Late Middle Ages · Europe · Culture
1365
Rudolph IV founds the University of Vienna
1365
The young Habsburg duke, jealous of his father-in-law Charles IV's Prague foundation, planted his own studium generale on the Danube. He also forged the Privilegium Maius, a set of imperial charters granting Austria preposterous privileges. Initial papal recognition was grudging, but Vienna would become the major Catholic university of the German-speaking south, a counterweight to Prague's ferment.