Short answers, pulled from the story.
University derives from the Latin phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means a community of teachers and scholars. The original Latin word universitas referred broadly to a number of persons associated into one body, such as a society, company, community, guild, or corporation.
The University of Bologna in Italy, founded in 1088, is regarded as the first university in the full sense. It was a high degree-awarding institute that coined the word universitas, held independence from ecclesiastical schools, and issued both secular and non-secular degrees.
The first documentary evidence of academic freedom comes from the University of Bologna, which adopted the academic charter known as the Constitutio Habita in 1155 or 1158. That charter guaranteed a traveling scholar the right to unhindered passage in the interests of education.
Latin was the language of the university, used for all texts, lectures, disputations, and examinations. Professors lectured on Aristotle for logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, while Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna were used for medicine. Italian universities focused on law and medicine, while northern universities focused on the arts and theology.
There were approximately 143 universities in Europe by the end of the eighteenth century, up from 29 at the end of the Middle Ages. The highest concentrations were in the Holy Roman Empire with 34, the Italian countries with 26, France with 25, and Spain with 23.
The German, or Humboldtian, model was conceived by Wilhelm von Humboldt and emphasized freedom, seminars, and laboratories. By the end of the nineteenth century it had spread around the world, and Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, was the first American school to adopt it, when nearly the entire faculty had studied in Germany.