University of Fresia

University of Fresia
Location	Gallenfeld, Fresia
Motto	Learning By Doing.
Established	10 FI
Affiliation	Council of Princes
Chancellor	Dermott Ironbroth, III
Colors	Black, Gray & Maroon

The University of Fresia is the national university of Fresia and located a half-day's travel from the Fresian Imperial Seat of Gallenfeld. It is supported primarily through its virutal monopoly on skilled crafts training in Fresia, but also relies on significant secondary support in the form of gifts, tuition, and the Fresian Council of Princes.

The University of Fresia is one of the few centers of learning in Fresia and located in the de-facto Fresian capital of Gallenfeld. Chartered in the earliest days of the Alexandrian Church, it long ago lost its preeminence as a location for training clerics, yet has survived and even thrived by becoming a sort of Fresian national guildhall, training most of the region's master craftsmen. While this centralization of training has prevented the extreme localization and competition of crafts guilds common to other nations, some critics suggest that this process actually generate at least as many, if not more, economic problems. It is supported primarily through its de facto monopoly on craft training in Fresia, while gifts, tuition, and gifts from the Fresian Council of Princes make up a significant secondary source of revenue.

History

Within twenty years of Alexandria's Crusade, a general sense of order had been restored in many places, but Fresia remained a hostile and unconverted nation, peopled by transplanted Ulan barbarians capitalizing on the depopulation caused by the Cursade. Reasoning that the wisest course of action was to assimilate rather than try and exterminate, Sterros chartered the University of Fresia to train the mass number of Clerics and other missionaries it would take to turn the pagan (ie: non-Alexandrian, as the Zupanist Heresy had not yet spread to and through the Ulan) toward the Star. Although the second University founded after the change of the epoch, it was the first founded for the purpose of clerical training and strongly supported by the first Arch-Warden. As such, it rose quickly in prestige and prominence, as there were few options to train the skilled and specialized number of Clerics it would take to realize Sterros' vision.

Ironically, or perhaps poetically, this early success would undermine the University's future prestige. By the first century after the inception of the Church, the Stand were all dead and a new generation came to wield power, a generation who knew of the Crusade only through stories, cultural and national loyalties slowly began to undermine pan-mainland unity. Slowly but surely, the other nations began to found universities. By the 2nd Century FI, all of the Goodly nations had done the same, or chartered national schools from scratch, including Celstia.

So, by 200 FI - with the barbarians converted and only domestic clerics to train - the University of Fresia had lost much of its primary function and, much like Fresia itself, all of its international prestige. A section of membership in the Council of Princes, with the ear of the Emperor, began to equate the decline of one with the decline of the other and agitated for reform. Bowing to their pressure, Emperor Knut Ardent expanded the charter of the University to include craft training, over the strenuous objections of much of the rest of the council. Unrest grew into revolt, and within a year the action had let to the onset of one of Fresia's bloodiest civil wars, the Craft War. At the end of this, a victorious Emperor was not only able to maintain this reform, but even expand it to a virtual training monopoly as a punitive measure, exempting only the Charter Cities which had supported his cause. While this did lead to an explosion of "cottage schools" in the exempted Free Cities, local craftsmen could never compete with the scope or scale of the a national, centralized guild, and so instead had to cater to the poor, both for clientele and pupils. To this day, "Free-City" is a Fresian slang synonym for cheapness, and suggesting that a newly forged suit of armor or newly crafted bed is as "comfortable as free-city shoes" is liable to get one a punch in the nose from any proud craftsman.

Although this legal monopoly has been undone over subsequent generations, the Fresian University jealously guards its knowledge and expertise, and so retains a de facto monopoly on most crafts training. In fact, as the reputations of Fresian crafts spread over the centuries, Dwarves interested in "nontraditional" crafts such as carpentry and woodwork often seek Fresian educations.

Areas of Study

When a student enters the University, he or she chooses either the Journeyman's or Baccalaureate degree program. Both programs take about roughly six years and all students within their degree program have the same required courses, also called the trivium. As the Journeyman's degree focuses primarily on apprenticeship of a particular craft, there are far less formal courses.

Journeyman Degree

This is essentially an advanced apprenticeship program. The most common apprenticeship is that of a smith or metalworker, hence the school's mascot being the blacksmith. Students are apprenticed under a master and receive most of the training there. It differs from the common practice of apprenticeship by also requiring courses pertinent to the apprenticeship. The trivium for a Journeyman is arithmetic, metallurgy, and crafting.

Baccalaureate Degree

This is a general education program consisting of the trivium grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The program does shift slightly depending on if a student plans on going into arcane or clerical arts. Logic for arcane arts consists of learning arcane magic while logic for clerical arts consists of learning clerical magic. Students desiring neither of these have a standard logic set more focused on arithmetic and geometry.

Masters & Magisters

3-6 more years. A Magister degree also then allows a graduate to teach while a Master of Craft certifies a graduate to be proficient enough to apprentice another. All candidates study a general quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry (including geography and natural history), music/art, and astronomy. Philosophy and history, as well as specialized programs for both clerical and arcane arts, may be studied as well.

Magister Degree

While there is only one Magister degree, like the baccalaureate degree there are three study paths: general, clerical, arcane. The general degree focuses primarily on the quadrivium, while the others on the magic of choice. The Master of Craft is the terminal honor in all of these colleges.

Master of Craft

This essentially certifies a graduate that he or she has advanced beyond journeyman status and is now a master of their chosen craft, be it arcane, theological, or practical. From here a graduate may legally take on apprentices and receive full membership in a chosen trade or craft guild or organization.

Noteworthy Faculty, Students & Alumni

• Steros Cadrick - 10th Arch-Warden

• Odrell Hammerhand - 24th Arch-Warden

• Martyel Gaddrick-Thane - 25th Arch-Warden

• Stromglut Balin - Dwarven metalsmith and faculty member who insists he is the ultimate authority on ball bearings, including constructing his entire metallurgy classroom on a giant rotating platform.

• Waldthear Polmando - Former faculty member and author of a controversial paper examining whether divine magical power was essentially made of the same energies that fueled arcane magic.

• Gertrude Zapadri (nee Faoreder) - Alumna and creator of a clever cloth water-proofing process that later assisted her husband, Muil Zapadri, in becoming the wealthiest halfling merchant in Arabelle in the late 800s, early 900s FI.