Another series of study houses (studia) served their own localities at Aix, Bordeaux, Cahors, Esztergom, Lleida, Lisbon, Toledo and Valencia.
Before 1350 local Augustinian study houses in Italy arose at Arezzo, Ascoli, Piceno, Asti, Barletta, Genoa, L'Aquila, Lucca, Pavia, Rieti, Rimini, Treviso, Venice and Viterbo.
By the year 1354 there were thirty-two
studia generalia of the Augustinian Order scattered throughout eastern and western Europe. The Augustinian General Chapter at
Treviso in 1321 required every Province to maintain a
studia generalia to teach Scripture, the theology contained in the
Sentences of Peter Lombard, and logic.
The studia generalia were important to the Order because they provided the basic theological training (which not all Augustinians received) required for priests and preachers of the Order.
They were the vestibule for entrance to university for a degree of Master or Doctor of Theology, and they produced the lectors who in turn conducted the studia provinciala that educated a majority of Augustinians.
The educational system of Augustinian studia was strongest when it was rapidly expanding during the fourteenth century, and then encountered increasing difficulties (including a fall in its standards) in the political and ecclesiastical turmoil of the fifteenth century, and was effectively broken up by the cataclysm during and after the Protestant Reformation.
For example, Martin Luther attended the studium generale at Erfurt. He was a Master of Arts before he joined the Order in 1505, was ordained to the priesthood in 1507 before studying theology, studied theology in the studium at Erfurt, continued his studies in 1508 at Wittenburg while teaching philosophy and dialectics at its university, on 4th October 1512 received his licentiate, and at the age of thirty years, was granted his doctorate three weeks later.
What in the studium generale in
Paris two centuries earlier would have required sixteen thorough years of learning and teaching, Luther had been granted a doctorate after five years.
Places in the studium generale in Paris were in such demand throughout the Order that sometimes the number of students there from any one province had to be severely limited.
He was then required to stay in Paris for a triennium (three years).
