Royal University
Although myriad institutions of learning have existed throughout the Kingdom of Lithmore, these academies were tied together only in SC 185 with the founding of the King's University in Lithmore and the establishment of the Royal Scholars under Headmaster Roland ab Kieron. An ambitious man who exercised ample foresight, ab Kieron gathered together not only teachers, but also scribes who continued their work of laboriously copying books by hand; he standardized curricula throughout each discipline and, thanks to his assiduous work, drew children of the nobility and prominent gentry families to his universities.
However, a title from a guild lacking royal imprimatur offered lesser status than from others, so after endless political jockeying, the Royal Scholars were granted a charter by his Majesty King Bran I in SC 276. This decree was levied ostensibly to accede to lobbying by the nobility, who would subsequently become patrons of universities and increase their coffers, and because the king had ulterior motives: using the Royal Scholars to enforce his own ethnocentric cultural objectives.
The guild had its charter, but it lost some autonomy, for Bran took it upon himself to name his favorites to administrative positions across the Four Duchies. Because even the prestigious learning institutions in Vavard had been under the control of the Royal Scholars since the time of ab Kieron, the king's universities were soon staffed by the king's own appointees and taught Lithmore-centric ideas solely in Lithmorran, thus hastening the decline of other tongues among the well-educated elite.
After the ascension of King Iain II to the throne, the Lithmore-centric zealotry lessened somewhat, being replaced by religious dogma - which the scholars soundly protested. Iain mandated that the Royal Scholars should, as part of obeying the faith, educate the masses as a condition of their continued existence. But then tragedy struck. The Great Plague swept through the University's ranks (with some clergy calling it poetic justice) and spirited away most of their elites. Many other guilds suffered similar fates, and the Plague was recorded as the kingdom's darkest hour.
Today, the University remains as the premiere source of education - certainly in Lithmore itself, and arguably in the entire kingdom. Individuals often come to study in its halls and libraries, pursuing learning in medical, linguistic, historical and other fields.
Note: The Scholars are no longer a guild, but players can feel free to RP study at the University as a part of their character concept.
