Setting: The Sword and the Cross

[Ramidel]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Universities were originally religious institutions of learning. Their secularization is a more recent phenomenon (although it's recent roughly in the same sense the United States of America as a nation is a recent development in world history). The time period of the setting matches up with them still being firmly religious in nature (and the nature of the setting leaves them less likely to become secular than in our own world, I believe).

What I meant by "shockingly secular" is that university students are not known for their piety. They're clergy, but they were known for abusing clerical Legal Immunity to get away with unruly behavior because nobody really tried to control them. Drinking, dueling and all sorts of debauchery. Now add the question of learning magic by virtue of being clerics.