Life in the Medieval University Part 1

Life in the Medieval University.

by Robert S. Rait.

NOTE

I wish to express my obligations to many recent writers on University history, and to the editors of University Statutes and other records, from which my ill.u.s.trations of medieval student life have been derived. I owe special grat.i.tude to Dr Hastings Rashdall, Fellow of New College and Canon of Hereford, my indebtedness to whose great work, _The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_, is apparent throughout the following pages. Dr Rashdall has been good enough to read my proof-sheets, and to make valuable criticisms and suggestions, and the Master of Emmanuel has rendered me a similar service.

R. S. R.

_23rd January 1912._

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

"A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also, That unto logik hadde longe y-go As lene was his hors as is a rake, And he was not right fat, I undertake; But loked holwe, and therto soberly, Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy, For he had geten him yet no benefyce, Ne was so worldly for to have offyce.

For him was lever have at his beddes heed Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophye, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye.

But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre; But al that he might of his freendes hente, On bokes and on lerninge he it spente, And bisily gan for the soules preye Of hem that yaf him wherwith to scoleye, Of studie took he most cure and most hede, Noght o word spak he more than was nede, And that was seyd in forme and reverence And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence.

Souninge in moral vertu was his speche.

And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."

An account of life in the medieval University might well take the (p. 002) form of a commentary upon the cla.s.sical description of a medieval English student. His dress, the character of his studies and the nature of his materials, the hardships and the natural ambitions of his scholar's life, his obligations to founders and benefactors, suggest learned expositions which might

in judicious hands Extend from here to Mesopotamy,

and will serve for a modest attempt to picture the environment of one of the Canterbury pilgrims.

Chaucer's famous lines do more than afford opportunities of explanation and comment; they give us an indication of the place a.s.signed to universities and their students by English public opinion in the later Middle Ages. The monk of the "Prologue" is simply a country gentleman. No accusation of immorality is brought against him, but he is a jovial huntsman who likes the sound of the bridle jingling in the wind better than the call of the church bells, a lover of dogs and horses, of rich clothes and great feasts. The portrait of the friar is still less sympathetic; he is a frequenter of taverns, a devourer of widows' houses, a man of gross, perhaps of evil, life. The monk abandons his cloister and its rules, the friar despises the poor and the leper. The poet is making no socialistic attack upon the (p. 003) foundations of society, and no heretical onslaught upon the Church; he draws a portrait of two types of the English regular clergy. His description of two types of the English secular clergy forms an illuminating contrast. The n.o.ble verses, in which he tells of the virtues of the parish priest, certainly imply that the seculars also had their temptations and that they did not always resist them; but the fact remains that Chaucer chose as the representative of the parochial clergy one who

"wayted after no pompe and reverence, Ne maked him a spyced conscience, But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taughte, but first he folwed it himselve."

The history of pious and charitable foundations is a vindication of the truth of the portraiture of the "Prologue." The foundation of a new monastery and the endowment of the friars had alike ceased to attract the benevolent donor, who was turning his attention to the universities, where secular clergy were numerous. The clerks of Oxford and Cambridge had succeeded to the place held by the monks, and, after them, by the friars, in the affection and the respect of the nation.

Outside the kingdom of England the fourteenth century was also a great period in the growth of universities and colleges, to which, all (p. 004) over Europe, privileges and endowments were granted by popes, emperors, kings, princes, bishops and munic.i.p.alities. To attempt to indicate the various causes and conditions which, in different countries, led to the growth, in numbers and in wealth, of inst.i.tutions for the pursuit of learning would be to wander from our special topic; but we may take the period from the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century as that in which the medieval University made its greatest appeal to the imagination of the peoples of Europe. Its inst.i.tutional forms had become definite, its terminology fixed, and the materials for a study of the life of the fourteenth century student are abundant. The conditions of student life varied, of course, with country and climate, and with the differences in the const.i.tutions of individual universities and in their relations to Church and State. No single picture of the medieval student can be drawn, but it will be convenient to choose the second half of the fourteenth century, or the first half of the fifteenth, as the central point of our investigation.

We have already used technical terms, "University," "College,"

"Student," which require elucidation, and others will arise in the course of our inquiry. What is a University? At the present day a University is, in England, a corporation whose power of granting (p. 005) certain degrees is recognised by the State; but nothing of this is implied in the word "University." Its literal meaning is simply an a.s.sociation. Recent writers on University history have pointed out that _Universitas vestra_, in a letter addressed to a body of persons, means merely "the whole of you" and that the term was by no means restricted to learned bodies. It was frequently applied to munic.i.p.al corporations; Dr Rashdall, in his learned work, tells us that it is used by medieval writers in addressing "all faithful Christian people," and he quotes an instance in which Pisan captives at Genoa in the end of the thirteenth century formed themselves into a "Universitas carceratorum." The word "College" affords us no further enlightenment. It, too, means literally a community or a.s.sociation, and, unlike the sister term University, it has never become restricted to a scholastic a.s.sociation. The Senators of the "College of Justice"

are the judges of the Supreme Court in Scotland.

We must call in a third term to help us. In what we should describe as the early days of European universities, there came into use a phrase sometimes written as _Studium Universale_ or _Studium Commune_, but more usually _Studium Generale_. It was used in much the same sense in which we speak of a University to-day, and a short sketch of its (p. 006) history is necessary for the solution of our problem.

The twelfth century produced in Europe a renewal of interest and a revival of learning, brought about partly by the influence of great thinkers like St Anselm and Abelard, and partly by the discovery of lost works of Aristotle. The impulse thus given to study resulted in an increase in the numbers of students, and students were naturally attracted to schools where masters and teachers possessed, or had left behind them, great names. At Bologna there was a great teacher of the Civil Law in the first quarter of the twelfth century, and a great writer on Canon Law lived there in the middle of the same century. To Bologna, therefore, there flocked students of law, though not of law alone. In the schools of Paris there were great masters of philosophy and theology to whom students crowded from all parts of Europe. Many of the foreign students at Paris were Englishmen, and when, at the time of Becket's quarrel with Henry II., the disputes between the sovereigns of England and France led to the recall of English students from the domain of their King's enemy, there grew up at Oxford a great school or Studium, which acquired something of the fame of Paris and Bologna. A struggle between the clerks who studied at Oxford and the people of the town broke out at the time of John's defiance of the (p. 007) Papacy, when the King outlawed the clergy of England, and this struggle led to the rise of a school at Cambridge. In Italy the inst.i.tutions of the Studium at Bologna were copied at Modena, at Reggio, at Vicenza, at Arezzo, at Padua, and elsewhere, and in 1244 or 1245 Pope Innocent IV. founded a Studium of a different const.i.tution, in dependence upon the Papal Court. In Spain great schools grew up at Palencia, Salamanca, and Valladolid; in France at Montpellier, Orleans, Angers, and Toulouse, and at Lyons and Reims. The impulse given by Bologna and Paris was thus leading to the foundation of new Studia or the development of old ones, for there were schools of repute at many of the places we have mentioned before the period with which we are now dealing (_c._ 1170-1250). It was inevitable that there should be a rivalry among these numerous schools, a rivalry which was accentuated as small and insignificant Studia came to claim for themselves equality of status with their older and greater contemporaries. Thus, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, there arose a necessity for a definition and a restriction of the term Studium Generale. The desirability of a definition was enhanced by the practice of granting to ecclesiastics dispensations from residence in their benefices for purposes of study; to prevent abuses it was essential that such permission should be limited to a number of (p. 008) recognised Studia Generalia.

The difficulty of enforcing such a definition throughout almost the whole of Europe might seem likely to be great, but in point of fact it was inconsiderable. In the first half of the thirteenth century, the term Studium Generale was a.s.suming recognised significance; a school which aspired to the name must not be restricted to natives of a particular town or country, it must have a number of masters, and it must teach not only the Seven Liberal Arts (of which we shall have to speak later), but also one or more of the higher studies of Theology, Law and Medicine (_cf._ Rashdall, vol. i. p. 9). But the t.i.tle might still be adopted at will by ambitious schools, and the intervention of the great potentates of Europe was required to provide a mechanism for the differentiation of General from Particular Studia. Already, in the twelfth century, an Emperor and a Pope had given special privileges to students at Bologna and other Lombard towns, and a King of France had conferred privileges upon the scholars of Paris. In 1224 the Studium Generale of Naples was founded by the Emperor Frederick II., and in 1231 he gave a great privilege to the School of Medicine at Salerno, a Studium which was much more ancient than Bologna, but which existed solely for the study of Medicine and exerted no influence upon the (p. 009) growth of the European universities. Pope Gregory IX. founded the Studium at Toulouse some fifteen years before Innocent IV. established the Studium of the Roman Court. In 1254 Alfonso the Wise of Castile founded the Studium Generale of Salamanca. Thus it became usual for a school which claimed the status of a Studium Generale to possess the authority of Pope or Emperor or King.

A distinction gradually arose between a Studium Generale under the authority of a Pope or an Emperor and one which was founded by a King or a City Republic, and which was known as a _Studium Generale respectu regni_. The distinction was founded upon the power of the Emperor or the Pope to grant the _jus ubique docendi_. This privilege, which could be conferred by no lesser potentate, gave a master in one Studium Generale the right of teaching in any other; it was more valuable in theory than in practice, but it was held in such esteem that in 1292 Bologna and Paris accepted the privilege from Pope Nicholas IV. Some of the Studia which we have mentioned as existing in the first half of the thirteenth century--Modena in Italy, and Lyons and Reims in France--never obtained this privilege, and as their organisation and their importance did not justify their inclusion among Studia Generalia, they never took rank among the universities of Europe. The status of Bologna and of Paris was, of course, (p. 010) universally recognised before and apart from the Bulls of Nicholas IV.; Padua did not accept a Papal grant until 1346 and then merely as a confirmation, not a creation, of its privileges as a Studium Generale; Oxford never received, though it twice asked for, a declaratory or confirmatory Bull, and based its claim upon immemorial custom and its own great position. Cambridge, which in the thirteenth century was a much less important seat of learning than Oxford, was formally recognised as a Studium Generale by Pope John XXII. in 1318; but its claim to the t.i.tle had long been admitted, at all events within the realm of England. After 1318 Cambridge could grant the _licentia ubique docendi_, which Oxford did not formally confer, although Oxford men, as the graduates of a Studium Generale, certainly possessed the privilege.

Long before the definition of a Studium Generale as a school possessing, by the gift of Pope or Emperor, the _jus ubique docendi_, was generally accepted throughout Europe, we find the occurrence of the more familiar term, "Universitas," which we are now in a position to understand.

A Universitas was an a.s.sociation in the world of learning which corresponded to a Guild in the world of commerce, a union among men living in a Studium and possessing some common interests to protect and advance. Originally, a Universitas could exist in a less (p. 011) important school than a Studium Generale, but with exceptional instances of this kind we are not concerned. By the time which we have chosen for the central point of our survey, the importance of these guilds or Universitates had so greatly increased that the word "Universitas" was coming to be equivalent to "Studium Generale." In the fifteenth century, Dr Rashdall tells us, the two terms were synonymous. The Universitas Studii, the guild of the School, became, technically and officially, the Studium Generale itself, and Studia Generalia were distinguished by the kind of Universitates or guilds which they possessed. It is usual to speak of Bologna and Paris as the two great archetypal universities, and this description does not depend upon mere priority of date or upon the impetus given to thought and interest in Europe by their teachers or their methods. Bologna and Paris were two Studia Generalia with two different and irreconcilable types of Universitas. The Universitates of the Studium of Bologna were guilds of students; the Universitas of the Studium of Paris was a guild of masters. The great seats of learning in Medieval Europe were either universities of students or universities of masters, imitations of Bologna or of Paris, or modifications of one or the other or of both. It would be impossible to draw up a list and divide medieval (p. 012) universities into compartments. Nothing is more difficult to cla.s.sify than the const.i.tutions of living societies; a const.i.tution which one man might regard as a modification of the const.i.tution of Bologna would be in the opinion of another more correctly described as a modification of the const.i.tution of Paris, and a development in the const.i.tution of a University might be held to have altered its fundamental position and to transfer it from one cla.s.s to another.

Where students legislated for themselves, their rules were neither numerous nor detailed. Our information about life in the student-universities is, therefore, comparatively small, and it is with the universities of masters that we shall be chiefly concerned.

It is, however, essential to understand the powers acquired by the student-guilds at Bologna, the inst.i.tutions of which were reproduced by most of the Italian universities, by those of Spain and Portugal, and, much less accurately, by the smaller universities of France.

CHAPTER II (p. 013)

LIFE IN THE STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES

The Universitates or guilds which were formed in the Studium Generale of Bologna were a.s.sociations of foreign students. The lack of political unity in the Italian peninsula was one of the circ.u.mstances that led to the peculiar and characteristic const.i.tution evolved by the Italian universities. A famous Studium in an Italian city state must of necessity attract a large proportion of foreign students.

These foreign students had neither civil nor political rights; they were men "out of their own law," for whom the government under which they lived made small and uncertain provision. Their strength lay in their numbers, and in the effect which their presence produced upon the prosperity and the reputation of the town. They early recognised the necessity of union if full use was to be made of the offensive and defensive weapons they possessed. The men who came to study law at Bologna were not schoolboys; some of them were beneficed ecclesiastics, others were lawyers, and most of them were possessed of adequate means of living. The provisions of Roman Law favoured the creation of such protective guilds; the privileges and immunities of the clergy (p. 014) afforded an a.n.a.logy for the claim of foreign students to possess laws of their own; and the threat of the secession of a large community was likely to render a city state amenable to argument. The growth of guilds or communities held together by common interests and safeguarded by solemn oaths is one of the features of European history of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the students of Bologna took no unusual or extra-ordinary step when they formed their Universitates.

The distinction of students into "Nations," which is still preserved in some of the Scottish universities, is derived from this guild-forming movement at Bologna at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. No citizen of Bologna was permitted to be a member of a guild, the protection of which he did not require. The tendency at first was towards the formation of a number of Universitates, membership of which was decided by considerations of nationality. But the conditions which had led to the formation of these Universitates were also likely to produce some measure of unification, and the law-students at Bologna soon ceased to have more than two great guilds, distinguished on geographical principles as the Universitas Citramontanorum and the Universitas Ultramontanorum. Each was sub-divided into nations; the cis-Alpine (p. 015) University consisting of Lombards, Tuscans, and Romans, and the trans-Alpine University of a varying number, including a Spanish, a Gascon, a Provencal, a Norman, and an English nation. The three cis-Alpine nations were, of course, much more populous at Bologna than the dozen or more trans-Alpine nations, and they were therefore sub-divided into sections known as Consiliariae. The students of Arts and Medicine, who at first possessed no organisation of their own and were under the control of the great law-guilds, succeeded in the fourteenth century in establishing a new Universitas within the Studium. The influence of Medicine predominated, for the Arts course was, at Bologna, regarded as merely a preparation for the study of Law and, especially, of Medicine; but this third Universitas gave a definite status and definite rights to the students of Arts. In the same century the two jurist universities came to act together so constantly that they were, for practical purposes, united, so that, by the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Studium Generale of Bologna contained virtually two universities, one of Law, and the other of Arts and Medicine, governed by freely-elected rectors. The peculiar relations of Theology to the Studium and to the universities is a topic which belongs to const.i.tutional history, and not to our (p. 016) special subject.

The universities of Bologna had to maintain a struggle with two other organisations, the guilds of masters and the authorities of this city state. They kept the first in subjection; they ultimately succ.u.mbed to the second. A guild of masters, doctors, or professors had existed in the Studium before the rise of the Universitates, and it survived with limited, but clearly defined, powers. The words "Doctor," "Professor,"

and "Magister" or "Dominus" were at first used indifferently, and a Master of Arts of a Scottish or a German University is still described on his diploma as a Doctor of Philosophy. The term "Master" was little used at Bologna, but it is convenient to employ "master" and "student"

as the general terms for teacher and taught. The masters were the teachers of the Studium, and they protected their own interests by forming a guild the members of which, and they alone, had the right to teach. Graduation was originally admission into the guild of masters, and the chief privilege attached to it was the right to teach. This privilege ultimately became merely a theoretical right at Bologna, where the teachers tended to become a close corporation of professors, like the Senatus of a Scottish University.

The Guild or College of Masters who taught law in the Studium of (p. 017) Bologna naturally resented the rise of the universities of students.

The doctors, they said, should elect the rectors, as they do at Paris.

The scholars follow no trade, they are merely the pupils of those who do practise a profession, and they have no right to choose rulers for themselves any more than the apprentices of the skinners. The masters were citizens of Bologna, and it might be expected that the State would a.s.sist them in their struggle with a body of foreign apprentices; but the threat of migration turned the scales in favour of the students. There were no buildings and no endowments to render a migration difficult, and migration did from time to time take place.

The masters themselves were dependent upon fees for their livelihood; they were, at Bologna, frequently laymen with no benefice to fall back upon, and with wives and children to maintain. As time went on and the teaching masters became a limited number of professors, they were given salaries, at first by the student-universities themselves and afterwards by the city, which feared to offend the student-universities.

They thus pa.s.sed, to a large extent, under the control of the universities; how far, we shall see as our story progresses. The city authorities tried ineffectually to curb the universities and to prevent migrations, but the students, with the support of the Papacy, succeeded in maintaining the strength of their organisations, and (p. 018) when, in the middle of the fourteenth century, secessions from Bologna came to an end, the students had obtained the recognition and most of the privileges they desired. In course of time the authority of the State increased at Bologna and elsewhere, bodies of Reformatores Studii came to be appointed by republics or tyrants in Italian university cities, and these boards gradually absorbed the government of the universities. The foundation of residential colleges, and the erection of buildings by the universities themselves, deprived the students of the possibility of reviving the long disused weapon of a migration, and when the power of the Papacy became supreme in Bologna, the freedom of its student-universities came to an end. This, however, belongs to a later age. We must now attempt to obtain some picture of the life of a medieval student at Bologna during the greatness of the Universitates.

We will choose an Englishman who arrives at Bologna early in the fifteenth century to study law. He finds himself at once a member of the English nation of the Trans-montane University; he pays his fee, takes the oath of obedience to the Rector, and his name is placed upon the "matricula" or roll of members of the University. He does not look about for a lodging-house, like a modern student in a Scottish University, but joins with some companions (_socii_) probably of (p. 019) his own nation, to take a house. If our new-comer had been a Spaniard, he might have been fortunate enough to find a place in the great Spanish College which had been founded in the latter half of the fourteenth century; as it is, he and his friends settle down almost as citizens of Bologna. The success of the universities in their attempt to form a citizenship outside the state had long ago resulted in the creation also of a semi-citizenship within the state. The laws of the city of Bologna allowed the students to be regarded as citizens so long as they were members of a University. Our young Englishman has, of course, no share in the government of the town, but he possesses all rights necessary for the protection of his person and property; he can make a legal will and bring an action against a citizen. The existence of these privileges, unusual and remarkable in a medieval state, may excite his curiosity about the method by which they were acquired, and he will probably be told strange and terrible tales of the bad old times when a foreign student was as helpless as any other foreigner in a strange town, and might be tortured by unfair and tyrannous judges. If he is historically minded, he will learn about the rise of the smaller guilds which are now amalgamated in his Universitas; how, like other guilds, they were benefit societies caring for the sick and the poor, burying the dead, and providing (p. 020) for common religious services and common feasts. He will be told (in language unfamiliar at Oxford) how the proctors or representatives of the guild were sent to cheer up the sick and, if necessary, to relieve their necessities, and to reconcile members who had quarrelled. The corporate payment for feasts included the cost of replacing broken windows, which (at all events among the German students at Bologna) seem to have been a.s.sociated with occasions of rejoicing. The guild would pay for the release of one of its members who was in prison, but it would also insist upon the payment of the debts, even of those who had "gone down." It was essential that the credit of the guild with the citizens of Bologna should be maintained.

Many of these purposes were still served by the "nation" to which our Bologna freshman belonged: but the really important organisation was that of his Universitas. One of his first duties might happen to be connected with the election of a new Rector. The t.i.tle of the office was common in Italy and was the equivalent of the Podesta, or chief magistrate, of an Italian town. The choice of a new Rector would probably be limited, for the honour was costly, and the share of the fines which the Rector received could not nearly meet his expenses. As his jurisdiction included clerks, it was necessary, by the Canon (p. 021) Law, that he should have the tonsure, and be, at all events technically, a clerk. He could not belong to any religious order, his obligations to which might conflict with his duty to the Universitas, and the expense of the office made it desirable that he should be a beneficed clergyman who was dispensed from residence in his benefice; he could enter upon his duties at the age of twenty-four, and he was not necessarily a priest or even a deacon. Our freshman played a small part in the election. As a member of the English nation, he would help to choose a Consiliarius, who had a vote in the election, and who became one of the Rector's permanent Council. The dignity of the Rector's position would be impressed upon our novice by his senior contemporaries, who could boast that, if a Cardinal came to Bologna, he must yield precedence to the Rector, and the lesson would be emphasised by a great feast on the occasion of the solemn installation and possibly by a tournament and a dance, certainly by some more magnificent banquet than that given by a Rector of the University of Arts and Medicine. After our student's day there grew up a strange ceremony of tearing the robe of the new Rector and selling back the pieces to him, and statutes had to be pa.s.sed prohibiting the acceptance of money for the fragments, although if any student succeeded in capturing the robe without injuring it, he might (p. 022) claim its redemption. The state and hospitality which the office entailed led to its being made compulsory to accept the offer of it, but this arrangement failed to maintain the ancient prestige of the Rectorship which, after the decline of the Universitates themselves, had outlived its usefulness.

Magnificent as was the position of the Rector of a Universitas, our young Englishman would soon discover that his Rector was only a const.i.tutional sovereign. He had to observe the statutes and to consult his Council upon important questions. He had no power to dispense with the penalties imposed by the regulations, and for any mismanagement of the pecuniary affairs of the Universitas he was personally liable, when at the end of his period of office he had to meet a Committee and to render an account of his stewardship. He could sentence offending students to money fines, but he must have the consent of his Council before expelling them or declaring them subject to the ecclesiastical and social penalties of the perjured man. He claimed to try cases brought by students against townsmen, and about the time of our scholar's arrival, the town had admitted that he might try students accused of criminal offences forbidden by the University statutes, and had agreed to carry out his sentences. Too free a use of the secular arm would naturally lead to unpopularity and trouble; (p. 023) the spectacle of a student being handed over to the gaolers of the Podesta or of the Bishop can never have been pleasant in the eyes of a Universitas. Changes in the statutes of the University could not be made by the Rector; every twenty years eight "Statutarii" were appointed to revise the code, and alterations made at other times required the consent of the Congregation, which consisted of all students except citizens of Bologna and a few poor scholars who did not subscribe to the funds of the Universitas. By the time of which we are speaking, the two jurist-universities at Bologna met together in one Congregation, and if a Congregation happens to be held during our Englishman's residence at Bologna, he will find himself bound under serious penalties to attend its session, where he will mix on equal, terms with members of the Cismontane University, listening to, or taking part in, the debates (conducted in Latin) and throwing his black or white bean into the ballot box when a vote is necessary.

Although the city of Bologna never admitted the jurisdiction of a Universitas over citizens of the town, there were some cla.s.ses of citizens whose trade or profession made them virtually its subjects.

Landlords, stationers, and masters or doctors were in a peculiar relation to the universities, which did not fail to use their advantage to the uttermost. If our English student and his socii (p. 024) had any dispute about the rent of their house, there was a compulsory system of arbitration; if he found an error in a MS. which he had hired or purchased from a Bologna bookseller he was bound to report it to a University Board whose duty it was to inspect MSS. offered for sale or hire, and the bookseller would be ordered to pay a fine; he was protected from extortionate prices by a system which allowed the bookseller a fixed profit on a second-hand book. MSS. were freely reproduced by the booksellers' clerks, and were neither scarce nor unduly expensive, although elaborately illuminated MSS. were naturally very valuable. The landlords and the booksellers were kept in proper submission by threats of _interdictio_ or _privatio_. A citizen who offended the University was debarred from all intercourse with students, who were strictly forbidden to hire his house or his books; if a townsman brought a "calumnious accusation" against a student, and disobeyed a rectorial command to desist, he and his children, to the third generation, and all their goods, were to lie under an interdict, "_sine spe rest.i.tutionis_."

_Interdictio_, or discommuning, was also the great weapon which might be employed against the masters of the Studium. The degradation of the masters was a gradual process, and it was never complete. The privileges given by Frederick Barbarossa to Lombard scholars in (p. 025) the middle of the twelfth century included a right of jurisdiction over their pupils, and a Papal Bull of the end of the century speaks of masters and scholars meeting together in congregations. The organisation of the Universitas ultimately confined membership of congregation to students, and the powers of the Rector rendered the magisterial jurisdiction merely nominal. The loss of their privileges is attributed by Canon Rashdall to the att.i.tude they adopted in the early struggles between the munic.i.p.ality and the student-guilds. The doctors, who were citizens of Bologna, allied themselves, he says, "with the City against the students in the selfish effort to exclude from the substantial privileges of the Doctorate all but their own fellow-citizens.... It was through identifying themselves with the City rather than with the scholars that the Doctors of Bologna sank into their strange and undignified servitude to their own pupils."

They made a further mistake in quarrelling with the town--the earliest migrations were migrations of professors--and when, in the middle of the thirteenth century, a permanent _modus vivendi_ was arrived at between the city and the universities, the rights of the doctors received no consideration. Other citizens of Bologna were forbidden to take an oath of obedience to the rectors, but the masters, who, in theory, possessed rights of jurisdiction over their pupils, were, (p. 026) in fact, compelled by the universities to take this oath. Even those of them who received salaries from the town were not exempted. A doctor who refused to take a vow of obedience to the representative of his pupils had no means of collecting his lecture-fees, which remained of some importance even after the introduction of salaries, and he was liable to further punishment at the will of the Rector. The ultimate penalty was _deprivatio_, and when this sentence was p.r.o.nounced, not only were the lectures of the offending doctor boycotted, but all social intercourse with him was forbidden; students must avoid his company in private as well as decline his ministrations in the Studium. His restoration could only be accomplished by a vote of the whole University solemnly a.s.sembled in Congregation.

The oath of obedience was not merely a const.i.tutional weapon kept in reserve for occasional serious disputes; it affected the daily life of the Studium, and the masters were subject to numerous petty indignities, which could not fail to impress our English student if he was familiar with University life in his own country. He would see, with surprise, a doctor's lecture interrupted by the arrival of a University Bedel, as the debates of the House of Commons are interrupted by the arrival of Black Rod, and his instructor would maintain a reverent silence while the Rector's officer delivered some message from the (p. 027) University, or informed the professor of some new regulation. If the learned doctor "cut" a lecture, our student would find himself compelled to inform the authorities of the University, and he would hear of fines inflicted upon the doctors for absence, for lateness, for attracting too small an audience, for omitting portions of a subject or avoiding the elucidation of its difficulties, and for inattention while the "precepta" or "mandata" of the Rector were being read in the schools. He and his fellow-students might graciously grant their master a holiday, but the permission had to be confirmed by the Rector; if a lecture was prolonged a minute after the appointed time, the doctor found himself addressing empty benches. The humiliation of the master's position was increased by the fact that his pupils were always acting as spies upon him, and they were themselves liable to penalties for conniving at any infringement of the regulations on his part. At Bologna, even the privilege of teaching was, to a slight extent, shared by the doctors with their pupils. Lectures were divided into two cla.s.ses, ordinary and extra-ordinary; the ordinary lectures were the duty of the doctors, but senior students (bachelors) were authorised by the Rector to share with the doctors the duty of giving extra-ordinary lectures. There were six chairs, endowed by the (p. 028) city, which were held by students, and the occupant of one of these was ent.i.tled to deliver ordinary lectures. Dr Rashdall finds the explanation of this anomaly in an incident in the fourteenth century history of Bologna, when the Tyrant of the City forbade the professors to teach. The student-chairs were rather endowments for the Rectorship or for poor scholars than serious rivals to the ordinary professorships, and the extra-ordinary lectures delivered by students or bachelors may be regarded as a kind of apprenticeship for future doctors.

There remained one department of the work of the Studium in which our Bologna student would find his masters supreme. The sacred right of examining still belonged to the teachers, even though the essential purpose of the examination was changed. The doctors of Bologna had succeeded in preserving the right to teach as a privilege of Bolognese citizens and even of restricting it, to some extent, to certain families, and the foreign student could not hope to become a professor of his own studium. But the prestige of the University rendered Bolognese students ambitious of the doctorate, and the doctorate had come to mean more than a mere licence to teach. This licence, which had originally been conferred by the doctors themselves, required, after the issue of a Papal Bull in 1219, the consent of the Archdeacon (p. 029) of Bologna, and the Papal grant of the _jus ubique docendi_ in 1292 increased at once the importance of the mastership and of the authority of the Archdeacon, who came to be described as the Chancellor and Head of the Studium. "Graduation," in Dr Rashdall's words, "ceased to imply the mere admission into a private Society of teachers, and bestowed a definite legal status in the eyes of Church and State alike.... The Universities pa.s.sed from merely local into ec.u.menical organisations; the Doctorate became an order of intellectual n.o.bility with as distinct and definite a place in the hierarchical system of medieval Christendom as the Priesthood or the Knighthood." The Archdeacon of Bologna, even when he was regarded as the Chancellor, did not wrest from the college of doctors the right to decide who should be deemed worthy of a t.i.tle which Cardinals were pleased to possess. The licence which he required before admitting a student to the doctorate continued to be conferred by the Bologna doctors after due examination.

We will a.s.sume that our English student has now completed his course of study. He has duly attended the prescribed lectures--not less than three a week. He has gone in the early mornings, when the bell at St Peter's Church was ringing for ma.s.s, to spend some two hours listening to the "ordinary" lecture delivered by a doctor in his own house (p. 030) or in a hired room; his successors a generation or two later would find buildings erected by the University for the purpose. The rest of his morning and an hour or two in the afternoon have also, if he is an industrious student, been devoted to lectures, and he has not been neglectful of private study. He has enjoyed the numerous holidays afforded by the Feasts of the Church, and several vacations in the course of the year, including ten days at Christmas, a fortnight at Easter, and about six weeks in the autumn. After five years of study, if he is a civilian, and four if he is a canonist, the Rector has raised him to the dignity of a Bachelor by permitting him to give "extra-ordinary" lectures--and after two more years spent in this capacity he is ready to proceed to the doctorate. The Rector, having been satisfied by the English representative in his Council that the "doctorand" has performed the whole duty of the Bolognese student, gives him permission to enter for the first or Private Examination, and he again takes the oath of obedience to that dignitary. The doctor under whom he has studied vouches for his competence, and presents him first to the Archdeacon and some days afterwards to the College of Doctors, before whom he takes a solemn oath never to seek admittance into the Bolognese College of Doctors, or to teach, or attempt to perform any of the functions of a doctor, at Bologna. They then (p. 031) give him a pa.s.sage for exposition and send him home. He is followed to his house by his own doctor who hears his exposition in private, and brings him back to the august presence of the College of Doctors and the Archdeacon. Here he treats his thesis and is examined upon it by two or more doctors, who are ordered by the University statutes not to treat any victim of this rigorous and tremendous examination otherwise than if he were their own son, and are threatened with grave penalties, including suspension for a year. The College then votes upon his case, each doctor saying openly and clearly, and without any qualification, "Approbo" or "Reprobo," and if the decision is favourable he is now a Licentiate and has to face only the expensive but not otherwise formidable ordeal of the second or Public Examination. As a newly appointed Scottish judge is, to this day, admitted to his office by trying cases, so the Bologna doctor was admitted to his new dignity by an exercise in lecturing. The idea is common to many medieval inst.i.tutions, and it survived at Bologna, even though the licentiate had, at his private examination, renounced the right of teaching. Our Englishman and his socii go together to the Cathedral, where he states a thesis and defends it against the attacks of other licentiates. His own doctor, known in Bologna (and elsewhere) as the Promoter, (p. 032) presents him to the Chancellor, who confers upon him the _jus ubique docendi_. He is then seated in a master's chair, and the Promotor gives him an open book and a gold ring and (in the terminology of a modern Scottish University) "caps" him with the biretta. He is dismissed with a benediction and the kiss of peace, and is conducted through the town, in triumphal procession, by his friends, to whom he gives a feast.