The first imperial university, in fact the first university of all to be founded by a deliberate act, was installed at Naples in 1224 by the emperor Frederick II. The first papal university was at Toulouse, authorised by Gregory IX in 1229 and founded, in part, to combat heretical belief. These gave birth to the notion that the authority to found studia generalia was vested only in papal or imperial prerogative, a concept that was accepted doctrine by the fourteenth century.
