by monasteries. In Europe, young men proceeded to university when they had completed their study of the trivium–the preparatory arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic–and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. (See degrees of Oxford University for the history of how the trivium and quadrivium developed in relation to degrees, especially in anglophone universities). Several of the world's oldest universities are located in Spain or were founded by Spanish scholars across the world at the time of the Spanish Empire. The University of Salamanca, founded by King Alfonso IX of Leon in 1218 is the world's 8th oldest university. The oldest existing universities both in Asia (University of Santo Tomas) and the Americas (University of Santo Domingo) were founded by Spanish religious orders in the 16th century. The creation of the Spanish Empire brought a significant expansion in royal positions for university-trained lawyer-bureaucrats who were not nobles and were dependent on and loyal to the crown. The multiple royal councils needed university-trained men, as did royal government in the Indies. These were men who had studied Roman Law. "The law schools of universities were the training ground of the Crown's advisers." The first medieval European universities were simply groups of scholars, the word "university" being derived from the Latin universitas, meaning corporation. The University of Palencia appears to have been the first high education institution in Spain and the third in the world, after Bologna and Oxford, while the University of Salamanca is the oldest existing Spanish university. Founded in 1218, during a period of expansion that had begun in the 11th century, Salamanca is considered to be the third oldest in Western Europe. The university was founded as a "General School of the kingdom" by Alfonso IX in 1218 so that the Leonese people could study at home without having to leave for Castile. From the Imperial School to St. Bartholomew's College or Our Lady of Mount Zion, the Spanish set up a solid educational system as well as one of the first prominent fee-paying schools in Europe. Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, was one of the many English boarding schools founded by Spanish Jesuits under the Empire, and was originally established in the Spanish Netherlands in 1593. The aim of these schools was to provide English boys with a Roman Catholic education during the rule of Elizabeth I. High-ranking army men and senior administrators of the empire usually