The University of Salamanca, like other European centres, was constituted before the process of royal concession of c. 1218, so that the knowledge preserved in the cloisters would be the seed of the cultural recomposition.
In addition to the books identified and other elements that provide information on the cultural universe in which the protagonists who would eventually make up the Estudio General de Salamanca moved, it is the preserved sculptural representations that confirm the relevance of the knowledge within its walls, by recognising the personification of the Liberal Arts in several Romanesque capitals in its battered cloister.
According to what has been analysed to date, these are the most remote figurations located on the Peninsula, a milestone in close agreement with those observed in the rest of Europe.
These cultural manifestations confirm that, prior to the foundation of the Studio, a powerful and highly qualified cultural elite existed in the Cathedral during the 12th and 13th centuries and that knowledge was given great importance.