Eddie Pensier writes:

It would be unfair to suggest that all universities in the Renaissance were sterile, conformist places; they often hosted vigorous discussion and dissent. But verbal sparring matches (“disputations”) could amount to point-scoring contests decided by nimble rhetoric, rather than matters of genuine enquiry and debate. Moreover, there was an unchallenged hierarchy among the sciences, according to which anything manual, be it the dissection of a corpse, the manufacture of a drug or chemical, or the construction of machines, was despised. For a young man fresh from the mining schools of Villach, this clearly seemed more than absurd; it was offensive. How was it, Paracelsus later asked, that ‘the highest colleges managed to produce so many high asses?’

–From The Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science, by Phillip Ball. I’m about 100 pages into it: fascinating so far.

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim,  better known as Paracelsus. Portrait by Quentin Massys.