THE MEANING OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY
[Sidenote: The Oath of the M.A.]
For the last 500 years certainly, for nearly 200 longer probably, the
candidate presented for 'inception' in the Faculty of Arts (i.e. for the
M.A. degree) has sworn that he will observe the 'statutes, privileges,
customs and liberties' of his university.[7] It is difficult to know
what the average man now means when he hurriedly says 'Do fidem' after
the Junior Proctor's charge; but there is no doubt that when the form of
words was first used, it meant much. The candidate was being admitted
into a society which was maintaining a constant struggle against
encroachments, religious or secular, from without, and against unruly
tendencies within. And this struggle gave to the University a vivid
consciousness of its unity, which in these days of peace and quiet can
hardly be conceived.
[Sidenote: What is a University?]
The essential idea of a university is a distinctly mediaeval one; the
Middle Ages were above all things gifted with a genius for organization,
and men were regarded, and regarded themselves, rather as members of a
community than as individuals. The student in classical times had been
free to hear what lectures he pleased, where he pleased, and on what
subjects he pleased, and he had no fixed and definite relations with his
fellow students. There is little or no trace of regular courses of
study, still less of self-governing bodies of students, in the
'universities' of Alexandria or Athens.
But with the revival of interest in learning in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, the real formation of universities begins. The students
formed themselves into organized bodies, with definite laws and courses
of study, both because they needed each other's help and protection, and
because they could not conceive themselves as existing in any other way.
These organized bodies were called 'universitates'[8], i.e. guilds or
associations; the name at first had no special application to bodies of
students, but is applied e.g. to a community of citizens; it was only
gradually that it acquired its later and narrower meaning; it finally
became specialized for a learned corporation, just as 'convent' has been
set apart for a religious body, and 'corps' for a military one.
[Sidenote: The origin of Oxford University.]
When these organized bodies were first formed is a question which it is
impossible to discuss at length here, nor could a definite answer be
given. The University of Oxford is, in this respect, as in so many
others, characteristically English; it grew rather than was made, like
most of our institutions, and it can point to no definite year of
foundation, and to no individual as founder. Here it must suffice to say
that references to students and teachers at Oxford are found with
growing frequency all through the twelfth century; but it is only in the
last quarter of that century that either of those features which
differentiate a university from a mere chance body of students can be
clearly traced. These two features are organized study and the right of
self-government.
The first mention of organized study is about 1184, when Giraldus
Cambrensis, having written his _Topographia Hibernica_ and 'desiring not
to hide his candle under a bushel,' came to Oxford to read it to the
students there; for three days he 'entertained' his audience as well as
read to them, and the poor scholars were feasted on a separate day from
the 'Doctors of the different faculties'. Here we have definite evidence
of organized study. Much more important is the record of 1214 (the year
before Magna Carta[9]), when the famous award was given by the Papal
Legate, which is the oldest charter of the University of Oxford. In this
the 'Chancellor' is mentioned, and we have in this office the beginnings
of that self-government which, coupled with organized study, may justify
us in saying that the real university was now in existence. It is quite
probable that the first Doctor of Divinity whom we find 'incepting' in
Oxford, is the learned and saintly Edmund Rich, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury; he seems to have taken this degree in the reign of John,
but he had been already teaching secular subjects in the preceding reign
(Richard I's). It is significant of mediaeval Oxford's position as a
pillar of the Church and a champion of liberty, that her first traceable
graduate should be the last Archbishop of Canterbury who was canonized,
and one of the defenders of English liberties against the misgovernment
of Henry III.
[Sidenote: The University a Guild of M.A.s.]
The 'University' of Oxford, like the great sister (or might we say
mother?) school of Paris, was an association of Masters of Arts, and
they alone were its proper members. In our own days, when not more than
half of those who enter the University proceed to the M.A. Degree, and
when only about ten per cent. of them reside for any time after the B.A.
course is ended, this state of things seems inconceivable; but it has
left its trace, even in popular knowledge, in the well-known fact that
M.A.s are exempt from Proctorial jurisdiction; and our degree
terminology is still based upon it. It is the M.A. who is admitted by
the Vice-Chancellor to 'begin', i.e. to teach (_ad incipiendum_), when
he is presented to him, and at Cambridge and in American Universities
the ceremonies at the end of the academic year are called
'Commencement'. What seems an Irish bull is really a survival of the
oldest university arrangements.
[Sidenote: The meaning of the 'Degree'.]
As then the University is a guild of Masters, the degree is the 'step'
by which the distinction of becoming a full member of it is attained.
Gibbon wrote a century ago that 'the use of academical degrees is
visibly borrowed from the mechanic corporations, in which an apprentice,
after serving his time, obtains a testimonial of his skill, and his
licence to practise his trade or mystery'. This statement, though
accurate in the main, is misleading; the truth is that the learned body
has not so much borrowed from the 'mechanic' one, as that both have
based their arrangements independently on the same idea.
[Sidenote: A Bachelor of Arts.]
This connexion may be illustrated from the other degree title,
'Bachelor.' If the etymology at present best supported may be accepted,
that honourable term was originally used for a man who worked on a
'cow-strip' of land, i.e. who was assistant of a small cultivator;
whether this be true or not, it at any rate soon came to denote the
apprentice as opposed to the master-workman; in fact the 'Bachelor' in
the university corresponded to the 'pupil-teacher' of more humble
associations in our own days. In this sense of the word, as Dr. Murray
quaintly says, a woman student can become a 'Bachelor' of Arts.
[Sidenote: Two elements in the Degree Ceremony: (1) Consent of existing
M.A.'s.]
It was natural that the existing members of the 'university' or guild
should be consulted as to the admission of new members; their consent
was one element in the degree giving. The means by which the fitness of
applicants for the degree was tested will be spoken of later, and also
the methods by which the existing Masters expressed their willingness to
admit the new-comer among them.
[Sidenote: (2) Outside authority, that of the Church.]
But there is quite a different element in the degree from that which has
so far been mentioned. That was democratic, the consent of the
community; this is autocratic, the authority conferred by a head,
superior to, and outside of the community. The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford
represents this second principle; he gives the degree in virtue of 'his
own authority' as well as of that 'of the University'. This authority is
originally that of the Church, to which, in England at any rate, all
mediaeval students _ipso facto_ belonged; the new student was admitted
into the 'bosom' (_matricula_) of the University by receiving some form
of tonsure, and for the first two centuries of University existence, no
other ceremony was needed. Matriculation examinations at any rate were
in those happy days unknown. Hence the authority which the cathedral
chancellor, representing the bishop, had exercised over the schools and
teachers of the diocese, was extended as a matter of course to the
teachers of the newly-risen Universities. The fitness of the applicant
for a degree was tested by those who had it already, but the
ecclesiastical authority gave the 'licence' to teach. This
ecclesiastical origin of the M.A. degree is well shown in the formula of
admission (pp. 15, 16). The new Master is admitted 'in honorem Domini
nostri Jesu Christi' and 'in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost'.
[Sidenote: The Pope and the Universities.]
The close connexion of the Church and higher education is further
illustrated by the view of the fourteenth-century jurists that a bull
from the Pope or from the Holy Roman Emperor was needed to make a
teaching body a 'Studium Generale', and to give its doctors the _jus
ubique docendi_[10]. A curious survival of the same idea still remains
in the power of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as English Metropolitan,
to recommend the Crown to grant 'Lambeth degrees' to deserving clergy;
this is probably a survival of the old rights of the Archbishop as
'Legatus Natus' in England of the Holy See.
[Sidenote: Survivals in the modern Degree Ceremony.]
There were then two elements in the conferring of a mediaeval degree,
the formal approval of the candidate by the already existing Masters and
the granting of the 'licence' by the Chancellor.
Of these the 'licence' is fully retained in our present ceremony; the
new M.A. receives permission (_licentia_) from the Vice-Chancellor to
'do all that belongs to the status of a Master', when 'the requirements
of the statutes have been fulfilled'. This condition is now meaningless,
for he has already fulfilled all 'the requirements'; but in mediaeval
times it referred to the second (and what was really the most important)
part of his qualifications, his appearance at the solemn 'Act' or
ceremony which was the chief event of the University year. At it Masters
and Doctors formally showed that they were able to perform the functions
of their new rank, and were then 'admitted' to it by investiture with
the 'cap' of authority, with the 'ring', and with the 'kiss' of peace;
the kiss was given by the Senior Proctor; the ring was the symbol of the
inceptor's mystical marriage to his science. The 'Act' in our day only
survives as giving a name to one of our two Summer Terms, which still
have a place in the University Calendar, and in the requirements of
'twelve terms of residence', although only nine real terms are kept. Its
disappearance was gradual; already in 1654, when John Evelyn attended
the 'Act' at St. Mary's, he expresses surprise at 'those ancient
ceremonies and institution (_sic_) being as yet not wholly abolished';
but the 'Act' survived into another century, although becoming more and
more of a form; it is last mentioned in 1733. With the ceremony
disappeared the formal exhibition of the candidate's fitness for the
degree he is seeking.
[Sidenote: The Master in Grammar.]
But in the mediaeval University it had been far otherwise. The idea that
a degree was formally taken by the applicant showing himself competent
for it, may be well illustrated from the quaint ceremony of admitting a
Master in Grammar at Cambridge, as described by the Elizabethan Esquire
Bedel, Mr. Stokys: 'The Bedel in Arts shall bring the Master in Grammar
to the Vice-Chancellor, delivering him a palmer with a rod, which the
Vice-Chancellor shall give to the said Master in Grammar, and so create
him Master. Then shall the Bedel purvey for every Master in Grammar a
shrewd boy, whom the Master in Grammar shall beat openly in the Schools,
and he shall give the boy a groat for his labour, and another groat to
him that provideth the rod and the palmer. And thus endeth the Act in
that faculty.' It may be added that the Vice-Chancellor and each of the
Proctors received a 'bonnet', but only one, however many 'Masters' might
be incepting. In Oxford likewise the 'Master in Grammar' was created
'_ferula_ (i.e. palmer) _et virgis_'.
[Sidenote: The Disputations at the Act.]
The Oxford M.A. had to show his qualifications in a way less painful,
though as practical, by publicly attacking or defending theses solemnly
approved for discussion by Congregation. These theses were themselves by
no means always solemn, e.g. one of those appointed in 1600 was 'an uxor
perversa humanitate potius quam asperitate sanetur?' ('whether a shrew
is better cured by kindness or by severity'). This question, obviously
suggested by Shakespeare's _Taming of the Shrew_, which was written soon
after 1594, was answered by the incepting M.A.s in the opposite sense to
the dramatist. It need hardly be said that all the disputations were in
Latin. The Doctors too of the different faculties were created at the
'Act' after disputations on subjects connected with their faculty.
Something resembling these disputations still survives in a shadowy form
at Oxford, in the requirements for the degrees of B.D. and D.D. A
candidate for the B.D. has to read in the Divinity School two theses on
some theological subject approved by the Regius Professor, a candidate
for the D.D. has to read and expound three passages of Holy Scripture;
in both cases notice has to be given beforehand of the subject, a custom
which survives from the time when the candidate might expect to have his
theses disputed; but now the Regius Professor and the candidate
generally have the Divinity School to themselves.
All the ceremonies of the 'Act' have passed away from Oxford
completely.[11] They are only referred to here as serving to illustrate
the idea that a new Master was not admitted till he had performed a
'masterpiece', i.e. done a piece of work such as a Master might be
expected to do. There was till quite recently one last trace of them in
our degree arrangements; a new M.A. was not admitted to the privileges
of his office till the end of the term in which he had been 'licensed to
incept'; although the University, having given up the 'Act', allowed no
opportunity of 'incepting', an interval was left in which the ceremony
might have taken place. Now, however, for purposes of practical
convenience, even this form is dropped, and a new M.A. enters on his
privileges, e.g. voting in Convocation, &c., as soon as he has been
licensed by the Vice-Chancellor. Strictly speaking an Oxford man never
takes his M.A., for there is no ceremony of institution; he is
'licensed' to take part in a ceremony which has ceased to exist.
[Sidenote: The Encaenia.]
And yet in another form the 'Act' survives in our familiar
Commemoration; the relation of this to the 'Act' seems to be somewhat as
follows. The Sheldonian Theatre was opened, as will be described later
(p. 81), with a great literary and musical performance, a 'sort of
dedication of the Theatre'; this was called 'Encaenia'.[12] So pleased
was the University with the performance that the Chancellor next year
(1670) ordered that it should be repeated annually, on the Friday before
the 'Act'. From the very first there was a tendency to confuse the two
ceremonies; even the accurate antiquarian, Antony Wood, speaks of music
as part of 'the Act', which was really performed at the preliminary
gathering, the Encaenia. The new function gradually grew in importance,
and additions were made to it; the munificent Lord Crewe, prince-bishop
of Durham, who enjoys an unenviable immortality in the pages of
Macaulay, and a more fragrant if less lasting memory in Besant's
charming romance _Dorothy Forster_, left some of his great wealth for
the Creweian Oration, in which annual honour is done to the University
Benefactors at the Commemoration.
Hence, while the customs of the 'Act' became more and more meaningless
and neglected, the Encaenia became more and more popular, until finally
the older ceremony was merged in the newer one. In our Commemoration
degree-giving still takes place, along with recitation of prize poems
and the paying of honour to benefactors. The degrees are all honorary,
but they are submitted to the House in the same way as ordinary degrees;
the Vice-Chancellor puts the question to the Convocation, just as the
Proctor submits the 'grace' to Congregation, and in theory a vote is
taken on the creation of the new D.C.L.s, just as in theory the Proctors
take the votes as to the admission of new M.A.s.
Commemoration may be, as John Richard Green said, 'Oxford in
masquerade'; there may be 'grand incongruities, Abyssinian heroes robed
in literary scarlet, degrees conferred by the suffrages of virgins in
pink bonnets and blue, a great academical ceremony drowned in an
atmosphere of Aristophanean (_sic_) chaff'. But the chaff is the
legitimate successor of the burlesque performance of the Terrae Filius
at the old 'Act', and the degrees are submitted to the House with the
old formula; even the presence of ladies would have been no surprise to
our predecessors of 200 years ago, however much they would have
astonished our mediaeval founders and benefactors; in the Sheldonian
from the first the gallery under the organ was always set apart for
'ladies and gentlewomen'. 'Oxford', to quote J.R. Green once again, 'is
simply young', but when he goes on to say 'she is neither historic nor
theological nor academical', he exaggerates; the charm of Oxford lies in
the fact that her youth is at home among survivals historic,
theological, and academical; and the old survives while the new
flourishes.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: The form is found in the two 'Proctors' books', of which
the oldest, that of the Junior Proctor, was drawn up (in 1407) by
Richard Fleming, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln and founder of Lincoln
College; but it was then already an established form, and probably goes
back to the thirteenth century, i.e. to the reign of Henry III.]
[Footnote 8: It is perhaps still necessary to emphasize the fact that
the name 'University' had nothing to do with the range of subjects
taught, or with the fact that instruction was offered to all students;
the latter point is expressed in the earlier name 'studium generale'
borne by universities, which is not completely superseded by
'universitas' till the fifteenth century.]
[Footnote 9: The coincidence is not accidental. Magna Carta was wrested
from a king humiliated by his submission to the Pope, and the University
Charter was given to redress an act of violence on the part of the
Oxford citizens, who had been stimulated in their attack on the 'clerks'
of Oxford by John's quarrel with the Pope.]
[Footnote 10: Oxford never received this Papal ratification; but as its
claim to be a 'studium generale' was indisputable, it, like Padua, was
recognized as a 'general seat of study' 'by custom'. The University of
Paris, however, at one time refused to admit Oxford graduates to teach
without re-examination, and Oxford retorted (the Papal bull in favour of
Paris notwithstanding) by refusing to recognize the rights of the Paris
doctors to teach in her Schools.]
[Footnote 11: In the Scotch Universities Doctors are still created by
'_birettatio_', the laying on of the cap, and I believe this is still
done at many 'Commencements' in America.]
[Footnote 12: Compare St. John x. 22, [Greek: enkainia] = 'The Feast of
the Dedication'.]