Auñamendi Eusko EntziklopediaFund Bernardo Estornés Lasa

During this period, the University was a faithful reflection of the political, military and ideological ups and downs that shook the country.

A Royal Decree of 12 July 1807 reduced the existing universities by eliminating those of Toledo, Osma, Oñati, Orihuela, Irache, Baeza, Osuna, Almagro, Gandía and Sigüenza. The funds of Oñati and Osma were to be added to that of Valladolid. The Napoleonic invasion brought this period of official academic death of the country to an end. During the French occupation, the rector, Francisco de Andraca, resided permanently in the building, where, it seems, classes continued, despite the suspension.

An RC of 22 July 1814 responded to the of the professors and town of Oñati in gratitude "to the Basque Provinces and other neighbouring provinces" by re-establishing the University, now with the doubled endowments of the three provinces and the town council of Oñati. Navarre, whose students also benefited in large numbers from the University, was invited to participate in the endowment. In 1820, the re-established University had the following teaching staff:

This period, which Fr. Lizarralde calls "the most prosperous that the University achieved during the whole time of its existence", ended in 1822 when the University was unable to respond to the new curricula imposed on Spanish universities due to its limited resources.

The new study plan included a series of texts and innovations that Oñati could not afford:

"There was a lack of funds to support the new chairs that were to be opened, and a lack of specialised teachers to run them; for the acquisition of a select library, as the existing one consisted of some 1,500 volumes of jurists and canonists, mostly from the 15th and 16th centuries, with some theologians from the same period, but it was completely devoid of works on Erudition, Criticism, History, Bibliography, Physical, Chemical, Philosophical Sciences and Belles Lettres. For the establishment of departments of Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, Geology, Botany, Mineralogy, Agriculture... there was nothing to turn to".

Lizarralde: 377.

As a consequence, a R.O. of 4 November 1822 suspended the University, reducing it to a mere College. The State had to receive three demands: one from the Bergara Town Council ing that the Seminary of that town be converted into a University of Secondary Education, another from the University of Oñati ing that it not be suppressed, and a third by which Vitoria demanded the establishment of the latter in its municipal district. The Directorate General of Studies, in view of the lack of Basque unanimity, finally decided that second education should be established in Bergara, taking the resources of the University of Oñati, which was suppressed. The fall of the Riega regime did not bring anything new until 1828.

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The Basque efforts came to an end on 8 October 1828 with the R.O. of re-establishment. The three Basque deputations were to be patrons of the chairs, which were extended with one more, in Theology. But this situation did not last long, as another R.O. of December 1829 decreed its conversion into a College, i.e. it abolished its power to award academic degrees and subjected it to the general study plans dependent on the State, despite not receiving any economic resources from it.

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The civil war was also echoed in the academic life of our University. Part of its faculty and student body moved to the Palacio Legarda in Vitoria, but the rest continued its more or less normal activity despite the war, with around 700 students in the University College . The fraction that marched to Vitoria was recognised by the government of Queen M. Cristina. At the end of the war, it resumed its activities (1840) in Oñati until a decree by General Espartero on 11 November 1842 converted it into an Institute of Secondary Education attached to the University of Valladolid, to which its secretariat was assigned. This unexpected measure," says Gorósabel, "was apparently based on the establishment's lack of funds to support itself; but the real causes must have been different, since the alleged one was not true". The R.O. of 1847 made this Institute secondary, in relation to the Bergara Institute or Guipuzcoan Institute, and another of 1850 suppressed it. The following year the University was converted into a Special School of Agriculture. During the period 1862-1869, the first bishop of the new diocese of Vitoria considered the possibility of establishing the Conciliar Seminary of the diocese in this place, which was never carried out.

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The Revolution of 1968 brought with it freedom of teaching and the opening of professorships, something that was not wasted. On 20 September 1869, the Oñati town council appointed the following professors: Law: Buenaventura Grases, Casimiro de Egaña, Julián Pastor, Benito Núñez, Federico Anel, Ramón María Lili and Juan de Puig; Secondary Education: Tomás de Escriche, Francisco de Segura, Estanislao de Aranzadi, Silvestre de Umérez, Gonzalo Azofra and Juan de Dios de la Puente. This first course had 235 students, which increased in the following years. During these years, courses in Philosophy and Letters, Notaries and some subjects from the Faculty of Sciences were added.

During the Second Carlist War, Oñati became the cultural capital of the Court of the Pretender, who re-established the Faculty of Theology by means of a Royal Decree. Pius IX recognised its degrees and the chair of Sacred Sciences. The course was inaugurated on 5 October 1874, with the following members of the teaching staff: Dr. Luis Elío y Ezpeleta, Rector and Professor of the Faculty of Canons; Dr. Salvador Ordoñez y Abadía, Vice-Rector, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Theology; Dr. Matías Barrio y Mier, Librarian, Professor and Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Jurisprudence; Dr. Ramón Ríos y Marqués, Librarian, Professor and Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Jurisprudence; Dr. Ramón Ríos y Marqués, Professor and Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Theology; and Dr. Ramón Ríos y Marqués, Professor and Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Theology, Dr. Salvador Ordoñez y Abadía, Professor of Theology. Ramón Ríos y Marqués, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Secondary Education; Dr. Francisco Segura y Echeverría, Professor; Dr. Facundo Barcenilla y Cantero, Professor; Dr. Gabriel Arrue Urquia e Itqués, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law; Dr. Gabriel Arrue Urquia e Itquia, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Theology. Gabriel Arrue Urquia e Iturrioz, Professor and Secretary General; Dr. Cecilio Aguado y Ortega, Professor; Dr. Justo Zugarramurdi y Velasco, Professor; Dr. Juan José Valearena y del Río, Professor; Dr. Luis Martínez Vázquez, Professor. Days later, a quadri-provincial University District of Oñati was created as the "centre of Catholic Education in the four Basque-Navarre Provinces", a district to which all secondary and vocational schools were attached, except for the conciliar seminaries and religious institutes. The war cut short this district, which was the first realisation of the university projects of the Navarre Provincial Council of 1866-1867. The Basque-Navarre University was closed in 1891 after having housed an Augustinian college.

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Once the war was over, the University building was used as a garrison for some time. In 1884 it was used as a minor seminary for the canons regular of the Lateran, remaining in this way until 1892, when it was used as a hospital for the contagious sick. The efforts to reopen the longed-for University bore fruit thanks to the tenacity of the deputies Joaquín Sánchez Toca, Matías Barrio and Cesáreo Sanz y Escartin. The University was reopened, without any financial support from the State. But it was born under the influence of the Church, as can be seen by reading the first of its constituent foundations:

"The Excellency and Illmo. Bishop of this Diocese has over this teaching centre the high inspection conferred by his sacred investiture recognised by the laws of the Kingdom and especially in the second article of the Concordat and also, in accordance with the solemn agreement taken today by this Corporation, the power to remove a teacher who teaches doctrines contrary to the Catholic faith, or who sets a bad example by his conduct, by means of the corresponding proceedings and after hearing the interested party. The appointment of the Rector will be made by the Town Council, of which the Diocese will be informed, and must be made by a Priest who holds a Doctorate in Law or in Philosophy and Letters, who must explain two subjects of his Faculty".

It was also called a Catholic university, as opposed to a secular university, and it was intended to be placed - unsuccessfully - under the Bishop of Vitoria's crozier. Finally, it was added to the Zaragoza campus. Its cloister was made up of: Miguel Arroyo, Rector, Professor of Metaphysics and Political Law; Gonzalo del Castillo, Professor of Political and Administrative Law and Civil Law, first year; Modesto Hernández Villaescusa, Professor of Critical History of Spain, Natural Law, Political Economy and Statistics; José Caballero y Orcolaga, Professor of Greek and Arabic Language; Miguel San Julián y Zozaya, Professor of Roman Law and History of Spanish Law; Félix P. Aramburu y Velasco, Professor of General and Spanish Literature and Universal History; Aurelio Ortiz y Ortiz, Professor of Criminal Law and Political and Administrative Law, second year. Later on, several assistant professors were also appointed.

The Royal Decree of 6 March 1896 d it official and it was henceforth called the Literary University of Oñate. Students could be external or internal, and on enrolling they had to present the same documents required by the other State Universities, as well as a certificate of "good moral and religious conduct" issued by their respective parish priests. In the admission of boarders, preference was given to those educated in religious institutes, as long as they presented a certificate of good conduct from the director of the institute. The degrees of Philosophy and Letters, Law and Notary Public were taught, and were financed by the Provincial Council of Guipúzcoa, the town council of Oñati and the University itself. Despite this, the University's coat of arms also included the coats of arms of Alava, Biscay and Navarre, constituting a symbolic reminder of the Laurak-Bat of the former Basque-Navarre University. After the re-establishment of official status, the enrolment of both internal and external students in the first year, says Lizarralde, was flattering for the almost improvised beginnings of academic studies.

"And no incident of importance was recorded apart from the resignation of the Rector and the professors Francisco Aurioles and Inocencio Soraluce. They were replaced by Mr. Francisco Maspons y Anglasell and Mr. Francisco lbó y Martí, doctors in Law. The faculty was made up of six professors of Law and four of Philosophy and Letters; but since there were thirteen daily subjects in that Faculty and nine in this one, the City Council was asked to designate two assistants for cases of illness or forced absence. The was granted, appointing as assistants Mr. Antonio Pajares, lawyer in the Courts of Oviedo and Bilbao, and Mr. Domingo Miral López, doctor in Philosophy and Letters and with a completed ecclesiastical career".

Only the priest José Gogeascoechea sat for the post of Rector, and despite being accepted by the City Council and the cloister, he took a long time to take up his post because the Bishop of Vitoria wanted this appointment to be his responsibility, changing the constitution 29, as the University had been called Pontifical. However, the academic year 1896-97 passed with only one Vice Rector, who was Villaescusa; in the following academic year Francisco Fernández Moreno was appointed Rector; the Rectorship was again vacant and in the academic year 1800-01 it was given to Juan Pablo Biesa.

The second academic year opened with 23 externs and 119 interns, and with an inaugural speech given by Gonzalo Castillo Alonso. The new teaching staff also included, with the exception of Arroyo, Aurioles and Soraluce, José Miralles y Sbert, professor of Greek and Latin Literature; Tomás Alonso de Armiño y Calleja, professor of Canon Law and Criminal Law; Francisco de Paula Maspons y Anglasell, professor of Civil Law and second year of Commercial Law; Francisco de P. Albó y Martí, professor of Economics, Public Finance, Public and Private International Law and Judicial Proceedings.

In 1901, a new chair was created, Foral Law, taught by Professor Carlos Riba. But the confessional nature of the University, in a period of open modernist and secular offensive and neo-Catholic counter-offensive, was to mean its new and definitive closure. A Royal Decree of 12 April 1902, which demanded adaptation in terms of the recruitment of lecturers and the modification of the statutes, led to the resignation of the entire faculty and the cessation of financial aid from Oñati Town Council and the Provincial Council of Guipúzcoa. Another on 23 August closed it. The building was then occupied by various religious communities.

In 1918, some of the sessions of the 1st Basque Studies Congress of the Society that was then created were symbolically held in its memory and in its classrooms. Ten years later it housed the local Institute. The trusteeship of the University was exercised by the Town Council of the town until a provision of the Second Republic gave it to the Provincial Council of Guipúzcoa in 1932. During the post-war period, the building was closed until 1964, when it was reopened as the National Secondary School. From 1942 it also housed the current Archive of Notarial Protocols of the province and, from 1981, in times of autonomy, the Basque Institute of Public Administration. In 1989, the International Institute for the Sociology of Law established its headquarters in its premises.