Page - 224 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

224 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 nationalities, as stereotypes and auto-stereotypes, had been present since the 1880s in discussions about appointments and the general character of universities, in both the public and private domains. The question of a confessional-cum-ethnic division was part of a more general question about the Catholic character of Cisleithanian universities. The emancipation of Jews in 1867, the government’s denouncement of the Concordat of 185532 in 1870, and university reforms three years later solved several of the legal questions concerning the relation between the papacy and the empire. The Constitution of 1867 officially demoted the previously privileged Catholics to just one of many acknowledged religious communi- ties. Although the church’s influence on universities was not legally codified, except in the theological faculties, small changes indicated the altering re- lationship between the two. First, in 1868 the professorial oath concerning religion was slightly modified. While the text of the oath of 1850 included that professors would avoid everything that would threaten “the state, reli- gion, and morality,”33 the oath from 1868 onward included only passages on legal obedience (Gesetzestreue).34 Nevertheless, until 1918 the oath retained a vow to “God the Almighty” and ended with “so help me God,” without legal clarification on what should be done in the case of atheists. Second, af- ter 1873 the influence of the university chancellor (Universitätskanzler) was minimized. From 1848 onward, this position had been occupied in Vienna by the auxiliary bishop and the general vicar of the Viennese archbishopric (named in the lecture catalog directly after the rector and pro-rector). Prince- Bishop Friedrich Schwarzenberg, Kanzler der Universität und Protector Studiorum (chancellor of the university and protector of studies), had been from 1850 onward the first person named in the University of Prague’s lec- ture catalog, and even after 1873 he continued to influence the university in manifold ways. While the church’s practical influence on the (supposedly) secular fac- ulties of the university was limited, the clarification of the power relations between the state and bishops at the theological faculties remained in limbo. In 1874 the ministry announced preparations for a new policy, but they were never really implemented, leaving the neoabsolutist rules generally unchanged.35 Since the office of university rector alternated between the faculties, universities would periodically be governed for a four-year term by a professor of theology, who was legally responsible to both the pope, represented by the bishop of the corresponding diocese, and the state. Both the pope and the state influenced appointments and had the right to sus- pend “unworthy” (unwürdige) professors at the theological faculties.36 While