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The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature
LIFE IN THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C. 4
C. F. CLAY, Manager
[Illustration: Arms]
New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
Toronto: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
Tokyo: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: The Student's Progress (From Gregor Reisch's _Margarita
philosophica_, Edition of 1504, Strassburg)]
LIFE IN THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY
BY
ROBERT S. RAIT, M.A.
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1918
_First Edition, 1912_
_Reprinted 1918_
_With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design
on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest
known Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521._
NOTE ON THE FRONTISPIECE
In this picture the schoolboy is seen arriving with his satchel and
being presented with a hornbook by Nicostrata, the Latin muse
Carmentis, who changed the Greek alphabet into the Latin. She admits
him by the key of _congruitas_ to the House of Wisdom ("Wisdom hath
builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars," _Proverbs_
ix. 1). In the lowest story he begins his course in Donatus under a
Bachelor of Arts armed with the birch; in the next he is promoted to
Priscian. Then follow the other subjects of the _Trivium_ and the
_Quadrivium_ each subject being represented by its chief
exponent--logic by Aristotle, arithmetic by Boethius, geometry by
Euclid, etc. Ptolemy, the philosopher, who represents astronomy, is
confused with the kings of the same name. Pliny and Seneca represent
the more advanced study of physical and of moral science respectively,
and the edifice is crowned by Theology, the long and arduous course
for which followed that of the Arts. Its representative in a medieval
treatise is naturally Peter Lombard.
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 illustrations of medieval student life have been
derived. I owe special gratitude 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._
CONTENTS
Chapter I--INTRODUCTORY
Chaucer and the Medieval Student -- The Great Period of
University-Founding -- The words "Universitas," "Collegium,"
"Studium Generale" -- Bologna -- Growth of Studia Generalia
-- Paris, Oxford, Cambridge -- Definition of "Universitas"..... 1
Chapter II--LIFE IN THE STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES
Student-Guilds at Bologna -- "Nations" -- The College of
Doctors -- Relations with the City -- Position of an English
Law Student at Bologna, and his relations to his Nation and
his Universitas -- The Office of Rector -- Powers of the
University over Citizens -- The Degradation of the Bologna
Masters -- Examinations -- The Doctorate -- Regulations --
Padua -- Limitations of the Rector's Powers at Florence --
Spanish Universities -- Married Dons.......................... 13
Chapter III--THE UNIVERSITIES OF MASTERS
Early History of the University of Paris -- Faculties --
"Nations" -- Struggle with the Chancellor -- Position of the
Rector -- Oxford --"Nations" -- The Proctors -- University
Jurisdiction -- Germany -- Scotland........................... 41
Chapter IV--COLLEGE DISCIPLINE
Origin of the College System -- Merton -- Imitations of the Merton
Rule -- New College -- Increase in Number of Regulations
--Latin-Speaking -- Conversation in Hall -- Meals -- College Rooms --
Amusements -- Penalties -- Introduction of Corporal Punishment --The
Tonsure -- Attendance at Chapel -- Vacations -- Hospitality -- The
Career of an English Student -- Meaning of "Poor and Indigent
Scholars" -- The College System at Paris -- Sconcing -- Other French
Universities -- A Visitation of a Medieval College............ 49
Chapter V--UNIVERSITY DISCIPLINE
Growth of Disciplinary Regulations at Paris and Oxford --Records of
the Chancellor's Court -- Discipline in Unendowed Halls -- Academic
Dress restricted to Graduates -- Louvain -- Leipsic -- Leniency of
Punishments -- The Scottish Universities -- Table Manners at Aberdeen
-- Life at Heidelberg......................................... 94
Chapter VI--THE "JOCUND ADVENT"
Admission of the Bajan at Paris -- The Universities of
Southern France -- The Abbas Bejanorum -- The "Jocund
Advent" in Germany -- the "Depositio" -- Oxford -- Scotland.. 109
Chapter VII--TOWN AND GOWN
Vienna -- St Scholastica's Day at Oxford -- Assaults by
Members of the University -- Records of the "Acta Rectorum"
at Leipsic -- Parisian Scholars and the Monks of St Germain.. 124
Chapter VIII--SUBJECTS OF STUDY, LECTURES, EXAMINATIONS
Instruction given in Latin -- Preparation for the University
--Grammar Masters -- French taught at Oxford -- The "Act" in
Grammar --The Seven Liberal Arts and the Three Philosophies
-- Text-books -- Ordinary and Cursory Lectures -- Methods of
Lecturing -- Repetitions and Disputations -- University and
College Teaching -- Examinations at Paris, Louvain, and
Oxford -- The Determining Feast -- Walter Paston at Oxford... 133
APPENDIX..................................................... 157
BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................. 159
INDEX........................................................ 163
LIFE IN THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY (p. 001)
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 classical 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
assigned 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 noble 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 municipalities. To attempt to indicate the
various causes and conditions which, in different countries, led to
the growth, in numbers and in wealth, of institutions 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
institutional 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
constitutions 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
association. 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 municipal
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 association,
and, unlike the sister term University, it has never become restricted
to a scholastic association. 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
institutions 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 constitution,
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 assuming 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 title 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 title 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 association 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 classify
than the constitutions of living societies; a constitution which one
man might regard as a modification of the constitution of Bologna
would be in the opinion of another more correctly described as a
modification of the constitution of Paris, and a development in the
constitution of a University might be held to have altered its
fundamental position and to transfer it from one class 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 institutions 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.