Factions at the University 
During the eighteenth century, at the University of Valencia and, in general, in all universities of Spain, various groups struggled to control the institution. Scholasticism (ie, the theological debate about dogma and morals) was the politics of the moment and drew together, in each of the views, students and teachers in real political parties in solid scholarly families who joined more than acceptance of a corpus given the deep hostility toward their opponents. Thomists and antitomistas (and, among the latter, members of the Society of Jesus) were carried the palm with respect to the frequency and ferocity of the fighting.
Among the Thomists
could have scholars of the works of St. Thomas, students of teachers or teachers who Thomists, holding materialist doctrines, seeking the warmth of the Scholastic label, the group's union protection. Antitomista faction, meanwhile, was formed by supporters of the doctrines suaristas, students who had learned how to write with the Jesuits and some who had not studied with the Jesuits but who for various reasons, had followed the advice antitomista against the Thomist.
The bitter view that Mayans told Juan Bautista Herman on both schools is to be noted that, under the theological heart (or rather, overcoming it), which was resolved in the cloisters was a battle of factions: "Tell me Your Grace Thomistic what does common sense? I understand he is a man who does not read St. Thomas and wants us to believe that you read. In this sense, what does antitomista? He is a man that meant that it is opposite of the other, nor read the saint, but it runs as it seems. "
Prevalence of the Thomists was a constant in English universities of the eighteenth century. This was found in 1748 the papal nuncio in Madrid, in a letter to Benedict XIV (a pope deeply anti-Jesuit), informed the Pope that "the number of adherents to the Augustinian-Thomist doctrine in Spain" was "much more advantageously that of the opposing schools. " In Valencia, however, the thrust of the Jesuits was particularly strong due in large part to the municipal council had managed to retrieve the municipal patronage of the university from the assignment of classrooms of grammar to the Company. With a political bent most of the time to further the interests of the Jesuits, the city of Valencia continually tried to equate the forces evenly distributing the chairs between Thomists and antitomistas. Thus, although the strength of opinion Thomistic grew with the century, institutional equality led to serious clashes which perhaps would not have occurred if an obvious imbalance.
Conflicts between the two groups were the order of the day but were concentrated in particular and in a more energetic, on those occasions when crowds or parties holding a or other pattern to allow Unleash the odium theologicum that separated the two schools. The serious consequences of these changes tended to reach the ears of the municipal council and chapter books there that offer many interesting facts about it. He went on to enumerate some of these violent episodes.
"The March 8, 1719, feast of St. Thomas, after a hard fight some students are taken prisoners to the citadel by order of the Duke of San Pedro.
"The May 7, 1722 the curator of the university and the attorney general informed the council of a battle with stones between students of philosophy.
-On November 18, 1723 the city temporarily suspended from their posts to a Thomist teacher (Philip Calatayud) and another antitomista (Manuel Andreu) for failing to control fighting among his students: "For the record, claimed the council was known All these changes came from the Opposition found antitomista Thomist and Opinions. " Three days after the two professors were reinstated in their jobs.
"The January 31, 1725 the voice of" Viva Suárez "sparked a new conflict with stones between Thomists and antitomistas students between 15 and 16. After the event some of those involved were taken to citadel to be moved shortly after and public scorn, to Peniscola. A week later, and after failing in his attempt to free the students, the university president Scals of Scala resigned on health grounds and on 3 March, the city appointed a new rector Thomas Grau.
"The May 19, 1732, as long as possible to prevent disturbances among students, the council ordered to clean the classrooms of philosophy and deprive them all kinds of cheers and epigrams, as well as portraits of Santo Thomas and San Luis Gonzaga, protectors of both views.
-November 24 Joaquin Lorge, 1740 (Acting Professor of grammar) and Aurelio Beneyto (philosophy professor) were fined four pounds each by the rector of the University Borrull Francisco, accused of rioting at a Catalan students against other students trying to enter in Catalan classrooms in the antitomistas.
The effects of scholastic spirit expressed here, physically, between students, transcended them and the academic world and spread into English society. Scholars such as Mayans, Tavira or Olavide directly blamed the antagonism between university schools of English backwardness, a delay that was noticeable in the bad taste in art, in petulance and even speaking in moral crisis, strengthened by the progress of the probabilistic approach. The university reforms driven by Carlos III in the second half of the century influenced the need to eradicate the scholastic spirit of the classrooms and renovated shared knowledge and enhanced critical thinking, facilitate the advancement of knowledge in the path of the Enlightenment.
