
Castle Arenberg, part of the Catholic
University of Leuven, Belgium.
The
Catholic University of Leuven, or
Louvain, was the largest, oldest and most
prominent university in Belgium
. It
was founded in 1425 by Pope
Martin V, and
refounded in 1835 after the disruptions of the
French Revolutionary Wars. The
university split in 1968 to form two universities:
This entry deals with the historic university, 1425-1797 and
1835-1968: for the current successor institutions and their
separate development since 1968, see the individual articles listed
above.
History
The "Old" University (1425-1797)
In the 15th century the city of Leuven, with the support of
John IV, Duke of Brabant,
made a formal request for a university.
Pope Martin V issued a
papal bull dated 9 December 1425 founding the
University in Leuven as a
Studium Generale. As such it is
the oldest
Catholic university in the
world still in existence today (and counting from the refoundation
in 1835, the oldest with the name "Catholic University").
In its
early days this university was modelled on the universities of
Paris
, Cologne and Vienna
. The
university flourished in the 16th century due to the presence of
famous scholars and professors, such as Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens
(
Pope Adrian VI),
Desiderius Erasmus,
Johannes Molanus,
Joan Lluís Vives,
Andreas Vesalius and
Gerardus Mercator.
The Catholic University (1835-1968)
In 1797
the old university, a bastion of reactionaries, was closed down by the French Republic
, as the region was annexed to France during the
French Revolutionary
Wars. When the region was part of the
United Kingdom of the
Netherlands (1815-1830),
William I of the Netherlands
founded a new university in 1816 in Leuven as a
Rijksuniversiteit (E: State university).
Belgium became
independent in 1830, and the Belgian bishops founded a new Roman Catholic university in 1834, at
Mechelen
, which in
1835 was able to return to Leuven, where the
Rijksuniversiteit had been closed.
The split (1962-1970)
While the academic language of the "old" university had been Latin,
the refounded university provided lectures in both Latin and
French. By the end of the 19th century it was, in effect, a
French-language institution. Lectures in Dutch, the other official
language of Belgium, began to be provided in 1930. In 1962, in line
with the constitutional reforms governing official language use,
the French and Dutch sections of the university became autonomous
within a common governing structure. The division of the
university, however, continued to be a demand of
Flemish nationalists, and Dutch-speakers
continued to express resentment at privileges given to
French-speaking academic staff and the perceived disdain of the
local French-speaking community for their Dutch-speaking
neighbours, in a city that lies within
Flanders.
When a French-speaking
social
geographer suggested in a televised lecture that an objective
case could be made for changing the administrative status of the
city of Leuven, including it in a larger,
bilingual 'Greater-Brussels', even mainstream
Flemish politicians and students began demonstrating under the
slogan 'Leuven Vlaams - Walen Buiten' ('A Flemish Leuven -
Walloons Out'). Student demonstrations increased in
violence throughout the mid-60s, and it was this issue that brought
down the Belgian government in February 1968.
The
dispute was resolved in June 1968 by making the Dutch-language section an independent
Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven
, which remained in Leuven, while the
French-speaking university, the Université
catholique de Louvain
, was moved to a greenfield campus, Louvain-la-Neuve
, 20 km south-east of Brussels, in a part of the
country where French is the official language. Acrimony
about the split was long-lasting, but research collaborations and
student exchanges between the two "sister universities" now take
place with increasing frequency.
Library
The first library was located inside the university halls, and was
enlarged in 1725 in a
baroque style. In
1914, during
World War I, Leuven was
plundered by German troops, and a large part of the city was set
fire to, effectively destroying about half of the city.
The
library was lost, as well as about 300,000 books, and a huge
collection of manuscripts, such as the Easter Island
tablet bearing Rongorongo text E. In the early
stages of the war allied propaganda made much of this as a
reflection on German
Kultur.
The new main library was built between 1921 and 1928 and designed
by the American
architect Whitney Warren in
Low Countries neorenaissance style.
Its monumentality is a
reflection of the victory against Germany
. It
is one of the largest university buildings in the city. However, in
1940, during the second German invasion of Leuven, the building
largely burnt down, including its (at that time) 900,000
manuscripts and books. It was rebuilt after the war in accordance
with Warren's design and is now the Central Library of the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The paintwork decorations of the
original design were completed only in 2000, to mark the 575th
anniversary of the university's foundation.
The split of the university into separate French-language and
Dutch-language institutions in 1968 entailed a division of the
central library holdings, which was carried out on the basis of
alternate shelfmarks (except in cases where a work clearly belonged
to one section or the other, e.g. was written by a member of
faculty or bequeathed by an alumnus whose linguistic allegiance was
clear). This gave rise to the
factoid that
encyclopedias and runs of periodicals were divided by volume
between the two universities, but in fact such series bear single
shelfmarks.
Notable alumni
- :For post-1968 alumni, see Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven
or Université
Catholique de Louvain
.
- Jan Standonck
(1454 - 1504), priest and reformer, Master of the Collège de Montaigu in Paris
.
- Adriaan Floriszoon Boeyens (1459 - 1523), Pope Adrian VI.
- Desiderius Erasmus (1466 -
1536), humanist.
- Gerard Mercator (1512 - 1594),
cartographer.
- Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564),
father of modern anatomy.
- Rembert Dodoens (1517 - 1585),
botanist.
- Justus Lipsius (1547 - 1606),
humanist.
- Leonardus Lessius 1554-1623,
ethics and economy
- Cornelius Otto Jansen
(1585 - 1638), father of Jansenism.
- Charles Nerinckx (1761 - 1824),
founder of Sisters of
Loretto.
- Bernard du Bus de
Gisignies (1808 - 1874), law, politician, ornithologist and
paleontologist.
- Hippoliet Van Peene (1811 -
1864), physician and playwright, wrote the lyrics of the Flemish
anthem De Vlaamse Leeuw
- Charles-Louis-Joseph-Xavier
de la Vallée-Poussin (1827 - 1903), a minerologist and
geologist
- Father Patrick Francis Healy (1830 - 1910),
29th president of Georgetown University
, first Jesuit priest of African American ancestry, first person of
acknowledged African American ancestry to earn PhD
- Antanas Baranauskas (1835 -
1902), Polish-Lithuanian poet.
- Arthur Vierendeel (1852 –
1940) civil engineer.
- Emile Joseph Dillon (1854 - 1933),
linguist, author and journalist.
- Albrecht Rodenbach (1856 -
1880), poet.
- Albin van Hoonacker (1857 -
1933) Catholic theologian and Biblical scholar
- Charles Jean
de la Vallée-Poussin (1866 - 1962), mathematician who proved
the prime number theorem.
- Edgar Sengier (1879 - 1963),
director of the Union
Minière du Haut Katanga.
- Frans Van Cauwelaert (1880
- 1961), politician.
- Jean-Baptiste Janssens,
S.J. (1889 - 1964), twenty-seventh Superior General of the Society of Jesus.
- Weng Wenhao (1889 - 1971), founder
of modern Chinese geography.
- Georges Lemaître (1894 -
1966), astronomer, priest and proposer of the Big Bang theory.
- Fulton J. Sheen (1895 - 1979), American archbishop,
television personality, preacher and writer.
- Rafael Ángel Calderón
Guardia, (1900 - 1970), physician, social reformer, president
of Costa
Rica
1940-1944
- Saint Alberto Hurtado,
(1901-1952), Chilean Jesuit priest, social worker and writer.
Canonized in 2005.
- Victor Delhez, (1902 – 1985),
engraver and artist.
- Hendrik Elias, (1902 - 1973),
Flemish Nationalist, quisling.
- Maurice Anthony Biot (1905
- 1985), Belgian-American physicist and the founder of the theory
of poroelasticity.
- Léon Degrelle, (1906 - 1994),
founder of Rexism, quisling.
- Jean Charles Snoy et
d'Oppuers (1907-1991), law, diplomat, businessman.
- Herman Van Breda (1911 - 1974),
founder of the Husserl Archives.
- André Molitor (1911 - 2005),
law, private secretary of Baudouin
I of Belgium.
- Otto von Habsburg (1912 - ),
the current head of the Habsburg family.
- Tang Yuhan, (1912 - ), Chinese
oncologist.
- Pieter De
Somer (1917 - 1985), first rector of the
Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven
.
- Christian de Duve (1917 - ),
Nobel Prize in
Medicine 1974, for his discoveries concerning the structural
and functional organization of the cell.
- Anton van Wilderode
(1919-1998), Flemish activist and writer.
- Aster Berkhof, (1920 - ),
Flemish writer.
- Charles Mertens de Wilmars (1921
– 1994), psychiatrist, professor at Harvard
Medical School

- Malachi Martin (1921 - 1999),
Irish writer.
- Antoon Vergote (1921 -), catholic
priest, theologian, philosopher, psychologist and psychoanalyst
(also known as Antoine Vergote).
- Jan Zaprudnik (1924 - ),
Belarusian American historian and poet.
- Geza Vermes (1924 - ), religious
historian and translator into English of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- José J. Fripiat, a chemist, and laureate of the
1967 Francqui Prize
- Gustavo
Gutiérrez (1928 - ), Peruvian
Dominican
theologian, founder of Liberation
Theology.
- Adolphe Gesché (1928 - 2003), theologian
- Jacques Taminiaux (1928 - ),
philosopher, 1977 laureate of the Francqui Prize
- Camilo Torres (1929 -
1966), Colombian priest and guerillero.
- Jean-Pierre de Launoit
(1935 - ), businessman.
- Abdul Qadeer Khan (1936 - ),
Pakistani metallurgist considered to be the father of Pakistan's
nuclear weapons program.
- Jacques van Ypersele
de Strihou (1936 - ), private secretary of the King of
Belgium.
- Nguza
Karl-i-Bond (1938 - 2003), notable Zairian
politician.
- Baron Piet Van Waeyenberge
(1938 - ), economics, President of De
Warande.
- Bernard Lietaer (1942 - ),
economist and author.
- Arthur Ulens (1946 - ), chemistry
and economics, businessman
- Afif Safieh (1950 - ), Palestinian
diplomat, ambassador to the Russian Federation.
- Herman Van Den Berghe,
founder of the Centrum voor Menselijke Erfelijkheid (Belgian Centre
for Human Heredity).
- Herman Van Rompuy (1947 - ),
Belgian statesman. Appointed President of the European
Council in November 2009.
See also
Notes
- Jeffrey M. Elliot and Mervyn M. Dymally, eds., Voices of
Zaire: Rhetoric or Reality, p. 53