_CHAPTER XIII._

PARIS AND THE FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES.

A.D. 1150 TO 1250.

The modern visitor to Paris who finds his way to that portion of

the city lying on the southern bank of the river, which still bears

the name of the _Quartier de l’Université_, sees himself surrounded

by buildings, many of which bear unmistakably the character of

their original destination. He stands, in fact, amid the _débris_

of the old university of Paris, the schools and colleges of which

were clustered for the most part about the Mont St. Geneviève, and

occupied an entire suburb, which was first enclosed within the city

walls by Philip Augustus. That monarch, passionately desirous to

increase the splendour of his capital, and at the same time to afford

larger space for the accommodation of the crowds of students, whose

numbers are said to have exceeded those of the citizens themselves,

added a large district, which in the year 1200 presented a fair

expanse of fields and vineyards, interspersed with churches, houses,

and farms, but in which you would vainly have sought for any of those

magnificent and semi-monastic structures which we are accustomed

to associate with the idea of a university. Colleges, in fact, had

as yet no existence at Paris, and the university consisted of an

assemblage, not of stately buildings, but of masters and scholars

gathered out of every European land.

It is no easy matter to convey an idea of the enthusiasm with which

the Paris schools were regarded at the beginning of the thirteenth

century. No one, whatever might be his country, could pretend to any

consideration who had not studied there in his youth; if you met

a priest or doctor, whose skill in letters you desired to praise,

it was enough to say, “one would think he had passed his whole

life in Paris.” It was, to use the expression of Gregory IX., the

_Cariath-sepher_, or city of letters,[168] which drew to itself the

intellectual wealth of Christendom. “Whatever a nation has that is

most precious,” writes William of Brittany, the chaplain of Philip

Augustus, in his poem of the _Philipide_, “whatever a people has

most famous, all the treasures of science and all the riches of

the earth; lessons of wisdom, the glory of letters, nobility of

thought, refinement of manners, all this is to be found in Paris.”

Others declared, in yet more pompous language, that neither Egypt

nor Athens could be compared to the modern capital, which was, they

said, the very fountain-head of wisdom, the tree of life in the midst

of the terrestrial paradise, the torch of the house of the Lord.

The exile who had once tasted of its delights no longer regretted

his banishment from his own land; and, in truth, the beauty of the

city, its light elastic atmosphere, the grace and gaiety of its

inhabitants, and the society of all that was most choice in wit

and learning, rendered it no less fascinating a residence in the

thirteenth century as the capital of learning than it has since

become as the metropolis of fashion.

To these attractions were added the advantages which the Parisian

students enjoyed in virtue of their privileges. I have already spoken

of the diploma granted by Philip Augustus, and its provisions were

greatly enlarged by subsequent monarchs. Philip le Bel ordered that

the goods of students should never be seized for debt, and they were

also exempt from taxes. If a French scholar travelled, all farmers

were obliged to supply him with horses at a reasonable rate of hire.

Artisans were not allowed to annoy him with unpleasant odours or

noises, and on complaint being made of such nuisances, they had to

remove themselves out of his neighbourhood. The rights of citizenship

were likewise enjoyed by the members of all the French universities,

and in those days this involved many important exemptions.

Scholarship was, in short, regarded as an honourable profession,

something which almost conferred on its possessor a patent of

nobility; the new master of arts had lighted flambeaux carried

before him in the public streets, and the conferring of a doctor’s

degree was an event which caused as much stir as the dubbing of a

knight. Nay, in those days, so permeated with the romantic spirit of

chivalry, scholars were not unfrequently spoken of as “the knights

of science,” and the disputation at which some youthful aspirant

contended for the doctor’s cap was regarded as the intellectual

tournament.

Yet, there was another side to this brilliant picture, and one

plainly discerned by those whose calmer judgment would not suffer

itself to be deceived as to the perils which awaited so many young

and ardent minds, exposed without restraint or guidance to the

manifold temptations, both moral and intellectual, that awaited

them in that busy throng. “O Paris!” exclaims Peter of the Cells,

in a letter to one of his monks who had been sent thither to study,

“resort of every vice, source of every disorder, thou dart of hell;

how dost thou pierce the heart of the unwary!” John, the young monk

whom he addresses, had, it would seem, deplored the new scenes amid

which he found himself as painfully out of harmony with his monastic

training. “Who but yourself,” replies the abbot, “would not reckon

this Paris to be a very Eden, a land of first-fruits and flowers? Yet

you have spoken truly, though in jest, for the place which is richest

in bodily pleasures miserably enslaves the soul. So, at least, thinks

my John, and rightly therefore does he call it a place of exile. May

you always so esteem it, and hasten home to your true country, where

in the book of life you will find, not figures and elements, but

Divinity and Truth itself. O happy school of Christ! where He teaches

our heart with the word of power, where the book is not purchased nor

the Master paid. There life avails more than learning, and simplicity

than science. There none are refuted save those who are for ever

rejected; and one word of final judgment, _Ite_ or _Venite_, decides

all questions and all cavils for ever. Would that men would apply

themselves to these studies rather than to so many vain discourses;

they would find more abundant fruit and more availing honour.”

In these words we see the distrust with which the representatives of

the old learning regarded the rising university system, contrasting

as it did so strangely with the claustral discipline in which they

had themselves been reared. Nor can it be denied that the fair

outside of the great city concealed a monstrous mass of deformity.

James de Vitry, who had himself been a student, gives a frightful

picture of the vices which were fostered in a society drawn from

every rank and every country, and associated together without moral

discipline of any kind, at an age when the passions were least

subject to restraint. The very sense of moral rectitude, he says,

seems to have been lost. A profuse extravagance was encouraged by the

example of the more wealthy students, and those who lived frugally,

or practised piety, were ridiculed as misers and hypocrites.

There was at that time no provision for the accommodation of the

students in halls or hospices; they lodged in the houses of the

citizens wherever they could secure the cheapest entertainment.

Not unfrequently the very schools of the masters were held in the

upper story of some house, the groundfloor of which was the resort

of the most abandoned characters.[169] There was no common table;

but the students dined at taverns where they often associated with

the worst companions, and indulged in the lowest excesses, and the

jealousy between “town and gown” continually broke out in disgraceful

quarrels, terminating not unfrequently in bloodshed. As most of those

engaged in these affrays were clerics, and as the striking of a

cleric brought on the guilty party the sentence of excommunication,

the results of these disorders were exceedingly grave. It became

necessary to grant extraordinary powers to the university officers,

and to prohibit the scholars from bearing arms, a prohibition

grounded on the atrocious crimes with which they stood charged; and

which at one time threatened to bring about the total extinction of

the university. For the magistrates having proceeded to revenge a

certain riot which had arisen out of a tavern quarrel, by ill-judged

acts of severity, both masters and scholars resolved to abandon the

city; nor did they return till the wise and timely interference of

Pope Gregory IX. brought about a reconciliation between the civil and

academic authorities.

The university, in fact, presented the spectacle, at that time new

in Christendom, of a system of education which aimed at informing

the intellect without disciplining the soul. Its work was done in

the lecture room, where alone the master exercised any authority,

and the only tie existing between him and his disciples was the

salary paid by one party and received by the other. In addition to

the dangers incident to this state of uncontrolled liberty, were

the more subtle temptations to pride and presumption which beset a

man in the schools. Mere youths were sometimes seen promoted to the

professor’s chair, and seeking to win a passing popularity by the

promulgation of some new extravagance, an abuse which led to the

passing of an ordinance forbidding any one to teach Theology before

he had attained the age of twenty-five. But the teaching of the

professors was influenced by other peculiarities in their position.

“The university doctors,” says Fleury, “were doctors, and they were

nothing more. Exclusively engaged with theoretic views, they had

leisure to write at great length on the most frivolous questions; and

plentiful occasions were thus ministered of quarrel and dispute.” And

he proceeds to notice the contrast between such a system and that of

earlier ages, when the teachers of the Church were for the most part

bishops, engaged in the duties of their pastoral charge, and able

to support their doctrines with the weight of practical experience.

The character of the new professors is drawn severely enough in

the curious poem of Architrenius,[170] which was written towards

the close of the twelfth century by John de Hauteville, an English

monk of St. Albans. Architrenius, the hero, is supposed to travel

through the world, trying various states and conditions, and finding

vanity and emptiness in all of them; at last he comes to Paris, and

devotes a whole book to describing the vanity of the masters, and the

miseries of their disciples. He depicts the negligent and squalid

appearance of the poor scholars, their ragged dress, uncombed hair,

bad lodging and hard beds. After spending half the night in study,

he says, they are roused at daybreak and forced to hurry to the

school, where the master treats them rudely, and where they have to

endure the mortification of seeing others of less merit rewarded, and

themselves passed over with neglect. He goes on to describe the hill

of presumption which he peoples with doctors and scholastics, gifted

with far less learning than conceit, and concludes, that the schools

are as full of vanity and disappointment as the rest of the world.

The sufferings of the poor scholars, which Architrenius so

graphically describes, were destined, however, to bring about a

most beneficial change in the university system, by being the

chief occasion of the foundation of hospices and colleges, the

multiplication of which, and their organisation under regular

discipline, in time applied a remedy to the worst of the existing

evils. From a very early date, the relief and support of poor

scholars had been recognised as a meritorious work of charity; it

formed one of the favourite devotions of the two kings, Robert the

Pious and Lewis the Young, the former of whom attempted something

in the shape of a hospital to receive them. How miserable their

condition was, we may gather from the benefaction of the good knight

Jocius de Londonne, who, returning from the Holy Land in 1171, found

some poor scholars miserably lodged in the Hôtel-Dieu, and gave money

to provide them with beds, and a small monthly alms, on condition

of their carrying the Cross and Holy-water at the funeral of those

who died in the hospital, and repeating the Penitential Psalms for

the repose of their souls. The earliest establishment actually made

for their reception appears to have been the Hospice of St. Thomas

of Canterbury, founded in the twelfth century by Robert Dreux. It

embraced a number of other charitable works, and was administered by

canons who were under religious vows, the scholars being governed

by a provost of their own. Other colleges gradually arose, some for

scholars of particular nations, as those of the Danes and Swedes;

others for separate dioceses. One of the earliest foundations was

the College of Constantinople, founded by Baldwin of Flanders,

shortly after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, for the

education of young Greeks in the orthodox faith. Chapels were opened

in connection with these colleges so early as 1248, in which year we

find Pope Innocent IV. granting permission for such a chapel to be

attached to the college _des Bons Enfants_. But the collegiate system

became more thoroughly established by the influence of the Religious

Orders, who very soon found themselves obliged to open religious

houses in connection with the university, for the education of their

own students. These houses of studies afforded the young religious

the regular discipline of the old monastic schools, combined with

the advantages of university education; and their example made it a

necessity to provide similar protection for the secular students.

The Trinitarian Order, founded by one of the most illustrious of

the Parisian doctors, and largely recruited from the ranks of his

co-professors, was naturally the first to associate itself to the

university, out of whose bosom it had sprung; and so early as the

year 1209, we find the friars in possession of the Church of St.

Maturin, which was ordinarily used by the university as their place

of assembly. Next to them came the Dominicans and Franciscans, the

former of whom owed their establishment in Paris to the good will

of the university authorities, who made over to them certain claims

they possessed on the Hospital of St. James, which had been granted

to the new comers by the good doctor, John of St. Quentin. A little

later, the College of the Bernardines was founded by Stephen of

Lexington, an Englishman who had been a pupil of St. Edmund, and

who in 1242 became abbot of Clairvaux. Strictly contemplative as

was the rule of the Cistercians, it did not exclude the cultivation

of sacred studies. It aimed rather at restoring monastic life to

the ancient Benedictine type, in which, as we have seen, the homely

labours of husbandry were mingled with those of the scriptorium. The

Cistercians, whilst they laboured to bring back religious poverty

and simplicity into the cloister, always showed themselves hearty

encouragers of learning. St. Stephen Harding had himself set on

foot that great copy of the Bible, long preserved at Citeaux, which

was corrected with the utmost precision after being collated with

a vast number of manuscripts, several learned Jews being consulted

by the abbot on the Hebrew text. To procure a correct version of

the Gregorian Antiphonary, he sent all the way to Metz, trusting to

obtain a sight of the copy laid up there by Charlemagne. The library

at Citeaux was rich in the works of the Fathers, though the outside

of the books exhibited nothing of that costly ornament on which the

skill of monastic binders and jewellers was elsewhere expended. The

early Cistercians were connected very closely with some of the best

Paris scholars, such as William of Champeaux, the friend of St.

Stephen, and after his elevation to the episcopate, the diocesan of

St Bernard. In England their ranks had been largely recruited from

the University of Oxford, and their monastery of Rievaux was famous

at home and abroad for its school of learning. Stephen of Lexington

was not, therefore, departing from the traditions of his order in

considering that the maintenance of sacred studies was a necessity of

the times. Two years after his election he obtained permission from

Pope Innocent IV. to begin the erection of a college at Paris for

the young monks of his order; but the proposal was very unfavourably

received by the other Benedictine houses who saw in it the break-up

of the old monastic system of studies. The conservative spirit which

was roused among them is discernible in the complaints of Matthew

Paris, who laments over the contempt with which a proud world is

beginning to regard the old Benedictine monks. “This new institution

of colleges,” he says, “is not, that we can see, derived from the

rule of St. Benedict; on the contrary, we read that _he_ quitted the

schools to retire into the desert.”

Stephen, however, persevered in his design; he was aware that the

contempt with which the monks were so frequently treated, both by the

secular doctors and the new orders of friars, was grounded on the

charge of their illiteracy, and he therefore believed it essential

to provide his monks with better means of education than, under the

altered state of things, they were now able to command in their

claustral schools. His design was crowned with perfect success.

Not only did the College of the Bernardines become illustrious for

its good scholarship, but the conduct of its religious shed a good

odour of edification over the whole university, and ten years after

its foundation, Matthew Paris himself bore honourable witness to

the holy example of the monks, which, he said, “gave pleasure to

God and man.” For Stephen there was reserved the reward of disgrace

and humiliation. The Chapter-General of Citeaux deposed him from

his office in 1255, instigated, says Matthew Paris, by envy for the

superior merits of an Englishman. Whatever were the cause of his

disgrace, it gave him an opportunity of proving that his adoption

of what had seemed an innovation on established customs, sprang out

of no defect in the religious spirit. He refused to accept of the

protection offered him by the Pope, in favour of which he might have

been reinstated in his dignity, and preferred spending the rest of

his days as a private religious, entirely occupied with his own

sanctification.

The example of the Bernardines was quickly followed by other

religious orders. The Carmelites took up their station at the foot of

Mt. St. Geneviève, the Augustinians in the Quartier Montmartre. The

old Benedictines, or Black Monks, had their college near the abbey

of St. Germain, and the Carthusians received from St. Louis a grant

of the royal Chateau de Vauverd. The monks of the latter order were

indeed prohibited by their rule from attending in the schools, but

the object of their establishment so near the capital is expressly

stated to have been, that they might profit by the salutary streams

of doctrine which flowed forth from the city of letters. To these

must be added the monks of Cluny and Marmoutier, the former of whom

provided their students with lecturers within their own cloisters;

and a new Institute originally founded by four doctors of theology,

who in 1201 gave up their academic honours and pursuits, and, smitten

with that desire of poverty and obscurity which not unfrequently

overtakes men in the very zenith of their popularity and success,

retired to a wild valley in the diocese of Langres, and assumed the

religious habit of the Canons Regular of St. Victor. Here they were

soon joined by other professors and scholars, till their numbers

rendered it impossible for them to find subsistence in the desolate

wildness they had chosen, exposed to the fury of the mountain

torrents, and the falling of precipitous rocks. They, therefore,

removed in 1224 to a more fertile valley, which obtained the name

of the Val d’Ecoliers, a title afterwards bestowed on the new order

itself. Five years later they opened a house of studies in Paris,

and the Church of St. Catherine was built for them at the charge of

a certain knight, in fulfilment of a vow he had taken at the battle

of Bouvines, the young St. Louis laying the first stone with his own

hand.

The bishops were not slow to follow the example set them by the

monastics; and indeed they, more than others, felt the necessity of

providing in some way or other for the training of their clerks. It

was vain to think of competing with the university in the cathedral

schools; and, on the other hand, what was to be hoped from a secular

clergy, formed in no higher school of discipline than that which

James of Vitry has described? Colleges, therefore, where the young

clerics might be reared in ecclesiastical habits, were, strictly

speaking, essential; and, accordingly, we find them established

for the clergy of different dioceses, as those of Laon, Narbonne,

and Bayeux. In these the scholars lived in common, celebrated the

Divine Office, had appointed hours of study and recreation, and were

governed and watched over by regents. In fact, says Fleury, “they

were so many little seminaries;” differing in many respects, and

doubtless, far inferior to those old ecclesiastical schools which

had been established in the bishop’s house, wherein the young clerks

grew up under the eye, and were trained by the lips of their chief

pastor; yet still schools of discipline, the good results of which

were so apparent that, erelong, every country which followed the

Latin rite adopted the system which had begun in France and Italy.

The most famous of all the secular colleges was that of the Sorbonne,

the founder of which, Robert of Sorbonne, was chaplain to St. Louis.

Crevier calls it the greatest ornament of the university, and from

very humble beginnings it came at last to be regarded as the first

theological school in the Christian world. In it were afterwards

founded no fewer than seven Chairs of Theology; namely, those of

the Reader, of Contemplative, and Positive Theology, of the Holy

Scriptures, of Casuistry, of Controversial Divinity, and of the

Interpretation of the Hebrew Text.

Gradually, but surely, the university freed itself from the chaotic

disorder of its first beginnings, and assumed the form of a great

institution, governed by regular laws and invested with vast powers

and privileges. At the period of its complete development, it was

composed of seven companies; namely, the Faculties of Theology, Law,

and Medicine, and the four nations of France, Picardy, Normandy, and

England. These four nations together formed the Faculty of Arts, but

each had a separate vote in the affairs of the university. The Rector

was chosen by the nations out of the Faculty of Arts, the other

faculties being governed by their deans.

An immense benefit was conferred on the University by Innocent

III., who had himself studied at Paris at a time when the want of

discipline was most severely felt. He was the first to supply his

Alma Mater with a body of academic statutes; which were promulgated

in 1215 by his legate, Robert de Courçon, an Englishman by birth,

and a man of piety and learning. They embraced the whole discipline

of the schools, regulating the conditions on which everyone was

to be admitted to teach, the books that were to be read and those

that were prohibited. No one was to profess arts before the age

of twenty-one, or without having previously studied for six years

under some approved master. He must bear a good reputation, and

before commencing his lectures, was to undergo an examination

according to certain rules. The books he was to read were to be the

“Dialectics” and “Topics” of Aristotle, Priscian, and certain others,

the authors of which are not named, but which seem to have been

well-known popular treatises on philosophy, rhetoric, grammar, and

mathematics. The physics and metaphysics of Aristotle were forbidden,

together with the writings of certain heretics, such as Amauri de

Bene, who had drawn their errors from the teaching of the Greek

Philosopher.[171]

To teach Theology, the statutes required that a man should be at

least thirty-five years of age, and that he should have studied

under some approved master. We see here the germ of the system of

graduation, which was perfected before the close of the century. The

rule, as then established, was for a bachelor to begin by explaining

the Sentences in the school of some doctor for the space of a year.

At the end of that time he was presented to the Chancellor of the

Cathedral of Paris, and if, on examination, he was judged worthy, he

received a license and became licentiate, until he was received as

doctor, when he opened a school of his own, in which he explained

the Sentences for another year. At the end of that time he was

allowed to receive some bachelor under him. The whole doctor’s course

lasted three years; nor could any one take a degree unless he had

taught according to these regulations. It was supposed that before

beginning his theological studies the doctor must have passed through

his course of arts, the various stages in which were distinguished

by the names of grammar, poetry, philosophy, &c., in each of which,

according to the theory of the ancient schools, a student had to

study successively for an appointed time. The plan was excellent,

says Fleury, had its execution been possible; but life was too

short to allow of a man’s perfecting himself in every known branch

of learning before entering on his theological studies. It implied

that his whole life was to be spent in the schools; and, indeed, no

inconsiderable portion of it was so spent, as we have seen in the

case of John of Salisbury, whose academical career spread itself

over the space of twelve years. But, in estimating the exact value

of these statements, we must bear in mind that the university course

at this time began at a very early age, and included those more

elementary studies which occupy a schoolboy of our day for several

years before his matriculation.

The statutes of Paris University, first promulgated by Innocent

III., and enlarged under subsequent pontiffs, not only regulated all

matters of study and discipline, but provided for the preservation

of that religious element which must always find a place in any

system of education sanctioned by the Church. The Christian schools,

as we have seen, found their cradle in the monastic and episcopal

seminaries, in which, as a matter of course, religious exercises were

intermingled with intellectual ones, to a very large degree. The

Catholic universities, in their complete form, adapted this system to

their own needs, and required of their students daily attendance, not

only in the lecture rooms, but also in the church or the collegiate

chapel. The weekly “chapels” exacted from our Oxford and Cambridge

students are fragments of the old rules, which, at Paris as in the

English universities, required daily attendance at Mass and Vespers,

and, at certain times also, at the Office of the Dead; and appointed

public processions at different seasons of the year, and days when

the public studies were suspended in order to give more time for the

due celebration of feasts, and preparation for the reception of the

Sacraments. If any reader be disposed to think that these demands on

the time of the students must have proved an interruption to their

studies, the fact is at once, and readily, admitted. But it may be

suggested whether, in this interruption, there does not manifest

itself a grand principle on which the Church acts wherever there is

question of the exercise of the human intelligence. The problem she

had to resolve was, not how to convey the greatest possible amount

of knowledge with the greatest possible saving of time; but rather,

how to provide that a certain amount of intellectual labour should

be gone through in such a way as not to interfere injuriously with

the spiritual well-being of the soul. In cases where the intellect

is brought into exercise and stimulated to extraordinary activity,

there is danger lest what is in itself a wholesome and necessary

exercise may become vitiated by a certain natural impetuosity, which

disposes a man to pour himself out into the occupation in which

he is engaged; an impetuosity which opens the door to the human

spirit, and which brings in along with it a host of bad company,

such as pride, envy, ambition, contention, and the like. If this be

allowed, study, instead of being an instrument of our sanctification,

degenerates into its enemy; and hence the object aimed at in the

Catholic system has ever been to supply checks and safeguards to

nature, and to sanctify intellectual labour by a large admixture of

prayer. Among the monastic students the regular duties of religious

life supplied these necessary checks, the “_retinacula_,” as they

were called by Bede, who fully understood their value and importance;

and the Catholic universities, to a certain degree, imitated the

monastic system, by requiring fixed religious duties to be complied

with by their students, as a part of their academic course. Nor need

we suppose that these interruptions, so salutary in a spiritual

sense, were at all injurious in an intellectual point of view. The

discipline of the Church, by a beautiful harmony, provides for the

well-being of our nature, at the very time that she mortifies it.

Her rules of fasting and abstinence, when observed, often prove the

best preservatives of health; and, in the same way, her checks on

study were not always hindrances. The truest economy of time does

not, obviously, consist in cramming the twelve hours of the day

with excessive work, but in laying them out to the best advantage.

It is possible to tax the mental powers beyond their strength, in

which case nature revenges herself on those who violate her laws,

and the mind itself weakens under the pressure of excessive labour.

Could we compare the _horarium_ of an Oxford or Paris student of the

thirteenth century, with that of a modern Rugby schoolboy, and obtain

an accurate statistical table, showing the proportion of exhausted

brains to be found among an equal number of either class, it might

appear that the Church legislated even for the mental well-being of

her children when she interposed so often between them and their

studies, by requiring of them the fulfilment of solemn offices at

stated times.

Of course, besides the principle above alluded to, there was the

more manifest object of religious training, touching which I will

merely quote the words of a former Rector of the Paris University,

who wrote in anything but a religious age. “Religion,” says M.

Rollin, in his treatise on “Education,” “should be the object of all

our instructions; though not perpetually in our mouths, it should

always be in our minds. Whoever examines the ancient statutes of the

university which relate to masters and scholars, and takes notice of

the prayers, solemnities, public processions, festivals, and days

set apart for preparing for the Sacraments, may easily discover that

the intention of their pious Mother is to consecrate and sanctify

the studies of youth by religion, and that she would not carry them

so long in her bosom were it not with the view of regenerating them

to Jesus Christ. It is with this design that she requires that in

every class, besides their other exercises of piety, the scholars

should daily repeat certain sentences from Holy Scripture, and

especially from the Gospels, that their other studies may be, as it

were, seasoned with salt.” And he quotes passages from the ancient

statutes, requiring that “the Divine Word be mingled with the

eloquence of the pagans, as is fitting in Christian schools where

Christ, the One Teacher of man, should not only be present, but

preside.”

The very slight mention made in the statutes of Robert de Courçon of

Rhetoric, as included in the course of arts, is the last which we

shall meet with for a considerable space of time. The Bull of Gregory

IX., published in 1231, and the statutes of the Regents of Arts,

which appeared in 1254, make no reference to this study. The arts are

there represented by philosophy alone, and there is no allusion to

the cultivation of rhetoric, or the reading of the classical authors,

which from this date became very generally neglected. As a natural

consequence, grammar also lamentably decayed. It was, of course, not

absolutely banished, inasmuch as a certain amount of it was essential

for the pursuit of any studies at all; but it became altogether

barbarised and debased. Those rules of syntax and prosody, over which

the old monastic masters had so lovingly lingered, were totally

neglected, and although Latin poems were still produced, their

Latinity was full of false quantities and grammatical solecisms. The

tenth century, with all its darkness, knew far more of humane letters

than the thirteenth; nor was the superiority of the earlier schools

confined to a knowledge of the classics. The exaggerated prominence

given to philosophy, or rather to dialectics, had caused a neglect

of the Fathers, who were now chiefly studied in Sums and Sentences,

which professed to present the student with the pith of theology in a

single volume, forming the text-books on which the doctors delivered

lectures and commentaries, coloured, naturally enough, with their own

ideas. The original works of the Fathers, which had been the familiar

study of the monastic students, appear at this time to have been

little in request; and when St. Louis, on his return from Palestine,

formed a plan for collecting a library of all the most useful and

authentic ecclesiastical writings, he had to get copies made of St.

Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, and other Catholic

doctors, from the codices stored up in remote monastic libraries;

for in the schools of Paris they were not to be found. The extreme

scholastics, indeed, were accustomed to speak of the Fathers as

_rhetoricians_; writers, that is, who expressed themselves according

to the rules of natural eloquence, a terrible delinquency in the eyes

of the new _illuminati_, who considered that a man should display

his science by loading his pages with the terms of logic--assertion,

proof, major, minor, and corollary. The good king, however, whose

taste was superior to that of most of his contemporaries, persevered

in his noble enterprise, and at great pains and cost collected a

library of the best Christian authors, in which he himself studied

profoundly; liberally granting its use to others also. “He read the

works of the Fathers, whose authority is established,” says his

biographer, “more willingly than those of the new doctors;” and he

gave as a reason for making new copies, in preference to buying up

the old ones, that by this means he multiplied writings which he

desired should be more widely known. He ordered that after his death

this library should be divided among the three monasteries he had

founded; those, namely, of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the

Cistercians; and it was from this source that the Dominican, Vincent

of Beauvais, who filled the office of tutor to the royal children,

drew the materials of his famous work, _The Great Mirror_, of which

we shall hereafter have occasion to speak.

If positive theology and the humanities began to be neglected,

however, civil and canon law were better treated. The appearance in

1157 of the “Decretals” of Gratian, had been followed by the erection

of a Chair of Jurisprudence at Bologna, and another at Paris. The

new branch of study had one advantage which commended it to popular

favour: it led to substantial profits, and scholars were found not

unwilling to let Horace and Cicero drop into disuse in favour of a

science which paid so well for the time spent on its acquisition.

The prodigious popularity of these new pursuits at length caused

grave apprehensions lest the schools of arts and theology should

in time be altogether deserted, and in 1220 Honorius III. found it

necessary to forbid the further study of civil law at Paris. Crevier

complains of this prohibition as injurious to the university, and it

was, in fact, very generally eluded; although the formal permission

to include civil law in the Faculty of Right was not granted till

1679. But in point of fact, the alarm which was felt was not without

foundation. At Oxford such a revolution had been brought about by the

introduction of the law lectures, that it was feared both arts and

theology would be utterly neglected. What was worse, the law students

aspired after and obtained benefices; and this abuse was encouraged

by sovereigns, who found law prelates much more easy to deal with,

and to accommodate to their own political views, than theologians.

Innocent III. had, at last, to prohibit the admission to benefices

of those who had only graduated in law, and insisted that all who

aspired to ecclesiastical benefices should also pursue a regular

course of theology. The tendency of the age, however, was manifest;

the universities were falling more and more away from that idea of

education which the old system had, in theory at any rate, professed

to carry out; namely, the presenting of knowledge as a whole, its

various parts arranged under the heads of the seven liberal arts,

presided over by theology. Philosophy, according to this idea,

included a knowledge of truth in all its various departments, and all

the arts were but branches springing from one trunk, one of which

could not be struck off without injuring the proportion and harmony

of the whole.

The neglect of arts, and the excessive preponderance given to law

studies and dialectics, made up a grave and momentous change in the

whole theory of education, which was daily losing something more of

that breadth and largeness which formed one of the chief features

of education as proposed by the ancients, whose traditions had been

accepted by the Christian schools. This seems a fair statement of

the mischievous side of the change; but there is also another view

of the question, which justly claims to be recognised. There was a

deeper cause for the popularity of law and logic in the European

schools of this period than any sordid motive of gain, or any mere

love of disputation. Both of them formed a part of that extraordinary

intellectual revolution which marked the opening of the thirteenth

century. Men had grown indifferent to the study of language in

proportion as they had been aroused to the deeper interest of mental

science. Though the immediate result was to introduce a decay of

polite letters, and not a few philosophic extravagancies, it cannot

be doubted that many faculties were roused into vigorous action,

which, under the former system, had lain dormant. The grand defect

of the old monastic scholars, as scholars, was, that they cultivated

learning rather than mind; they studied other men’s thoughts, but

were not equally exercised in training their own. They seldom

investigated for themselves either mental or physical phenomena;

whatever absurdities were to be found in the natural philosophy which

they received from the ancients, were generally adopted without

question, and handed on to the next generation; and the instances

are rare in which an appeal is made to the results of personal

observation.

Even their theological works were chiefly compilations, and St.

Anselm may be called the first original thinker who had appeared

among divines since the close of the fifth century. When the

intellectual powers of Europe again woke into action, men were not

unnaturally induced to regard mere elegances of style with a certain

rude indifference. Like soldiers who, when about to engage in a

conflict for life or death, are careless whether or no they wear

their holiday trappings, the scholastics of the thirteenth century,

while they exercised their mental powers in subtle disputation,

conceived a contempt for the charms of mere rhetoric, and valued

language only as the vehicle for expressing the distinctions of

philosophy. Under such circumstances Latinity, of course, grew

barbarous; and many far graver disorders arose out of the daring

and undue exercise of reason. Yet, real intellectual progress was

being made, in spite of the decay of letters; and the growth of mind

went on in the same way as the growth of body, when the delicate

tints and graceful form of childhood disappear, whilst bone and

muscle are being built up, and the feeble child is expanding into

the strong-armed man. When the revival of literature took place

two centuries later, it found a race of strong thinkers in place

of diligent readers. The scholars of the Renaissance were forward

in ridiculing the barbarism of the scholastic philosophers, but in

doing so they showed that they had very superficially studied the

intellectual era that preceded their own. Undoubtedly, the _excess_

of legal and logical studies had many abuses, but they are not

therefore to be arbitrarily condemned. Even the lawyers, with whom it

is most difficult to keep charity, and whose influence was the most

mischievous in the schools, had a considerable share in the education

of modern Europe. Careful critics, on studying the legal documents

of the Middle Ages, such, for example, as our own Magna Charta,

fail not to express their wonder and admiration at the keenness of

intellect which is displayed in their provisions, and the precision

of language in which they are expressed. The men of the pen were

cautiously and sagaciously circumventing the men of the sword. Every

constitutional principle laid down in the statute-book established

the sovereignty of law over that of brute force; it was a victory of

mind over matter, and was therefore a mighty step in the history of

intellectual progress.

These considerations must be calmly weighed before we pass any

judgment on the scholastic revolution of the thirteenth century.

Our sympathies, no doubt, will linger with the elder scholars,

and we shall be disposed to look with a very jealous eye on the

triumph of the sophists and the Cornificians; but it will suffice

to reconcile us to the temporary necessity of the change, that it

was accepted by the Church, and that she set her seal to the due and

legitimate use of those studies which were to develope the human

intellect to its full-grown strength. Nay, more, she absorbed into

herself an intellectual movement which, had she opposed it, would

have been directed against her authority, and so, to a great extent,

neutralised its powers of mischief. The scholastic philosophy,

which, without her direction, would have expanded into an infidel

Rationalism, was woven into her theology itself, and made to do duty

in her defence, and that wondrous spectacle was exhibited, so common

in the history of the Church, when the dark and threatening thunder

cloud which seemed about to send out its lightning bolts, only

distils in fertilising rain.[172]

The statutes of Robert de Courçon, after regulating the studies, pass

on to the manners of the students. They descend with great simplicity

into various details, which are not uninteresting, as furnishing

us with some idea of the usages of the times. Great banquets were

forbidden to be held at the installation of new masters, who were

only allowed to invite a few companions and friends. No master

reading arts was to wear aught but a round black gown falling as low

as his heels, “at least,” adds the cardinal with much naïveté, “_when

it is new_.” A cloak is allowed, but the abomination of pointed shoes

is strictly prohibited. When a scholar of arts or theology died,

one-half of the masters were to attend his funeral; if it were a

master, all the other masters were to assist at the Office for the

Dead. They were, moreover, to recite, or cause to be recited, an

entire Psalter for his soul, to remain in the church where the Office

was celebrated until midnight, and on the day of burial all exercises

in the schools were to be suspended. He confirms to the students the

free possession of those broad and delightful meadows, so dearly

prized as a place of recreation, which gave their name to St. Germain

des Prés, and for the protection of the scholars, fixes the rate at

which the citizens shall be obliged to furnish them with lodgings.

The university thus established, redounded, it need not be said, to

the profit as well as to the glory of the French capital. Not only

the intellect, but the wealth also, of Europe flowed into that great

centre. New branches of industry sprang up in connection with the

schools; the Rue de Fouarre supplied them with straw for their seats,

and the Rue des Ecrivains was entirely peopled with booksellers

and book-lenders, mostly Jews, who furnished the scholars with

literary wares, suffering those who were too poor to buy, to hire

their volumes at a fixed rate. The bookselling trade fell at last

under the jurisdiction of the university, and the booksellers were

enrolled as academic officers, taking an oath on their appointment

to observe the statutes and regulations. They were not suffered

to open a traffic without testimonials as to character, and the

tariff of prices was fixed by four of their number appointed by the

university. Fines were imposed for incorrect copies, and the traders

were bound to hang up a priced catalogue in their shops. If books of

heretical or immoral tendency were found introduced, they were burnt

by order of the university officers. The same powers were exercised

over the book trade by the universities of Vienna, Toulouse, and

Bologna, and the name of _Stationarii_ began to be given to those

who held these stores; stalls, or shops of all descriptions, being

often denominated _Stations_. By degrees, however, the licensed

_Stationarii_ lost their monopoly of the trade, and the custom became

tolerated of allowing poor scholars to sell books of low price in

order to obtain the means of pursuing their studies. The _Librarii_

were the copyists of new books, who dealt also in parchment and

writing materials, and exercised a very important profession before

the days of printing; those who transcribed old books were considered

a separate branch, and styled _Antiquarii_, and by this distinction

the scholar in search of a volume knew at once from which _Statio_ he

might obtain the object of his desires.

But as in those days of high prices and book scarcity, the poor

student was sorely impeded in his progress, to provide against these

disadvantages, a law was framed at Paris, compelling all public

booksellers to keep books to lend out on hire. The reader will be

surprised at the idea of lending libraries in the Middle Ages, but

there can be no doubt of the fact that they were established at

Paris, Toulouse, Vienna, and Bologna. These public librarians, too,

were obliged to write out regular catalogues of their books, and hang

them up in their shops with the prices affixed, so that the student

might know beforehand what he had to pay for reading each book. Some

of these lists are preserved, in which we find three sous charged for

the loan of Peter Lombard’s Book of the Sentences, and ten sous for a

Bible.

The custom began to be introduced among the scholars of expending

great sums on the adornment of their books with gilt letters and

fantastic illuminations, and writers of the time complain of

the extravagant sums thus dissipated. Thus Odofred speaks of a

certain gentleman who sent his son to Paris, giving him an annual

allowance of 100 livres. “What does he do? Why, he has his books

ornamented with gold initials and strange monsters, and has a

new pair of boots every Saturday.” The mention of these literary

trades leads me to speak of what we may call the great festival day

of the trades in general, and of the scholars and booksellers in

particular. Who has not heard of the great fair of St. Denis, the

_Landit_, as it was called, originally held to enable the Bishop of

Paris to display the relics preserved in the abbey to those devout

multitudes whose numbers, being too great for any church to contain

them, rendered it necessary to assemble them in the open fields?

A French poet describes this fair as he beheld it at the close of

the twelfth century, crowded with tailors, furriers, linendrapers,

leather-sellers, shoemakers, cutlers, corn-merchants, jewellers,

and goldsmiths. The enumeration of all the trades at last passes

his powers, and he begs his readers to excuse his completing the

catalogue. And what has this to do with the university? it may be

asked. Much, for thither also flocked the sellers of parchment. The

rector of the university went there in state to choose the best

article which the fair produced; nay, what is more, all dealers in

parchment were forbidden by royal edict to purchase any on the first

day of the fair, until the merchants of the king and the bishop, and

the masters and scholars of the university, had laid in their yearly

provision. This going of the rector to the _Landit_ was the grand

annual holiday. He was attended by all the masters and scholars on

horseback, and not unfrequently, says Lebœuf, in his “History of the

Diocese of Paris,” this expedition was the occasion of many falling

sick, through heat and fatigue, especially the youngsters.

The _Landit_ was not the only recreation day of the scholars; besides

those red-letter days which in olden time were lavishly provided

for solace and refreshment of mind and body, they took part in all

popular rejoicings, and on occasion of the great victory of Bouvines

claimed and obtained a whole week’s vacation, during which time,

says Lebœuf, “they sang and danced continually.” Their country walks

to Chantilly and other rural villages were known as the _Ire ad

Campos_, for which leave had to be asked by the inmates of colleges.

James of Vitry alludes to the national characteristics apparent in

the different nations represented among the students, the luxurious

habits of the French, the love of fighting exhibited by the Germans,

and the propensity of the English to indulge in deep potations. In

the schools their habits were simple enough. The lectures were begun

punctually at the first stroke of the bells of Notre Dame, as they

rung out the hour of Prime. Clocks were not then very common, and the

cathedral bells, rung at the different hours and heard at a great

distance, furnished citizens and scholars with their ordinary mode

of reckoning time. At the last stroke the scholars were supposed to

be all assembled; seated on trusses of hay or straw, which supplied

the place of benches, they listened to the lecture of the master,

delivered after the manner of a spoken harangue, and took such notes

as they were able. The method of dictation, which had been in use in

the earlier schools, appears to have been dropped, or to have been

retained only in the more elementary schools. The _vivâ voce_ lecture

was, in fact, the speciality of the university system; and to its

use may, in great part, be attributed that enthusiasm which animated

the scholars of some popular master, who contrived to infuse the

charm of his personal grace and eloquence into the hard syllogisms

with which he dealt. “The act of instruction _vivâ voce_,” says one,

himself a master, “has I know not what hidden energy, and sounds more

forcibly in the ears of a disciple, when it passes from the master’s

lips, than the written word can do.” Hence these dry logicians of the

Middle Ages were possessed with as ardent an enthusiasm for their own

pursuits as that which kindled the armies of the Crusaders; nay, when

we read of the mad devotion of Abelard’s followers, or the resistless

impetuosity of those crowds who mustered in the Place Maubert to

listen to the great Albert as he lectured on the Sentences, we need

to bear in mind that the age was that of generous impulse; keenly

susceptible to personal influence, capable of being roused to great

enterprises by some strong word spoken to the heart, and ready to

cast itself on the shores of Palestine, or to swell the ranks of a

mendicant order, according to the deep emotions called forth by some

eloquent tongue.

The history of the university, indeed, is not without its chapters of

romance. At one time we may wander in imagination out into the green

meadows of St. Germains, and watch a group of young scholars, John,

the Englishman, and William Scot, with another John, of Provençal

blood, and his Italian fellow-student, the young Lothairius Conti, as

they join together in familiar talk, little thinking of the changes

which a few short years are to make in the destinies of each; when

the Provençal will have become the founder of the Trinitarian Order,

and his old companions, John and William, shall have flung away their

doctors’ caps, to assume the blue and crimson cross, and it shall be

from Lothaire himself, now seated in the chair of St. Peter as Pope

Innocent III., that he is to receive its first formal confirmation.

Or, shall we gaze for a moment on that poor ragged boy, begging

his bread in the streets of Paris, where like a rustic simpleton,

he has come in hopes of finding the way to fame and fortune? Yet,

a simpleton he is not;--he struggles on ill fed, ill-lodged, but,

thanks to pious alms, just able to scrape together the means of

study. He passes from one grade to another; and in time Paris learns

to be proud of her great doctor, Maurice of Sully, and forgets

that he owes his surname to the lordly territory where his fathers

cultivated the soil. At last his fame reaches his native place, and

his old mother who is still living, resolves to go and find out her

boy, whom she always knew would make his fortune. So taking staff in

hand, she found her way to the great city, and asked the first fine

ladies whom she met in the streets, if they could tell her where

she could find the Doctor Maurice. The good ladies, taking pity on

her, took her to their house, gave her refreshment, and throwing a

better kind of mantle over the coarse woollen petticoat which she

wore, after the fashion of French peasants, led her to Maurice,

and introduced her to him as his mother. “Not so,” said Maurice,

“my mother is a poor peasant woman, she wears no fine clothes like

these; I will not believe it is her unless I see her in her woollen

petticoat.” Then she threw off her cloak, and seeing her in her own

garb he embraced her, and introduced her to the great people who

stood about him, saying, “This is indeed my mother.” “And the thing

spread through the city,” says the chronicler, “and did good honour

to the master, who afterwards became Bishop of Paris;” in which

office he did many notable things, and among others built the present

Cathedral of Notre Dame.[173]

I might ask my readers, in like manner, to glance at other scenes, no

less characteristic; to look into that same cathedral where crowds

have assembled to hear the preaching of the famous doctor, John of

St. Quentin. He has chosen the subject of holy poverty, and he seems

inspired by some unwonted strain of eloquence as he speaks of the

snares, the emptiness, and the vanity of the world. At last he stops,

and descends the pulpit stairs. Is his discourse finished, or what is

he about to do? the crowd moves hither and thither with curiosity,

and sees him kneeling at the feet of the Dominican Prior of St.

James, of whose Order little was then known, save that its members

were mendicants, and owed their lodging in the city to the bounty of

this very John. But now the white habit is thrown over his doctor’s

gown, the black mantle, the garb of poverty and humility is added,

and he returns to finish his discourse, exhibiting to his wondering

audience that he can teach not by words only, but by example. Or,

once more let us wander into that old church of St. Mery, which even

to this day retains a certain air of quaint antiquity; where the

long lancet windows, and the Ladye chapel with its carved wooden

reredos, black with age, and adorned with silver statuettes, and its

walls frescoed with the figures of saints, carry us back to mediæval

times; and the cool air with its sweet fragrance of incense, and the

silence broken only by a passing footstep on the worn and broken

pavement, soothe and tranquillise us as though we had passed out

of the busy streets into the atmosphere of another world. In that

church, and before that Ladye altar, you might nightly have seen an

English scholar, who had passed over to Paris whilst still a mere boy

to study his course of arts. Every night he comes hither to assist

at Matins, and remains there till daybreak, kneeling absorbed in

heavenly contemplation till the hour strikes which is the signal for

him to betake himself to the schools. Against those very pillars,

perhaps, he leant his weary head; that dusty and shattered pavement

was once watered with his tears; and who is there that loves and

venerates the memory of St. Edmund of Canterbury, who will not, for

his sake, be glad to escape from the thoroughfares of the brilliant

capital to spend an hour of pilgrimage in the church of St. Mery?[174]

Pictures such as these, embodying the legends of an age, the daily

life of which was fraught with poetry, might be multiplied to any

extent; but I prefer to fix the reader’s attention on one which tells

more of the university life of Paris at this precise epoch, than

could be conveyed by many a laboured description. It was then about

the year 1199, just when the princes of Europe were deliberating

on a fifth crusade, that there lived at Neuilly-sur-Marne, halfway

between Paris and Lagny, a simple country Curé, named Fulk,

unlearned in worldly and even in divine science, but full of holy

zeal, governing his parish with all diligence, and preaching with a

certain rude eloquence--not sparing of his reproofs, but ready at

all times to speak the truth boldly and freely alike to rich and

poor. He who, of old, chose unlettered fishermen to be the heralds

of His Word, made choice of this poor priest to reform the follies

of those vain scholars who, to use the words of James of Vitry,

“intent on vain wranglings and questions of words, cared not to

break the Bread of Life to little ones.” Feeling his own want of

knowledge, and specially his ignorance of the Holy Scriptures, Fulk

determined, old as he was, to commence a regular course of study

in the schools, and began to go regularly into the city, attending

the theological lectures of Peter the Chanter. How the gay scholars

stared and wondered at the sight of the rustic Curé, in his coarse

frock and grey hairs, humbly entering the school, with his note-book

in his hand, wherein he entered only a few phrases, such as his

poor capacity was able to gather from the lips of the speaker. He

understood little and cared less for all the terms of art which the

dialecticians of those days so lavishly dispensed to their hearers;

and if his companions had glanced over his shoulder, they would have

read on the parchment page nothing but some scattered texts of

Scripture, sprinkled here and there with trite and practical maxims.

Yet these were enough for Fulk: they were the seed falling into good

ground, watered with prayer and meditation, and bringing forth the

hundredfold. Often did he read and ponder over his little book, and

commit its maxims to his memory, and on Sundays and Festival days,

returning to his own parish, he gave forth to his flock what he had

thus carefully gathered in the schools. His master, observing the

zeal and fervour of his new disciple, and penetrating through that

rough exterior which concealed a richly-gifted soul, required of him

at last that he should preach in the Church of St. Severinus before

himself and a great number of the students. Fulk obeyed with his

accustomed simplicity, and lo! “the Lord gave to His servant such

grace and power that it seemed as if the Holy Spirit spoke by his

mouth; and from that day masters and scholars began to flock to his

rude and simple preaching. They would invite one another, saying,

‘Come and hear the priest Fulk--he is another Paul.’”

One day a vast multitude were assembled to hear him in the Place de

Champeaux, for the churches were not large enough to contain those

who gathered to the preaching; and he spoke with such eloquence

that hundreds, pierced to the very heart, fell at his feet, and,

presenting him with rods, besought him to chastise them for their

sins, and guide them in the way of penance. He embraced them all,

giving thanks to God, and to each one he gave some suitable words

of advice. He had something appropriate to say to all, to usurers

and public sinners, fine gentlemen, men-at-arms, and scholars. He

admonished the masters to give more pithy, wholesome, and profitable

lectures in the fear of God; he bade the dialecticians put away what

was unprofitable in their art, and retain only that which bore fruit;

the canonists he reproved for their long and wearisome disquisitions;

the theologians for their tediousness and over-subtlety; and so, in

like manner, he fearlessly rebuked and admonished the teachers of

other arts, and called on them to leave their vain babblings, and

apply themselves to what was profitable to salvation.

The tide had now fairly turned, and those who, awhile before, were

ready to turn the poor Curé into ridicule, gladly changed places

with him, and brought their note-books to _his_ preaching, that they

might take down the words from his mouth. Many even entreated him

to accept them as his followers, and missions began to be preached

through all the neighbouring towns and villages by the company of

learned doctors, who put themselves under the direction of the Curé

of Neuilly. Among these were Peter the Chanter, his former master;

Alberic de Laon, afterwards Archbishop of Rheims; Robert de Courçon,

of whom we have already spoken; and our own Stephen Langton.

Fulk and his followers preached throughout France, Burgundy,

Flanders, and a great part of Germany. Their missions were followed

by a great reform of manners, and the sanctity of Fulk is said to

have been attested by miracles. He had a vein of pleasantry in him,

and sometimes treated his audience with a somewhat rough familiarity;

and, if he could obtain silence by no other means, would freely

use his stick over the shoulders of the disorderly. But the people

esteemed his very blows a blessing; wherever he appeared, they

pressed around him to tear away morsels of his habit. One day he

was nearly suffocated, and owed his deliverance to an ingenious

device--“My habit is not blessed,” he cried, “to what purpose, then,

would you carry it away? But I will bless the clothes of yonder man,

and you may take as much as you choose.” The individual whom he

indicated was at once surrounded, and thought himself happy to escape

with the loss of his mantle.

These scenes were of daily occurrence when Fulk, having himself

assumed the Cross, began to preach the Holy War; and, in fact,

the throngs who joined the Fifth Crusade from France and Flanders

were chiefly induced to do so by his eloquence. He chanced, on one

occasion, to hear that Count Thibault of Champagne had proclaimed

a magnificent tournament, which was to take place at the Château

d’Ecris, in the forest of Ardennes. All the chivalry of France

and England were gathered there; but amid the tossing plumes and

glittering pennons appeared the figure of Fulk of Neuilly, who bade

them first hear him, and painted to them the higher glory which

they might acquire in the sacred wars, instead of wasting their

time and strength on the mock combats of a tournament. A fiery

ardour kindled the brilliant throng, and Thibault himself, with his

noble guest, Simon de Montfort, and the two brothers, Walter and

John de Brienne, the latter of whom was destined to wear the crown

of Jerusalem, and five of the house of Joinville, and that heroic

knight, Sir Matthew de Montmorency, whose valour was so renowned that

Richard of England reckoned it his greatest deed of prowess to have

overcome him in single combat:--all these, and many more, hastened

to receive the Cross from the hands of the preacher, and to prepare

for that expedition which was to terminate with the Conquest, not of

Jerusalem, but of Constantinople.

It is not my intention, however, to speak further of the crusading

career of Fulk de Neuilly, and I have only introduced him here as an

illustration of the spirit which then animated all classes, whether

knights or doctors, easily swayed as they were to good or evil by the

words of a powerful leader; and to show, moreover, in what light the

subtle dialectics of the Paris schools were regarded by the Apostle

of his times.

We must now turn our attention to some of the other European

universities, and first to that of Bologna, the _Mater Studiorum_, as

it was called, of Italy, which vied with Paris in point of antiquity

as in renown. The revival of the study of Roman jurisprudence, which

took place in this city under Irnerius, has already been noticed;

when a chair of civil law was first erected in the High School, which

had existed in Bologna from very early times. It is unnecessary to

enter into the vexed question of the so-called discovery of the

Pandects[175] at Amalfi in 1137, which, according to Sigonius, was

the origin of a total change in the Italian jurisprudence. Tiraboschi

calls the whole story in question, and represents that the Pandects

had really never been lost, and that the revival of law studies must

be traced to the efforts made about that time by the Italian cities

to free themselves from the Imperial yoke, and appoint their own

judges and magistrates. However that may be, the fame of Bologna

as the first law school in Europe was fairly established by the

end of the twelfth century, and there is not an Italian writer of

that period who has not something to say of the science of _docta

Bononia_. By the middle of the same century the study of canon law

had been added to that of civil jurisprudence, chiefly, as has been

before said, after the publication of the Decretals of Gratian. This

prodigious work, executed by a simple Benedictine monk of Chiusi, was

a summary of the decrees of the Popes, and of 150 councils, with

selections from various royal codes, and extracts from the Fathers

and other ecclesiastical writers, all methodically arranged so as

to facilitate its use in the schools. Its compilation incessantly

occupied the author for the space of twenty-five years. Many errors

found their way into the work, which contained some false quotations,

and cited as authorities certain decrees and synodical acts which

have since been proved to be spurious, and are known as the False

Decretals. But whatever were its shortcomings, it gave a facility

to the study of canon law which had not before existed, and the two

branches of jurisprudence were immediately professed side by side in

the schools of Bologna. Almost at the same time the students obtained

some important privileges, which encouraged foreigners to resort to a

university where they were secure of protection from the civil power.

In 1158, when the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held his great diet

on the plains of Roncaglia, for the purpose of publishing a code of

laws which should secure his own power in Italy, four professors were

summoned from Bologna to assist in the deliberations. He treated them

with much distinction, and with good reason, as they fully supported

the Imperial claims. They did, however, better service to their

university by obtaining from the emperor those celebrated ordinances

known as the _Habita_, which, though originally promulgated in favour

of Bologna, came to be recognised as establishing similar rights

in other European universities. In them he extends his protection

in a special manner to the masters and scholars. “It is our duty

to protect all our subjects,” he says, “but specially those whose

science enlightens the world, and who teach our people the obligation

of obeying God and us, the ministers of His Divine power. Who will

not have compassion,” he continues, “on those precious exiles, whom

the love of learning has banished from their own countries, who have

exposed themselves to a thousand dangers, and, far from their friends

and families, live here without defence, in poverty and peril?” He

therefore directs that all foreign students shall have safe-conduct

both for themselves and their messengers, both for coming, going, and

reading at the university, and that if anything be taken from them,

the magistrates of the city shall be bound to restore it fourfold.

Moreover, he exempts them from the ordinary civil jurisdiction, and

grants the right of being judged by the master of the school to which

they belong, or by the bishop.

The grant of these privileges at once raised the Bolognese

university to a position which ranked it on a level with that of

Paris, and whilst a tide of scholars from beyond the Alps, as well

as from the other Italian cities, flowed in, eager to take advantage

of these imperial favours, the Roman pontiffs began to extend their

protection to the rising institute. The first of these was Alexander

III., who had a particular interest in the university, having taught

theology there for some years before his elevation to the purple.

Among the more famous Bolognese scholars were St. Thomas of

Canterbury; Lotharius Conti, afterwards Pope Innocent III., both of

whom read canon law here after finishing their theology at Paris;

Vacarius, afterwards law professor at Oxford; and the troubadour

chronicler, Geoffrey de Vinesauf, who, though an Englishman by birth,

seems to have been rather ashamed of the barbarism of his mother

country, and declares that to go from England to Rome was like going

from darkness to light, and passing from earth into heaven.

He was the author of the _Ars Poetica_, and of another learned work

entitled _Ars Dictaminis_, written for the use of his Bolognese

pupils; but he is chiefly remembered as the companion and historian

of Richard Cœur de Lion, in the Second Crusade.

Before the end of the twelfth century, Bologna numbered 10,000

students, and in the following generation the influence exercised in

the schools by the Dominican Order, which made its headquarters in

Bologna, still further extended its fame. At this time, besides the

law lecturers, there were professors of moral and natural philosophy;

but it is somewhat singular that this flourishing university does

not appear to have had any regular chair of theology before 1362, in

which year a Bull for the erection of the theological faculty was

issued by Innocent VI. But we are not to suppose that the study of

theology was therefore neglected, for the want was supplied by the

schools attached to the monastic houses, specially the monasteries of

St. Felix and St. Proculus, and those of the two orders of Friars. It

was in one of these schools that Rolando Bandinelli, afterwards Pope

Alexander III., must have taught, as he professed theology at Bologna

at the same time that Gratian taught canon law, when certainly no

other theological schools existed in the university. Nor was this

state of things peculiar to Bologna. In Padua likewise, the students

appear to have been for some time dependent on the monastic schools

for the means of following their theological studies; so that in

1280 we find the Abbot Engelbert, after completing his course of

philosophy in the university, removing to the convent of the Friar

Preachers to study theology. Afterwards, when the Emperor Frederic

II. drove the Friars out of his dominions, the university had

recourse to the Benedictines of Monte Cassino, who sent thither the

monk Erasmus to open a theological school. We also find honourable

mention in this century of a certain Florentine physician named

Taddeo, a professor of the university, of whom the Bolognese were so

proud that they granted his scholars the privilege of law students.

The common physician’s fee at this time was a load of hay for his

horse; but Taddeo, if summoned to a distance, demanded fifty gold

scudi, and a safe-conduct out and home. This is one of the earliest

instances on record in which medicine takes its place among the other

learned faculties. The pay of all these professors seems to have been

extremely small, and never exceeding the sum of 200 _lire_, about £40.

The university of Padua appears to have owed its erection to a

quarrel among the Bolognese professors, some of whom migrated in a

body, about the year 1222, and opened schools which soon attracted

the notice of the learned. The new university was specially

distinguished by its excellent school of arts; these, as we have

seen, were sinking into neglect at Paris; but under the genial sky

of Italy, and in a country where Latin was still so completely

regarded as the native and living tongue, that as yet no one had

thought of using the vernacular Italian for literary purposes, it was

impossible that the names of Cicero and Virgil should be suffered

to drop into oblivion. Hence we find that the scholars of Padua _il

Dotto_ cultivated a taste for the profane poets and the great writers

of antiquity; and it has been observed that Albert the Great, who

studied in her schools for at least ten years, was so imbued with

the classic literature, that his very sermons often present us with

a tissue of philosophic maxims, drawn from the writings of Virgil,

Juvenal, and Cicero, the latter of whom he styles affectionately

_noster Tullius_. A love of the classics, in fact, survived in most

of the Italian schools, and Hasse tells us that the Mantuans went

so far as to give their capital the title of the “Virgilian city,”

in honour of the great bard, whose statue they erected in their

market-place, and on the 15th of October (which was supposed to be

his birthday) danced around it, crowned with laurel, and singing

verses in his praise.

Tiraboschi observes that in none of these universities does there

appear to have been erected anything like a library for the use of

the students. Copyists seem to have been employed to furnish them

with books, at a given price, and in Bologna, women were employed

on this work, a fact to which P. Sarti ungallantly attributes the

frequent errors found in many MSS. of the time. The rich collections

of books which had formerly been found in the cathedral and monastic

libraries, had been for the most part dispersed during the wars which

had ravaged Italy for so many centuries, and the scanty catalogues

which are preserved, generally present us with no more than the names

of a few books on canon or civil law.

In addition to the Italian universities already named, must be

noticed that of Naples, which owed its foundation, in 1224, to the

Emperor Frederic II. That monarch, irritated at the opposition which

he met with from the citizens of Bologna, who warmly embraced the

cause of the Popes, and refused to receive the emperor within their

walls, conceived, in revenge, the plan of ruining the university of

the refractory city, by establishing a rival institution in his own

Sicilian states. For this purpose he chose the city of Naples, and

used every effort to attract scholars, by the grant of extraordinary

privileges; and masters, by the promise of rare pecuniary advantages.

As regarded his own subjects he did not allow much liberty of choice,

but absolutely forbade them, under penalties, to study either at

Bologna or Paris, or anywhere but at the Imperial academy. No cost

was spared to put it on an equal footing with the institutions

with which it was to compete; an immense sum was expended in the

collection of Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew books, many of those

in the last three tongues being translated at the royal expense.

The works of Aristotle are said to have been translated into Latin

by the famous Michael Scott, who at that time filled the office

of astrologer to the emperor. The professor of philosophy was the

almost equally celebrated Peter the Irishman, grammar and rhetoric

being taught by another Peter, an Italian by birth. In short, ample

provision was made for the intellectual profit of the students,

but further than this little could be expected from a founder of

Frederic’s character.

Touron, in his life of St. Thomas, has given us a frightful picture

of the state of morals prevailing in the Ghibbeline university,

and says that there was a common proverb at that time current in

Italy, to the effect that Naples was an earthly paradise inhabited

by demons. Frederic was indeed a splendid patron of learning, and is

said to have been well skilled in the German, French, Latin, Greek,

and Arabic tongues. His book on birds is praised by Humboldt,[176]

as displaying a knowledge of natural history which at that time was

truly extraordinary. He was also reckoned, like all the princes

of his house, to be a good poet, and a somewhat freethinking

philosopher. Much of his literary and scientific tastes he owed to

the influence of his celebrated chancellor, Peter delle Vigne, who

had studied at Bologna, and was considered one of the most learned

men of his time. But his learning was steeped in the infidelity

peculiar to the age; and common belief attributed to him and to

his Imperial master the authorship of a blasphemous work, entitled

“The Three Impostors,” though the truth of this is warmly disputed.

Suspected of treachery by the emperor, Peter delle Vigne was at last

deprived of his eyes, and imprisoned in a monastery, where, in 1245,

he miserably put an end to his own life by dashing out his brains

against a wall.[177]

So much has been said by historians of the protection afforded to

letters by Frederic and his successors on the throne of Sicily, that

we might almost be led to suppose that the Ghibbeline monarchs had

none to share their fame in this respect. But in point of fact the

Popes in this, as in all times, were the true nursing fathers of

Christian science. To Innocent III., himself one of the most learned

men of his age, the university of Paris was indebted for that body

of laws of which we have already spoken; he also granted large

privileges to the university of Bologna, and it was he who ordained

in the Fourth Lateran Council that provision should be made for

the maintenance of Christian studies, by the appointment in every

cathedral church of a master in grammar for the instruction of the

younger clerics, as well as of a theologian. His successor, Honorius

III., directed the chapters to send certain of the younger canons to

study at the universities, and granted them a dispensation from the

obligation of residence; and we are told he once removed a bishop on

finding him grossly ignorant of grammar. Benedict XII. confirmed the

decrees of his predecessors, and required not only cathedrals, but

also monasteries and priories, to provide a master to instruct the

younger monks in grammar, logic and philosophy.

Gregory IX. who, according to Muratori, was profoundly skilled in

the liberal arts, and whom he calls “a river of Tullian eloquence,”

drew up five books of decretals, and was so firm a friend to the

university of Paris, that, to use the expression of Crevier “it had

no other support during the troubles with which it was vexed in

the thirteenth century, than in this Pope.” Innocent IV. erected

public schools of law at Rome, and founded the university of

Piacenza, besides which, as Crevier acknowledges, he surpassed all

his predecessors in the benefits which he heaped on the university

of Paris, and the singular protection he afforded it. Such was the

zeal of this pontiff in promoting learning, that wherever he was,

he established in his palace a little university. Thus, being at

Lyons in the second year of his pontificate, he opened a _studium

generale_ at his court for the study of theology and canon law; and

did the same at Naples, where he died; and at the Council of Lyons

in 1245, he enforced the decrees of previous pontiffs regarding

the establishment of cathedral grammar schools for the gratuitous

education of poor children.

It was Gregory X. who, among the other acts of his glorious

pontificate, moved the King of Sicily to restore the schools which

had fallen into decay in his dominions. His letter is printed in

the collection of Martene. God, he says, has willed that man fallen

into barbarism should be taught and civilised by the culture of the

arts and sciences. It is study which confers on man the grace of

a cultivated education, as a heavenly gift; and the king who uses

his power to continue a generation of wise and learned men, and

to provide the Church with worthy ministers, performs an act most

honourable and pleasing to God.

To Urban IV. belongs the glory of having revived the study of

philosophy in Italy. He is known to have commanded St. Thomas to

comment on the works of Aristotle; and so great was his love of

this branch of learning, that he always had at his table certain

professors whom he would afterwards cause to sit at his feet and

engage in erudite disputations among themselves, he himself presiding

over their trial of wits, and deciding to whom the victory was

due. It was to his noble encouragement that the world owed the

mathematical works of Campano of Novara, whom he appointed his

chaplain, and who wrote a learned commentary on Euclid. In one of

the mathematical treatises of this philosopher, is to be found a

dedication to Urban, in which he eulogises the magnificent support

afforded by that pontiff to philosophical studies, which, owing to

his encouragement, after having long languished in the dust, were

once more loved and cultivated. The university of Montpellier was

founded by Nicholas IV., and that of Cracow by Urban V.

We also find that, besides the universities, a vast number of public

schools were opened in Italy during the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries, most of them by authority of the Sovereign Pontiffs;

those founded in Rome by Innocent IV. were at first exclusively

intended for the study of law, but in 1303 Boniface VIII. erected

these schools into a university for every faculty. Other schools of

grammar, medicine, and law arose at Modena, Reggio and Parma, and

at Milan there were no fewer than eighty schoolmasters instructing

youth in the year 1288. The college of the Sapienza, at Perugia, was

founded by Innocent IV. out of his private purse, for the education

of forty boys, as the Gregorian college was raised somewhat later at

Bologna by Pope Gregory XI. And of Urban V. we read that he supported

more than a thousand scholars at different academies at his own

expense, and supplied them with the books necessary for prosecuting

their studies.

Enough has, perhaps, been said to show that the Roman Pontiffs of

this period were not altogether indifferent to the interests of

learning. Owing partly to their encouragement, and partly to the

excessive popularity then attaching to the study of law, the number

of universities continued, during the thirteenth and fourteenth

centuries, to multiply in a manner which makes it difficult to

conjecture how students could have been found to people so many

academies. Thus, in France alone, we find the universities of

Toulouse,[178] Montpellier, Orleans, Lyons, Avignon, Poictiers,

Angers, Bourdeaux, Bourges, Cahors, Nantes, Rheims, Caen, Valence,

and Grenoble; in Italy, there were those of Ravenna, Salerno, Arezzo,

Ferrara, Perugia, Piacenza, Siena, Treviso, Vercelli, Pavia, and

Vicenza; in Spain, the two great universities of Salamanca, and

Valladolid, besides twenty-four smaller ones; in Poland, of Cracow;

in Germany, of Vienna, Prague, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Erfurt,

besides others of rather later date. Sixty-six such institutions

altogether are reckoned as having been founded in various European

countries before the period of the Reformation. The numbers of

students who repaired to these academies was certainly very great. At

Bologna, in the thirteenth century, we find mention of ten thousand

scholars; at Paris, of forty thousand; at Bourdeaux, a single

college boasted of upwards of two thousand scholars; and Oxford, in

Henry III.’s time, is said to have contained thirty thousand. These

universities had each their own distinctive character--Paris excelled

in theology, Montpellier and Salerno in medicine, Pavia in the arts,

Bologna, Bourges, and Orleans in jurisprudence. Caen, an English

foundation was particularly favoured by the monastic students, and

a great number of abbeys had here their own colleges, the abbots

being accustomed to assemble and assist at the yearly opening of the

schools. Of the English universities we will speak more at length in

another chapter, but it remains for us to say a few words here on the

general character and tendency of all these institutions, and of the

revolution which their establishment brought about in the system of

education.

To form something like an accurate judgment on this matter, we must

glance back at some of the facts elicited in the foregoing pages.

From what has been already said, it will appear that the germ of all

Christian schools is to be found in the episcopal seminaries--those

seminaries which, in ancient times, formed a part of the bishop’s

own household, and in which he himself personally directed the

studies of his younger clergy, and trained them to the duties of

the ecclesiastical state. The cathedral or canonical schools were

but the expansion of these early seminaries, over which the bishop

still presided, the office of scholasticus being conferred on one of

the canons, though, as we have seen, masters were often invited to

direct the studies from other dioceses. The monastic schools were

formed on the model of these episcopal schools, the abbot doing for

his own monks what the bishop did for the clergy of his diocese. The

constitution of all these schools was most strictly ecclesiastical,

and though seculars were admitted to share in their advantages, they

were primarily intended for the education of the clergy. The strong

religious character that must have been impressed on the education

given in such academies was perfectly in harmony with the spirit of

the early ages, when, as Balmez remarks, the intellectual development

of Europe had a distinctly theological bias. Religion in those days

was the preponderating element, it ruled the family and the state,

as well as the individual: and in days when the laws were drawn

up in the spirit and the language of ecclesiastical canons, there

was nothing at all out of place in the sons of knights and nobles

being set to study church chant, the Psalter, and the Fathers. That

their studies were by no means _exclusively_ theological has, I

think, been amply shown; nevertheless, it is undeniable that, in

the ecclesiastical schools, the liberal arts were chiefly cultivated

in their relation to the things of faith, and that every branch of

learning was more or less tinged with the theological element.

It was not to be expected that such a state of things could continue

without large modification. Nations, like individuals, pursue an

inevitable course of mental development, and the time necessarily

came when the human mind, growing from childhood into maturity,

demanded a wider and freer expansion. Hence ensued that remarkable

change observable at the opening of the eleventh century, when the

European intellect seemed to be passing out of a long winter into

a sudden spring, and burst into a vigorous activity, accompanied,

naturally enough, by many excesses. Schools and teachers were

indefinitely multiplied; the office of teaching was no longer

confined to ecclesiastics, and, falling into the hands of lay

professors, unavoidably assumed a new character. But it is remarkable

that the main principles of the former system still remained in

force. Education was recognised to be a religious work, and one

which, as such, fell under the jurisdiction of the bishop. As chief

pastor in his own diocese, he was supreme in all things appertaining

to the spiritual interests of his flock, and the office of teaching

was acknowledged to be one that fell under his pastoral charge.[179]

The new scholastics, therefore, were not entirely exempted from

episcopal jurisdiction; and in the eleventh century we find the

system generally established, according to which the _scholasticus_

of the cathedral, or bishop’s school, exercised a certain control

over all the schools in the diocese, no professor being suffered to

open any private school without a license from him.[180] I do not

know whether we can affirm that there were episcopal inspectors, but

there were certainly certificated masters in the days of St. Anselm.

The office of cathedral _scholasticus_ belonged properly to the

archdeacon of the diocese, who might appoint a substitute to direct

the school, but with whom the power of granting licenses always

remained. In many churches it was also identical with the office of

chancellor.[181]

And here one observation irresistibly presents itself. How striking a

contrast does not this system offer to that which finds favour in our

own times! Here we see it formally and distinctly recognised that the

office of teacher was one of those that fell directly under episcopal

supervision. The bishop of the diocese exercised jurisdiction

over schools, as he did over churches, in virtue of his pastoral

office, and his license was the necessary certificate of moral and

intellectual fitness. But, according to the principles accepted by

most countries which rejoice in a National system of education, the

authority formerly exercised by the bishop is transferred to a Board.

We make over to a minister of public instruction, or a committee of

privy council, or some other secular organ of an unspiritual state,

what our fathers regarded as an integral portion of the pastoral

office, an incongruity which, little as it now startles us, is, we

may say without exaggeration, scarcely less opposed to the Christian

order than if the crown should assume the power of granting faculties

to preach. What wonder that the result of such a change should be

the gradual, but most sure, unchristianising of the popular mind,

and that infidelity has found no more efficient allies than the

multitudinous and plausible codes of state education which have

sprung up since the destruction of the ancient system!

That the control thus recognised as belonging to the bishop through

his officers was not merely nominal is quite clear. In 1132, we

find Stephen de Senlis, Bishop of Paris, through his chancellor,

interdicting a certain professor, named Galon, from continuing to

teach. Galon persisted, in defiance of the bishop; and, his pupils

deserting his school through fear of incurring ecclesiastical

censures, he was at last put to silence. However, he appealed to

the Pope, and this, says Crevier, “is the first occasion in which

the authority of the Court of Rome appears as interfering in the

affairs of the university.” He adds that it was also the beginning

of those disputes which the university of Paris maintained for long

years against the bishop and chancellor of Notre Dame, arising

out of the claims of the latter to exercise jurisdiction over the

schools, and the vigorous resistance of the academic authorities.

It is clear that the episcopal rights were never totally and

completely revoked; nevertheless, they were reduced to a _minimum_,

and the universities, to all practical purposes, established their

independence. And the change thus introduced was the more portentous

from the fact that, with the rise of the universities, we date

the disappearance of the episcopal seminaries. “The institution

of seminaries,” says Theiner, “disappeared throughout Christendom

after the twelfth century.” The universities became the great seats

of learning, human and divine, and though the cathedral schools

continued to exist, their students passed from them at an early

age to finish their education in theology and canon law in Paris,

Oxford, and Bologna; whilst, in many cases, the cathedral schools

themselves were absorbed in the new universities of which they formed

the nucleus. The bishops, unable to stem the tide, were forced to

yield to it, and to witness the education of their clergy passing

out of their own control into the hands of newly-constituted bodies

which jealously disputed their authority, which were often enough

infected with an infidel philosophy, which did not at first supply

their members with any spiritual or moral discipline, and which were

not necessarily impressed with an ecclesiastical character. For,

what is a university? “It consists,” says a writer in the “Analecta

Juris Pontificii,”[182] “of an aggregation of schools, governed by

a body of doctors, who divide among themselves the several branches

of instruction which, in the public schools, are united under one

master.” “A university,” says Crevier, “is a body composed of

masters teaching and disciples who are taught.” And the writer first

quoted goes on to examine whether it would have been possible or

desirable for the universities to have established the collegiate

discipline of the ancient schools with a view to protect the piety

and morals of the students, and decides that such an attempt would

have been a chimera. The universities, he says, were intended for

seculars as well as clerics, and it was, therefore, unfitting that

the rule of clerical schools should be enforced in them. But it is

at least obvious that a prodigious and calamitous revolution was

being effected in the education of the clergy when young clerics

were trained in academies wherein such rules were avowedly _not_

enforced. The difference was this, that in old time they had received

secular students into their seminaries, and then the education of

laymen was tinged with an ecclesiastical character. Now the world

received clerics into her academies, and the education of the future

clergy of Europe became necessarily, in a certain sense, secularised.

Nor is this said as in any way depreciating the universities, or

representing them in an unfavourable light. They will lose nothing

by being represented as what they truly are, academies of science,

schools of worldly training, learned corporations in which degrees

are granted for intellectual proficiency in liberal studies, and in

which a man acquires knowledge, refinement, and all that can fit him

for taking his place in society, and filling it with credit. Yet, all

this does not make them substitutes for ecclesiastical seminaries.

They are doubtless capable of being employed in the service of

religion, and have often been so employed: they have been established

and encouraged by the bulls of Popes, and, in more than one instance,

founded with the direct view of furnishing bulwarks against the

spread of heresy. Yet, it is evident that, as places of education for

the clergy, the universities were at a disadvantage. They could not

give the young clerics that training in the ecclesiastical spirit

which they had hitherto enjoyed. Even granting that the establishment

of colleges afforded the benefits of regular life to their students,

it could not give them the watchful protection of their bishop’s eye.

That close and paternal tie which had grown up between the chief

pastor and his future clergy was altogether lost, except, indeed,

in so far as the evil results of the system were counteracted by

the personal efforts of the bishop. And here, happily, some of the

habits of feudal society came to his aid, and enabled him to receive

into the enormous household then maintained by every lord, whether

spiritual or temporal, a number of young clerks, who, after their

university career was over, thus passed under the immediate rule of

their bishop, and received a certain sort of ecclesiastical training

at his hands.

Fleury speaks of this custom as universal throughout the Church in

the Middle Ages; and says that each bishop took special care of the

instruction of his clergy, particularly of those young clerics who

were continually about his person, serving him in the capacity of

lectors or secretaries, carrying his letters and transmitting his

orders. These episcopal households, however, could not do the work

of a seminary, still less could they undo the work of a university

in the souls of those who had been subjected for a course of years

to its social and intellectual training. The idea of the seminary,

and the episcopal or monastic school, is pre-eminently that of

preservation; it takes the soul in the freshness of youth, and

hedges round with thorns the garden that is to be consecrated to

God. But according to the mediæval university system, a lad began

his studies at Oxford or Paris at the age of twelve or fourteen, and

seldom spent less than nine, sometimes twelve, years in native or

foreign academies, so that the whole of his most impressible years

were spent in the midst of secular fellow-students, thus opening

upon him a flood of evils that scarcely require to be pointed out.

The dissolute manners which prevailed, specially in the Italian

universities, which were, perhaps, next to that of Paris, the most

frequented, are depicted by successive Pontiffs as a sort of moral

contagion. In many there prevailed a tone of philosophic scepticism,

even yet more gravely injurious. False opinions were supported by

the example and eloquence of fine scholars and great intellects,

and few could enter such an atmosphere, and be subjected to such an

influence, without at least losing some of the instincts of faith.

The habits of expense, rendered fashionable by wealthy students,

brought poverty, the scholar’s ancient and honourable badge, into

disrepute, and encouraged an eagerness for offices and benefices. The

office of teaching itself lost something of its ancient nobility when

made a means of ministering to cupidity and ambition; for it must

be owned there were few Wolfgangs to be found at Paris or Bologna.

And as avarice and sensuality became the predominant vices of those

out of whose ranks the future clergy were to be formed, what wonder

that the two centuries which followed the rise of these brilliant and

captivating academies should be filled with complaints of clerical

corruption; that the salt of the earth should have lost its savour,

and that abuses accumulated which cried loudly for reform?

But besides all this the universities had a spirit of their own.

In most cases they were creations of the State, and betrayed their

origin in the principles which they advocated. We shall have occasion

hereafter to refer to the part taken by Paris university during

the struggle between Philip le Bel and Boniface VIII. That Pontiff

had been prodigal of his favours to the French schools, and had

done more than any preceding Pope to extend their privileges; yet

at the bidding of the crown the Paris doctors did not hesitate to

give their sanction to the monstrous charges by which Philip sought

to blacken the reputation of the man he had resolved to destroy.

They certified to the truth of accusations drawn up at the king’s

direction, representing the Sovereign Pontiff as having a familiar

demon, and as blaspheming the doctrine of the real Presence. Crevier

says one cannot but smile at these articles, which were notoriously

destitute of a shadow of foundation, and in which not one man who

signed them for a moment believed. Yet, he adds, the university of

Paris gave in its adhesion to this act, and her example was followed

by that of Toulouse, _because they deemed it proper to support the

authority of the Crown_. His own comments on these facts are not less

startling than the facts themselves. “It was an act,” he says, “of

great consequence, and the university has constantly adhered to this

_sound_ doctrine, and made it her greatest glory that, owing all her

privileges to the power of the Popes, she has never sought to extend

their power beyond its just limits, but on the contrary, has ever

been the scourge of theologians and canonists flattering to the court

of Rome.”[183] In the preface to his work he lays down this _sound

doctrine_ of the university in very plain terms, which we commend

to the attentive study of the reader, as indicating the inevitable

bias of State institutions. “The university of Paris is intimately

united to the State, of which it forms a part. It finds in the

public power that protection which it requires, and acquits itself

of all its duties towards the State by inspiring with all possible

care into the disciples whom it trains the sentiments of citizens

and Frenchmen. This is one of the chief characteristics, I may say,

the peculiar glory, of our university. Its first object is God and

religion. But it knows that God Himself commands us to regard _as the

first of duties those which refer to our country and our sovereign_,

who resumes all the rights of the nation in his own person. Hence

that enlightened and courageous zeal which has always animated the

university of Paris for the defence of our precious maxims on the

independence of the Crown, the distinction of the two powers, the

legitimate rights of the Head of the Church, and the respective

rights of the Church herself, _as opposed to her Head_. These maxims,

so important to the tranquillity of Church and State, have always had

adversaries, and our university shares with the Parliament the glory

of having ever faithfully maintained them.”

These words were written in the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI.

Who can regret that an institution, the character of which is thus

depicted by one of its own professors, should have been doomed to

extinction in the midst of that storm which overthrew both state and

monarchy, and taught the terrible lesson how little stability is

to be looked for in any civil power which seeks to base itself on

the “precious maxims” of State supremacy? Yet, this spirit was not

confined to the university of Paris alone; her doctors put it forth,

perhaps, with peculiar boldness and precision, but it was shared by

almost all her sister academies, as may be seen by the part which the

universities of Europe took in the contest between Henry VIII. and

the Holy See, and the active support which he obtained from their

professors. And there is no doubt that this is in great part to be

attributed to the excessive predominance of the study of the Roman

law, which rendered popular a certain Cæsarism in politics, which

eventually proved as destructive to civil, as it did to religious,

liberty.

So far, our observations apply to the universities at all periods of

their existence. But, in the beginning of the thirteenth century,

there existed some dangers peculiar to the time. The new academies

threatened to prove no less hostile to the purity of doctrine than

to the purity of manners. Aggregations of schools incorporated by

royal charters are not the appointed guardians of the deposit of

faith, nor has the promise of infallibility been given to doctors and

theological professors. The monastic scholars had, for the most part,

been secured from error by their reverence for tradition, and from

the fact of their naturally contemplating truth, rather through the

heart, than through the reason. But the new scholastics contemplated

it through the metaphysics of Aristotle, and, what is more, through

Aristotle as he was rendered by Arabic interpreters, who added to the

errors of the pagan philosophers a pantheistic system of their own.

At the head of these was Averrhoes, the son of an Arabian physician,

whose religion it would be hard to determine, as he scoffed alike

at Christianity, Judaism, and Mahometanism. His commentaries on

Aristotle found such favour in the eyes of the free-thinking students

of the day that they commonly spoke of him as “the Commentator.” His

grand doctrine was that which averred all mankind to possess but

one common intellect. All after death were to be united to what

the modern Germans would call the _Over-Soul_, and hence the dogma

of reward and punishment, according to individual merit, crumbled

away, and there was no difference between saint and sinner--between

St. Peter and Mahomet. These doctrines were propagated by wandering

minstrels, and supported by imperial scholars. Frederic II.

entertained at his court the two sons of Averrhoes, whose religious

views, in the main, coincided with his own. He patronised the Arabian

schoolmen, partly out of a love of the natural sciences which

they cultivated, and partly from a sympathy with their sceptical

philosophy; and his support helped to set the fashion. Soon the new

philosophy linked itself to those Manichean doctrines, the poison of

which was always lurking somewhere within the fold. Secret societies

were formed, the members of which were bound together by oaths, and

were to be found in most of the great universities; and Bulæus tells

us that an organisation existed for disseminating their opinions

among the people by agents disguised as pedlars. A new translation of

Aristotle’s Metaphysics appeared in 1167, and, says Crevier, “men’s

minds became wholly filled with them.” Many fell into open unbelief,

and he relates the well-known story of Simon of Tournai, who, after

explaining all the doctrines of religion with great applause,

blasphemously boasted that it was as easy for him to disprove, as

to prove the existence of God. He offered to do so on the following

day, but, in the midst of his impious speech, he was struck with

apoplexy, and the event was regarded as a manifestation of the Divine

displeasure.

Another of the Paris professors, Amauri de Bene, was regent of arts

about the same time with Simon. He was remarked as being fond of

singular opinions; and as having a way of thinking on most subjects

peculiar to himself, but in his own lifetime the real truth was

never suspected. But after his death startling discoveries were

made. He was found to have been the head of one of the Albigensian

sects who preserved the name of Christianity, while rejecting all

its dogmas. The doctrine of the sacraments was swept away; a new

religion was announced to the initiated as the work of the Spirit,

which was to replace that which had been introduced by the Son;

and this second gospel was associated with hideous immorality.

All this had been cautiously propagated among disciples bound to

secresy by oath. On investigation it proved that the greater number

of the Paris professors were infected with this poison, and the

university found itself compelled to limit the number of its doctors

in theology to eight. A council being called at Paris in 1210, it

was resolved to strike at the evil in its head by prohibiting the

study of Aristotle’s Philosophy in the schools. It was in consequence

of this decree that Robert de Courçon in his statutes interdicted

the reading of Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics. In 1231 Gregory

IX. rendered the prohibition less absolute, but before the end of

the century a recurrence of the old disorders rendered it once

more necessary to condemn a whole system of pagan errors taught by

the Parisian masters.[184] “Even those who did not push the abuse

to such extremes,” says Crevier, “altered, at least in part, the

purity of Christian dogma, by interpretations more conformable to

the principles of Aristotle than of the Fathers.” And it was this

that caused Gregory IX., true friend to ancient learning as he was,

to fulminate a bull against the Paris professors, charging them

with presumptuous arrogance, and forbidding them to mingle their

philosophic opinions with the truths of revelation.

Decrees of this nature were, however, insufficient to meet the evil.

The intellect of Europe, as it flowed into these academies, was

trembling on the brink of infidelity, and so long as the schools of

philosophy were in the enemy’s hands, it was vain to expect to put

down error by the simple voice of authority. What power, then, was to

be evoked in defence of Christian dogma? Where were the champions to

be found to meet the teachers of error on their own ground, and beat

them with their own weapons? The monastic orders had ever proved the

militia of the Church at such crises, but in the present case their

position seemed to preclude their taking a prominent part in the

contest. Though they were beginning to make use of the universities

for the education of their younger members, yet this was felt by many

to be a straining of their rule, and a very general prejudice against

the practice prevailed among the monks themselves. Certainly it would

never have been tolerated for them to have aspired to the professor’s

chair, yet the battle, it was plain, would have to be fought in the

arena of the schools. Something seemed required in which the spirit

of the schools and of the cloister should be combined; in which

all the science of the one should be united to all the unworldly

self-devotedness of the other. A new institute seemed called for in

the Church, and at the moment that it was called for, it appeared.

The Divine Householder, bringing out of His treasure-house things

new as well as old, had in His providence prepared the shield which

was to cast back the weapons of the new scholasticism on those who

wielded them; to Christianise the schools, and press philosophy into

the service of the faith. And this gigantic work was to be wrought

by the ministry of doctors indeed, but of men who were not merely

doctors, but saints. But of them and of their triumphs we must speak

in a separate chapter.

_CHAPTER XIV._

THE DOMINICANS AND THE UNIVERSITIES.

A.D. 1215-1300.

In the very same year which witnessed the publication of the Paris

Statutes by Robert de Courçon, the city of Toulouse was being

electrified by the lectures of a certain professor of theology named

Alexander, who was held in great esteem throughout the south of

France. One autumn day in the year 1215, having risen at a very early

hour to pursue his studies, he fell asleep in his chair, and in his

sleep he had a dream. He thought that seven stars appeared before

him, small at first, but gradually increasing in size, and at last

illuminating the whole world with their splendour. Starting from his

slumber, he found that the hour had come for him to open his school,

and hastening thither, seven men presented themselves to him as he

entered, and informed him that they were about to preach in the

country round about Toulouse, and desired, before doing so, to attend

his lectures. They wore the usual dress of the Canons Regular of St.

Augustine, namely, a white serge tunic covered with a linen surplice,

and over that a black mantle; and they were headed by one on whose

brow the master seemed to recognise the starry splendour which he had

seen in his late vision: they were Dominic Guzman, prior of Prouille

and Canon of Osma, and his first six followers.

The Order of Preachers was at this time but just founded, but even

before its holy patriarch had given it a rule, and obtained for

it the Apostolic confirmation, he directed its first steps to the

schools. The institute, of which he had conceived the plan, was

expressly designed for the purpose of teaching and preaching, and

hence the culture of sacred science formed, from the first moment

of its existence, one of its primary and essential duties. Having,

therefore, established his followers at Toulouse to pursue their

studies under the direction of Alexander, St. Dominic hastened to

Rome to lay his plans before Pope Innocent III., then presiding

over the Fourth Lateran Council. The Fathers of that Council had

already formally recognised the grand evils of the age, which cried

for a remedy, to be the want of sound religious instruction among

the people and of theological science among the clergy. And a decree

had been passed directing the bishops in each diocese to choose

persons capable of preaching and instructing the people who were

to be employed in this office; and requiring that certain learned

men should be appointed in all churches, whether cathedral or

conventual, to assist the bishops in preaching the Word of God and

administering the Sacraments. Thus the outline of a teaching and

preaching order had been sketched by the Lateran Fathers even before

its perfect design had been submitted to the Pope by its founder.

No wonder, therefore, that it was readily approved; it appeared as

though raised up by God to supply a want at the very moment when

the existence of that want had been distinctly acknowledged. And

as if to mark the fact that, from the first moment of its formal

existence, the Order of Preachers was expressly intended to teach and

cultivate sacred science, Honorius III., when confirming the rule in

the year following, bestowed upon St. Dominic the office of Master

of the Sacred Palace, which may be briefly defined as that of the

Pope’s theologian. This office became hereditary in the Order, and

distinguished the sons of St. Dominic as the chosen theologians of

the Church.

To form a just idea of the solicitude of the holy founder, and of

those who immediately succeeded him, in establishing a perfect system

of studies, we must turn to the Constitutions of the Order. It was

at the first general chapter held at Bologna in 1220, and presided

over by the saint himself, that an ordinance was passed declaring

that as the principal end of the Order is preaching, the brethren

should concern themselves rather with books and studies than with

the singing of Responsories and Antiphons, provided, however, that

prayer be vigilantly attended to.[185] And elsewhere the pursuit of

sacred learning is declared to be “most congruous to the design of

the Order,” both because the Order professes the contemplative life,

and the study of sacred things is necessary to this end, and because

it is also designed for teaching others the Divine knowledge which

its members have acquired by learning.[186] Schools were therefore

to be opened in every convent, under a Master of Studies, which

differed from the old monastic schools in being exclusively intended

as theological seminaries, and not as academies of the arts. The

study of arts was not indeed absolutely prohibited, but it was to

be pursued under limitations, and too much time was not to be given

to secular branches of learning.[187] It was, however, required

that in all convents the brethren should study the languages of the

neighbouring countries;[188] and early in the fourteenth century the

study of the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic tongues was likewise enjoined.

Still later, in 1553, it was ordained that in all convents where

there were younger brethren, there should be a lector appointed to

teach them grammar and the arts, according to their capacity. But the

studies chiefly contemplated by the rule were those of philosophy and

theology. Three years were to be devoted to the study of philosophy,

before the commencement of the theological course. The length of time

devoted to theological studies may be gathered from the rule which

enjoined that in each of the chief houses of studies there should

be a Regent of Studies, a certain number of Bachelors and Lectors,

and a Master of Studies; but no one could be appointed Regent till

he had publicly taught theology for twelve years, and the Bachelor

or Lector, ten years; and all these must have maintained at least

five public disputations in the schools before the assembled doctors

and scholars. Moreover, before any one could present himself for the

examination required in order to become a Master of Studies, it was

necessary to have completed the course of arts, and another four

years’ course of theology.[189]

During the year of religious probation which preceded profession,

the novices were exclusively to occupy themselves in acquiring a

knowledge of their rule and the duties of their state, and were

exercised in chanting the Divine Office and studying the Ceremonies

of the Order. During this time they were not allowed to engage in

any study except that of languages. After their profession their

scholastic course began, during which time every facility was to

be afforded them for pursuing their philosophical and theological

course. They were to have suitable cells in which they might read,

write, and even sit up at night with a light. There was to be

some place in which the Master of Studies could assemble them to

propose doubts and questions, in discussing which good order and

courtesy were to be observed. Every student was to be provided

with three books; a Bible, a copy of the Sentences, and a book of

histories.[190] The studies began with a course of philosophy, then

the Scriptures were explained, and no one could be sent to a _Studium

Generale_, a house of general studies, until he had passed at least

one year under a professor of the Sacred Scriptures. After this

came the explanation of the Sentences, which formed the theological

text-book, until the works of St. Thomas were substituted in their

place. In the schools the Lector was forbidden to use any written

manuscript; he might have the text of Aristotle and of the Sentences,

but no gloss. The pupils might take written notes if they chose,

and if they were able to do so, though, as they sat on bundles of

straw, or at best on benches without desks, this was not always

easy. Most were content to trust to their memory, and assist it

afterwards by repetitions of the master’s lesson among themselves.

Classes were held every day, and there were weekly and yearly

examinations. At first there was but one _Studium Generale_, that,

namely, of St. James’s Convent in Paris, but in 1248 four others were

established at Cologne, Oxford, Montpelier, and Bologna, in all of

which the students were able to take the same degrees as in Paris.

The number of these houses was afterwards greatly multiplied, one

being provided for each province. Certain scholars of remarkable

capacity were selected by their superiors and sent to those houses.

From the _Studium Generale_ the students passed on to graduate at

some university, unless, as was often the case, the house was itself

aggregated to a university, as at Paris and Bologna. The order

observed at Paris in advancing to the degree of Doctor, is given by

Fleury in his “Fifth Discourse,” and was as follows. He who was named

_Bachelor_ by the General of the Order, or by the Chapter, began by

explaining the Sentences in the school of some doctor, for the space

of a year, at the end of which time the prior of the convent, with

the other doctors then professing, presented him to the Chancellor

of the Church of Paris, and affirmed on oath that they judged him

worthy of obtaining a license to open a school of his own and teach

as a doctor; after going through certain examinations, he taught the

second year in his own school, and the third year was allowed to have

a bachelor under him, whom at the end of that year he presented for

his license. Thus, the doctor’s course lasted three years, and no

one could be raised to the degree of Doctor of Divinity or Master of

Sacred Theology, who had not thus publicly taught.[191] The teaching

of the Friar Preachers, however, was not exclusively given in the

pulpit or the professor’s chair. It was their aim to ingraft in

men’s minds a knowledge and love of the truth, to protect them from

heresy by informing them with the spirit of the Church, that spirit

which finds expression, not in her creeds alone, but her Liturgy

and sacred ceremonies. In our own day we have become accustomed to

the idea that institutes founded for the purpose of teaching must

necessarily lay aside something of the monastic character. The

long offices, the solemn ceremonial, the austerities and ritual

observances which take up so large a portion of cloistered life, are,

it is thought, difficult, if not impossible, to associate with the

active work of the Apostolate. But in the thirteenth century men were

still deeply penetrated with the Liturgical spirit which animated

the Church in earlier times; it was held that no words could be so

fit to convey her teaching as her own, and not words alone but acts,

the exact performance of her beautiful rites, made familiar to the

eye and heart of the worshipper; her office, her music, the beauty

of her sanctuary, and the silent eloquence of her sacred art. All

these, therefore, were embraced by the Dominican rule and used as

instruments of popular instruction, and it is probable that the

Friars cherished those privileges which threw open their churches to

the people, and encouraged them to assist at their public offices,

almost equally with those that secured to them the free possession of

the professor’s chair.

How thoroughly the newly-constituted order was fitted to supply the

intellectual wants of the times is proved by the fact, that in the

first period of its existence it was chiefly recruited from the ranks

of university scholars and professors. Among the names that figure in

its early annals those of the Blessed Reginald of Orleans, and St.

Peter Martyr, Jordan of Saxony, and his friend Henry of Cologne, the

Englishman, John of St. Giles, and the Parisian, Vincent of Beauvais,

the three Bolognese doctors Roland, Conrad, and Moneta, Cardinal Hugh

de St. Cher, and his disciple the Blessed Humbert, with the Spanish

canonist St. Raymund Pennafort, were all taken from this class.

The chief extension of the Order, especially among the students

of Paris and Bologna, took place under the generalship of Blessed

Jordan, who had a remarkable gift of drawing to himself the affection

and confidence of the young. His influence was naturally enough most

powerfully felt among his own countrymen. The convent of Cologne

had already been founded by his old fellow-student and bosom friend

Henry of Utrecht; and a namesake of his, Henry the German, who had

begun life as a student, then assumed the cross, and finally taking

the religious habit, became its first theological professor. And

there in 1230 arrived the young Swabian, Albert of Lauingen, who had

been drawn to the Order by B. Jordan, whilst pursuing his studies at

Padua. Albert during his student-life had been remarkable for his

love of the old classic literature and his enthusiastic admiration

for Aristotle; and had already displayed a singular attraction to

those physical sciences which he afterwards so profoundly studied.

He had examined various natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, the

mephitic vapours issuing from a long closed well, and some curious

marks in a block of marble, which he explained in a manner which

betrays an acquaintance with some of the chemical theories of modern

geology.[192] After going through his theological course at Bologna,

he was appointed to fill the vacant post of professor at Cologne,

where he taught sacred and human science for some years, and lectured

moreover at Hildesheim, Strasburg, Friburg, and Ratisbonn, in which

last city an old hall is shown which still bears the title of

“Albert’s School.” Converted into a chapel by one of his successors

and ardent admirers, it may be supposed to exhibit the same form

and arrangement as that which it bore five centuries ago. Round the

walls are disposed ancient wooden seats, for the accommodation of the

hearers, and fixed against the middle of the wall is an oak chair, or

rather pulpit, covered with carvings of a later date, representing

St. Vincent Ferrer delivering a lecture, and a novice in the attitude

of attention. The chair is of double construction, containing two

seats, in one of which sat the master, and in the other the bachelor,

who explained under him the Book of the Sentences. All around are

texts from the Holy Scriptures, fitly chosen to remind the student

in what spirit he should apply himself to the pursuit of sacred

letters. _Ama scientiam Scripturarum, et vitia carnis non amabis.

Qui addit scientiam addit et laborem. Bonitatem et disciplinam et

scientiam doce me. Qui fecerit et docuerit, hic magnus vocabitur in

regno cælorum. Videte ne quis vos decipiat per philosophiam, secundum

elementa mundi, et non secundum Christum._

In such a hall as this we may picture to ourselves the Blessed

Albert the Great lecturing at Cologne in 1245, where he first

received among his pupils that illustrious disciple whose renown,

if it eclipsed his own, at the same time constitutes his greatest

glory. There are few readers who are not familiar with the student

life of St. Thomas of Aquin, the silent habits which exposed him to

the witticisms of his companions, who thought the young Sicilian

a dull sort of importation, and nicknamed him “the dumb ox;” the

obliging compassion which moved a fellow-student to offer him his

assistance in explaining the lessons of the master, and the modesty

and humility with which this greatest of Christian scholars veiled

his mighty intellect, and with the instinct of the saints, rejoiced

to be counted the least among his brethren. But the day came which

was to make him known in his true character. His notes and replies

to a difficult question proposed by Albert from the writings of St.

Denys, fell into the hands of his master, who reading them with

wonder and delight, commanded him on the following day to take part

in the scholastic disputation. St. Thomas obeyed, and the audience

knew not whether most to admire his eloquence or his erudition. At

last Albert, unable to restrain his astonishment, broke out into

the memorable words, “You call this the dumb ox, but I tell you his

roaring will be heard throughout the whole world.” From that day St.

Thomas became the object of his most solicitous care; he assigned him

a cell adjoining his own, and when in the course of the same year he

removed to Paris, to govern the school of St. James for three years,

in order afterwards to graduate as doctor, he took his favourite

scholar with him.

The position which the Friars at that time occupied in Paris requires

a few words of explanation. In the year 1228, a tavern brawl, which

terminated in a disgraceful riot, had brought on a collision between

the civic and academic authorities; and the indiscriminating severity

with which the excesses of the students had been punished, had

determined all the masters to desert the city, and open their schools

elsewhere. This quarrel, which threatened the entire break-up of the

university, lasted three years, and was only finally adjusted by the

interference of the Pope. During the absence of the masters, the

archbishop and chancellor of Paris conferred one of the vacant chairs

of theology on the Friars Preachers, and shortly afterwards erected a

second chair in their favour, Roland of Cremona and John of St. Giles

being named the two first university professors of the order.

When the masters returned to Paris they affected to regard this as

an infringement of their rights, and a warm controversy arose, which

lasted with ever-increasing violence for forty years, and was at

its height when the two saints made their first appearance in the

Parisian schools. It did not, however, prevent Albert from winning

his doctor’s cap, together with the reputation of having illuminated

every branch of science, and of knowing everything that was to be

known.[193]