Universities
Now, just as the tide flows and ebbs, so in England did interest in
learning rise and fall during the Middle Ages. Schools of all kinds
had their good times and their bad times. Sometimes we find the
thirst for learning being shown in one direction; then it almost
died away for a time, revived again, and took another direction.
At first we see it going in the direction of making monks and
priests and missionaries; then in that of making able men who could
take part in the civil business of the manor, the town, and the
country; and then, in the thirteenth century, it began again to
take a turn towards learning for learning's sake.
As we get near to the thirteenth century, we find the beginnings of
our English universities. A university was a corporation or body of
learned men who bound themselves together to teach, and who got the
sole right of appointing teachers in their districts. A man could
only have leave to teach after his knowledge and ability had been
well tried by them; and when that leave was given he was said to
take his degree.
The opportunity of getting wider knowledge and higher teaching
attracted scholars, lads and young men who had had their early
teaching in the small colleges and grammar-schools. They were
encouraged and in many ways helped to go to the university. Gifts
were left to their old schools to help the likely boys to go to the
university; many of the monasteries and colleges sent their pupils
there, and it was looked upon as a pious work and a work of mercy
to help poor scholars in this way.
Scholars flocked in hundreds to various universities, and we find
Oxford and Cambridge rising as university towns. We cannot say
exactly when this began, but we read that in King John's reign, in
the year 1209, there was a great "town and gown" riot at Oxford.
Three of the gownsmen were hanged as a punishment; so about three
thousand of the rest left Oxford and went to other universities,
and Oxford was deserted for a time. These facts show that by the
beginning of the thirteenth century, just when the Early English
style of architecture was coming into fashion, universities, with
their "higher education", were very important institutions.
[Illustration: _Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College, Oxford,
founded 1283_
_From a drawing made in 1673, when a considerable portion of the
thirteenth-century building still remained little altered._]
At first it seems that the scholars at the university lived in the
town, where they chose or where they could, attending the various
lecture-halls. Then various people seem to have hit upon the plan
of setting up houses in the town, and letting the rooms to the
scholars, so that a number of them might live together. Thus they
were divided up into different sets. These houses were called
hostels, and we find them at Cambridge in the beginning of the
thirteenth century.
Early, too, in this same century a new religious order found its
way to England--the Friars. The Dominican Friars were a very
learned teaching order, and when they settled at Oxford they
greatly strengthened the work of the university and kept it alive
and active.
A Surrey man, Walter de Merton, Chancellor and Bishop of Rochester,
was the inventor or founder of colleges at the universities such as
we know them to-day. In the hostels the scholars did pretty much as
they pleased, chose their own officers, and made their own rules.
There was much disorder after a while; many quarrels and fights
took place between one hostel and another, as well as with the
townsfolk. Merton spent twelve years in thinking out his plan, and
at last, in the year 1264, he founded or established the first of
the Oxford Colleges.
The old monasteries and colleges in the early times had been
founded to keep up a continual round of worship, work, and
learning; the special work of these new colleges was to promote
learning and fellowship. In many ways they were like the older
convents; but the work of education was the chief object of these
new foundations, and we find teachers and taught, governors and
pupils, living under the same roof, under rule and order.
[Illustration: CLOISTER QUADRANGLE, MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD]
Merton's idea was soon afterwards followed at Cambridge, where
Peterhouse was opened in the year 1284. During this century, too,
we find a rival university springing up at Stamford; in fact in
the year 1333 a number of masters and scholars left Oxford for
Stamford; but, owing to the opposition of Oxford and Cambridge,
it was gradually snuffed out, though there are still standing
some interesting buildings which were connected with it. College
after college, at both Oxford and Cambridge, has been founded since
then; each one has its own special laws and government, which have
been altered from time to time. For many centuries now Oxford and
Cambridge have been cities of colleges, and these "ancient seats of
learning" are quite unlike any other places in the country.
[Illustration: _Gownsman of Fifteenth Century. From an old print
of Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford_]
Many old customs are kept up still at Oxford and Cambridge; the
scholars and officials of the colleges and universities go about in
their gowns, as they have done for centuries, and each university
has still rights and privileges in the government of the town which
have naturally come to it in the course of time. The town and the
townsfolk have their special interests and government; so that
there are two authorities, side by side, responsible for law and
order. The gown and the town depend upon each other; and in days
gone by they have, times without number, misunderstood each other,
and quarrelled, and fought.
In the reign of King Edward III Oxford was the most famous seat of
learning in Europe. Many of its students were foreigners, but, as
everyone could talk Latin as well as he could his native language,
they had no real difficulty in making themselves understood.
Within the last hundred years, in order to meet modern
requirements, universities have been founded at Durham, London,
Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Bristol.