of circles and v-shaped triangles that aligns Elisabeth I to the orderly perfection of the universe (Cosgrove 2001, 122; Cosgrove 2007, 79). Compare for example the head, surrounded by a collar and the v-shaped necklace with Francisco the Holland’s circle and triangles in Day One of Genesis (Cosgrove 2007, 121).

14 Dekker (2007, 140) suggests that despite the knowledge of Ptolemy in the late Middle Ages the delayed development of spherical trigonometry, relevant for open sea navigation, might be attributed to the lack of interest in globe making.

15 The deviation arises from the fact that the magnetic diverges from the cartographic pole.

16 This also had to do with the problem that cosmographic instruments used on land to determine position were difficult to apply on a moving ship.

17 As Portuondo (2009) shows, new cosmographic knowledge that distorted the spherical and immobile centrality of the globe was integrated into empirical charts to improve navigation.

Additional information

Funding

Research conducted for this paper was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany), Project AkStu 2018-2022.