The Beginnings of Legal Training in Eger: The Foglarianum II. From Absolutism to Popular Democracy

The legal training in Vienna changed greatly due to the reforms of Maria Theresa (1740–1780). She formulated a dual goal for the Vienna Faculty of Law in her study decree of 1753. One of her goals was to turn the institution into an internationally known scientific research and education centre, and the other was to train specialists with legal and administrative knowledge for the state. As a result of the centralising quest of absolutism, the state intervened more and more decisively in the administration of church law academies, which was the primary reason why Eger’s university plan could not have been achieved. One of the goals of the Second Education Decree issued by Francis I was to unify legal education at universities and colleges. The imperial centralisation efforts aimed to establish the Austrian university system in Hungary because the traditional educational frameworks no longer corresponded to neo-absolutist imperial criteria.