Page "Doctor (title)" Paragraph 2

The first academic degrees were law degrees, and the first law degrees were doctorates.

The foundations for the first European universities were the glossators of the 11th century, which were schools of law that taught Canon law and Roman law.

The first European university, the University of Bologna, was founded as a school of law by four famous legal scholars in the 12th century who were students of the glossator school in Bologna.

It is from this history that it is said that the first academic title of doctor applied to scholars of law.

The degree and title were not applied to scholars of other disciplines until the 13th century.

At the University of Bologna, from its founding in the 12th century until the end of the 20th century, the only degree conferred was the doctorate, usually earned after five years of intensive study after secondary school.

The rising of the doctor of philosophy to its present level is a modern novelty.

At its origins, a doctorate was simply a qualification for a guild — that of teaching law.