Note 13 — Chapter L

577. The pontifical and royal university of Santo Thomas, incorporated in this holy province of Santissimo Rosario of our father St. Dominic, must recognize as its origin that venerable servant of God, the most illustrious and reverend Don Fray Miguel de Venavides, of the same order, who while archbishop of Manila, planned this so noble a work in the year 1610—giving all his library and about one thousand pesos, which was the amount of his property, to begin its foundation. He was followed by Don Fray Diego de Sória, of the same order, and bishop of Nueva Segovia in these islands, who bequeathed all his library and three thousand eight hundred pesos for the continuation of this work. Consequently, by the year 1620 it already had lecturers and masters for the public teaching of the sciences, by order of the superior government and the Audiencia of these islands, as appears from the Recopilación de Indias, libro i, título xxii, ley liii.13 After that three pontifical briefs were obtained, each one ad decennium, empowering them to graduate students from the courses of philosophy and theology. But Don Phelipe IV by his letter to the count of Siruela, his ambassador in Roma, petitioned and obtained from his Holiness Innocent X the bull commencing In supereminenti, given at Roma, November 20, 1645. In that bull his Holiness erects a university in the college of Santo Thomas in due form, with all the exemptions and privileges that other universities have, under the care of the Order of Preachers. Authority is given to the rector to confer degrees, establish statutes, and appoint officials, his Holiness giving them the names proper of university, etc., until an independent university of general studies should be founded in Manila. Afterward the king, by a royal decree, dated Madrid, May 17, 1680, admitted the said university under his patronage and royal protection; and ordered the governor, Audiencia, archbishop, and orders to so regard it, and to observe its statutes and exemptions. By another decree, dated Madrid, November 22, 1682, the king concedes authority for the erection of the chairs of laws and medicine in Santo Thomas. By another quite recent decree, dated San Lorenzo, October 23, 1733, the king grants to the university of Santo Thomas two chairs—one of canonical law, which is held by a religious who receives no salary; and the other of the institutes, in charge of a layman, appointed by the royal Audiencia, and assigned a salary of four hundred pesos per annum, payable from the royal treasury, and to be taken from [funds arising from] the vacant sees of the archbishop and bishops of these islands. The same favor is conferred upon the college of San Ignacio of the Society. At present these two chairs are being maintained in both places. A petition having been made to his Holiness in behalf of the said university, that authority be conceded it to graduate students in the laws from it, his Blessedness Clement XII (who is at present governing the Church), concedes this, granting said chairs to the university. His bull Dudum emanarunt, promulgated in Roma, September 2, 1734, in which he inserts the letter of Innocent above cited, and the permissions and prerogatives there expressed (which are those of general universities), incorporates the said chairs, and those which may be founded in the future, so that the university may be able to graduate students in them, and so that the graduates may enjoy all the exemptions which are there mentioned.