<,\ u '■ V^t^>l ' .i^tiCf^JWRt' - -„. -«!»j » <» * ' L Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030550663 EDITED BY WILLIAM T. HAEEIS, A.M., LL.D. Volume III. INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SEEIES. EonsTi BY W. T. Harris. It is proposed to publish, under the above title, a library for teachers and school managers, and text-books for normal classes. The aim will be to provide works of a useful practical character in the broadest sense. The following conspectus will show the ground to be covered by the series : I. — ^History of fiducation. (a.) Original systems as ex- pounded by their founders, (b.) Critical histories which set forth the customs of the past and point out their advantages and defects, explain- ing the grounds of their adoption, and also of their final disuse. II. — Educational Criticism, (a.) The noteworthy arraign- ments which educational reformers have put forth against existing sys- tems : these compose the classics of pedagogy, (b.) The critical histories above mentioned. m.— Systematic Treatises on the Theory of Edu- cation, (a.) Works written from the historical standpoint; these, for the most part, show a tendency to justify the traditional course of study and to defend the prevailing methods of instruction, (b.) Works written from critical standpoints, and to a greater or less degree revolu- tionary in their tendency. rV. — The Art of Education, (a.) Works on instruction and discipline, and the practical details of the school-room, (b.) Works on the organization and supervision of schools. Practical insight into the educational methods in vogue can not be attained without a knowledge of the process by which they have come to be established. For this reason it is proposed to give special prominence to the history of the systems that have prevailed. Again, since history is incompetent to furnish the ideal of the future, it is necessary to devote large space to works of educational criticism. Criticism is the purifying process by which ideals are rendered clear and potent, so that progress becomes possible. History and criticiBm combined make possible a theory of the whole. For, with an ideal toward which the entire movement tends, and an ac- count of the phases that have appeared in time, the connected develop- ment of the whole can be shown, and all united into one system. Lastly, after the science, comes the practice. The art of education is treated in special works devoted to the devices and technical detiuls use- ful in the school-room. It is believed that the teacher does not need authority so much as in- sight in matters of education. When he understands the theory of edu- cation and the history of its growth, and has matured his own point of view by careful study of the critical literature of education, then he is competent to select or invent such practical devices as are best adapted to his own wants. The series will contain works from European as well as American authors, and will be under the editorship of W. T. Haeeis, A. M., LL. D. The price for the volumes of the series will be $1.60 for the larger volumes, 76 cents for the smaller ones. Vol. I. The Philosophy of Education. By Johann Karl Friedrich EoSenkranz. Vol. II. A History of Education. By Prof. F. V. N. Painter, of Eoanoke, Virginia. Vol. m. The Kise and Early Constitution of Univer- sities. With a Survey of Mediaeval Education. By S. S. Laurie, LL. D., Professor of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of Edinburgh. INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES THE mSE AND EAELY CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES SUEVET OF MEDL^YAL EDUOATIOlif S.-S. LAURIE, LL. D. PROFESSOR OP THE INSTITUTES AND HISTORY OP EDUCATION IN THB UNIVERSITY OF EDIKBUROH NEW YORK D. APPLETOK AND COMPANY 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STKEET \H9>T UNIVERSITY' Nv-. LIBRARV ConmiGHT, 1886, Bt d. appleton and company. EDITOR'S PREFACE. In the history of the rise and organization of universities the student of education finds the most interesting and suggestive topic in the entire range of his specialty. For, in the history of the develop- ment of the higher and highest education, he sees the definite modes by which the contributions of the past to the well-being of the present have been transmitted. The school undertakes to endow the youth with the acquisitions of his race, or, rather, to qualify him to undertake this acquisition for him- self. It therefore arms him with the proper habits of study and co-operation by discipline. It instructs him in those elementary branches of knowledge which serve as keys to the whole treasury of learn- ing. Every study holds its place because of its claim to present an epitome of a department of knowledge, transmitting its net results — like geography, his- tory, or grammar ; or else because it gives the mas- tery of some art necessary to such transmission — as in the case of the arts of reading and writing or numerical calculation. Vi EDITOR'S PREFACE. What did the ancients fix upon as the course of study in their schools ? In what way have we va- ried from their curriculum ? These important ques- tions being answered, we wish to ascertain the practical and theoretical reasons which have pre- vailed and which now prevail in the selection of these branches of study in our schools. In this inquiry the university is the central theme. Its first beginnings at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome, its revival in the middle ages, and its modern expan- sion show us the status of this question of the course of study, and much more. They acquaint us with the history of methods of organization, of disci- pline, and of instruction. The epoch included be- tween the fifth century B. C, and the fifteenth cent- ury A. D., too, is marked by the culmination of the Greek and Roman civilizations and their transmuta- tion into Christianity, and it possesses for all Chris- tian civilizations a supreme interest. The Greeks first make a literature and then be- gin to develop science, or, in other words, to dis- cover through reflection the forms, laws, or methods of human activity. Through the efforts of the sophists and schools of philosophy, grammar, rheto- ric, and logic arise. These three products of reflec- tion presuppose a literature as already existing, and exhibit in a systematic form the normal types of language and thought. Hence they constitute a basis for criticism, and at the same time furnish ma- terial for education. For education is inconceivable without normal types, models, or ideals to which EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii the pupil is to be taught to conform. There must be a standard before him, or else he can not be trained, either in will or in intellect. Grammar, as it appears, expounds the forms of speech, written and printed, or spoken ; it deals with the elements of expression of ideas. Rhetoric, on the other hand, shows the forms of presentation of ideas; while logic treats of the forms of thinking ideas. Here we have three sciences or arts that deal with forms. It seems that the course of instruction in the trivium and quadrivium was established under Al- exander the Great, and that the labors of Isocrates, Aristotle, and Theophrastus stand accredited with much influence in its adoption. The trivium in- cluded the three formal sciences just named — gram- mar, rhetoric and dialectic, and furnished the foun- dation of intellectual education. The quadrivium included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and mu- sic — four branches relating mostly to nature, and in contrast with the studies of the trivium, which relate to human nature or man. As practically taught, grammar included a study of the poets and prose writers, and, besides gram- matical forms, looked incidentally toward the mean- ing and substance of thought. What was known of history was also brought in under this topic. Rhetoric, likewise, was made to include much besides the forms of literary works, for it necessarily considered questions of human nature as the object toward which literary form is directed. It looked viii EDITOR'S PREFACE. into the moral grounds of action, and considered the cultivation of the statesman and the science of politics. Dialectic included chiefly logic, but expanded also into metaphysics, and even reached, in thor- ough schools, physics and ethics. Arithmetic included numerical calculation of an elementary character, and a variety of numerical data useful in business, trade, and the keeping of the calendar. Geometry included a few definitions and theorems from Euclid, and then branched off into geography. Astronomy included much that we are in the habit of studying under the head of natural philosophy. Music had originally included all the branches of intellectual and moral education — all depart- ments presided over by the Nine Muses. Early Greek education included gymnastics and music — the latter used in this wide sense. In the course of time the scope of this branch of study was gradu- ally limited, and its subjects transferred to other departments. What strikes us as especially noteworthy in the history of education is the predominance of the studies that relate to dry forms — dry to the pupil, because they relate to what is general and not to what is particular and personal in its interest for him. These dry, formal studies have to be learned with hard labor. For the reason that they are much discredited in some recent theories of educa- tion, it is very important to note the fact that is EDITOR'S PREFACE. ix made manifest in this history of the university that the formal studies of the trivium and quadrivium have furnished the staple of secondary and higher education from the first schools in classic times down to the present. An effort should be made to ascertain with greater precision what their effect on the mind really is. This is not the place to dis- cuss the topic, but rather to point out the interest- ing lesson which history offers us. The general re- mark may be offered that the study of forms leads to the habit of generalization. Grammar, rhetoric, and logic may be forgotten soon after school, but even a superficial course in these branches leads to some acquirement of the mental habit of looking at the form or method^or law of a phenomenon. With- out this habit, the mind follows only the succession of details and soon gets lost. Arithmetic deals with the most general form of succession, the form of time; geometry, in like manner, to the forms of what is extended in space. Thus these two studies of the quadrivium are funda- mental as regards the form of inorganic nature. Formal studies seem to be of the nature of seeds, not so valuable in their immediate and direct sig- nificance as in their fruitage in a distant harvest. Again, the becoming of Christian civilization is to be traced in this history. In the first ten centu- ries of our era, there is a reaction against the old world which had to be supplanted. There is not much certainty as to what may be accepted and brought over from the old into the new. The triv- X EDITOR'S PREFACE. ium and quadrivium, with some curtailment and some substitution, is generally accepted, but there must be new applications made of these formal arts. It became necessary to discover the lines of rela- tion which the new world-principle of Christianity holds to those seven liberal arts as well as to the substantial life of the old heathenism as it had survived in civil laws and literature. Hence arose the three great bodies of learning on which was founded the modem university as a structure rising above the groundwork in the trivium and quad- rivium. The first was theology. The Church, spurred on by the influx of heresy from Saracen schools, was led to survey carefully the relation of the principle of Christianity t& the world of man and nature, and to incorporate the whole investiga- tion into one body of learning under the head of theology. In the next place, the needs of govern- ment on the secular side led to a study of the ad- ministration of justice, and, attention being turned to the study of Roman law, the Pandects of Justin- ian are rediscovered and Imerius at Bologna initi- ates the thorough study of law as described in the eighth lecture of this history. Theology found its center at Paris (see Lecture IX). Medicine at Sa- lerno had the honor of establishing the first univer- sity in the modem sense of an institution devoted to special studies (Lectures VI and VII). The study of nature, natural science, is the especial de- partment cultivated in this body of learning. The trivium and quadrivium elevate their disciplines EDITOR'S PREFACE. xi into philosophy, which takes rank as one of the four co-ordinate " faculties " in the modern university ; the preparatory work done in the primary and sec- ondary schools falling also into more elementary stages of these " seven liberal arts." Another phase of interest in this history is that of its organization and methods of instruction. Its independence of municipal and other local author- ity is of great significance in its influence on the growth of individual liberty and a spirit of personal independence. Supported by the most general power of the state, and even by the spiritual head of all Christendom, the university developed a spirit of free thought such as could never have grown so rapidly under the control of local authorities. The congress of scholars from all parts of the world led to mutual toleration as regards national peculiari- ties, and the rise of fraternal sympathy between the learned of all peoples. The method of instruction, whose nerve lay in debate or discussion — a dialec- tic of contending minds — was a still more powerful incitement to free thought. The student was com- pelled to see all sides of his subject, and, what is more, to defend them by marshalling all their strong points. In the history of the methods of the Jesuits, a comparatively recent chapter in educational his- tory, the most instructive parts are those that re- late to this dialectic contest, and to the strict per- sonal surveillance exercised over the pupils. The history of the university exhibits both of these in full relief. XU EDITOR'S PREFACE. The origin of degrees and their significance at different periods is likewise to be found in this his- tory. The A. B. and A. M. degrees relate in set terms to the trivium and quadrivium, while theol- ogy, law, and medicine have their corresponding titles. Attention is to be called to the auxiliary influences on the student which flow from residence in colleges and hostels set apart from the community, quite as much isolated, in fact, as the monastery. The dress of the student, too, his gown and cap, accent this isolation from the current life of his people. More- over, he makes this separation deeper by devoting most of his strength to the study of ancient writers, and revives within the institution ancient manners and customs as well as ancient languages. This self-alienation {Selbstentfremdung as German writers have called it) is the most powerful of all influences on the character of the student. It gives him the power to look upon the civilization of his people in which he has been nurtured, as something foreign to himself, and hence enables him to study it or see readily its peculiarities and take a survey of it as a whole. This is an important mental acquisition. But if the residence at the university is too long- continued, the student loses his elasticity, and can not recover his practical status in the life of his people. Another most important feature of the univer- sity study is the influence for conservatism — quite a different influence from the one developed by the EDITOR'S PREFACE. xiii dialectic discussions mentioned above. All formal studies tend to fix the character and convictions be- cause they relate to what is universal — to what is permanent under the variable. The routine of the trivium and quadrivium involves much memoriz- ing. All memorizing is conservative in its tend- ency. It fills the mind with images and ideas al- ready made and fixed. But, on the other hand, the routine work, with its memorizing, deals with what is fundamental in the nature of the world and of reason itself, and hence is essentially rational. Although its conservatism opposes the advance of truth, yet it holds fast to the rational which the world has already achieved, and this body of truth is always much greater than the bulk of new truths discovered in any one gen- eration. In the following analysis of the contents of the lectures of this volume, I have endeavored to draw especial attention to the points which have a bear- ing on these important aspects of the history of universities. W. T. Harris. CONTENTS, LECTURE PAGE I. The Romano-Hellenic Schools and their Decline i II. Influence of Christianity on Education, and Rise of Christian Schools i8 III. Charlemagne and the Ninth Century ... 39 IV. Inner Work of Christian Schools (a. d. 450-1100) 54 V. Tenth and Eleventh Centuries .... 75 ■5C VI. Rise of Universities (a. d. hoc) . . . . gi - VII. The First Universities — the Schola Salernitana AND THE University of Naples .... ic6 VIII. The University of Bologna 124 sj IX. University of Paris 141 X. The Terms "Studium" and " Universitas," and THE Constitution of Universities . . . 172 XI. Students, their Numbers and Discipline — Privi- leges OF Universities — Faculties . . . 195 XII. Graduation 214 XIII. Oxford and Cambridge 236 XIV. The University of Prague 255 < XV. University Studies and the Conditions of Gradu- ation 268 EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. Lecture I. Romano-Hellenic Schools and their Decline. — The in- fluence of Athens. The meeting of the Roman and Hellenic streams of culture in the time of Augustus. The study of oratory and law. The Sophists and rhetoricians supplant the philosophers. The organi- zation of academic teachers lax under Greek but strict under Roman rule. Three principal chairs, sophistics or rhetoric, politics, and phi- losophy ; the salaries. The rivalry of Athens and Alexandria. Ephenir eral brilliancy of schools of Rhodes, Tarsus, and Halicamassus. A stream of learned professors went out from Athens to instruct in re-- mote provinces. Alexandria the first to give distinct form and organi- zation to a " university.'' Europe, Asia, and Africa were connected by it in their intellectual life. Its library, in the Temple of Serapis, con- taining 700,000 volumes, was founded B. c. 298 ; burned, A. D. 640. The Alexandrian Museum, with portico, lecture-rooms, and lodgings for professors ; commons ; and additional colleges ; eminent professors and crowds of students from all parts of the earth, the prototype of the university of the middle ages. Medicine, law, mathematics, astrono- my, and philosophy were cultivated for 800 years. University instruc- tion at Rome, under Vespasian (69-79 A. D.) and Hadrian (117-138 A. D.), in the Basilica of the Temple of Peace, called the Athenaeum ; Quintilian occupied a chair, with salary of £700. Schools of rhetoric were established in provincial towns. The course of study in the university, as found at Athens, at Alexandria, and at Rome, included the trivium grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music) ; designations that prevailed from 300 B. c. Note especially the scope of these branches — that grammar xvi EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. included criticism and history, as well as language ; that dialectic in- cluded logic, metaphysics, ethics, and natural philosophy. At Rome there were ten chairs for grammar, ten for Greek, three for Latin rhetoric, three for Greek rhetoric, three for philosophy, four for Roman law. Students, fourteen to nineteen years. The professors through- out the Roman Empire appointed by the magistrates and honored with dignities. Preparation required for university studies was two years under the grammaticus. The efforts of Constantine, Julian, Gratian, and Valentinian, to stimulate education. Libraries at Rome, estab- lished by Julius Caesar, Augustus, and others. Law was a specialty at the universities of Rome and Berytus ; medicine at Alexandria. Tend- ency of studies to degenerate into empty formalities. As late as 400 A. D. there were Romano-Hellenic schools of rhetoric and grammar in Africa ; and in Gaul, at Marseilles, Narbonne, Bordeaux, Aries, Tou- louse, Poitiers, Besanjon, Vienne, Autun, Lyons, Rheims (" New Athens "), and Treves. At Constantinople, Theodosius (a. d. 379) and Valentinian organized a university with a library and thirty-one lect- urers, with the lecture-halls at the Capitol, in the seated exedra (por- ticoes). Lecture II. Influence of Christianity on Education and Rise of Christian Schools. — Under Constantine (321) the empire became Chris- tian by profession. Christianity began to exercise an influence on education about 200 A. D., and at first discouraged university studies. By the time of Theodosius (a. d. 408), Roman law was the only serious study remaining outside of the religious studies of Christianity. The edict of Justinian (a. D. 529) closed the school at Athens. Influence of Christianity on human sympathies, the sense of personal responsibility, the feeling of humility. The preparation of ministers for the Church. The Christian conception of education confined first to abnegation of the world and acceptance of dogmas, was opposed to the Greek and Roman "humanities," but there were exceptional men — Tertullian (a. d. 245), St. Basil (A. D. 379), St. Augustine (a. d. 395), St. Jerome (a. d. 420), who recognized heathen studies as necessary for mental dis- cipline and for religious uses. Romano-Hellenic schools rapidly die out after 400 A. D., except a few (Edessa, Nisibis, Berytus, etc.). Cas- siodorus endeavored to institute a monastic college in 540. Catecheti- cal schools at Alexandria (A. D. 181), and elsewhere prevalent in A. D. 400, took up the trivium and superseded the "grammaticus." St. EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. xvii Martin at Licnge and Tours (a. d. 372). Cassian founded the new Christian education (A. D. 404) in the monastery of St. Victor at Mar- seilles. Contrast between Oriental and Western monasticism — besides prayers, there should be labor in agriculture, teaching, and charity. Extent of education — arithmetic, reading the psalter, and music. Arts and sciences, " vain babblements." St. Benedict (a. d. 528) followed with the monastery at Monte Cassino, making Christian education a chief object ; novices (from seven to fourteen, copying manuscripts of the Bible and religious writers). Irish education cultivated Greek and Latin literature (a. d. 600). St. Maur, St. Columban, St. Boniface, powerful agents of civilization. Venerable Bede (735), Theodore of Tarsus (668-690), Isidorus of Seville (636, " Origines Etymologicae "), Boethius, Isidorus, Martianus Capella, the great text-books, 600-1300. Lecture III. Charlemagne and the Ninth Century. — Charle- magne (742-814) revived learning ; learned to write after he ascended the throne ; invited Leidrade, of Noricum, and Alcuin of York ; Claud Clement and John Melrose at the Palatine School. Promotion prom- ised to distinguished scholars without reference to birth. Charle- magne's instructions for the reform of schools ; the reasons for reform ; the ignorance of the monks and priests and necessity for knowledge of grammar in order to understand the images and tropes of the Holy Scriptures. Teachers of singing, arithmetic, and grammar imported from Rome. Theodulf at Orleans. Elementary instruction. The Emperor's collection of Gothic songs ; Theodosian Code. Council of Aachen in 817 distinguished between cloister and exterior schools. Charlemagne's influence on the founding of universities. Alfred's in- fluence on English schools, 900. Lecture IV. Inner Work of Christian Schools (450-1100). — Pri- mary instruction begun at the age of seven. Alphabet, syllables, words, Latin Psalter, without translating. Writing on wax-covered tablets ; pen and ink and parchment. Arithmetic, to calculate church festivals. Latin grammar begun after the Psalter. Latin used in con- versation. Secondary instruction. The trivium and quadrivium taught by copying from dictation ; compendiums of them written in form of catechisms. Grammars of Donatus and Priscian. In the eleventh century ^sop, Virgil, and Prudentius were studied. Greek was studied in the fifth and sixth centuries in Irish monasteries. Little attention to rhetoric in the schools ; but six points to be observed in writing a let- xviii EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. ter. Refinements in methods used by Bernard de Chartres ; critical study of classic authors. Theodosian Code taught after 800. Higher instruction. Dialectic taught from Boethius, Martianus Capella, Iso- dorus, and Cassiodorus and Porphyry's introduction. Arithmetic taught with Roman numerals. Geometry, four books of EucUd, included geography. Course of study at Rheims (A. D. 1000) included Logic, Virgil, Statins, Terence, Juvenal, Persius, Horace, and Lucan. Analy- sis of Martianus Capella ; allegory describing the seven liberal arts. Boethius translates Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics, the Top- ics, and Sophistica Elenchi. Isidore's Etymologise in twenty books treats of seven liberal arts — medicine, church history. Biblical criticism, laws, natural science, a Latin lexicon, etc. In the cloister schools the pupils were taught gratuitously. Foundations attached to cathedrals and monasteries for the instruction of poor pupils in the exterior schools. " Scholasticus " at the head of the Cathedral School, a canon. Facul- tas or a licentia docendi necessary to a teacher. Personal supervision of pupils by monks. Discipline severe ; induction of schoolmaster by public flogging. Manuscripts multiplied. Women educated. Lecture V. Tenth and Eleventh Centuries. — ^John Scotus Eri- gena, in the Palace School under Charles the Bald, starts the scholas- tic movement. Guibert de Nogent's picture of education. The year 1000 to end the world. The order of chivalry ; honor, fidelity, and love. Mohammedan schools and libraries at Bagdad, Cordova, Cairo, and Alexandria. Avicenna and Averrhoes ; Aristotle and Euclid. Medical science came to the Saracens through a Nestorian Greek. Arabian schools in Balkh, Ispahan, and Samarcand. Lecture VI. Rise of Universities (a. d. iioo). — Scotus Erigena, Anselm, and Roscelinus advocated the claims of reason and philosophy in religion, and inaugurated the era of universities. The chartering of cities developed civil freedom ; cities established schools ; Bologna, Milan, Brescia, Florence, in Italy ; Lubeck, Hamburg, Breslau, Nord- hausen, Stettin, Leipsic, and Numberg, in Germany. Native language taught in city schools. Influence of the universal domination of the Catholic Church in making a commonwealth of Europe, through the Latin language, the protection for traveling clerics, hospitia in monas- teries. Studia publica or generalia arise from the old Episcopal schools founded on the old imperial provincial foundations, at Bologna, Paris, Rheims, and Naples. The Benedictine schools at St. GaUe, Bologna, EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. xix Paris, Salemum, Bee, Rheims, and Oxford, in the eleventh century, were universities after a sort. Anselm, at Bee (1033-1108), had been student and prior. The university a natural development of the ca- « thedral and Benedictine monastery schools, stimulated by the influ- ( ence of the Saracenic schools at Bagdad, Babylon, Alexandria, and | Cordova. The university life of Greece, with its study of Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates, passed to the Saracens, and was neglected by Christian education until the eleventh century. Specialization, de- manded by the growing mass of learning in the leading studies, medi- cine, law, and philosophy, together with the rise of an antimonastic feeling in the learned professions, combined with other causes to de- velop the schools already existing into universities. The universities were special schools opposed to the schools of the seven liberal arts, though their course of instruction was founded on the schools of arts ; moreover, they were open to all students without regard to religious rank. , The non-religious character of the universities led to much license at first. At Paris the secular power dominated over the eccle- siastical. The university dififered from the school of arts (a), in giving instruction (disciplinae) in law, medicine, and theology ; (i), .in accessi- bility as to place ; (f), in being founded by popes and kings and general rulers instead of local ones ; (d\ in having special privileges, pecuniary and legal ; («), in being republics of letters (Bulseus — Professor Laurie dissents from him in second and third items). Studium generate de- fined as a privileged, higher, and specialized school, open to all the world, free from monastic or canonical rule, and self-governing. The trade-guilds exercised a powerful influence on the university consti- tution. Lecture VII. The First Universities. — The name university not applied in ancient times, nor in modem times, until two centuries after studia generalia arose. The teaching of the Sophists of Greece culmi- nated in the rhetorical school of Isocrates, which may be regarded as the germ of the university, ancient and modem. But the university of the twelfth century quickened by the Saracenic impulse. Men of emi- nence began to give instruction at Salerno in medicine, and in law at Bologna, and pupils flocked to them to get special instruction. The Church gave the new movement its blessing. In iioo Imerius was beginning to lecture at Bologna on civil law, and before iioo at Saler- no medicine was taught ; at Paris, theology — a practical end besides a XX EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. specialized one was attained by the university. The school of Salerno, the " fountain of medicine," located near Monte Cassino of St. Bene- dict. The books of Galen and Hippocrates were transcribed at the monastery and translated into Latin before 560. The monks famous for knowledge of medicine. Constantine of Carthage took refuge at Salemum, learned in medicine ; died at the monastery, 1087. Students came from Italy, France, and Germany, also Jews and Moors, to hear Constantine lecture. The collegium of Salerno founded 1160, the pri- orate before lioo. In 1137 the first state examinations in medicine and licenses given (licencia medendi). Penalty for practising with- out license. The University of Naples founded in 1224 by Frederick II., who enacted that the three faculties should be added to the School of Arts, and incorporated it as " Universitas Studiorum," under royal sanction and protection, with professors, and with salaries ; and prohib- ited other schools from competition, and other people from using the title professor ; empowered the high chancellor to grant licenses to those who received a certificate from the faculty ; freed the professors from taxes and military service ; gave the university municipal author- ity over students. Physicians were required to promise to give their services to the poor gratuitously by Hippocrates, 400 B. c. ; the same promise exacted by the University of Salerno. Lecture VIII. The University of Bologna. — There were schools of law at Rome, Constantinople, and Ber>'tus. Justinian endowed the one at Rome, 554. The Pandects and Code of Justinian and the Insti- tutes were taught through the middle ages, but the Theodosian Code was taught north of the Alps. Irnerius (Werner) edited the Pandects, and became Professor of Civil Law (1070-1138) ; lectured to flocks of students. The old Roman School of Arts at Bologna had never died out. Irnerius taught the trivium and quadrivium before he taught law. Frederick I., 1158, recognized the universitas of Bologna as one already existing. In 1200 there were 10,000 students at Bologna and 20,000 later on. The universitas citra montanorum (1210) had seventeen na- tions ; the ultra montanorum had eighteen. Each elected its own rector and each nation its procurator. The Pope recognized universities and confirmed their privileges, but did not found them. Canon law added to the course at Bologna about 1150, and schools of arts and medicine 1316 ; theology in 1360. Lecture IX. University of Paris. — The Art-School of N6tre EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. Xxi Dame preceded the University of Paris. In the eleventh century a learned monk, William of Champeaux, taught theology at Paris, and was succeeded by Abelard, a pupil of Roscelin, nominalist, in 1113. The School of Arts had flourished since Charlemagne's time, but it be- came a studium generale in the time of William of Champeaux and Abelard, about 1140, having privileges conferred upon it by Louis VII. and Pope Alexander III. Peter the Lombard lectured there in 1145- 1159. " Quartier Latin " inhabited by masters and scholars. In 1348 there were 514 regents in arts, besides other faculties. Students young ; twelve years of age. Law and medicine not taught at Paris at first. Kings and popes protect the university against the civil authorities, even when it is the aggressor. Four nations at Paris. Self-govern- ment in the universities, Lecture X. The Constitution of Universiiies. — A studium gene- rate or publicum, an art-school, and open to both seculars and ecclesias- tics. Studium generale gave place to the universitas. The term uni- versitas used by the popes in addressing teachers and scholars and meaning simply the whole community, it was applied to the whole Church of Britain ; applied also to towns or organized communia. It meant incorporated community. Cities and towns and trades-unions in the eleventh century were organizing and seeking charters to protect themselves from the feudal and episcopal influences. So the new uni- versities, too, sought incorporation. The jurors of the guilds examined apprentices and initiated masters. Copying the free-trade guilds, the students elect procurators, or consilarii, and the latter elect a rector. They kept monks out of the rectorship. Even in the pre-Christian schools of Athens there was a classification of students into nations. The universities with their specialized schools initiated that scientific spirit which led to freedom. The Masters of Arts in Paris held exclu- sively the power, and the students did not share in it. Scottish uni- versities have mediaeval organization : (i) students ; (2) graduates ; (3) professors ; (4) rector ; (5) chancellor — the senatus academicus is the governing body, composed of the principal and professors of the four faculties. Lecture XI. Students, their Numbers and Discif line ; Privileges of Universities ; Faculties. — Twenty thousand students at Bologna, thirty thousand at Paris or Oxford — the numbers exaggerated. The attendants, servants, college cooks, etc., were members of the universi- xxii EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. tas, because in the same municipal corporation ; the students included also boys twelve to fifteen years of age. Monasteries of Benedictine and Augustinian orders were required to send one student to the univer- sity for each twenty of their residents. The students were disciplined by the masters and rector. Vespasian the first who paid salaries of professors out of the public treasury. The clergy exempt from public service and from taxes. In the middle ages every class of men, every district, every city, tried to isolate itself within a jurisprudence of its own. " Clericus " applied to priests and also to all educated people. "Faculty" signified a special department of knowledge, and then it came to mean a specific body teaching a range of subjects in the uni- versity. The rise of the faculties connected with the graduation sys- tem. Theological faculty at Paris, 1259 ; medical, 1265 ; law, 1271 ; each faculty elected its dean. The Faculty of Arts hold precedence. In the fourteenth century, 15 universities founded ; in the fifteenth, 29. Lecture XII. Graduation. — The right to teach (doctor) or to practise medicine (licencia medendi) were the first degrees. The Valentinian edict of 329 prohibited orators and professors, who were not approved by the best judges, from travelling as teachers. The Theodosian Code calls the higher teachers "professors," or"magis- tri " or " doctores.'' In the thirteenth century the chancellor or scholas- ticus of a cathedral granted a licencia or facultas docendi. The guilds composed of apprentices, assistants or companions and masters. The degree of " Baccalaureus Artium " had been granted in Paris, for three or four years' study of the trivium (bacca, for vacca, a cow, hence cow- boy or herdsman, serving under a colonus or farmer). A. B. reached at seventeen or eighteen, and had a prospective signification. ' ' Bacha- larius " adopted by Bologna 1297, after one year's study of law. "Doctor" and "magister" equivalent degrees established at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century ; in theology, earlier. In Germany no " masters," but all " doctors." The authority that con- ferred the degree was the masters or the chancellor. Degrees in sin- gle subjects given at Oxford and Cambridge. Bachelor never knoven as an arts degree in Italy. Baccalarius marked the completion of the work of the secondary or trivial schools. The next step was the in- troduction of the degrees of " bachelor," " master,'' and " doctor," into the three faculties. The bachelor course (in France and England) a trivium course. In Paris magistri regentes and non-regentes (teach- EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. xxiii ing or not). British universities recognize the doutle function of teaching schools and also academic institutes. If the professor does not investigate himself, he will look coldly on young aspirants in the field of investigation. Not culture but the promotion of science is the end of the university. " A man who thinks himself supreme or pre- cious, and who spends his life in turning pretty phrases, when not engaged in admiration of his own exclusive intellectual possessions," is " cultured." " The culture of the few and the disciplining of the many is not the object of a university, but the equipment of the arts and sciences, and the sustenance of those who pursue them from the pure love of knowledge and in the interests of mankind." Lecture XIII. Oxford and Cambridge. — Schools in a priory at Oxford in 800 ; and also at Ely. The origin of Cambridge and Ox- ford. Oxford passed from a Benedictine arts-school to a university about 1149, when Vacarius lectured on civil law. Henry III. sum- mons Parliament to meet at Oxford, 1258. University college, 1232. Robert Grosstete. Migration from Paris to Oxford, 1228. Paris the great centre in the thirteenth century ; its anarchy. Secession from Oxford of three thousand masters and students in 1209 to Reading and Cambridge. In 1400 thirty-two schools or hostels at Oxford. A chan- cellor instead of a rector at Cambridge, and possessing powers inde- pendent of the regents. Two procurators or proctors, called also rec- tors, at Cambridge. Oxford the ecclesiastical ; Cambridge the mathe- matical and practical. Halls and colleges, hostels or hospitia, for stu- dents' hotels or boarding in commons. In 1263 hospitia at Bologna ; in 1200 at Paris. " Colleges '' were for religious orders. The Sorbonne founded in 1250 for fellows of theology. College of Navarre in 1304. Thirty colleges founded in the thirteenth century in Paris, increased to seventy or eighty in all. In 1452 masters and medical faculty in Paris permitted to marry. Students' clubs at Cambridge in " Inns," "Entries," " Halls." The monastic institutions at Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge were colleges in effect — a college being primarily a corpora- tion of individuals having a common purpose (a body of persons and not a mere building) ; next it was used to signify an endowed hall. Eighty halls at Oxford, the highest number, but decreased as the col- leges increased. Colleges introduced to supplant the monasteries. Walter de Merton, Chancellor of England, 1264, founds Merton Col- lege, which furnished the model for succeeding colleges at Oxford and 2 XXiv EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. Cambridge ; plan of Merton copied from the Sorbonne ; for the secu- lar students, " for scholars devoted to the pursuits of literature, ... to the study of arts or philosophy, theology, or canon law." From Mer- ton went Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Thomas Bradwardine. " Fellows " defined. Lecture XIV. The University of Prague. — The starting-point of the great German system of universities. Founded in 1348 by Chaiies IV. Copied Paris, where he had been a student. The Pope issaed a bull, giving validity to its degrees, and appointed Archbishop of Prague the chancellor. Four faculties and four nations. The rector could not belong to a religiotis order. The rector held civil and criminal court twice a week. University council of eight members, two from each na- tion, elected semi-annually. Prague became (like Paris) a " universitas magistrorum " (the students having no part in the government). Deans chosen by the faculties. Degrees of bachelor, master (in theology and arts), doctor (law and medicine). Bachelor to give lessons for two years in the university, accept no d^ree from another nnivei^ty ; de- gree conferred by the faculty and not by the chancellor. Master's de- gree conferred by the chancellor. Law faculty separate. Students to attend at least three lectures per week. Writing from dictation. A doc- tor r^ens called ' ' professor." Disputations on Tuesdays and Thurs- days ; bachelors always present Grand disputation in January — all regent masters take part Course in the arts completed before enter- ing the higher faculties. Order of precedence : theoli^y, law, medi- cine, the arts. Deans not a part of the governing body of the univer- sity. Secession from Prague in 1409 of Germans to Vienna, Erfiirt, Heidelberg, and Leipsic. iioo to 1300, 10 universities founded; four- teenth century, 18 ; fifteenth century, 29, including 3 Scotch. Lecture XV. University Studies and the Conations of Gradua- tion. — Trivium stiU used for bachelor's degree in universities, being handed down to them from the monastic and cathedral schools of early times. Not much could be done in grammar, rhetoric, and dialec- tic by boys of seventeen or eighteen or even younger. Excellence of Bernard of Chartres's teaching. (See also page 60.) Grammars of Donatus and Priscian learned by heart at monastic and cathedral schools ; dictated and explained first. Priscian versified by ViEedien, 1200 ; remained text-book till 1550. Dialectic and rhetoric taught from Epitomes. Qicero, Viigil, etc, read as illustrations of grammar. EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. XXV The trivium very arid and formal, but the true intellectual life was found in three faculties — law, theology, and medicine — which cultivated acuteness of mind, loosened old convictions, and laid the foundations of modem rationalism. Daily programme : regent met pupils at sun- rise, noon, and toward evening. One of these daily sessions devoted to definition (" determination ") and disputation. No books owned by pupils, hence much memory-work. Robert Cour9on (1200) on the re- quirements for mastership : Aristotle's dialectic, ethics, and fourth book of Topics ; Priscian's grammar ; treatises on philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, and grammar (Metaphysics and Physics of Aristotle not allowed at first). Petrus Hispanus's logic. Text-book in theology, Peter the Lombard's Sentences, which were compiled from previous collections of sentences that had come down through various hands ; after 1150 it became the universal text-book of philosophy as well as theology, the pupils copying it from dictation and discussing it, the master commenting on it In 1257 the religious orders of Paris se- cured the adoption of their cloister schools into the university. The " Decretum," a digest of canon law in 1157. About the same time the Pandects became the text-book. Even idle discussions were a vast im- provement on the mere memoriter learning that had preceded. After Aquinas and Duns Scotus, theology became metaphysics, and the ef- fort was to reconcile authority and reason. After the elements of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, the pupil defined terms and propositions and defended them before examiners, and was given the bachelor's de- gree ; changed his square cap for a ,round one, and began to teach freshmen. After the age of twenty-one and six years' study in arts, the master's degree given on examination. Course in theology five years to fit for giving private lectures ; eight years' preparation for public lectures (1294). Euclid only to Proposition 5, Book I. (Roger Bacon's authority), and for three hundred years after only six books were learned. Repetition at Bologna : the discussion of all possible difficulties and objections suggested by some point in the text. One year of work at repetitio made a bachalarius ; eight years in all re- quired for a mastership. Wrote criticisms on two texts, etc. Hat, ring, and book the insignia presented to the new doctor. Few gram- mar-schools in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, hence boys of eleven and twelve years went directly to Oxford and Cambridge, as at Paris. This destroyed the cathedral schools and monastery xxvi EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. schools. At fourteen a boy was fitted for college, and came under a master for four years to fit for " determinations " or B. A. degree. " Responsions " was the half-way examination in grammar and arith- metic. He was called " sophista generalis " before " Responsions," and " questionist " after until the second examination, which was in logic and rhetoric. A "bachelor" in England studied three years geometry, astronomy, and philosophy (physics, ethics, and metaphysics). A master read portions of these for discussion. The humanism at the end of the thirteenth century reappeared in full force at the end of the fif- teenth century, aided by printing. Disputation favored free thought, because one side had to be opposed to the orthodox view. " North American Review " on colleges : " They fit persons for professions, teachers, authors, legislators for the people." Universities responsible to the people, because endowed with privileges received from them. Should be dedicated to advancement of arts and sciences at large. " Oxford and Cambridge mere schools where gymnasium work is pro- longed," according to DsUinger. " If any man thinks philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence seiTed and supplied " (Bacon). PREFACE. This book is not addressed to historical experts, but to schoolmasters and others who wish to know some- thing about mediaeval education and the rise of universities. The Lectures are, in fact, part of my historical course which I cannot find time or occasion to deliver, as I think it better to confine my public instructions to those historical aspects of education which convey practical lessons suited to the school- room. While I do not profess to instruct historical experts, I am yet quite prepared to defend the views which I venture to put forth, as at least the honest result of considerable reading and much labour of collation. To some I may seem, when dealing with university origins, to lean too much towards the " lay " views of Meiners ; to others I may seem to incline to the " ecclesiastical " views of those who are represented XXVlll PREFACE. by the inadequate and ill-constructed book of Huber. I can only say that the theory which I expound is based on a careful induction. Perhaps I ought to have no theory at all ; but it seems to me that history, as distinguished from chronicles or annals, must always contain a theory, whether confessed by the writer or not. It may not be put prominently forward, but it lurks in the pages and may be read between the lines. A sound theory is simply a general conception which co-ordinates and gives unity and a causal relation to a multitude of facts. With- out this, facts cease to have interest except for the antiquarian. The manuscript has been so long before me, and so frequently altered as my knowledge of the subject extended, that it is difficult for me now to give all my "sources." But I may mention that for the general history of the period I have read the usual authorities — Gibbon, Milman, Merivale, Guizot, Hallam, Sis- mondi, Sharon Turner, Freeman, Green, and Skene. All important references I have myself verified. When I draw from accessible works, such as the Theodosian Code, it is from my own analysis of the " Titles " which bear on education, and not at second hand ; when I refer to Martianus Capella, Boethius, PREFACE. XXIX or Isidore, I do , so as personally cognizant of at least the scope of their works, and have them open before me. In dealing with the three primary universities, I have based what I say on a careful and independent study of Ackermann for Salernum, of Crevier for Paris, of Savigny for Bologna, of Tomek for Prague, of Mullinger and Anstey's "Mon. Acad." for Cam- bridge and Oxford ; I have also read the general accounts of Meiners, Huber, etc. Bulaeus and Wood have been at hand for reference. Lacroix's " Middle Ages," Brentano's " Guilds," and Villivry's " Plistoire de rinstruction publique" I have found of value, if used with discretion. Newman, Montalembert, Mabillon ("De Studiis Monasticis"), Cramer, and Warton have been called into requisition ; as also Capes' " Uni- versity Life in Athens," and Kirkpatrick's "The University. ' For monastic studies I have been much indebted to Dr. Specht's "Geschichte des Unter- richtswesen in Deutschland," which deals with the Middle Ages only. The excellent treatise on the " Schools of Charles the Great," by Mr. Mullinger, came into my hands (after repeated attempts to procure it) only when I had begun to print, but I read it carefully and found that XXX PREFACE. my own view concurred substantially with his. I was glad to import from his pages into my own a few quotations and references, and thus take advantage of a learning to which I could not pretend. In addition to the authorities already cited, I went through " Itterus de Gradibus sive Honoribus Academicis" — a prolix, clumsy, and confused, but useful, treatise. The books to which I have merely referred on specific points, such as the writings of John of Salisbury, are very numerous. S. S. L. University of Edinburgh, September, 1886. Note. — I ought almost to apologize to the reader for having failed to study a recent work — "Die Entstehung der Universitaten des Mittelalters bis 1400," by P. H. Denifle. It came into my hands only the other day, when correcting my second proofs. I suspended printing till I had read cursorily the most of it. I was pleased to find that the author's general views were already to a considerable extent antici- pated by me. The work is the most learned that has yet appeared on the subject of universities ; it is also, unfortunately, the most polemical. The only change of moment which he has led me to make is in PREFACE. XXXI the place to be assigned to the Rector and nations at Paris. His arguments on this question seem to me to be irresistible. I have also checked many of my statements by his. Any more detailed use of the volume must be reserved for a second edition of these Lectures, when Denifle probably will have completed his laborious task. MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE I. THE ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS AND THEIR DECLINE. " Looking at Athens," says Newman,* " as the preacher and missionary of letters, and as enlisting the whole Greek race in her work, who is not struck with admiration at the range and multiplicity of her operations? At first the Ionian and ^olian cities were the principal scene of her activity, but if we look on a century or two, we shall find that she forms the intellect of the colonies of Sicily and Magna Grascia ; has penetrated Italy, and is shedding the light of philosophy and awakening thought in the cities of Gaul by means of Marseilles, and along the coast of Africa by means of Cyrene. She has sailed up both sides of the Euxine and deposited * "Historical Sketches," vol, iii. 2 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. her literary wares where she stopped, as traders nowadays leave samples of foreign merchandise, or as war-steamers land muskets and ammunition, or as agents for religious societies drop their tracts or scatter their versions. The whole of Asia Minor and Syria resounds with her teaching; the barbarians of Parthia are quoting fragments of her tragedians ; Greek manners are introduced and perpetuated on the Hydaspes and Acesines ; Greek coins, lately come to light, are struck in the capital of Bactriana ; and so charged is the moral atmosphere of the East with Greek civilization, that down to this day those tribes are said to show to most advantage which can claim relation of place or kin with Greek colonies established there above two thousand years ago." In the time of Augustus, the Roman and Hel- lenic educational streams had met. The education we have thenceforth to speak of is, in truth, the education neither of Greece nor Rome, but of the civilized portion of the Roman empire. In the Western empire at least, if not elsewhere, we discern the con- tinuity of the specifically Roman influence. Oratory, as defined by Quintilian in its practical political relations, and law as an imperial system, steadied, so to speak, the more general Hellenic aim. In the East there was more vivacity but less solidity. For a couple of hundred years after the death of Isocrates, Peripatetic and Academic, Stoic and Epicurean, taught crowds of ardent youth, each professor having ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS. 3 a fervent belief in his own philosophy. But in the midst of these philosophic teachers, the sophist, as mere rhetorician, was steadily gaining ascendency, and even so early as the first century of our era, philo- sophical studies were pursued rather as a discipline of mind than as a theory of knowledge and life. It cannot be said that this decline, which began before the birth of Christ, and which steadily con- tinued, spite of the appearance from time to time of a few brilliant and earnest teachers, was due either to the indifference of the State to the higher edu- cation, or to the want of professional ambition among the youth of both East and West. In Athens, which was to the ancient world much more than Paris was to Europe in' the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the organization of the Academic teachers had been long of a lax kind, and in so far as it was organization at all, it was of a voluntary character. It, in fact, bore a striking resemblance to the state of Paris and Bologna in the twelfth century. But from the time of Augustus, if not before, endow- ments partly public,* partly private, were given. With endowments there naturally came a more definite organization. There were three principal chairs t — sophistics or rhetoric, politics, and philosophy. The first-named was recognized as the chief chair or * It is probable that public or state endowments did not exist till the time of Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 161-180). t Grafenhahn (iii. p. 29) says ten. 4 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. throne of the school, and had attached to it a salary of ;^5oo a year for life. But the chief source of emolument was at all times the fees of pupils. Among these were to be found (as in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries at Bologna and Paris) matured men of the world, whose fees constantly took the form of handsome honoraria. The rival teachers who cir- culated round the " school " were numerous, and not only competed, but touted, for pupils. The auditors of particular teachers formed parties, and fought with each other. So high did the spirit of competition run, that the arrival of a ship in the Pir^us was the signal for a rush not altogether unlike that with which all continental travellers are familiar. But in these days it is a rush of needy porters or hotel- agents ; in those, it was a scramble of students, each a self-appointed touter for his own particular sophist Spite of many home-grown evils, however, and of the formidable rivalry of Alexandria, Athens continued to hold its own till the second century, not only as the favoured resort of students, but also as the true head-quarters of such speculation as sur- vived. " The splendour," says Merivale (c. 66), " of an individual reputation might suffice to found an academy at other places of educational resort ; the disciples of a popular rhetorician or philosopher might maintain for two or more generations the school of which he had laid the foundations ; but the ephemeral brilliancy of Rhodes, Tarsus, or Halicarnassus was lost in the ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS. 5 constant and steady light which had beamed for five centuries from the halls of Plato and Aristotle. While hundreds of erudite professors of every art and of all learning wandered from the centre of ancient discipline to instruct in their own homes the patrician youth of Italy and the Provinces, mankind still recognized in undiminished force the necessity of a course of study at Athens itself, to equip the complete scholar and gentleman, the most accom- plished product of intellectual training ; " — a remark- able instance of the perpetuity of the power of the genius loci. Numerous as were the centres of Hellenic learning spread over the civilized world two centuries before Christ, there is none which commands our attention, next to Athens itself, so much as Alexandria. This partly because it first gave distinct form and organiza- tion to a " university," as we in modern times under- stand that word. The great Alexander, in founding Alexandria, connected Europe, Asia, and Africa not merely by mercantile bonds, but in their intellectual and literary life. Here arose under the Ptolemies a complete system of higher instruction, and libraries such as the world had not before seen. The books were lodged in the temple of Serapis, and accumu- lated to the number of seven hundred thousand. They formed the record of all human thought, until they fell a prey to internal civic and religious dis- sensions. The Serapeum dates from B.C. 298, and, 6 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. after recovering from the fire of B.C. 48, it finally disappeared about A.D. 640.* In connection with this library, Ptolemy founded a college, or rather what might be called a Studium Generale, and endowed its professors. This College was erected in the suburb already occupied by the Serapeum, the royal palace, the amphitheatre, and gymnasia. " A noble portico stretched along its front for exercise or conversation, and opened on the public rooms devoted to disputation and lectures. A certain number of professors were lodged within the precincts, and a handsome hall or refectory was provided for the common meal " (Newman). This building was called the Museum. As time went on, new colleges were added to the original building. The most eminent men were invited to fill the chairs, and round them congregated large numbers of youths from every quarter of the civilized world, to study the arts and sciences which were there represented in their whole range. In the Museum, as also at Athens, were trained the Fathers of the Church. So enduring was the character of this great insti- tution, that, more than six hundred years after its foundation, Ammianus (A.D. 362) speaks of it as " having been long the abode of distinguished men," and still possessing scholars of repute. Medicine, law, mathematics, and astronomy were cultivated. It was sufficient recommendation to any young medicus in • There is no evidence that the Arabs burned it. ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS. 7 any part of the Roman empire to have been educated at Alexandria (Amm. Mar., xxii. 16). As might be expected in a university so carefully organized and endowed, the teaching was of a far more definite and practical character than at Athens. And this practical character, arising largely out of the pursuit of medicine, mathematics, and grammar, gave Alexandria pre-eminence and power after the leader- ship had passed away from the mother city in Attica. For there can be no doubt that whatever might still be the attractions and reputation of Athens, all earnest philosophical thought was in the first century and thereafter to be found in Alexandria — the university of progress, where neo-Platonism began to rise into importance under the influence of Judaic and Christian ideas. This mystic movement in philosophy culminated in Plotinus, who died about A.D. 205. Nor less in mathematics and physics did Alexandria lead the way. Passing minor schools, and among them the famous school of law at Berytus, in Phoenicia, we turn to the capital of the empire. There, at the time of which we are speaking, Quintilian was still teaching, and ere long, having retired from active duty, published his " Oratorical Institutions," in which we see the best and soundest elements of the Hellenic teaching penetrated and braced by the Roman spirit. During his lifetime (he died A.D. 118) he saw the beginnings of the Roman "university." Grafenhahn says he was him- 8 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. self a professor in it with a salary of £700 a year.* A common point of rendezvous for the Athenian sophists was naturally the metropolis of the empire, although they were also to be found in all leading provincial towns where they opened private schools. At Rome some attempt was made to regulate their activity and to control their restlessness under the Flavian dispensation. Vespasian completed the design of his new Temple of Peace by erecting a basilica, in which the learned might carry on their teaching and their disputations (A.D. 69-79). This institution was called the Athenaeum, if not precisely at this time, at least under Hadrian (a.D. i 17-138), who ex- tended it. Both the institution and the name were evidently suggested by the Museum of Alexandria. Fixed salaries and senatorial rank were attached to certain chairs from the time of Vespasian.f This promotion of the higher education was no passing caprice on the part of the imperial authority, but the result of a deliberate policy. Both Vespasian and Hadrian were, in truth, working on lines already laid down by Augustus, but they took a more extended view of the necessities of the empire by planting endowed schools of rhetoric and grammar in provincial towns as well as in Rome. One of the objects they had in view, says Merivale, was to "restore • "Gesch. del- Class. Phi!.," iv. 32. t Sueton., Vit. Vesp., 18, "Primus (V.) e fisco Latinis Grsecisque rhetoribus annua centera constituit," etc. ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS. 9 the tone of society, to infuse into the national mind healthier sentiments ; " but I suspect the chief object was to control the academic class, just as the civil power afterwards aimed at controlling the Church. By means of endowments and organization, men who might otherwise have employed themselves in mis- leading youth and disturbing the social order, were brought into the service of the imperial idea. The endowments of the rhetorical school at the basilica were renewed and increased by successive emperors, and the students who flocked from the pro- vinces to Rome were put under State surveillance of a stringent kind.* At this metropolitan university, the trivium and quadrivium formed, as at Alexandria and Athens, the staple of the instruction, but these rather in the form of ascertained knowledge than of the higher speculation. The students were young, entering about the age of fourteen, and leaving at nineteen, unless when they remained to pursue their studies in the specialty of law,t for which Rome was the chief centre, although in later imperial times, especially after the division of the empire, it found formidable rivals in Berytus and Constantinople. There were ten chairs for Latin grammar, ten for Greek ; three for Latin rhetoric, three for Greek ; one, if not three, for philosophy; two, if not four, for * See Lecture XI., seq. t So some say ; but all had to leave in their twentieth year, as I read the Theodosian Code. 10 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Roman law. Professorships of medicine were added at a later period. Grammar included language, metre, criticism, and history. The students who entered were presumed to have already gone through a two years' course in schools of the Grammaticus. They were subjected, as I have said, to the discipline of the civil authorities. Nor was the organization of the higher instruction confined to what we should call university schools in important centres. For, "in all the cities of the Roman world," says Gibbon (chap, xxiii.), " the education of youth was entrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric, who were elected by the magistrates, main- tained at the public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honourable privileges." To this Juvenal refers (xv. no) in the following lines : — " Nunc totus Graias, nostrasque habet orbis Athenas, Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos, De conducendo loquitur jam rhetore Thule. " In A.D. 334 Constantine, in continuation of the work of his predecessors, endeavoured, by a decree (Theod. Cod., xiii. iv. i), further to stimulate education in the arts. Though Julian subsequently banished Christian teachers from the schools, no one doubts his interest in education. Valentinian, again, who died A.D. 375, confirmed the work of previous emperors ; and, a year after his death, a decree of Gratian confirmed the work of Valentinian. Teachers — the Grammaticus, the Rhetor, and the Sophist — were ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS. ii held in high respect, and they enjoyed many of the immunities and privileges afterwards conferred on the clergy.* Nor were libraries wanting : the first public library in Rome was planned by Julius Caesar, who appointed Varro to carry out his ideas (Sueton., " Jul. C," 44). Caesar's death caused operations to be suspended. Asinius Pollio succeeded in instituting one in a hall of the Temple of Freedom, t Augustus instituted two public libraries about thirty years before Christ, and others w^ere afterwards added. Hadrian established a library in Athens. Looking, then, at these ample public provisions, we cannot say that the decline of education was due to external causes. It was a decay from within. And here, for the better understanding of the subject, it is fitting to sketch the character and aims of the Romano-Hellenic schools. From the time of Isocrates, and under the in- fluence of Speusippus and Aristotle, the range of human knowledge and, consequently, the sphere of the higher intellectual activity was summed up under seven heads : grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic — these afterwards known as the trivium ; and music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy — known as the quadrivium. These names were first used, apparently, * Bursaries for promising freebom youths were first instituted by- Alexander Severus about a.d. 230 (Lamprid., "Vit. A. S.," 3). t Vid, for authorities Bahr, " Gesch. d. Rom. Lit.," i. 48. 12 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. about the end of the fourth century. The terms, however, were themselves elastic, and their definitions varied from time to time ; for example, grammar often meant abstract grammar alone, generally it embraced literature and criticism. Dialectic seems to me to have belonged to the higher or university in- struction alone in the Romano-Hellenic schools, and included logic, metaphysics, and ethics: with Quin- tilian it included only logic and ethics. The seven liberal arts were studied solely in the interest of general culture and with no professional aims, with the exception of rhetoric and law, which contemplated the preparation of youth for public life and the bar. In Alexandria the professional training of the phy- sician was a specialty, as at Berytus and Rome the professional education of the lawyer. These special aims, however, were, for long, wholly subordinated to "arts'" in the widest sense. It is important to keep this in view, if we would understand the higher schools of the Greeks and Romans, and the subsequent character of mediaeval education. It is not to be supposed, however, that all the youth who frequented the pre-Christian universities took the whole curri- culum of study. Rhetoric and oratory chiefly occupied their attention, and, next to these, philoso- phical discussions. In the opinion of Quintilian, all merely formal studies, such as logic and rhetoric, were to be under- taken with a view to the solid substance of literature, ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS. 13 philosophy, science, and art. The realities of life, not the form of words or trick of phrase or felicity of construction, were to be the preparation for the good orator. But, by the middle of the second century, philosophy was an intellectual game, personal morality a matter of convention and prudence, and rhetoric an artifice. The departure of moral earnestness in the pursuit of abstract truth was at the same time the signal for the departure of all sound education in other subjects. Words took the place of things, forms of realities. Men who are consciously bound by cultured forms of expression have generally very little to say. It was, no doubt, the deep conviction of the futility of rhetorical and sophistical studies that led Plutarch, in the third century, so earnestly to urge practical morality, and Apollonius of Tyana and Dion, in the middle and close of the first century, to preach a moral and spiritual life. These men were, in truth, colleagues of the Christian preacher and missionary, calling men to a new faith. It was not long after the death of Plotinus that the Christian Church began to exercise a distinct influence on the education of youth. It would be an historical misconception to regard this influence as hurtful, and content ourselves with this perfunctory judgment. To the Hellenic idea as denoted by the Roman word "humanitas," the Christian ibea was certainly hostile ; but it is to the general influences J4 MMDIJEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. which led to the disruption of the empire that we must trace the inner decline of both the lower and higher schools. True, the introduction of a new conception of the ends of human life struck a blow destined to be fatal, sooner or later, to the Hellenic education ; but already the schools themselves had become so degenerate, if not corrupt, that they could not have long survived without a philosophical revival amounting to a revolution. Some great new spiritual force was needed to reform society and the education of the young. That force was at hand in Christianity; and if it very early assumed a negative, if not a pro- hibitory, attitude to the old learning, it may be conceded that this was an inevitable step in the development of a new ethical ideal. The Romano-Hellenic schools were, however, tenacious of life. Even in the end of the fourth century we find them still diffused over the provinces. In Africa they flourished, and in Gaul there were many well-known centres in which both the Grammaticus and the Rhetor,* and in some cases the jurist and the philosopher, taught — such as Marseilles, Narbonne, Bordeaux, Aries, Toulouse, Poitiers, Besangon, Vienne, Autun.t Lyons (founded by Caligula, A.D. 37-41), • The edict of Gratian, in A.D. 376, enables us to fix the relative im- portance of the Grammaticus and Rhetor : the former was to be paid only one-half the salary of the latter. t In Viriville's "Hist, de I'Instruction publique" we leam that at Autun, in A.D. 276, the walls of the porticoes of the schools were painted over with maps and dates and historical facts. ROMANO-HELLENIC SCHOOLS, 13 Rheims (at one time called the New Athens), and, most famous of all, Treves, where there was also an excellent library. The interests of the professors at these centres formed a constant subject of care to the emperors,* who from time to time confirmed and extended their privileges. If now we turn to the East, we find that intel- lectual activity was not so soon arrested as in the West. At the head-quarters of the empire, Constan- tinople, and in Athens the traditions of ancient learning still survived. Theodosius (A.D. 379) and Valentinian developed more fully the scheme of Con- stantine, and organized the teaching at the Eastern capital by appointing three Oratores and ten Gram- matici in Latin; in Greek, five Sophistae and ten Grammatici, one teacher of philosophy (" qui philoso- phise arcana rimetur "), and two of civil law.f Seven librarians, for arranging, preserving, and repairing manuscripts, were also added to the staff. The Auditorium was in the Capitol, f There were recesses, called exedm, off the porticoes, provided with seats. In these the professors taught. Even down to the eighth century, classical authors were studied in the Christian school of the Octagon, along with the Fathers of the Church, and after a period of decay, the university was refounded by Michael II. (A.D. • Guizot, " Hist, of Civilization in France," iv. t Vide Theod. Cod., xiv, ix. 3. X Ibid., XV. i. 53. 3 16 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. 842-867), and in it we find chairs of geometry and astronomy, as well as of Greek literature.* Spite of the efforts of the Eastern emperors, however, learning was rare, literature and science non- existent. Law alone survived, and was alone pro- gressive. The age which had in Libanius, the friend of Julian, its most noted man of letters, had broken for ever with the Hellenic past. Notwithstanding the fact that a new university was, in the end of the fourth century, instituted at Constantinople ; that Alexandria still had a reputation, especially in medi- cine and mathematics ; that Athens was still vivacious, if not living; that Antioch was a worthy rival of Athens ; that Carthage had a high reputation ; that the university schools at Rome and Berytus main- tained a high level of law teaching; — spite of all these things, the soul had departed from the Eastern as well as from the Western schools : there was a universal decadence, which in half a century ended in death. The reforms attempted in the West by Ausonius (A.D. 367-383) had failed to arrest the general decline. Some think that he might have succeeded. I doubt it. The causes of decline lay too deep, and were of a kind not to be removed by authoritative regulations. All educational insti- tutions must die which do not directly and con- • Finlay's " Byzantine Empire,'' ii. 25. Again, in the eleventh century, the logic of Psellus, emanating from Constantinople, may be almost said to have made an epoch in scholastic studies. ROyrAKO-HELLEXIC SCHOOLS. 17 spicuoud^ promote either the spiritual or the material interests of men. The Romano-Hellenic schools had ceased to do either the one or the other, save in the department of law at Rome, Berytus, and Byzantium, and perhaps, of medicine in Alexandria. XOTE. — Of the chairs endowed by Marcos Anrelins at Athens, Grafenhahn says (iii. 29) that two were set apart for each of the four philosophical schools — FJatonist, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicoiean. i8 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE II. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON EDUCATION, AND RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. CONSTANTINE placed the Christian cross on his banner in A.D. 312, and he convoked the first General Council of Christians at Nice in 325. Theodosius II. ascended the throne in 408. In his Code the following words are to be found: " Pagani qui supersunt . . . quamquam jam nullos esse credamus." * This Wcis an exaggerated, though perhaps politic, declaration ; for we cannot believe that the revival of paganism under Julian, who died only forty-five years before, could have been so utterly hollow and artificial as to have been wholly submerged by the returning wave of Chris- tianity under his successors. Still the words quoted from the Code mark the end of the struggle between the old and the new. Paganism was now dead, though pagans might still exist But we are not to infer that the influence of Christianity on * MuUinger's " Schools of Charles the Great," p. 3. IIIS£ OP CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 19 the schools dates only from the beginning of the fifth century, when it was everywhere triumphant. The death of Plotinus two hundred years before this date marks, it seems to me, the extinction of Romano- Hellenic ideas in the middle and higher schools. The philosophical and literary movements had exhausted themselves. There was no longer an^ inspiring idea and aim ; and, without these, an i institution is dying, if not dead, though to the eye of sense it may seem still to live. While buildings, organization, libraries, and endowments last, it may revive, but it can do so only under the influence of an antiquarian reaction (always artificial and fleeting) or of a new philosophy of life. All genuine activity of intellect outside the Chris- tian writers was now confined to the students of law. That the judicial mind of the Roman should find not only a congenial field for its activity, but, under the new imperial conditions, a strong and imperative de- mand on its powers, we can easily understand. The consolidation of the empire must have called for the exercise of all the resources of jurisprudence, and the transference of the seat of power to the East must have further stimulated the juristic mind by bringing accepted principles and precedents into rela- tion with new emergencies. The unity of the empire, from Augustus onwards, was in point of fact merely another expression for the supremacy of authority and law over individualism and subjectivity. Indeed, 20 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. may we not say that Hellenic freedom of speculation on all subjects, human and divine, could have been 7 allowed to exist only on condition that there was a * firm controlling hand at head-quarters? Imperial , unity, which meant the peace of the world, was an idea which might well have engaged the passionate support of the philanthropist, whether pagan or Christian. Unfortunately the empire was unable to sustain itself. The burden was too great for any one central authority permanently to bear. The want of moral earnestness, the extinction of the old families, the inequalities of wealth, the decrease of the numbers of free citizens, the corrupting effects of slavery, the dissoluteness of those who ought by their example to have moralized the supreme power, the venality of the law courts, and the pressure of barbarian hordes, were gradually leading the empire to its dissolution.* The new formative force of Christianity had been mean- while slowly winning its way, and finding its justifi- cation and opportunity in the disintegration of ancient morals, philosophies, and religions. I have already pointed out that the decay of the schools was not due to any neglect on the part of the governing authorities. In the greatest days of Greece, education was widespread, but except in Sparta it was not organized. With the empire came * I quite understand that the Western empire did not in the fifth century absolutely die, and that the Byzantine rule, as a purely con- servative povfer, held the East together for a thousand years. RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 21 organization in this as in every other department of social life, and organization meant buildings, endow- ments, and privileges. It is a curious but, I think, undeniable fact that from the time education became an object of solicitude to the civil power, geniiine philosophic ardour and litejrary productivity began to decline, and a marked and steady decay of the scien- tific spirit was visible. The endowments at Athens, the elaborate organization of learning at Alexandria, and the Athenaeum at Rome, had not, after all, at- tained the end of advancing the knowledge either of nature or of mind. They were all exercising- grounds for intellect, however, and so gave a certain training and discipline to the more ambitious youth of the empire. The only studies which bore the marks of genuineness were, as I have said, law and, to some extent (in Alexandria), medicine and mathematics, and it may be confidently maintained that law and medi- cine preserved their vitality not because of any specu- lative interest in these studies, but simply because of their direct bearing on human welfare and on profes- sional success. Grammar had lost itself in verbal criti- cism ; dialectic had passed into verbal eristic ; rhetoric had become, where it was not a mass of rules for being eloquent (necessarily futile), mere sophistic ; and philosophy, except in the hands of Plotinus, had been vitiated by Oriental theosophy, had become void through the absence of ethical purpose, and in the end degraded by alliance with Egyptian magic. 22 MEDJMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. The edict of Justinian which, in 529, finally sup- pressed the mother school of Athens, did not come a day too soon. There were, as will appear from what I have said, many causes for this decline and final extinction quite apart from Christian antipathy, and among them I would note one which specially concerns Athens, and which, though of minor im- portance, yet deserves mention — I mean the compe- tition of rival lecturers. Competition in the domain ( of science and philosophy is not proof against vulgar motives any more than the competitions of the I market-place. It very soon ceases to be a generous 1 rivalry of intellect, and becomes a mere commercial 1 contest. If there be one thing more certain than another, it is that pure devotion to science and j philosophy is utterly incompatible with the mental \ disturbance and degradation involved in academic ■ shopkeeping. I say that the decline was not due solely to Christian antipathy. At the same timej that had largely contributed to the decline; and had Chris- tianity assumed a purely negative attitude to the Romano-Hellenic life and culture, and done no more, it would have to be classed among the destructive powers of barbarism. But it had its positive side: it had in it a power to build up as well as to throw • down. It introduced more than one new idea into the life of our race. It broadened and deepened the sentiment of the common brotherhood of man by RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 23 giving to human sympathy and love a divine sanction. But most important of all, it fortified the sense of personality. The individual was now not only a free, thinking spirit which had its personal life and personal rights ; but this spirit, the true person of each indi- vidual, was now seen to 'be rooted in God — to be of infinite importance even in His eyes. Thus, by one stroke as it were, the personality of each man was deepened, nay consecrated, while at the same time his bond of sympathy with all other human beings was strengthened. Two opposite results were thus attained : and these two were conciliated. For the deepening of man's spiritual, personal life meant in truth the life with God, and it was in and through this life that his personality became a matter of infinite worth. But this rooting of the finite subject in the eternal and universal Reason, while giving infinite worth to the soul of each man, at the same time made impossible that insolence of individualism and self-assertion which had characterized the subjective movement among the Greeks. Man became, as a personality, much greater than the most exalted Stoic could have conceived ; but by the very same act, he was taught humility, dependence, humanity, love. As may be easily understood, that part of the new doctrine which taught that man lived for a hereafter, and that this life was a preparation for that hereafter, first told on the educational efforts of 24 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the time. The leaders of the Church directed them- selves chiefly to catechizing and instructing with a view to a city not of this world, and they did so in expectation of the early dissolution of all things. They also began to prepare ministers for the Church ; for the people had to be instructed in the new philo- sophy of life, and temple services had to be conducted. There was great moral activity in the new "sect;" and, so far as education was concerned, it might fairly be said that every Christian assemblage where the Gospels were read, prayers offered, and hymns sung, was a people's school. To discharge this religious duty, and to train its ministers, was as much as the infant community could be expected to do. This it did in the catechetical and, afterwards, in the epis- copal schools.* The Christian conception of education, however, was, unfortunately (like that of old Cato), narrow. It tended steadily to concentrate and contract men's intellectual interests. The Christian did not think of the culture of the whole man. He could not con- sistently do so. His sole purpose was the salvation of the soul. This temporal life was only the threshold of the true life. Salvation was to be attained through abnegation of the world and through faith. Faith tended to degenerate into merely intellectual accept- ance of dogma among the intelligent, and credulity ' These schools, ns distinct from pagan institutions, date from the clos? of the second century. SJSS Of CffRJSriAX SCHOOLS. as and superstition among the masses. Abn^ation, too, degenerated into asceticism. Hence a twofold result : , the gradual substitution of alien authority, dominating a timid and cowardly subjectiv'it}-, for the free move- ' ment of reason, and the divorcement of man from ' this world in the interests of another. Christianity, accordingly, found itself necessarily placed in mortal antagonism to ''Humanitas" and Hellenism, and had to go through the troublous ex- periences of nearly fourteen himdred years before the possibilitj- of the union of reason \rith authority, of religion with Hellenism, could be conceived. This antagonism was, however, for the first two centuries of the Christian era, latent Christian bishops ob- tained all the instruction and shared all the learning of their time, being, however, always on their guard against its hurtful influences. Tertullian, who died AJD. 245, decides in favour of Christians attending pagan schools on grounds of necessity-, but warns them to select tlie good and to reject the evil neces- sarily associated with the instruction there given. The "Apostolical Constitutions" ascribed to the middle of the fourth century are, Mr. Bass Mullinger says, hostile to the reading of pagan authors, and he quotes from them (i. 6) as follows: "Refrain from all the \\-ritings of the heathen ; for what hast thou to do with strange discourses, laws, or false prophets, which, in truth, turn aside fixjm the faith those who are weak in understanding?" and so forth. In the 26 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. East, St Basil (died 379) took a more liberal view of Greek literature. In the West, St. Augustine (who died in 395), in his book "De Ordine," commends the study of grammar, rhetoric, and heathen writers generally, but only for Christian purposes and for the mental discipline they give. As was, indeed, inevitable, theological discussions more and more occupied the active intellect of the time, to the subordination, if not total neglect, of humane letters and philosophy. The Latin and Greek classics were ultimately denounced. As the offspring of the pagan world, if not, indeed, inspired by demons, they were dangerous to the new faith. The apostasy of Julian must have convinced any doubting ecclesiastics of this danger. In 398, the Fourth Council of Car- thage formally prohibited the reading of secular books even by the bishops. The learned St. Jerome (died 420) condemned the study of the classics, except for "pious uses;" and, in his later and more ascetic period, he rejoices over the growing neglect of Plato and Aristotle, although he himself, as a younger man, had taught them in his convent at Bethlehem. Even so late as the beginning of the sixth century, when Christianity had been everywhere triumphant, and there was less to fear, the learned Cassiodorus, after impressing on the monks of his foundation at Viviers the special study of the Scriptures and the Fathers, cautiously says, "The holy Fathers have passed no decree binding us to repudiate secular literature ; for. RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 27 in fact, such reading prepares the mind in no slight measure for understanding the sacred writings." * After the death of Augustine (395), the Romano- Hellenic schools, which had been steadily losing ground, may be said to have practically died out, with the exception of a few survivals in Gaul and Africa, the Mesopotamian schools of Edessa and Nisibis, and the law school of Berytus. Sidonius Apollinaris, who died in 488, says, " Young men no longer study, professors no longer have pupils ; know- ledge languishes and dies." In the subsequent gene- ration, Boethius and Cassiodorus may be regarded as the last Romano-Hellenic product. The latter (born about 470), the able minister of Theodoric the Great, alarmed at the universal decline of learning, retired to Viviers in Calabria, and there, in 540, endeavoured to institute a monastic college, in which should be revived the old classical studies ; but ap- parently without much success, at least of a perma- nent character. Schools, however, of some kind were needed which should be in accordance with Christian requirements ; and as early as the beginning of the third century these began to appear, though they had not yet by any means superseded the Romano-Hellenic schools. They were under the superintendence of the bishops ; and those who frequented them with a view to the * Newman's " Historical Sketches," ii. 453. 28 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Christian ministry were presumed to have already passed through the ordinary public schools of the country. They long existed side by side with the schools of the Grammatici and the higher or uni- versity institutions, and in Alexandria, owing to the conflict there of Jewish and Gnostic opinions, they were characterized by considerable activity. These / Christian catechetical schools (the first of which was I founded by Pantsenus in i8r, at Alexandria) increased in number and efficiency at the episcopal seats. Not only were intending priests educated in them, but certain of the laity also began to receive at least elementary instruction. The Church in the end of the fourth century, after the death of Julian, gained control over education. At some of the more im- portant of the Christian schools, also, the "trivial" course began to be given, thus superseding entirely the school of the Grammaticus. Meanwhile, St Martin, in imitation, doubtless, of what he had seen in the East when a soldier under Julian, had, in 361, founded at Ligugd in Maine, the first monastery, and afterwards that of Tours (372), and so initiated, with a new educational conception, a new machinery. St. Basil was at this time giving a " rule " to the monas- teries and schools of the East, and St Martin may have met him.* • The influence of Athanasius, when he took refuge in Rome in 341, was, I think, restricted to purely monastic institutions and the "re- ligious " life. So also at Treves. SISE OF CHRISTIAN' SCHOOLS. 29 At the very time when the ancient culture had become practically extinct (for the appearance of a man now and then with some classical tastes only served to illustrate the universal decay), we find in the East, as I have shown in the previous lecture, an endeavovir to resuscitate education, at the university of Constantinople and through the monastic rule of St Basil ; arid, now in the West, we encounter a co- temporary movement, conceived in a much narrower spirit, towards the final supplanting of the Romano- Hellenic school by one formed on a purely Chris- tian model. Cassian, born (probably in Marseilles) about 370, after spending many years among the hermits and cenobites of the Thebai's, returned to Gaul in 404, and there founded, in imitation of the Egyptian institutions, the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles. He contributed also to the institution of the afteiTvards much-celebrated monastery of Lerins on a neighbouring island. The characteristic of the Western monastic system, as opposed to the Oriental, was that work, in the shape of farming, teaching, or charitable services, formed an essential part of its "rule." The monasteries of Cassian were schools as well as religious retreats. We find that in him the anti-Hellenic feeling in education culminated. He had completely dissociated himself from all humanistic ideas, and he entertained a pro- found distrust of all human learning, even when applied to Scripture. The study of the Scriptures and devo- 30 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. tional exercises constituted the intellectual as well as the religious end of the monastic life. With these exercises he united severe bodily labour. It does not appear that, at first, any, save young aspirants to the " religious " life, were taught. It was only some time after the foundation of the Benedictine Order, to which I shall immediately refer, that externs seem to have been admitted to the monastery schools. The instruction given was, as might have been expected, of the most meagre character. The boys were taught to read, merely that "they might study the Bible and understand the services ; to write, in order that they might multiply copies of the sacred books and of the psalter; to understand music, that they might give with due effect the ! Ambrosian chant."* A little arithmetic was given in order to fit the few who had a turn that way to calculate the return of Easter and the other Church festivals. Cassian's position was quite logical. It is difficult to see how any man, with his views of human life and destiny, could countenance any learning whatsoever. The arts and sciences be- longed to the vain shows and babblements of an irreligious world, and the fancies and fictions of the poets were the product of the spirits of evil who constantly haunted the steps of men, at once guiding the pen of Virgil and animating the oracle of Delphi, * MuUinger, p. 31. X/SE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 31 ^ But though Cassian, notwithstanding the previous action of St. Martin, may be sjiid to have laid the foundations of the new education, it was to St. Bene- > diet and his order, a hundred years later, that the \ mediaeval Church truly owed the Christian school. Bom in 480 at Nursia, Benedict withdrew, after a youth remarkable even after we throw out the fabulous elements, to Monte Cassino, near Naples ; and there, in /^28, founded a monastery on the site of a temple of Apollo. H-e had educational as well as religious aims from the first, and it is to the monks of his rapidly extending order, or to the influence which their "rule" exercised on other conventual orders, such as the Columban, that we owe the diffusion of schools in the earlier half of the Middle Ages and the preservation of ancient learning. The Benedictine 1 monks not only taught in their own monasteries, but were everywhere in demand as heads of episcopal . or cathedral schools. St. Benedict was not himself a man of learning, but he was deeply impressed with the necessity of a Christian education. It was of him that Pope Gregory the Great said that he was " knowingly un- knowing, wisely unlearned." Of the rules of his order, those which imposed the duty of instructing the young novices, from the age of seven to fourteen, and of transcribing manuscripts, placed the mediaeval and modern world under incalculable obligations. For the monks themselves he specified no authors 32 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. except Cassian * and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, together with such expositions thereon as "the most illustrious doctors of the orthodox faith and the Catholic Fathers had com- piled." f '^is object was not learning, but a life of combined labour and asceticism^ and even the commentaries to which I have referred were not much favoured, though generally commended. The reading prescribed to the monks had in view solely the cultivation in them of the religious life as opposed to the life of the world. These Benedictine com- munities multiplied rapidly over Europe, and extended the blessing of elementary, and frequently of more advanced, instruction to many who contemplated secular vocations. But always restricted; for edu- cation even of the monk by the monk was in itself a contradiction of the great aim of those who felt a call to cenobite life — summa quies. Even Cardinal Newman says, the monk " cared little for knowledge, even theological ; or for success, even though religious. It is the character of such a man to be contented, resigned, patient, incurious ; to create or originate nothing ; to live by tradition." % Passing by the work of the greatest of the popes — Gregory — the historian of education now finds him- "■ The CoUationes, or Conferences of Cassian, published as a record of conversations held by him with the monks and holy men of Egypt, t Mullinger, in "Diet. Christ. Antiq." X " Historical Sketches," ii. 452. RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 33 self irresistibly attracted by Ireland. It was when the efforts of the learned Cassiodorus were failing in Calabria that Irish education received its first impulse. Mr. Mellinger is disposed to be of opinion that Irish Christian civilization dates from the time of St. Jerome, and that Ireland received its traditions straight from the East by way of Marseilles. Its scholastic foundations certainly affiliated themselves in spirit to Basil and Martin rather than to Cassian. Dr. Skene * proves, I think, that Ireland received its monastic life first through St. Ninian's monastery of Candida Casa, planted in Galloway in honour of St. Martin, and also from, Wales by the agency of St. Finnian, who founded Clonard. This is certain, that the Irish or Scoti cultivated Greek and Latin literature when other parts of the civilized world had ceased to do so, and that they were much given to dialectic dis- putation. There was a living scholarship among them and a genuine speculative spirit. It was an Irish scholar, Maeldurf, who taught Aldhelm at Malmes- bury in the seventh century; and the Greek monk, Theodore of Tarsus, was, on his assuming the pri- macy of England, surrounded, says Aldhelm, by Irish scholars. The celebrated Irish schools must have been founded in the beginning of the sixth century. " While almost the whole of Europe," says Dollinger, "was desolated by war, peaceful Ireland, free from the invasions of external foes, opened to • " Celtic Scotland," ii. 2. 34 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the lovers of learning and piety a welcome asylum." From these Irish schools went forth the founders of monasteries and bearers of learning to England, Scot- land, France, and Germany. In the seventh and eighth centuries, largely ' under Irish and English influence, monastery schools and convents for female education increased in number, not only in England but on the continent of Europe. But while the frequent regulations made in different parts of the Catholic world by councils show clearly enough that the Church was anxious to extend education, the schools were, as yet, sparse; and the results of their teaching very meagre except in a few famous monasteries. Efforts were from time to time made by leading ecclesiastics to institute schools, and, by the help of the monastery founda- tions, much was unquestionably accomplished The main and, in the majority of cases, the sole object; however, w£is the education of the monkish recluse and of the regular priest. Until this was attained, the extension of education into the secular ranks was manifestly impossible. Nay, to give the merest rudiments of learning even to all the working clergy was beyond the power of the mediaeval machinery. This state of things is not to be ascribed so much to the waning of the Benedictine enthusiasm as to the magnitude of the task to be accomplished, the in- adequacy of the instruments available, and the con- fused state of Europe. Meanwhile, wherever an RISE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 35 ardent ecclesiastic wished to benefit his fellow-men, he not only founded a monastery, but in connection ' with it also, in most cases, a school. St. Maur, the , chief of Benedict's apostles, and St. Columban, both towards the close of the sixth century, and St Boni- face in the eighth, were in this way powerful agents in the civilization of Europe. Even when their schools were of little importance, the monasteries were as lights in dark places. The mere example of men \ leading a religious, studious, orderly, and industrious ' life was itself the best possible education to the ( semi-barbarians by whom the young communities were surrounded. In England, meanwhile, under the primacy of the learned Theodore of Tarsus (668-690), and the teaching of Irish immigrants, education made considerable pro- gress in the seventh and eighth centuries. Out of this revival came Albert, the teacher of York School, his pupil Alcuin, and also the Venerable Bede, who died in 735. Bede says, according to Newman, that in his time there were monks in England who knew Latin and Greek as well as they knew their mother-tongue ; but, according to Mullinger, this was said by him only of Albinus, who was taught Greek by Theodore. Bede himself was the most learned and scholarly fruit of the revival, "I spent my whole life," he says, "in the same monastery [J arrow, in Northumberland], and, while attentive to the rule of my order and the service of the Church, my constant pleasure lay in learning 36 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. or teaching, or writing." Alcuin, also, was an excellent product of the learning of his time. In himself, indeed, he was a summary of it. Its character and its scope as well as its limitations were all well exem- plified in him. We shall meet him .shortly at the court of Charlemagne. It was to Theodore of Tarsus and his school at Canterbury, quite as much as to the Irish monks, that the revival in England seems to have been due. The "Greek" period at St. Galle was, I think, short-lived, and the knowledge professed quite elementary. In the seventh and eighth centuries, again, there was a revival in Spain, but the limits of it were very restricted. The chief fruit of it was Isidorus (lumen Hispanijfi), who died in 636, and whose long-cele- brated " Origines Etymologicae " — an encyclopaedia of the learning of the time — formed one of the leading text-books of the higher education all through the Middle Ages. Cardinal Newman, through his enthusiastic admira- tion of certain monasteries and monks, allows himself to speak of the state of learning in Europe in the first half of the Middle Ages, in terms which will not bear a moment's investigation. The same remark applies to Montalembert. Progress was certainly being made, and some conventual institutions were, in truth, colleges of "all learning," as then understood. But even in the best of these education seldom went beyond the irivium ; Jl/SJS OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 37 and even this was pursued in a barren and arid spirit. Grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic were certainly studied, but chiefly in bald epitomes. The cost of manuscript books, much enhanced by the high price of parchment during the Middle Ages,* compelled the monks to have recourse to dictation, the scholars \ writing down on tablets and learning by heart what they were taught Nothing, of course, was questioned. The youth of ancient Greece and of the earlier empire were brought into contact with the substance of literature, music, and eloquence in their elementary and grammar schools ; and those who continued their studies in the higher schools continued to occupy themselves with all the realities of knowledge. The > schools of the Middle Ages, on the contrary, in the spirit of the Carthaginian decree, forswore literature ' and reality, and were disciplined by the merely formal and instrumental, and this in its most barren shape. The only "realities," indeed, were Scripture truth and the writings of the Fathers ; and the higher education was practically confined to these.f A few monks, doubtless, especially in England, took a wider sweep, and studied all that was contained in the great text-books of the Middle Ages from the sixth * Caused by the occupation of Egypt by the Saracens. t "Caeterae igitur quaecunque notiones ac scientiie haud aliter monachis erant in pretio, nisi quatenus ad talem finem (ad exercitiura christiananun religiosarumque virtutum) referebantur et quatenus sibi ipsis inservire poterant ut pisefetam metam attingerent " (Mabillon, i. p. 5, cited by Cramer in his " Gesch. der Erz. u. des Unt. in dem Nied.") 38 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. to the thirteenth century, viz. Boethius, Isidorus, and Martianus Capella* They thus maintained the tra- dition of the seven liberal arts. On the whole, the episcopal schools or seminaries, ' and the monastery schools, both of which had pro- mised well in the sixth century, had not fulfilled their promise. Indeed, they had retrograded in the seventh and eighth, except at a few centres in England, though their number had increased. Litera- I ture, philosophy, and science were all alike forgotten. Even the language of the Church — Latin — was badly I taught, and had woefully degenerated. It is precisely at this time that we find the beginnings of a reform. • Generally denounced by the European Church as containing the seeds of scepticism, but in great favour with the Irish monks. LECTURE III. CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY. Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz (742-766), endeavoured to reform the episcopal schools by setting an example of a strict canonical organization in connection with his Cathedral Church. But the influence of the canonical rule (a modification of the Benedictine *), introduced by him, was for long very restricted in its range, and we are entitled to say that the edu- cation of Europe was in a barbarous state when Charles the Great (born 742, died 814), Emperor of the West, and crowned Emperor of the Romans by the pope, endeavoured to revive learning. " The study of letters," he said, " had been well-nigh extinguished by the neglect of his ancestors." t St. Boniface, coming from England, had done his best to reform an episco- pate and Church already flagrantly corrupt, while at the same time extending the bounds of Christianity among the Teutonic races. It was the reform and • Adopted in 816-17 by the General Council of Aachen after Charles's death. For some of the rules, see Skene, ii. 6. f "Constitutio de emendatione librorum," etc., Baluze, i. 204, 205, cited by Mr. Mullinger, p. 69. 4 40 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. extension of the Church, however, and only inci- dentally of the school, that engaged his zeal. Charle- magne, as a boy, had been a witness of his work, and when he ascended the throne he gave efTect to many of his ecclesiastical views. For subjecting the trans- alpine churches to the pope, Charles has been blamed, but only by those (it seems to me) whose historical imagination is too weak to enable them to understand the then state of Europe. Charles early saw that without a more thorough education of the priesthood, reforms, however well conceived, would be evanescent, and he, accordingly, devoted himself to the reorganization and extension of the episcopal and monastery schools. It is from his capitularies, and his life by Eginhard (Einhard), that we obtain the most trustworthy information of the state of education towards the close of the eighth century, when the reforms began. In one of these capitularies he complains of the uncouth and illiterate diction of the letters which he received even from monasteries of good standing. He found also that a large number of the manu- scripts of the Scriptures were almost undecipherable owing to the utter ignorance of the monkish copyists. Charlemagne himself began to learn to write, it is said, after he was on the throne.* To his court at ♦ I think this must have reference to writing on parchment with pen and ink, and that he was already able to write with the style on waxen tablets. [Since I wrote this, I see that the suggestion has been made by others, but that MuIUnger rejects it.] CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY. 41 Aix he invited such men of learning as could be found. Leidrade of Noricum and Alcuin of York were his chief counsellors — the latter occupying a post which we should now designate Minister of Public Instruction and of Public Worship. In connection with the emperor's efforts, a story is told which has a legendary sound, but for which there seems to be sufficient evidence to justify our repeat- ing it, as it is narrated by Bulaeus, on the authority of a treatise published about half a century after Charlemagne's death. The incident is said to have been communicated to the writer by the son of one of Alcuin's pupils. When Alcuin was already at Charlemagne's court in Aix-la-Chapelle, two Scoti, called Claud Clement and John Melrose (so called from the town of Melrose*), arrived at the capital in the company of some English traders. Amidst . the ordinary cries of the market-place the towns- people were astonished to hear the two Scotsmen calling out, " If any one wants knowledge, let him come to us and get it ; for we have it to sell " (Si quis sapientiae cupidus est, veniat ad nos, et accipiat eam : nam venalis est apud nos). The people thought * Notwithstanding the special mention of the town of Melrose, both the Scots were probably Irishmen. There was a Columbite monastery founded by Aidan in the eighth century, at Melrose, which was destroyed about 834. It is well known that Irishmen or Scoti were always to be found in the monasteries of Scotland as well as England. It is not impossible, however, that John may not only have come from Melrose, but have been an Angle. See Skene's " Celtic Scotland," ji. 5. 42 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the men mad. But the incident having reached the monarch's ears, he sent for Clement and Melrose, and asked them whether they really had knowledge to sell, and what they asked for it. They replied that they had, and that its price was " a place to teach it in, pupils to learn it, and needful food and raiment." Charlemagne accepted their services, established a schola in his palace under Clement and Alcuin, and taking Melrose with him to his Italian wars, settled him as superintendent of a schola at Pavia, This is the legendary origin of the Palace or Palatine School for members of the court and their children, and indeed open to all who were desirous of obtaining education. The researches of Dom Pitra seem to show that Charlemagne's Palace School had been anticipated by a royal school at Chartres under Clotaire II. This school was taught by Betharius, a Roman of good family, who had been trained at Viviers, the school of Cassiodorus. He became Bishop of Chartres in 594. Apart from legend, we know that Charles met Alcuin at Padua, in Italy, where he had been sent on an important embassy from York, and urged him, then and afterwards, to come to his court at Aachen and carry out educational reforms. This invitation was accepted by Alcuin in 782. Alcuin was the pupil of .Albert, Archbishop of York, and Egbert, scholasticus there, and was himself headmaster or scholasticus of the Monastery School at York at the time that he CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY. 43 yielded to Charles's solicitations to leave his native country. Peter of Pisa seems to have held some kind of tutorial post at the court of Charles's father, but he was growing old and had little or nothing to do with the reformation now set on foot by the emperor, with the help of Alcuin. In my last lecture I adverted to the revival in England, under the Greek Primate Theodore, seconded by Scots immigrant monks. The most important fruit of that revival was Bede, the North- umbrian, to whom I referred in the last lecture, and who died in 735, Albinus, for a time teacher of the York school, a learned man, was the friend and coadjutor of Bede. He was succeeded by Egbert, the teacher of Alcuin. Alcuin was thus one of the last products of the English revival, and he now transferred his activities to the Continent of Europe. After establishing the Palace School,* designed largely for the laity, and letting it be understood that those who distinguished themselves as scholars would" receive promotion in the state, however humble their origin, Charles took up the large question of edu- cation in his empire generally. Under Alcuin's advice, he issued instructions for the reform of schools in 787. As this has been justly regarded as a document of great significance in * For a most interesting and graphic account of the school, I would refer the reader to Mullinger's " Schools of Charles the Great." 44 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. educational history, I shall here quote it, taking Mr. Mullinger's translation * : — " Charles, by the grace of God, King of the Franks and of the Lombards, and Patrician of the Romans, to Bangulfus, abbot, and to his whole congregation and the faithful committed to his charge : Be it known to your devotion, pleasing to God, that in conjunction with our faithful we have judged it to be of utility that, in the bishoprics and monasteries committed by Christ's favour to our charge, care should be taken that there shall be not only a regular manner of life and one conformable to -holy religion, but also the study of letters, each to teach and learn them according to his ability and the divine assistance. For even as due observance of the rule of the house tends to good morals, so zeal on the part of the teacher and the taught imparts order and grace to sentences ; and those who seek to please God by living aright should also not neglect to please him by right speaking. It is written, ' By thine own words shalt thou be justified or condemned ; ' and although right doing be preferable to right speaking, yet must the knowledge of what is right precede right action. Every one, therefore, should strive to under- stand what it is he would fain accomplish ; and this right understanding will be the sooner gained according as the utterances of the tongue are free from error. And if false speaking is to be shunned • The original is also quoted by Mabillon, part i. c. 9. CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY. 45 by all men, especially should it be shunned by those who have elected to be the servants of the truth. During past years we have often received letters from different monasteries, informing us that at their sacred services the brethren offered up prayers on our behalf; and we have observed that the thoughts contained in these letters, though in themselves most just, were expressed in uncouth language, and while pious devotion dictated the sentiments, the unlettered tongue was unable to express them aright. Hence . there has arisen in our minds the fear lest, if the skill to write rightly were thus lacking, so too would the . power of rightly comprehending the sacred Scriptures ' be far less than was fitting ; and we all know that ' though verbal errors be dangerous, errors of the ^ understanding are yet more so. We exhort you, therefore, not only not to neglect the study of letters, but to apply yourselves thereto with perseverance and with that humility which is well pleasing, to God ; so that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scrip- tures. For as these contain images, tropes, and similar figures, it is impossible to doubt that the reader will arrive far more readily at the spiritual sense according as he is the better instructed in learning. Let there, therefore, be chosen for this work men who are both able and willing to learn, and also desirous of instructing others ; and let them apply themselves to the work with a zeal equalling 46 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the earnestness with which we recommend it to them. " It is our wish that you may be what it behoves the soldiers of the Church to be, — religious in heart, learned in discourse, pure in act, eloquent in speech ; so that all who approach your house, in order to invoke the Divine Master or to behold the excellence of the religious life, may be edified in beholding you, and instructed in hearing you discourse or chant, and may return home rendering thanks to God most high. " Fail not, as thou regardest our favour, to send a copy of this letter to all thy suffragans and to all the monasteries ; and let no monk go beyond his mon- astery to administer justice, or to enter the assemblies and the voting-places. Adieu." Teachers of singing, arithmetic, and grammar were about the same time imported from Rome that they might visit the monasteries and help to revive the teaching. In 789 Charles again sent out an edict to the heads of monasteries and to the clergy, enjoining them to look out for boys to train as priests and monks, not only among the sons of slaves as hereto- fore, but of freemen. He further requires that in con- nection with eveiy episcopal see and every monastery there shall be a school for instruction in the psalms, singing, notation, counting, and the Latin tongue, and that the pupils shall be supplied with accurately transcribed text-books.* * MuUinger and Viriville. CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY. 47 Alcuin, having resigned the mastership of the Palace School, was appointed to the abbacy of St. Martin de Tours in 796, and raised the school there to so high a reputation, that scholars flocked to it from all parts of the Continent, 'as well as from Eng- land and Ireland. Alcuin's influence was thereby greatly increased, but, while it was of a kind doubt- less to suit his time, it was certainly not of a liberal character, owing to his distrust of all pagan literature. He was an estimable man, and a good administrator, but of no original genius, and cast in a monastic mould. By appointing Leidrade of Noricum to the see of Lyons (798), and Theodulf of Italy to that of Orleans (794)1 Charles secured for his educational schemes potent ministers under Alcuin. Theodulf not only founded important schools, but he issued to the clergy of his diocese an order to institute schools in the burghs and villages where the faithful might receive elementary instruction gratuitously. The emperor was fond of music, and promoted the reform of Church singing, introducing the Gregorian chants, and, it is said, also the organ. His services to literature include a collection of Gothic songs and verses ; and a collection of all the best passages from the Fathers which he appointed to be read in churches has to be specially noted (Capitulary of 788). In law he endeavoured to apply the Theodosian Code. He is also said to have studied the works of Vitruvius, 48 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. and with his own hand to have prepared the design of the imperial palace. i have said that Alcuin's views of education were of a narrow and monastic character. This statement has, however, to be slightly qualified. His position — at least, in the vigour of his manhood — was more nearly allied to that of St. Augustine than to that of the " Apostolical Constitutions." In one of his letters (quoted by Specht, p. 47) he writes, " The knowledge j of worldly sciences is not to be despised, since they lay the foundation of further study. Therefore ought children even of the tenderest age to be instructed in grammar and the other disciplines of subtle world- wisdom, in order that they may be in a position, as on the steps of the ladder, to climb the highest peaks of evangelical perfection." In his old ' age, however, he proscribed Virgil. His most distin- guished pupil, too, Rabanus Maurus, who did vigorous work in educational reform, inherited similar views. In his book on the education of the clergy, he quotes St. Augustine with full concurrence. In so , far as ancient studies were to be followed at all, they were to be followed only as a propaedeutic to the study of the Holy Scriptures. The reforms initiated by the great emperor were not arrested by Alcuin's death in 804, and his own death ten years later. Lewis the Pious, an admirable, though unwarlike prince, continued to push forward reforms, especially the improvement of the monastic CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY. 49 discipline. The Council of Chalons had, in 813, i enjoined the foundation of additional schools for the cultivation of learning and the study of the Scriptures. \ In 817 the Council of Aachen required that only those who had taken the monastic vows {pblati) should be admitted to the schools within the monastery walls {scholcs claustrales), the regular clergy and others being confined to the " exterior " schools. The episcopal schools also received a great impulse. Among the most famous of these were the schools of Orleans and Rheims : a certain tradition of learn- ing was for long preserved at the latter, and about the year 1000 it was, under Gerbert, celebrated. But the monastery schools were always the most! learn^ and some of these attained a high reputation. The great Abbey of St. Riquier had a library of 230 volumes. The most famous of the " exterior " schools was that afterwards established at Fleury-sur-Loire by Charles the Bald in 855. It was attended by laymen. Pope John VIII., in a Bull of 878, speaks of it in complimentary terms. Such was the work done under the influence given by Charlemagne. Some seem to think that by the constitution of the Palace School, and the extension and reform of important schools at Bologna, Pavia, and Paris, Charles contributed to lay the foundations of the university movement three hundred years later. For at these schools it became, through imperial influence, the custom for laymen to attend who had no inten- 50 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. tion of preparing themselves for ecclesiastical life. The revival of secular quadrivial studies at these places and the prospect of civil employment made education more attractive to the lay adolescent mind. They had all the characteristics of " public " schools. Bulaeus considers that Charlemagne had distinctly before his mind such schools as had existed in Alex- andria and Athens, and subsequently under the Roman empire at Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, and which were practically privileged and endowed uni- versities. The idea which he aimed at realizing was, according to this view, that of a studium getierale : " not that he deprived monks of the licence to teach and profess, though he certainly limited it, from a clear view that that variety of sciences, human and profane, which secular academies require is inconsistent with the profession and devotion of ascetics ; and accordingly, in conformity to the spirit of their institute, it was his wish that the lesser schools should be set up or retained in the bishops' palaces and in monasteries, while he prescribed the subjects which they were to teach. The case was different with the schools which are higher and public, and which, instead of multiplying, he confined to certain central and cele- brated spots, not more than three in his whole empire — Paris, Pavia, and Bologna." * I can find no evidence that Charles or his advisers had so large an aim ; but certainly one of the results of his action, * Bulaeus, as quoted by Newman, cap. xiii, of " Historical Studies." CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY. 51 especially his concentration of eminent teachers at important centres, might have suggested to others a studium generale. And we may even say that, had the time been propitious, the central schools which Charles endea- voured to institute for the study of the whole circle of the arts and sciences as then known might have developed into universities of the old Hellenic, Roman, and Alexandrian type. It is certain, however, that such institutions of the higher learning could not, in the ninth century, have permanently held their own in Europe without large permanent endowments as well as a continuance of powerful royal protection. These, indeed, are the two conditions of the main- tenance of learning in a state — endowments and privilege. By "learning" we mean the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and without reference to its value in the economic market. The enthusiasm of a few may initiate an institution ; but law, privilege, organization, and endowment can alone make it endure. We shall in the sequel see that the existence of the modern university was made possible, spite of ' the lack of endowments, only by the introduction '• into them of a new idea — the economic. They may \ be said to have produced commodities which mankind needed for daily use, and sold them. Charles had many communications with the East, and might have been influenced, it has been suggested, by the Uni- versity of Constantinople. But, as it was nearly half 52 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. a century after his death that this university was refounded by Michael III., we may conclude that at the height of Charles's activity it had shared in the general decadence of education. The efforts of Charlemagne were imitated in England, half a century after the emperor's death, by Alfred, who died in the first year of the tenth century. He himself tells us that he knew no priest I south of the Thames who understood the meaning of the Latin prayers which he used. Nor did England stand alone in its ignorance, for though Latin was the universal language of the Church, not one priest I in a thousand in Spain could at that time write a ' simple letter in the Latin tongue. I suppose that the term " priests," as used by Alfred, is not intended to include monks ; for, notwithstanding the destruction caused by the Danish invasions, many Benedictine monasteries had continued to be centres of a restricted, certainly, but still genuine study of Latin and the Scriptures. Very restricted it must have been, if we are to believe Alfred himself, who says, " Formerly men came hither from foreign lands to seek for instruction ; and now, when we desire it, we can only obtain it from abroad." * The king himself was a scholar, and the father of English prose. He is said to have gone to the Benedictine school at Oxford to complete his • Green's "Hist.," i. 79. CHARLEMAGNE AND THE NINTH CENTURY, 53 studies in dialectic, rhetoric, music, and versification.* He also instituted a Palace School, calling to his assistance foreign scholars — Grimbold from Nor- mandy, and Scotus Erigena who had by this time left the Palace School of Charlemagne, to which he had succeeded. In his preface to the translation of the pastond of St. Gregory, he urges all his people, where circumstances in any way admitted of it, to give their children at least the elements of learning. Owing to the social state of England and the renewed invasions of the Danes, the schools, which Alfred stimulated into activity, soon declined. His attempted revival was, like that of Charlemagne on the Continent, short-lived in its effects ; and we find Archbishop Lancfranc in 1089, under the Norman rule, issuing decrees for the reorganization of the schools, which had fallen into decay — decrees which contemplate the instruction of both rich and poor. We have been speaking of education in its external aspects. Let us now look for a little at the inner work of the mediaeval schools during the centuries which we have been passing in review. ♦ This, however, is now, I fear, to be regarded as a later inter- polation in Asser's "Life of Alfred," in the interests of the antii^uity of Oxford University. 54 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE IV. INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS (A.D. 450-1100). In a previous lecture I called your attention to the rise of the episcopal schools for the preparation of the Christian clergy (first in Alexandria), and pointed out that, with the decay and final disappearance of the Romano-Hellenic institutions, these schools neces- sarily grew in importance and in the range of their teaching. When these took final shape, the master, who was a canon of the cathedral, was called Scholas- ticus, and the chancellor of the cathedral exercised, speaking generally, a certain supervision over them and any other schools for the clgrgy that might arise in the diocese. For many churches had at a later period connected with them " foundation " schools, which were for the most part also collegiate institu- tions. These cathedral or episcopal schools, no less than the monastery schools, received a powerful impulse from the activity of Charles and Lewis. Orleans, indeed, was so famous that, three hundred INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. SS years after, it grew into a university of law j and had it not been for the more favourable conditions, political and geographical, of Paris, we should pro- bably have had to look back to a university of Rheims as the mother of European universities. The monastic schools, however, from the time of Cassian onwards, always took the lead in education. Speaking generally, the episcopal schools occupied a lower place. In reviewing the instruction given at these schools, it may be desirable, for greater clearness, to adopt the modern division of education into Primary, Secondary, and Higher. Primary Instruction. Instruction began about the age of seven. The alphabet, written on tables or leaves, was learned by heart by the children, then syllables and words. The first reading-book was the Latin psalter, and this was read again and again until it could be said by heart, and any failure on the part of choir-boys to recite or sing accurately was severely punished. The ^ psalter was read and learned by heart, at first without ''■ being understood ; and numerous priests, and even , monks, were content all their lives with the. mere sound of the Latin words, which they could both , read and recite, but did not understand. Writing followed reading. There were two stages. In the first, the boys were taught to write with a style 56 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. on wax-covered tablets, imitating copies set by the master; and in the second, or advanced stage, they learned to write with pen and ink on parchment — ^an accomplishment highly prized in days when books were multiplied by hand-copying. Singing gf the Church services was also taught to all the boys, and great importance was attached to this, especially after the time of Charlemagne, who introduced the Gregorian chants north of the Alps. The elements of arithmetic were also taught, but I merely with a view to the calculation of Church days and festivals. Latin was begun very early (apparently imme- diately after the psalter was known), with the learning by heart of declensions and conjugations and lists of vocables. The rule was to use Latin in the school in conversing. But it is quite clear, from the known ignorance of the clergy, that this was not always done. Probably it was attempted only in the " inner " claustral schools. It is specially noted of the school which stood among the highest in reputation — ^that of St Galle — that all, save some inferior boys, spoke Latin with each other in the school In the eleventh century, if not earlier, Latin conversation-books, having reference to the ordinary events of life, were , not only read, but, like everything else, learned by heart. The merest elements, however, of Latin were alone taught, except in the case of monks. INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 57 Secondary Instruction. The higher instruction generally aimed at giving the pupil a knowledge of the seven liberal arts — the trivium and quadrivium of the Romano-Hellenic schools. Compendiums were written and learnt ; these, however, were very often so dry and brief, that the pupil knew nothing more than the name and contents of the Arts studies. The instruction was arranged in the form of question and answer. But during the years devoted to what we now call secondary instruction, the time of the student was devoted mainly to the Latin language. Grammar was regarded as the basis of all other studies. In the court of Charlemagne there was a much-admired painting, which represented the seven liberal arts, and in which Grammar was represented as the queen, sitting under the tree of knowledge with a crown on her head, a knife in her right hand with which to scratch out errors, and a thong . in her left. The thong was supposed to symbolize the supremacy of grammar in the schools ; it may, however, have symbolized the discipline of the time. That grammar — ^which was defined as the art of explaining poets and historians, and of speaking and writing correctly — should occupy the greater part of the student's time was to be expected, as Latin was to all a foreign tongue, which they were expected to make completely their own. The grammars most approved down even S8 , MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. to the thirteenth century were those of Donatus and Priscian — the book first used being the Ars Minor, written in question and answer by the former writer : few went beyond this book. Numerous abridgments of Donatus were made, and widely used. The teachers had, of course, to explain the meaning of the gram- matical rules in the vernacular. Books were scarce, and in the majority of cases the teacher alone had a copy of the book from which he taught This he dictated, and the boys wrote down what he said on their waxen tablets, and learnt it by heart with a loud voice. Hence the word legere came to be used as equivalent to docere. The boys, when they could write with pen and ink, transferred what was on their tablets to parchment, and so gradually wrote their own text- book. The more advanced studied prosody. The youths then (at least after the eleventh century, if not before) wrote down and learned by heart the fables of .^Esop, and collections of maxims and proverbs. After this, Virgil was usually the text- book, and was handled in the same style. Christian poets such as Juvencus and Sedulius, and, above all, Prudentius, were widely read. But even the poets were used mainly for grammatical purposes. Ovid sometimes found his way into the schools. In some of the more celebrated institutions we find, in the tenth century, other Roman poets prescribed, and even in the eighth century these were read in the school of York, as we know from Alcuin. INNER WOSK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 59 The master in the earh'er stages of the higher instruction explained the Latin authors in the ver- nacular; but the more advanced scholars had ex- planations given them in Latin, and were required to show that they understood the author by rendering him in Latin prose. The main object always kept in view was a practical command of the Latin tongue — not literature or art. Vocabularies of the less common words were introduced as the boys advanced. It was not in all schools, but only in the more ad- ' vanced, and especially those under the influence of the Irish or Scots school of monks, that such authors as Virgil were tolerated. In the eighth and ninth centuries we find mention made of Greek, but there is no evidence that any but the most elementary knowledge of this language was possessed, except by a monk here and there. In the Irish monasteries more attention was paid to Greek, especially in the fifth and sixth centuries. Quotations from Greek authors are no evidence of a knowledge of Greek. These were generally to be found in some of the Fathers, from whom they were appropriated. Even Scotus Erigena's knowledge of Greek was very limited. His knowledge of Plato was apparently chiefly obtained from such Latin translations as existed. Written exercises (called dictamind) were regularly shown up in both prose and verse in the more ad- vanced classes. A good metrical exercise seems to 6o MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. have been regarded in the more learned schools as the highest kind of linguistic accomplishment. Rhetoric, to which so much importance was at- tached in the Romano-Hellenic schools, received little or no attention. In so far as it was studied, it was taught by means of such of Cicero's writings as were known, especially "Rhetorica ad Herennium." The writing of letters and public documents in good form was, however, practised and reduced to a system. Young ecclesiastics looked forward to employment as secretaries at royal courts and in noble houses, and hence the attention paid to the teaching of corre- spondence. In a letter of importance, the following order of composition had to be observed, viz. Salutatio; Captatio ; Benevolentia ; N ar ratio ; Petitio ; Conclusio. There were, of course, among the monks, as among teachers now, some who had a larger conception of their work than others. John of Salisbury, in giving an account of the teaching of a distinguished monk of the beginning of the twelfth century — Bernard de Chartres — tells us that he accustomed his pupils to apply the rules of grammar to the texts they read, that he directed their attention to delicacies of lan- guage and beauty of expression, to the aptness of terms and metaphors, and the disposition of the argu- ment He criticized the varieties of style of different authors, and took advantage of allusions to give much collateral instruction. He also exercised his pupils daily in writing Latin prose and verse, and required INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 6i them to learn fine passages by heart. This, it will be seen, was applied rhetoric as well as grammar, and indeed constitutes what we now understand by- training in the humanities. No doubt this was an exceptional school, and it existed after the uni- versity movement had begun. It is certain that no better teaching than this of Bernard flourished in the baccalaurean classes of the universities either in the twelfth or any succeeding century until the revival of letters, if even then. The study of law, the Theodosian Code — especially after the seventh century — and of such canon law as had grown up, was prosecuted in some monasteries. Ecclesiastics, as I have stated, were employed at courts, and in the houses of the nobility, as secretaries and notaries, and it was worth while for those who had a leaning towards legal studies to prepare themselves for such offices. Higher Instruction. The elements of logic were sometimes taught in the secondary or trivial course, but, practically, under the name of dialectic, logic was a quadrivial study. Dialectic was taught out of the books which I have named in a previous lecture as the great repertories of the higher instruction in the Middle Ages, viz. Cassiodorus, Isidorus, Martianus Capella, and Boethius. Latin versions of the Cate- gories and Porphyry's Introduction formed the utmost 62 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. range of the study, so far as it was Aristotelian, until the twelfth century. Alcuin's "Compendium of Logic" gives the course of instruction in the best schools. In the eleventh century, dialectic began to receive more attention, especially at the great school of Rheims, and logical disputations began to be prac- tised among the pupils. Complaints, indeed, were made by some that dialectic regarding Scripture was in more repute than the words of Scripture itself. The traditionary quadrivium — arithmetic, geo- metry, music, and astronomy — were regarded, in the Middle Ages, as being all branches of mathematics.* Ordinary calculation, as I have stated, was taught in the elementary stage of education. The arithmetic and astronomy of the most advanced was, as a rule, only such a knowledge of both as enabled the scholar to calculate Easter and the other festival days of the Church. The more capable, however, studied arithmetic as that is contained in the treatise of Boethius ("Institutio Arithmetica "). The want of the Arabic numerals made arithmetic no easy task for the pupil. Astronomy consisted in a knowledge of the names and courses of the stars, constellations, etc. Music in the quadrivial course exhausted all that was known on the subject, and the range of study may be seen in "Boethius de Musica," the great authority for a thousand years. There is a sentence * Rabanus Maurus, as quoted by Specht, p. 127, INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 63 in Boethius which anticipates the modern physics of sound. The geometry and mensuration taught was very elementary until the twelfth century. The furthest range of the study did not exceed four books of Euclid, and it might rather be called geography, as contained in the sixth book of the encyclopaedia of Martianus Capella. In a few schools it embraced all that was known of the physical features of the earth, of races of men, and of natural history. All these studies had in view one object, the , proper understanding of Holy Scripture. The study of the Scriptures themselves, and of such of the Fathers as could be got (or extracts from them), was the governing subject in the whole scholastic system. Every study was estimated by its bearing on the Bible, and limited by the needs of the theologian. It is not to be supposed that quadrivial studies were much pursued. It would be a mistake to conclude that even trivial studies were prosecuted in the Romano-Hellenic sense. Speaking of Cambridge at so late a period as the first decades of the twelfth century, Mr. MuUinger sums up the work of the school there as composed of the elements of Priscian or Donatus, and the reading of some portions of Terence, Boethius, and Orosius ; and, so far as I can see, this meagre diet was the usual curriculum of schools up to the rise of universities. The much 64 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. and deservedly lauded course of instruction given by Gerbert at Rheims, about looo A.B., seems to have been simply a full and extended trivium. The course was as follows : First, dialectic, including translations of the " Isagoge " of Porphyry, and Aristotle on the Predicaments ; " De Interpretatione ; " Cicero's " Topics," and Boethius on the same subject ; and, finally, the doctrine of the syllogism. Before going to rhetoric Gerbert read Virgil, Statius, Terence, Juvenal, Persius, Horace, and Lucan, and, thereafter, introduced his students to rhetoric. A curriculum so full as this is recorded because it was quite ex- ceptional, as was the man who gave it Speaking generally, the course of instruction which I have sketched above is to be regarded as the ideal course, here and there, and at different times, realized in one department of knowledge or another. I doubt if it would be possible to name one school, save, perhaps, that of St. Galle, where the full curriculum actually existed. There was, however, an approximation to it, but this of a fluctuating character, at other centres, such as Fulda, Lerins, Orleans, Rheims, Canterbury, and York. It was at Galle chiefly that Greek was studied, and those who devoted themselves to the language went by the name of fratres Hellenici. It was customary for youths who had exhausted the instruction given at their own monasteries, to resort to the few more learned centres. Perhaps the INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 65 most important of these in England in the eighth and ninth centuries was York. We have it on Alcuin's authority that the library there contained the works of Aristotle, Pliny, Cicero, Virgil, Statius, and Lucan, and he himself frequently quotes from these authors, and from Ovid, Horace, and Terence. But the expression " works " does not necessarily mean all the works. The only institution which for a time was rather aristocratic in its character was that of Tours. It is not an exaggeration to say, that both in the exterior monastic and the episcopal schools the sons of serfs and nobles might often be found sitting side by side. I have already referred more than once to the great text-books of the Middle Ages — the writings of Capella, Boethius, and Isidore. As a matter of fact, they were not text-books, but authorities — consulted by many, read by few even of the best educated. I think a more detailed account of these authors than is usually given will help to give clearer notions of the range of mediaeval knowledge. Martianus Capella, — This book, if we deduct the space occupied by notes, covers three hundred pages i2mo, in the edition before me.* It consists of eight books, but goes generally by a name strictly applicable only to the two first books, viz. " De Nuptiis Philologise et Mercurii." It is interspersed with verses, * Edition by Eyssenhardt, 1866. 66 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. and Boethius is supposed to have imitated its structure in his "De Consolatione Philosophiae." The first two books are an allegory, and may be supposed to have a deeper meaning than appears on the surface. Mercury wishes to marry, and selects Wisdom as his bride ; but she having resolved to remain, like her sister Minerva, a virgin, he addresses himself next to Psycha, the soul, daughter of Entelechy and the sun ; but Virtue informs him that the soul is already enchained by the bonds of Cupid. He consults Apollo, who recom- mends him to marry Philology, the daughter of Erudi- tion. As Philology is of terrestrial origin, it is neces- sary to obtain the sanction of Jove to the misalliance ; which being obtained, the Muses and the Graces, in the second book, celebrate the union — which is duly completed in the Milky Way in presence of Jupiter. The seven liberal arts treated of by the seven bridesmaids form the subjects of the succeeding books, the third treating of the grammatic art, the fourth of the dialectic, the fifth of the rhetorical, the sixth of geometry, the seventh of arithmetic, the eighth of astronomy, the ninth of music There is a great deal of ingenuity in the book, and some speculative power. The style is forced, fanciful, and turgid. Capella died probably at the beginning of the sixth century. The book by which Boethius is best known is his " De Consolatione Philosophiae," written in the prison to which Theodoric had sent him. He is a pagan INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 67 philosopher, with a tincture of Christian ideas. Omit- ting the treatises which are doubtful, his works, in addition to the "De Consolatione," consist chiefly of translations of Aristotle, and commentaries on the "Topics" of Cicero. He translates the "Prior and Posterior Analytics," the "Topics," and the "So- phistici Elenchi." He also writes an introduction to categorical syllogisms, and other logical treatises. Had the whole of Boethius* works been in the hands of the teachers of the Middle Ages, the course of higher instruction would have been, or at least might have been, of a very soUd character. It was only through what had survived of Boethius that Aristotle was known at alL He was executed in 525. The twenty books of Etymologise by Isidore of Seville (died 636) is, I suppose, the first encyclo- paedia. The first book treats of the seven liberal arts ; the second is devoted to rhetoric, the third to arithmetia The remaining books take a wide and encyclopaedic range, and embrace medicine, geography, Biblical criticism. Church history, laws, languages, a Latin lexicon, a treatise on man, on natural phenomena, agriculture, mineralogy, etc. They constitute a valuable record of the state of knowledge at the beginning of the seventh century. Organization and Discipline. — There were two schools and two classes of pupils in the monasteries 68 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. — the inner, or claustral school, in which the boys who were devoted by their parents to a monkish life ipblati) were taught, and the outer school, frequented chiefly by those intending to fill the office of parochial priest, or preparing themselves for secular appoint- ments. These outer schools were also attended by some for education solely, without ulterior reference to any specific ecclesiastical or secular function. The cathedral schools were less exclusive in their character, and the Church funds were used for their maintenance. In the inner schools the oblati (after the time of Charlemagne kept apart) were maintained, as well as educated, gratuitously ; in the outer schools, pupils had to pay for their maintenance, but not for their instruction. At the same time, the giving of presents was largely encouraged, especially when the boys left. These presents, often of great value, went sometimes to the funds of the school, at other times as tips into the pockets of the master (as till recently, I under- stand, at Eton !). For the poor in the outer school, the monasteries themselves often made provision. Land was also frequently bequeathed for this specific purpose, and even alms asked. Hence the origin of the foundations attached to cathedrals and monasteries, and afterwards to universities. The arrangements of the cathedral (episcopal, canonical) schools were similar to those of the ex- terior monastery schools, at least after the reforms of INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 69 Chrodegang ; but, after the tenth century, they were not so strict. Where the cathedral foundations could not maintain the scholars — called scolares canonici — their parents or friends contributed. Among the . pupils were also to be found the sons of well-to-do citizens, who paid for their own maintenance and instruction. The children of the very poor were fre- j quently, but by no means always, maintained and educated free of cost, their destination being the parochial priesthood or the Church choir. This was especially the case after the third Lateran Council of 1 179. Money was often left by pious persons for the education of poor scholars at the cathedral schools. But it would appear that such "poor" scholars as were not on the original foundation were often taught separately from the scolares canonici and those who paid. They were of a much lower social class. Even these canonici had constantly to pay a portion of the cost of maintenance and education. In this respect \ the cathedral schools were not so liberal as the ex- ' terior monasteiy schools, doubtless because they had not such large possessions. The head of the cathedral school was called Scholasticus, or Capiscolus {Caput scholce), although the designations magister scholarum, archi-magister, and didascalus were also in use. After the twelfth century, if not earlier, the scholasticus took pre- cedence of the other canons after the dean. He seems also, sometimes, to have had a certain super- 70 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. vision of other Church and foundation schools in the diocese — a function in most places and in earlier time discharged by the chancellor, and more rarely by the archdeacon. From the central cathedral school these other subordinate schools obtained their teachers, and no one could act as teacher in any of the schools of the diocese (at least from the tenth century onwards) without receiving from the cathedral scholasticus or the chancellor a facultas, or licencia, docendi. Often he had to pay a fee for this. The monastery schools were of the nature of boarding-schools, and held under strict ecclesiastical discipline. Monks were set apart to be with the boys day and night in order to watch and direct their conduct This personal supervision was particularly close in the interior school, and in the best-organized monasteries almost every action of the oblati was under fixed regulation. Thus was produced in the course of years a class of men entirely devoted to one idea, and each like the other. Perfect uniformity of appearance and demeanour was the result. The discipline in all the schools was exceedingly severe. The slightest faults were punished with the rod. Degere sub virga meant " to receive education.'' The severity was no doubt encouraged by the theory that the devil was in the hearts of boys, and could be got out only by flogging. In many monasteries all the boys were periodically flogged as a kind of general atonement for sins past and possible. Even so late 2NNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 71 as the fourteenth century we find that the ceremony of introducing a schoolmaster to his office (incepting in grammar) was presenting him with a palmer (ferule) and rod, and requiring him to flog a boy publicly. "Then shall the Bedell purvay for every master in Gramer a shrewde boy whom the master in Gramer shall bete openlye in the Scolys and the master in Gramer shall give the boy a Grote for hys labour and another Grote to him that provydeth the rode and the palmer," etc.* This lofty conception of the scholastic function still survives in many quarters. The earliest protest against it, after Quintilian, known to me is that of the eminent Anselm. "No teacher," says Green (p. 69), "has ever thrown a greater spirit of love into his toil." " ' Force your scholars to improve ! ' he burst out to a teacher who relied on blows and com- pulsion. 'Did you ever see a craftsman fashion a fair image out of a golden plate by blows alone? Does he not now gently press it and strike it with his tools, now with wise art, yet more gently, raise and shape it? What do your scholars turn into under this ceaseless beating?' 'They turn only brutal,' was the reply. 'You have bad luck,' was the keen answer, 'in a training that only turns men into beasts'" (Green, i. 137). It is necessary to exaggerate the work done in , education from the third to the twelfth century, as ' * Quoted by Mullinger, L 345. 72 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES Newman does, if we are to admire the zeal and learning of the Church. Except at certain happy ' periods and certain centres, the instruction was inade- quate, crude, bald, and unenlightened. On the other hand, the man who, looking back on those times, would blame the Church, has a churlish and narrow soul. I doubt if more could have been accomplished. Great sacrifices were made by those who, from genera- tion to generation, led the education of the time. The zeal displayed for the transcribing of manu- scripts, and for providing copies for transcription from distant parts, is in truth sometimes very touching. The scriptorium, where a part of every day was spent in transcribing, Wcis as essential a part of the monastery buildings as the refectory or the chapel. "In every monastery," says Monta- lembert (vi. 136), "there was established first a library, then great studios, where, to increase the number of books, skilful caligraphers transcribed manuscripts ; and, finally, schools open to all those who had need of or desire for instruction." Mabillon (ii. 38) describes the Abbey of Lerins "as an academy of virtue and learning open to all the world." The monastic life was, in truth, not merely a religious life, but in numerous cases an academic life, and has its modern counterpart in the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. Even women shared in such learning as existed. Female learning was carried into Germany by INNER WORK OF CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 73 English ladies, who were said to be well versed in all the liberal arts.* We find the names of Chunihilt with her daughter Berhtgit, and Tekla mentioned with honour as founders of convents, which were places of education for girls as well as of religious retirement The pupils of Lioba who taught at Bischofsheim were largely in request as teachers elsewhere, t A " religious " convent life may be almost said to have been also, when the nuns chose to make it so, an academic life. One of the most interesting literary names in the tenth century was that of Hroswilda (Hrosvita), who, in the German convent of Gandersheim, wrote dramas, recently published, and said to be of considerable merit. Pure literature, as we understand it, was regarded as the production of the unconsecrated mind, was a snare, and was practically (save in a few cases) unknown. What we call humanism and the humani- ties could not live side by side with that which was alone necessary to salvation. As to science: even if the time had been otherwise ripe, science was impossible, because it means free investigation ; phi- losophy was impossible, because it means unfettered thought. The day was approaching when the specu- lative mind, in its desire to rationalize theology, was to stir metaphysical questions, and, through the im- pulse to freedom thus given to the human mind, to * Mab. Act. S. S., iii. 2. 227, quoted by Specht. t Specht, p. II, with relative authorities. 74 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. open it to the beauties of literature and so prepare the way for science. It is to Berengar, Archdeacon of Tours in the first half of the eleventh century, and the learned head of the Carolingian school there, that the stirring of these questions was largely due. He (like Scotus Erigena) maintained the rights of reason against the authority of the Fathers, and held what are now called evangelical and Protestant yiews of the Eucharist. LECTURE V. TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. Alcuin had left behind him at the palace of Charles two faithful pupils ; but two years after his withdrawal to Tours, Clement of Ireland, to whom the legend I quoted in Lecture III. referred, was installed as chief. The freer and more speculative theology of the Irish Church was represented by him. The appointment of John Scotus Erigena to the Palace School under Charles the Bald was a further step in the same liberal direction, and may be said even to mark an epoch in the intellectual history of the Middle Ages. Under the influence of Martianus Capella, Plato, the Pseudo-Dionysius, and the Greek Fathers, John started questions which alarmed Western orthodoxy, and which led gradually to the more formal teaching of Christianity as a dogmatic system resting on the Fathers and the decrees of councils. This teaching, in the course of the eleventh century, became centred in Paris, partly, doubtless, owing to the trans- ference of the royal seat of the Capets to that city. It was represented in 1109 by William of Champeaux, 76 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the greatest orthodox teacher of theology who had yet appeared, and whom we shall soon meet again. The Carolingian revival had certainly accom- plished a good deal. It left its mark. But, after all, the permanent results were not great Whether we look at the three centuries that preceded it, or the two hundred and fifty years that followed it, we do not find much that can be called learning, we find nothing that can be called literature. Spite of the labours of Alcuin and of Theodulf, the decrees of episcopal councils and edicts of kings, we are told by Lupus Servatus (Loup de Ferrieres) — the. favourite of Louis le Debonnaire and Charles the Bald — that the study of letters was in his time almost null.* Lupus died in 87a This failure was doubtless largely due to the Norman and Saracen incursions, the former banning within about thirty years of Charlemagne's death. In the same way the return of the Danes and other causes operated against learning in England. In Hallam's opinion, from the sixth to the middle of the eleventh century only two names are worthy of mention, viz. Scotus Erigena and Pope Sylvester II. (Gerbert, who died 1003). He rightly regards Alcuin as a man of moderate endowments. I think we ought to add to Hallam's brief list the names of Bede the Venerable, who died in 735, and Rabanus Maurus (Alcuin's pupU), whom I am disposed to regard a^ a man of consider- able original genius as well as of great leeiming. • Compayr^, " Hist, da Fed.," p. 55. TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 77 But while it is true that there were only two or three great literary names during the period men- tioned, it is not a correct inference from this that there was absolutely no learning. Not to speak of the Irish monks and the other scholars whom we have had to name, such as Theodulf and Egiilhard, and the patient and secluded learning of the greater monasteries and abbeys, such as St, Riquier, St Galle, Fulda, and the famous schools of Orleans and Rheims and, later, of Paris, we have to remember that the Benedictines everywhere were teachers and to a certain extent students. While steadily accumu- lating materials and forming libraries, they maintained, / with varying fortunes, the tradition of knowledge. After all, the early half of the ninth century per- \ haps did more for education, as that word was then understood, in proportion to the means and opportu- nities available, than any period since. Still, we cannot shut our eyes to the rapid falling away, and we may say, without exaggeration, that the decline continued till, towards the latter half of the eleventh century, literature and learning could scarcely be held to exist, in any true sense of these words. There is ample evidence that this was so. Adalberic, Bishop of Laon, says in the earlier part of the eleventh century that "there was more than one bishop who was unable to tell the letters of the alphabet on his fingers '' (Compayr^. And even if we suppose this to refer to what might be called 78 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. " military " bishops, the sentence of ignorance is none the less conclusive, and shows how very restricted was the range of influence of the schools that still flourished at York, Pavia, Orleans, Paris, and Rheims. The noble example of Charlemagne and Alfred had not called forth imitators, if we except Charles's immediate descendants. King, baron, and knight had a contempt for those who professed even an elementary knowledge of letters. In the monasteries themselves the thread of learned tradition had be- come very thin — indeed scarcely discernible, save at the few celebrated centres which I have already named. Eminent names there certainly were, even after the death of Theodulf and Eginhard — such as Rabanus Maurus, the pupil of Alcuin ; Lupus Servatus of Ferri^res, to whom I have already referred ; Otho, called to be Archbishop of Cologne in 953 ; and Othlonus, of the monastery of St. Emmeran (Ratis- bon). The last named refers to his early studies in Plato and Aristotle, as well as in Virgil, Lucan, and Cicero. But a few scholarly bishops and abbots will not save the intellectual reputation of centuries. Even Cardinal Newman himself quotes, "To pass from grammar to rhetoric, and then in course to the other liberal sciences," says Lupus, speaking of France, " is fabula tantum." Again, " It has ever been the custom in Italy," says Glaber Radulphus, writing of the year 1000, " to neglect all arts but grammar." True, TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 79 Newman reminds us that grammar meant also litera- ture ; but this was not always, or even generally, the case. As a matter of fact, the few who affected classi- cal studies found themselves at war with the spirit of the age and the teaching of the Catholic Church. It is related, for example, that a priest on his death- bed saw in a vision Archbishop Bruno brought before the judgment-seat of God to answer for his vain and useless occupation with the writings of heathens. \ He had to thank St. Paul for intervening aiad securing ; him a place in heaven ; but under the saints.* Abbot ■ Odo of Cluny (922-942) compared Virgil to a beauti- ful vessel full of vipers, and Majolus, the fourth abbot, forbade him to be read in the cloister school (964- 994). Again, it is related, in commendation of the liberal mind of Sigulf, one of Alcuin's pupils, that he permitted Virgil to be read at Ferri^res. f Even the humane Anselm in the middle of the eleventh century has to advise the study of Virgil and other. profane authors. } But we are not to suppose that during all this period the hearts and intellects of men were not busy. Theological questions engaged the leaders of the Church, great political and social movements pre- occupied men's minds. The Normans were invading Europe, the Danes were descending on England, the Saracens were threatening all Christendom, and ' Thietmari Chronic, quoted by Specht. t Crevier, i. p. 63, edit. 1761. X I. Ep., 55 (Mabillon). 8o MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. society was fighting for its life. Notwithstanding the savage struggle, Europe was being slowly pene- trated by Christian ideas. The self-sacrifice of the religious orders kept steadily before men's minds the fact that the spirit lives by the spirit, and that the things of earth are not to be compared with the things that are eternal ; and many men of noble birth and great possessions, to whom a conspicuous secular career was open, sought refuge in the monkish cowl, and a life in community. It is to this slow dissemination of Christian ideas that Guizot refers in his fifth lecture on the " History of Civilization," and, taking us quite to the last years of the period of which I am speaking, illustrates his argument by the autobiography of Guibert de Nogent. He says — " Guibert de Nogent gives an account in this work both of the public events at which he was present, and of the personal events which passed within his own family. He was born in 1053, in a castle of Beauvaisis. Let us see how he speaks of his mother, and of his relations with her. Call to mind the narrative, or rather the language (for narrative is entirely wanting), of writers contemporaneous with Charlemagne, Louis le D^bonnaire, and Charles le Chauve, on a similar matter, and say if this is the same condition of relations and of souls. ' I have Sciid, God of mercy and holiness, that I would return thanks to Thee for Thy goodness. First, I especially return thanks to TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 81 Thee for having given me a chaste and modest mother, and one filled ^vith fear of Thee. With regard to her beauty, I should praise it in a worldly and extravagant manner, did I place it anywhere but in a face armed with a severe chastity. . . . The virtuous expression of my mother, her rare speech, her always tranquil countenance, were not made to encourage the levity of those who beheld her . . . and what is very rarely, or scarcely ever seen in women of a high ranis; she was as jealous of pre- serving pure the gifts of God, as she was reserved in blaming women who abused them ; and when it happened that a woman, whether within or without her house, became the object of a censure of this kind, she abstained from taking part in it ; she was afflicted at hearing it, just as if the censure had fallen on her- self. ... It was far less from experience than from a kind of awe with which she was inspired from above, that she was accustomed to detest sin; and, as she often said to me, she had so penetrated her soul with the fear of sudden death, that, arrived at a more advanced s^e, she bitterly regretted no longer ex- periencing in her aged heart those same stings of piotis terror which she had felt in her age of simplicity and ignorance ! "'The eighth month of my birth had scarcely elapsed, when my father in the flesh died ; . . . although my mother was still fair and of fresh £^e, she resolved to remain a widow, and how great was the firmness 82 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. which she used to accomplish this vow ! How great were the examples of modesty which she gave ! . , . Living in great fear of the Lord, and with an equal love for her neighbours, especially those who were poor, she managed us prudently, us and our property. . . . Her mouth was so accustomed to continually repeat the name of her dead husband, that it seemed as if her soul had never any other thought ; for, whether in praying or distributing alms, even in the most ordinary acts of life, she continually pronounced the name of that man, which showed that her mind was always preoccupied with him. In fact, when the\ (heart is absorbed in a feeling of love, the tongue forms I itself in a manner to speak, as it were unconsciouslyJ of him who is its object. " ' My mother brought me up with the most tender care. . . . Scarcely had I learned the first elements of letters, when, eager to have me instructed, she confided me to a master of grammar. . . . There was, shortly before this epoch, and even at this time, so great a scarcity of masters of grammar, that, so to speak, scarce one was to be seen in the country, and hardly could they be found in the great towns. . . . He to whom my mother resolved to confide me had learned grammar in a rather advanced age, and was so much the less familiar with this science, as he had devoted himself to it at ^ later period ; but what he wanted in knowledge, he made up for in virtue. . . . From the time I was placed under his care, he formed TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 83 in me such a purity, he so thoroughly eradicated from me all the vices which generally accompany youth, that he preserved me from the most frequent dangers. He always allowed me to go nowhere except in his company, to sleep nowhere but in my mother's house, to receive a present from no one without her per- mission. He required me to do everything with moderation, precision, attention, and exertion. . . . While most children of my age ran here and there, according to their pleasure, and were allowed from time to time the enjoyment of the liberty which belongs to them, I, held in continual restraint, muffled up like a clerk, looked upon the band of players as if I had been a being above them. " ' Every one, seeing how my master excited me to work, hoped at first that such great application would sharpen my wits ; but this hope soon diminished, for my master, altogether unskilful at reciting verses, or composing them according to rule, almost every day loaded me with a shower of cuffs and blows, to force me to know what he himself was unable to teach me. . . . Still he showed me so much friend- ship, he occupied himself concerning me with so much solicitude, he watched so assiduously over my safety, that, far from experiencing the fear generally felt at that age, I forgot all his severity, and obeyed with an inexpressible feeling of love. . . , One day, when I had been struck, having neglected my work for some hours in the evening, I went and sat 84 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. myself at my mother's knee, severely bruised, and certamly more so than I had deserved. My mother having, according to her custom, asked if I had been beaten that day, I, in order to avoid accusing my master, assured her that I had not But she, pulling aside, whether I would or no, the garment they call a shirt, saw my little arms all black, and the skin of my shoulders all raised up and swollen by the blow of the rod which I had received. At this sight, complaining that they treated me with too much cruelty at so tender an age, all troubled and beside herself, her eyes full of tears, she cried, " I will no longer have thee become a priest, nor, in order to learn letters, that thou thus endure such treatment." But I, at these words, regarding her with all the rage of which I was capable, said to her : " I would rather die than cease learning letters, and wishing to be a priest." ' " Who can read this account without being struck with the prodigious development which, in two cen- turies, has been taken by the domestic sentiments, the importance attached to children, to their education, to all the ties of family ? You might search through all the writers of the preceding centuries, and never find anything resembling it. We cannot, I repeat, give an exact account of the manner in which this revolution was accomplished ; we do not follow it in its degrees ; but it is incontestable." We see, in a record like that just quoted from TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 85 Guizot, evidence that the efforts of the Christian Church to moralize the minds of the people, had, spite of the disturbed social conditions, told power- fully on personal and social relations. But, in this the . middle of the eleventh century, I see no evidence that | the education (in the usual sense of that term) : either of people or clergy had made any progress, even in the quiet of the monasteries, beyond that attained in the generation that immediately followed Charlemagne and Alcuin. Indeed, how could it? The spirit of progress can exist only where there is a belief in new developments of thought, new teachings^ of science. The stringent dogmatism of the Church' m^de_J:.his impossible. '\ do not think the authorities had, at thaFTime, much fear of heresy in connection with mental activity. It was merely that the intellectual asceticism of mediaeval Christianity turned instinctively aside from all speculation and investigation as superfluous, if not hurtful, to the true spiritual life — as a life of faith, obedience, and practice. In these days (strangely enough!) a similar attitude is assumed by the devotees of physical science ; and the parallel is not a forced one. Philosophy and letters are simply, nay barely, tolerated in education ; language is admitted, but only to a precarious place on utilitarian grounds alone. We conclude, then, that there was a moral advance rather than an intellectual one during the two centuries after the death of Charlemagne. At the same time, 86 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. through the impulse given by Charles, the mediaeval curriculum of instruction was more thoroughly studied in a few favoured spots than it had been' anywhere for centuries except in Ireland, and the England of Theodore and Baeda. E^speciaUy was this the case at Paris, Orleans, and Rheims. It was at the latter town that the celebrated Gerbert, of whom I have mcM-e than once spoken, taught, and we have a record of his course of instruction in the "Historianun Quatuor Libri " of Richerus (bk. iiL), to which I have referred in the fourth lecture. Among other causes which led to the decline of learning, was, without doubt, the expectation that the year locxj would see the end of all things. Under , the influence of this expectation, churches and houses were allowed to go to ruin, and e\en the fields were left untilled. \Vhy should men concern themselves with learning when the dies ircB was so close at hand? Not only were those centuries engaged in taking to heart the practical teachings of Christianity, but in other directions than that of learning there was great activity. In the century that saw the death of Charlemagne, there arose out of feudalism an educational force far more potent than the monastic schools. This was a secular order, destined to work great changes in the political as in the moral world — the order of chivalry. The element of personality TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 87 and individual merit was so all-powerful in this order, that, in this respect, it may be said to have contained the germs of reformation ideas. Taking its rise in the tenth century, it grew steadily in importance, and effloresced in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth. These last were also the centuries of intellectual revival and the beginning of the universities, and it is interesting to note that alongside of this intellectual movement we have the assertion of moral freedom and personal moral responsibility in the chivalric order. Its creed was love of honour, personal courage, alone and against odds, truthfulness, an abstract love of justice, respect for woman, and courtesy. The Teutonic spirit thus illustrating itself in Christianity was a civilizing and spiritualizing agency of no mean character. This the Church soon saw, and it quickly brought chivalry within its own organization by consecrating with solemn ceremonies the sword of the knight to the defence of the faith. As it was an order of personal nobility as distinguished from the nobility attached to hereditary' possessions, a. career was thus opened for ardent and ambitious youth. At the great castles there arose, in continua- tion of the ancient custom of the Germarii, what might be called baronial schools of gymnastic, of military training, courtesy, and honour. Ere long singing and playing on stringed instruments were also introduced, and even the art of versification was cultivated. 88 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Let us now turn for a moment from the West to the East. During the centuries of which we have I been speaking (ninth, tenth, and eleventh), when literature, philosophy, and learning languished in Europe, the torch burned brightly among the Arabs in the east and south. Under the inspiration of the religion of Mohammed, the children of the desert carried the Koran and the sword to the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. No sooner did their victorious armies establish new states, than the spiritual force which the new faith had nursed turned in fresh directions : jurisprudence, philosophy, science, and art rose and flourished under the liberal sway of the Mohammedan princes. Every mosque had its school Numerous academies and universities were instituted, while great libraries were collected at Bagdad, Alexandria, Cairo, Cordova, and elsewhere. The survivals of ancient Greek learning in the Eastern schook seem to have powerfully attracted the conquerors, and of Greek literature and art they soon became ardent students. Translators were officially employed. Long before Aristotle was expounded in support of Christian dogma, he had been turned to a similar use in connection with the Mohammedan faith. The great names of Avicenna and Averrhoes are only the most prominent among a crowd of intellectual men who, in the various fields of philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, mathematics, and medicine, adorned the Mohammedan courts. It TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 89 would seem that it was the translation of Aristotle and Euclid into Arabic that formed the starting-point of this new literary activity in every department of thought save poetry, which was native, and juris- prudence, which was largely based on the Koran. Christian youths and Christian teachers were made welcome at the great schools and libraries of Spain, Africa, and the East George Backtischwah (Bochf Jesu, 754), a Nestorian Greek Christian, founded the medical science of the Saracens.* Even if it be untrue that Gerbert acquired his wide learning at the Saracen schools of Spain,t the universal acceptance of the story, till recently, is itself suggestive, and is part of the history of education. Legends are often as instructive and real as facts. "Bagdad," says Sismondi, "was the capital of letters as well as of the caliphs ; but Bassorah and Cufa almost equalled that city in reputation, and in the number of valuable treatises and celebrated poems which they produced. Balkh, Ispahan, and Samarcand were equally the homes of science The same enthusiasm had been carried by the Arabs beyond the frontiers of Asia. Benjamin Tudela, a Jew, relates in his ' Itinerary ' that he found in Alexandria more than twenty schools for the propagation of philosophy. Cairo also contained a great number of colleges ; and that of Betzuaila, in the suburbs of * Sismondi, i, 2. t Denied by Ollem in his " Vie de Gerbert." 90 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. that capital, was so substantially built, that during a rebellion it served as a citadel for the army. In the towns of Fez and Morocco, likewise, the most magnificent buildings were appropriated to the purposes of instruction, and these establishments were governed by the wisest and most beneficent regu- lations. But Spain was, more especially, the seat of Arabian learning. It was there that it shone with superior brightness and made its most rapid progress Cordova, Grenada, and Seville rivalled one another in the magnificence of their schools, their colleges, their academies, and their libraries." * * Cramer, in his " Gesch. d. Erz. in d. Nied.," p. 202, says that the annual income of the Cairo university was 250,000 ducats, and that the caliphs frequently attended the lectures and disputations. Contrast all this with the Philistine notions of a British House of Commons. LECTURE VI. RISE OF UNIVERSITIES (A.D. IIOO). When we speak of Europe recovering^ in the twelfth century from a long intellectual sleep,, our past lectures show that this expression is to be used with a full recognition of the work done by the Church, and not in the absolute sense in which some historians, including even Hallam, use it. After the Council of Carthage, in which classical literature was almost of necessity proscribed, the Church was engaged in reorganizing Europe on a' spiritual basis ; and, in the midst of great difficulties, the work of preparing the clergy for their duties and training the people in Christian doctrine and practice taxed all its energies. And yet, it is true that it was a sleep out of which Europe arose. After the rough call of John Scotus Erigena it turned on its other side. The (so- called) heresies of Gotteschalk and Berengar made it open its eyes ; but it was not till Roscelin and Anselm, boldly following in the track of Scotus — a track by that time almost obliterated — asserted 92 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the claims of reason and the essential unity of religion and philosophy, that the higher intellect of Europe was fairly roused to activity. Up to the end of the eleventh century the instruction was, speaking generally, and allowing Ifor transitory periods of revival, and for a few exceptional schools, a shrunken survival of the old iriviunt et quadrivium. The lessons, when not dictated and learnt by heart from notes, were got up I from bald epitomes. All that was taught, moreover, 1 was taught solely with a view to "pious uses." Criticism did not exist ; the free spirit of speculation could not, ^ course, exist. The rules of the orders inevitably cribbed and confined the minds of the learners, old and young. The independent activity of the human mind, if it could be called independent, showed itself only in chronicles, histories, acta sanc- torum, and so forth. This was, doubtless, a necessary stage in the historical development of Europe, and it is absurd to talk of these ages as "dark ages," by way of imputing blame or remissness to the Catholic Church. All that could be done was done by the Catholic organizations, and by no other agency. The Catholic Church did not prohibit learning if it subserved the faith. Opinion was watched certainly, but to look with superfluous alarm on possible developments of anti-theological speculation did not \ occur to the men of that time, and this is con- spicuously shown in the attitude which the popes SISE OF' VXirESSITIEX 93 took to universities when they began to arise (^iioo- II 50). When heresies did show themselves, they wer^ at least at first, met by laboured argument, and the suppression of them by councils was, in truth, the last act in a series of able disputations — the judicial summing up and sentence, so "to speak.* In brief, the Christian schools were doing their proper work for Europe. They did not promote . learning in any true sense ; but they conserved learning, and, what was of more importance, they ' were leavening the life of the peopla The preceding lectures are, I believe, quite fair and accurate, though necessarily brief, sur\-eys of mediaeval educational work down to the eleventh century. Cardinal Xewman, with his subjective and idealistic tendencies, sees facts through a brilliant halo when he would have us believe that the popes and bishops were continually consumed with a desire to promote learning. Numerous decrees of , councils show that they were most anxious to improve the education of the clergy, but this only in so far as the studies of the schools could sub- serve the faith — a restriction fatal to the true life of mind and, therefor^ to progress. No learning which stimulated the human mind to independent p * I refer to learned and specnladTe Iieiesy. The suppression of heresies in the twelfth and thirteenth centnries was the suppression, quite as mnch, of resistance to the snpreme papal juiisdictioii simply as sDch. For the heresies of this period, see Milman. 94 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. u activity could possibly be regarded with favour by the existing powers. Scotus Erigena was a " suspect ; " and all know how, long after, Abelard was perse- cuted. Anselm (born 1034) might speculate safely because he, like all other sound Churchmen, started from unquestioning belief. His object was to interpret authority. Credo ut intelligam was the legend on the ecclesiastical banner. Scotus Erigena I had dared to say, " Authority is derived from reeison, not reason from authority; and where the former is not confirmed by the latter, it is valueless." Had Erigena founded a school on this basis, the attitude of the Church towards it would have been necessarily hostile. But this temporary aberration of thought from dogmatic channels was forgotten, and the Church welcomed the extension of learning in the twelfth century, while, of course, keeping a watchful eye on Abelard and his spiritual successors. As we approach the period which saw the birth of those institutions known as Studia Publica or Generalia, and ere long to be known as " universities," we have to extend our vision and recognize the circumstances of the time, and those changes in the social condition of Europe which made great central schools possible — schools to be frequented not merely by the young ecclesiastic, but by laymen. Among other causes which led to"" the diffusion of a demand for education among the laity, was, I think, the institution or reorganization of municipalities. RISE OF UNIVERSITIES. 95 It was about the end of the eleventh century that the civic Communes (Communia) began to seek and obtain, from, royal and other authorities, charters of incorporation constituting their internal government and conferring certain freedoms and "privileges as against the encroachment of lay and ecclesiastical feudal barons. The muiaicipal moyement in Italy is too well known to need more than a reference. In France, Louis VI. issued (113S) several letters of franchise to cities and towns. About the same time, and somewhat prior to this, trade guilds had been formed in many cities for mutual protection, the advancement of commerce, and the internal regulation of the various crafts. There immediately followed a desire for schools in the more important commercial towns. In Italy such schools arose in ^ ^ Bologna, Milan, Brescia, and Florence ; and in Ger- many they arose in Liibeck, Hamburg, Breslau, Nordhausen, Stettin, Leipsic, and Nurnberg. The 1 distinctive characteristic of these city schools was, ' that they do not seem to have been under the direct control of the Church, or to have been always taught by priests J further, that the native tongue (German or Italian, as the case might be) was taught Read- ing, writing, and a little arithmetic seem to have formed the staple of the instruction. The custom of dictating, writing down, and then learning by heart what was written — universal in the schools of the preceding centuries — was, of course, still 96 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. followed in these burgh schools. This custom was almost inevitable. Printing was not yet invented, and manuscript books were expensive. But such a method of instruction was not without its advantages. It exercised the pupils in a practical or imitative way in writing, grammar, composition, and spelling, while it could not fail to train the memory. We may now briefly summarize the status quo in (say) the year iioo, when the university move- ment may be said to have originated. The Bene- dictine monastery schools and the episcopal and foundation schools were prosecuting in an arid spirit the old trivium, to the benefits of which the children of laymen were certainly admitted, but the main aim of which was the training of the priest and the monk. Some of these had a high reputation, and included the quadrivium in their course ; and many monks were skilled in the circle of the sciences in their traditionary form. The towns had in many parts of Europe started vernacular schools free from all ecclesiastical control, the aim of which was limited to what we now call primary instruction. The in- creased communication with Africa and the East through the Crusades had introduced men to a standard of learning among the Arabs, unknown in Europe. Outside the school, the order of chivalry had introduced a new and higher ethical spirit than had been known in the previous centuries. Civic communities and trade guilds were forming them- SISE OF UNIVERSITIES. 97 selves and seeking charters of incorporation. Above all, the Crusades, by stimulating the ardour and exciting the intellects of men, had unsettled old con- vention by bringing men of all ranks within the sacred circle of a common enthusiasm, and into contact with foreign civilizations. The desire for a higher educiation, and the impulse".- to more profound investigation, that characterized the beginning and course of the twelfth century, was thus only a part of a widespread movement, political and moral, which showed itself in the order of chivalry, in the Crusades, the rise of free towns, the incorporation of civic life, the organization of industries in the form of guilds, and, we may also add, as another indication of the mental quickening, in the rise of a Provencal modern language and literature and of not a few heresies. The universal domination of the Catholic Church, too, had by this time created a spiritual! European commonwealth, and a common language which made communication between the citizens oflri different countries possible, and secured the safety j of travelling clerics — a word of very wide signification, , and gradually extended to all sqholars. The abbeys i and monasteries had hospitia or hostels, attached to! them, and travellers moved from one to the other. 1 The dress of a monk or the designation of a scholar guaranteed protection wherever the Catholic Church existed, irrespectively of nationality. The university movement, accordingly, was not an isolated move .\\ q8 medieval education and universities. I ment, or due to only one cause. The times were ripe, and the general conditions of life made the new development possible. Let us further bear in mind that while the Romano- Hellenic schools had long disappeared, there still existed, in many towns, episcopal schools of a high class, many of which might be regarded as continuations of the old imperial provincial institu- tions, of which I spoke in a former lecture. In Bologna and Paris, Rheims and Naples, it was so. The arts curriculum professed in these centres was, for the time and state of knowledge, good. These schools, indeed, had never quite lost the fresh impulse given by Charlemagne and his successors. It is essential, then, that we keep these schools in view, for, accord- ing to my view of educational history, the great studia puhlica or generalid arose out of them. They were themselves, in a narrow sense, already studia publica. Nor is this all ; for when we look at the more important of the schools, such as those of St. Galle, Bologna, Paris, Salernum (Monte Cassino), Bee, Rheims, Lerins, and Oxford, and realize the fact that, already in the eleventh century (and to a certain extent before this), these schools, as possessing a high repu- tation, were resorted to by the more advanced and ambitious students from all quarters, the question. What is a university? wherein consists its differentia- tion from a first-class Benedictine or cathedral school? is not so easy to answer as may at first appear. RISE OF UNIVERSITIES. 99 At Bee, for example, Anselm (1033-1108) had been both student and prior, leaving it for the primacy of England. AH civilized Europe recognized the celebrity of* this theological school. Anselm may be regarded, along perhaps with Berengar (setting aside Erigena, who belonged to a long prior period), as the true founder of the speculative theology, which by the help of Roscelin, and after him of Abelard, led to the University of Paris.* Now, looking, first, to the germ out of which the universities grew, I think we must say that the universities may be regarded as a natural develop- \ ment of the cathedral and monastery schools ; but if we seek for an external motive force urging men to undertake the more profound and independent study of the liberal arts, we can find it only in the Saracenic schools of Bagdad, Babylon, Alexandria, ' and Cordova, The Saracens were necessarily brought into contact with Greek literature just when the Western Church was drifting away from it, and by their translations of Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, and other Greek classics, they restored what may be quite accurately called the "university life" of the Greeks. Many of their teachers were, of course, themselves Greeks, who had conformed to the new faith.. To these Arab schools Christians had resorted * As to the Oxford school, the discredit thrown on the chronicle of Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, destroys the chief evidence of the high character of the work done there at this time. 100 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. in considerable numbers, and were cordially welcomed. They brought back, especially to Italy, the knowledge and the impulse they had gained. This will appear more clearly when we come to speak of Salernum, which unquestionably led the way. We are right, •, then, I think, in connecting the birth of universities, on the one hand, with the cathedral and Benedictine schools, of which they were an evolution, and with the Saracenic impulse on the other, — the latter being, in fact, old Greece at work again through an alien channel. Some influence, also, may have come from the Greeks of Constantinople through Venice, for in the eleventh century there was still a survival of old Greek ideas. In the Eastern capital Greek literature was still studied, and the Greek tongue written (it is said) with classical purity. But the activity of thought there, was as nothing when compared with that of the Arabs. But the cloister and cathedral schools, and the Saracenic impulse, would^not of themselves have given rise to universities. There were other actuating causes, and these I consider to have been : (i) The gradual growth of traditionary learning, which accumulated so great a weight on the subjects that most interest the mind of man and are most essential to his welfare as a member of society, as to demand specialization, (2) The growth of a lay or anti-monastic feeling in connection with the work of physician, lawyer, and even theologian. (3) The acttial specializing of the JiJSE OF UNIVERSITIES. loi leading studies — medicine at Salernum, law at Bolc^na, and theolog)', with its cognate philosophy, at Paris. As a matter of course, this specialization drew (as it would to-day draw) a vast number of students to the noted centres of instruction — ^both those intended for the religious life, whether ss priests or monks, and those who desired as laj-men, and free from monastic vows and monastic rule, to mix with their fellow-men as professional workers. This, I submit; is the chief key to the explanation of the rise of the higher or university schools. They were speciaUsed schools, as opposed to the schools of Arts, and they were cpcn to all \vithout restriction as studia publtca or gcneralia, as opposed to the more restricted ecclesiastical schools which were under a " Rule." Indeed, in the beginning, and for some time, there was too little restriction. The daily life at these centres was not only fre^ but often licentious, and always . more or less turbulent They had a powerful attrac- tion for the idle as well as for the industrious jx)uth .of Europe, and life at the great seats of learning was, in its way, almost as "jolly " as the Crusades. These crusades, moreover, as well as the growth of mercantile intercourse^ had by this time accustomed men's minds to travel and adventure, and the Church protection, as I have already pointed out, made travelling much easier than has been commonly supposed. Speaking of the University of Paris, Crevier (i i) 102 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. says, " By its essential constitution it is all composed of seculars, and in such a way that the regulars whom it has been forced to admit have been admitted only under conditions and restrictions which hinder them from dominating, and which assure to the seculars complete pre-eminence." Again, he points out that the masters have no superiors, and are accountable only to public opinion and the law of the state. There was thus not only free living ; there was free teaching and free learning. Doubtless the teachers were at first ecclesiastics, if not monks and bound by their vows ; but they were living out of community, and were quickly succeeded by men who were not monks. The specialization of studies then, and the growing feeling that professional studies might be freely pur- sued outside monastic or canonical regulations — ^the growth of a lay feeling, as we may call it — constitute the specific, as opposed to the general, forces which differentiated the new higher institutions from the higher class of cathedral and Benedictine schools. An incidental and contributory proof of this lies in the great success which attended the specialized schools of Salernum, Bologna, and Paris, as compared with Oxford (till after the migration from Paris), which seems to have retained longer the character of a general school of Arts merely. Bulaeus makes an attempt to differentiate a university from a school or college of Arts, and finds that they differ — RISE OF UNIVERSITIES. 103 I Ratione disciplince. That is to say, they teach not merely arts, but also law, medicine, and theology. 2. Ratione loci. They are placed in suitable, healthy, and accessible localities. 3. Ratione fundatorum. That is, they are founded by popes, emperors, and kings ; whereas colleges and trivial and quadrivial schools are founded by lesser authorities in Church and State. 4. Ratione privilegiorum. A university as such cannot exist without special privileges both pecuniary and legal. 5. Ratione regiminis. A college is governed by one head ; a university is a respublica litteraria. Though all these, except the second, are distinctive notes of a complete universitas, historical facts compel us to refuse assent to the other characteristics as being essential. The first, fourth, and fifth confirm, so far as they go, my view as to the characteristics which gradually raised a school into a studium generale. Whether we are to say the Arts schools developed into universities, or that universities, being set on foot by the motive forces to which we have referred, gradually absorbed the Arts schools, matters little. This is certain, that specialized studies always pre- sumed some course in arts — ^the trivium at least — and if this were at first obtained outside the uni- versitas proper, it very soon became an integral part of the university teaching. At Paris and Oxford the Arts unquestionably retained their hold from the first. 104 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. but the extent to which the new specialized subjects tended at one time to overshadow the old is shown by the old couplet — " Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores Sed genus et species cogitur ire pedes." Generally, I would say that the existence of a course in arts was always assumed, but the studium generale outside this might consist of only one specialty, as for long was the case at Montpellier, Toulouse, Bologna, etc., etc. The "generale" had no reference to the encyclopsedism of the instruction. I would briefly define a primary studium generale as "a privileged higher, specialized, and self-governing school open to all the world, free from monastic or canonical rule, its privileges including the right of promotion." I have given in this lecture, briefly, both the general and the specific causes which (we may almost say) forced the new educational development In treating of individual universities I shall illustrate my theory. As regards, further, the form of internal con- stitution adopted by the universities, it may be well here, for the sake of clearness, to add that I consider that the trade guilds of the Middle Ages exercised a powerful influence on the character of university constitutions, including even their graduation system. In dealing with the three primary studia generalia, it is difficult to determine whether we ought to begin XISE OF VmVERSlTIES. 105 with Paris, Bologna, or Salernum. I choose to begin with Salernum, because I think there is ample evi- dence of specialized instruction and of a collegiate constitution there before these characteristics were to be found at the other seats of learning which contest with Salernum the honour of priority. And I do this although I am well aware that Salernum had little influence on the history of universities elsewhere. Paris and Bologna alone formed the models or types of the European system.* * Strange to say, Bologna had more influence in France than Paris hal The preceding lecture finds its complement in the lecture on uu'versity constitutions. io6 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE VII. THE FIRST UNIVERSITIES* The Schola Salernitana, and the University of Naples. To fix precisely the date of the rise of the first specialized schools or universities is impossible, for the simple reason that they were not founded. Europe was at the beginning of a new intellectual movement, and had to feel its own way to the forms which might best provide a fitting channel. So in Athens at the time of the sophists. Their teaching seems to have culminated in the rhetorical school of Iso- crates.t which, though a private institution, may be regarded as containing the germ of the future uni- versity both of ancient and modern times. For it was attended by youths who had already gone thi'ough the ordinary schools and were contemplating a public life ; and not only by these, but by men who afterwards led a purely literary life, such as Theo- pompus and Ephorus, and Asclepiades and Theodectes. * It is to be understood that I use this term for convenience, while fully aware that it was not applied in the ancient world nor to the studia generalia of mediaeval times for two centuries after they arose. t In saying this, I do not forget the purely philosophical schools. THE FIRST UNIVERSITIES. 107 "If the example of Clearchus, the subsequent tyrant of Heraclea," says Mr. E. Kirkpatrick,* "may be regarded as establishing the rule, the term of study occupied four years, and the fee for the entire course ,i amounted to a thousand drachmae." We know that ' Isocrates anticipated Quintilian in considering that the equipment of the true orator included the study of literature and ethics, etc. ; and these were prose- cuted in due order in this school. Out of this school and that of Plato, the University of Athens, if we may use the expression, arose and was followed by others (Tjide Lecture I.). But neither to the universities of the ; empire, nor of Byzantium, nor to the Arab schools, is there evidence that the European revival of the! twelfth century owed anything, save the Saracenic! impulse. There was no " organic unity of succession," ' so far as I can see, although there are many curious parallelisms.f The simplest account of the new uni- versity origins is the most correct. It would appear that certain active-minded men of marked eminence began to give instruction in medical subjects at Salerno, and in law at Bologna, in a spirit and manner not previously attempted, to youths who had left the monastery and cathedral schools, and who desired to equip themselves for professional life. Pupils flocked to them ; and the more able of these students, finding • "The University,'' p. 118. (Auth.) Memnon, irepl 'H^jaKXe^oj ; Miiller, "Fr. Historicorum," ii. 876. t I shall speak of this again. io8 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. that there was a public demand for this higher specialized instruction, remained at head-quarters, and themselves became teachers or doctors. The Church did not found universities any more than it founded the order of chivalry. They were founded by a concurrence (not wholly fortuitous) of able men who had something they wished to teach, and of youths who desired to learn. None the less were the acquiescence and protection of Church and State necessary in those days for the fostering of these infant seminaries. Free, voluntary, self-supporting centres of learning, independent of ecclesiastical con- trol and of civil direction, they certainly were in their beginnings. Free teaching and free learning were in the very heart of them. Out of a free spirit they arose, and not out of the brain of an ecclesiastic, seeking definite ends for the, glory of the Church. But while this is true^Jt-is^ot true that the Church was indifferent, or that there was no ecclesiastical supervision. The astute statesmen who at Rome had formed the noble conception of a spiritual empire of Europe, in which all men and all nations should be equal partakers, and which would transcend the petty distinctions of race and nation, had their eyes everywhere. They were actuated by no narrow feel- ings of jealousy when they saw these centres of free learning and free teaching growing up. On the con- trary, just as they seized on the order of chivalry and sanctified it by turning it to spiritual uses under THE FIRST UNIVERSITIES. log the blessing of the Church, so they welcomed the rise of the new centres of intellectual activity, and, without any idea of controlling, gave them encourage- ment and privileges, believing that all learning tended to the glory of God and the good of the Church. But we are to some extent anticipating. For as yet at the close of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth centuries, Salerno, Bologna, and Paris were practically in the hands of self-constituted teachers. Irnerius, the first great authority in civil law, was beginning to lecture at Bologna and gathering crowds of students ; at Salerno, some time prior to this, medicine was being publicly taught; and, about the same time, philosophical, or what we now call " arts," studies were being prosecuted at Paris with a special view to theological inquiry and the priestly office. / Thus not only were the infant universities special- ized schools, but their primary purpose, as indeed manifestly follows from their specialization, was a " professional " one. They had practical ends ; their aim was to minister to the immediate needs of society, Speculation and the scientific spirit, nay, the Refor- mation and the liberties of Europe, arose out of them ; but such large issues were not present to the minds of the first doctors. They simply aimed at critically expounding recognized authorities in the interest ol social wants. 1 It was the needs of the human body which originated Salerno ; it was the needs of men as related to each other in a civil organism which origi- no MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. nated Bologna; it was the eternal needs of the human spirit in its relation to the unseen that originated Paris. ] We may say, then, that it was the improve- ment of the professions of medicine, law, and theology which led to the inception and organization of the first great schools.* I am aware that it is usual to regard Paris as pri- marily a university of arts. But a closer inspection will satisfy the investigator that " arts " were studied mainly with a view to the priesthood, and that in so far as the school had an " university " character, arts meant philosophy, as handmaid and rationalizer of theology. The purely philosophical studies (and philosophy then meant the study of nature as well as of the mind of man) gradually asserted for themselves increasing importance, and finally, as we shall in the sequel see, led ta such differences among the Parisian doctors and the mendicant orders that the only solution was the separation of the strictly theological from the other arts' studies. The former were, for the first time, formally constituted a " faculty of theology " so late as 1272. Of the three great schools which we have named, there is sufficient ground for believing that the first to reach such a development as to entitle it to the name of a studium generale or university was the Schola * Towards the end of the eleventh century or beginning of the twelfth, medicine was being taught at Montpellier by Jews who had acquired their knowledge at Arab schools. SCHOLA SALERNITANA. in Saleniitana, although it never was a university, tech- nically speaking ; and it is further interesting to note, in connection with the study of the physical sciences, that the Salernitan school and the University of Naples owed their first formal recognition and privileges not to the pope, as did other seats of learning, but to the civil power. By following its early fortunes we shall, I think, learn much as to the early growth of universities. The Schola Salernitana. \ Let us now, then, look more closely at the rise of this Salernitan school and its transformation into an university, or at least a recognized limb of the Uni- versity of Naples. By so doing we shall see more clearly how the " university," as understood in Europe for the last six hundred years, gradually came into existence. We shall find in the gradual development of this medical school confirmation of the general historical interpretation, which we have ventured to give in the preceding pages ; and if we are rightly to understand university history we must not grudge careful attention to the rise of an institution so famous— ;/b«J medicines, as Petrarch called it First, we have to note that Benedict established his great monastery at Monte Cassino, near Salernum, in 528 A.D., and that one of the rules of his order was " to apply themselves to the study of letters, and in all important disciplines to instruct all the members of 7 112 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. their order " * (including, of course, young aspirants) ; but they were not permitted to lecture in public to all and sundry.t Among other studies, medicine engaged the minds of the monks, and here, as well as in monasteries elsewhere, medical monks gave advice and medicines gratuitously. The books studied and expounded (and transcribed again and again) were Hippocrates and Galen. These facts are sufficient to establish a direct connection with Greek medicine long before the Saracen influence was felt in Europe. Indeed, Hippocrates and Galen were translated into Latin before A.D. 560. J It seems to have been entirely to the Benedictine monastery that Salemum owed the first beginnings of its fame. Whether a later writer (Scipio Mozella) be correct in his details or not, there can be little doubt that Charlemagne, in 802 A.D., gave a great impulse to this monastery school. Among other reforms, he ordered Greek books to be translated from the Arabic into Latin. It is certain that between this date and the appearance of the first man who may be said to have had an European medical reputation as a teacher, Salemum was known, in consequence of the " public " instructions given by the monks of the neighbouring monastery, as a civitas Hippocratica. The abbot of the monastery from 856, Bertharius * Lit^rarum studiis opemm dare et in omnibus piseclaiis disciplinis nips gmms eradire, t Concionare aut public^ legore. X Page 34 of Aekennann's ' ' Regimen Scholae Salernitan^" SCBOLA SALERNITANA. 113 (of French origin), was a very learned man, and two manuscripts of his are said to be still in existence in which he had made a collection of hygienic and cura- tive rules. He and his monks were massacred by the Seiracens in 883. Again, Alphanus (secundus), distin- guished in philosophy and theology, and not less skilled in singing than in medicine, wrote a book on "The Union of the Soul and Body," and another on " The Four Humours." Desiderius, another abbot of the monastery, and afterwards pope (Victor III. 1085 A.D.), is recorded to have been medicines peritissimtis. It is only about this date that we reach a man of European reputation who finally placed Salemum in the front as a great and specialized medical studium publiaim. We refer to Constantine, the Carthaginian Christian, who had spent the greater part of his life in travel and study, especially in the East It is recorded that in Babylon he studied grammar, dialectic, arithmetic, mathematics, necro- mancy, music, and physics. He visited also India and Egypt, and returned to Csirthage the most learned man of his time in all medical science. The jealousy of rivals and a suspicion of dealing in witchcraft compelled him to flee from his native city, and he naturally took refuge in Salemum. There he was held in high favour by Robert Guis- card the Norman, who had by this time conquered Apulia, and was no less distinguished as a patron of arts and letters than as a warrior. Constantine pub- 114 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. lished many medical works of his own, including com- pendiums, translated many from the Arabic, and finally, retiring to the monastery on Monte Cassino, died there in 1087. The precise date of his arrival in Salemum is not given, but if we fix it at 1065, we may assume this as the date of the established European reputation of the Salemitan school. About this time, if not indeed before it, the school was frequented not only by students from all parts of Italy and France, but by some from Germany, and even by Moors and Jews. Medicine is said to have been taught in the Hebrew as well as in the Latin tongue. Whether all the Christian teachers at Salemum were at this time monks or not is uncertain ; but this is clear, that the monks and others taught publicly in Salemum, and were not limited as to the class of students they welcomed. Jews also taught. Contemporary with Constantine there were also lady-students. Gisulfus, Duke of Salemum, who had been displaced by Robert Guiscard, had a sister named Sichelgaita who had a medical reputation, especially in the department of poisons; and several other female medical writers are referred to in those early times. Whether the body of teachers was in any way oi^jan- ized as a " college " so early as this is not very clear. But the celebrated health rules written in Latin verse, and addressed to the King of England in 1 100 a.d., show that at that date, if not earlier, there was a col- legiate combination of some sort, for the writers call SCHOLA SALERNITANA. 115 themselves tota sdiola Salemi. We know also from Giannone's "History of Naples" that Duke Robert, brother of William the Conqueror, resorted to Salernum as a recognized school of medicine on his way home from the Crusades in 1096, to be there treated for a serious wound.* Robert Guiscard (who died in 1085) conferred privileges on the medical school, and as these would not be conferred on individuals, but on a body of teachers who had already voluntarily, in some fashion, organized themselves, we may safely date the collegium not later than iC36o A.D. ; and certainly before 1 100 A.D. (probably long before), the head of the school was known under the designation of " prior. " Before 1 100, Roger, who succeeded his father Robert, conr ferred additional privileges on the scliola. That there was at this time, and had been for some time, a thoroughly organized college, is evident from the terms of the Rogerian precept or decree. Roger II, in 1137 instituted the first state ex- aminations in medicine. All those desirous to practise medicine had to pass an examination, at which royal assessors were present Those who passed received a licence. Though the college gave the licence, it was given under the authority of the Crown. The penalty for practising without a licence was imprisonment and confiscation of goods. This * To this visit is said to have been due the inscription of the famons Saleinitan medical veises to " the King of England." Ii6 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. was done, the statute says, ne in regno nostra subjecti periditentur imperitia medicorum. The sale of drugs was not regulated till some years later. Even for permission to practise surgery — an art practised in other countries for centuries after this by barbers — — it was required by the Crown that there should be one year's attendance on lecturers who taught anatomy and chirurgy. The qualification to teach is not referred to. The degree in Paris, and other universities modelled on it, was, as we shall afterwards see, a licencia docendi ; but in Salemum it was a licencia tnedendi, or licence to practise the healing art. I think, then, that we may date Salernum as a public school from A.D. 1060, and as a privileged school from 1 100. U-NTTERSITY OF NAPLES. Meanwhile, the general movement in the higher education had been making great progress at Bologna, Paris, Oxford, and at the specialized schools of Montpellier (medicine) and Orleans (civil law). St Thomas Aquinas (bom 1224) thus writes : "Quatuor sunt urbes caeteris praeeminentes, Parisius in scientiis, Salernum in medicinis, Bononia in legibus, Aurelianis in actoribus " (pleaders). Salemum was an arts as well as a medical school, for the college demanded a three years' course in arts as a preliminary to a five years' course of medicine ; but there did not exist in Southern Italy any school of law which could rival Bologna, or of theology which could rival Paris. But NAPLES. 117 Naples had for long had teachers of law, though of no great reputation, and the vicinity of the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino made it easy to consti- tute a school of theology. Accordingly, Frederick II., Emperor of the Romans (the most remarkable sove- reign since Charlemagne), resolved in 1224 to con- stitute an university at Naples, which should embi-ace the studies of the three faculties, in addition, of course, to what we now call the arts, or preliminary course (the trivium). In the preamble to the consti- tution, he refers to Naples as having been for long the mother and home of studies. The various schools he professed merely to collect together as a universitas studiomnt. Frederick desired, cujusque professionis vigere studia, and to secure this resolved to appoint "doctores et magistros in qualibet facultate." In other words, Naples was to have no longer merely a loose aggregation of independent teachers, but an organized body with certain status, titles, privileges, and im- munities. And this is what is meant by formally constituting an " university." It is the granting of a charter of incorporation to a community of learned men, securing these men as teachers in a certain posi- tion of dignity and emolument, and giving them as a corporate body powers to confer privileges in connec- tion with the professions — the public irtark of the privilege being called a licence or degree. If any individual or body of individuals who may have received the licence or degree were, in their turn, ii8 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. to claim a right to confer such licences and titles on others, they would manifestly usurp the function of the university — of which they are merely individual members. This has been done more than once, but it is an abnormal act. The corporation, again, is represented by the governing bodies. A duplication of a governing body would be a duplication of the university. No individual citizens or body of indi- viduals can, by virtue of their mere citizenship, set up a system of police within the already existing muni- cipal system. A recent proposal emanating from Edinburgh to incorporate certain medical graduates, already recognized as teaching for licences and degrees, as a collegium, is virtually a proposal to establish another university alongside the existing one, and this, too, a merely medical university. "The masters and doctors" of the said collegium would quickly and naturally agitate for the exclusion of the university professors from the post of examiners for degrees, and the appointment, in their stead, of State-examiners. Such proposals may or may not tend to the maintenance of a high standard of professional qualification, and to the advance- ment of science and learning — which two objects we take to be the aim of universities. I do not here discuss the question ; but I would merely point out that such claims cannot logically stop short at one faculty, and that a successful issue to any such movement must end in the entire dissolution of the NAPLES. 119 "university/ as hitherto understood, or in the es- tablishment of two — and why not three or four? — rival universities in the same town. When Frederick constituted the University of Naples, his statutes show the conditions which he and his ministers then considered necessary to the existence of a university institution as distinguished from a mere gymnasium school, or from a voluntary aggregation of teachers : — Firstly. The various scattered " schools " were ordered to be united as one universitas studiorum. Secondly. This universitas had the royal sanction and protection, and was thus constituted (so to speak) the intellectual organ of the State. Thirdly. The sovereign power called certain masters or doctors to act as professors. Fourthly. The sovereign power guaranteed certain salaries to some, if not all, the recognized professors. Fifthly. The sovereign power prohibited all com- peting schools within the kingdom (exception being, of course, made in favour of grammar schools), and imposed penalties on young men who ignored their own national university and went elsewhere. Sixthly. The title of "professor" was conferred by the sovereign power on the recognized doctors of the "universitas doctorum et scholarium." (It could not be assumed by any dancing-master or quack who chose, as in these days.) 120 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNJVERSIIIES. Seventhly. The sovereign power granted the licence (or degree) through the High Chancellor or other State authority, to whom the student carried a faculty or university certificate that he had been duly examined and found qualified. Eighthly. Professors were further freed from the payment of taxes and from service in war, and had other immunities. What these were it is difficult to say. The words used were, "Liberi, franchi et immunes ab omrribus et singulis solutionibus." * Ninthly. In civil causes the students were made subject to the university authorities alone. Lodging- houses were licensed and placed under supervision. Naples was thus an university founded by the State solely, like Palentia in Spain, where St. Dominic studied, and which was founded by Alonso VIII. in 1212. Petrus de Hibernia was called by the sovereign to be the first professor of law, and Herasmus, a Benedictine monk, was invited to be the first " theologiae scientise professor." The course of study laid down was, as in the neighbouring College of Salernum, three years in arts and five years in medicine. Notwithstanding the position thus assigned to the new university, the privileges of the Salemitan College, thirty miles distant, were preserved. The • Ackermann, p. 84. NAPLES. 121 teachers there, with the prior at their head, were formally allowed to retain their right to grant licences and make magistri, — State assessors, or commissioners, being, however, associated with the doctors in the examinations. The statutes of Frederick throw some light on the difference between a person qualified to practise (the proper title being medicus) and one qualified to teach {magister or doctor), but they do not settle the question. That, from the earliest times, the distinc- tion was not clearly marked, follows from the fact that the title teacher or doctor, as well as the title magister, was assumed by the licensed practitioner, or at least popularly assigned to him. To teach or read {legere, whence lecture) was the function of the magister or doctor, and of no other ; and in the thirty-fourth clause of Frederick's statute, section 4, it is ordered " that no one shall teach at Salernum or Naples, or assume the title of magister in medicine or surgery till carefully examined by the State oflScials and the masters of these arts." As this is made the subject of a separate clause, it is clear that, prior to 1224, the licencia medendi was one thing, and the licencia legendi or docendi another. It cannot be doubted that, just as universities grew out of the specialization of studies, so " professors," or privileged teachers, grew within the universities out of the specicilization of parts of studies. Certain statutes were at the same time passed for 122 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the further regulation of the medical profession. For example, fees for attendance on patients were fixed by the State, and all physicians were required to promise to give their services to the poor gratuitously. It is interesting to note that Hippocrates, in the fifth century before Christ was wont to require his students to make a declaration to serve the poor without fee. Frederick further ordained that, even after the licence was granted, no young man should be allowed to practise until he had spent a year in the service of an established physician. The rule already in opera- tion at Salemum, which required surgeons to study anatomy for a year, and pass an examination in surgery conducted by the "masters" of the mediccJ faculty, was re-enacted at Naples. Physicians were prohibited from having any connection with the sale of drugs or with apothecaries' shops. These were all regulated and duly licensed. We thus see, in the case of Salemum and Naples, how independent and voluntary schools gradually tbok the form of a studium generate or " university " in the large sense of these terms. It may be asked now, "Was the school at Salemum a university at all?" The answer is that, prior to the foundation of the University of Naples, it would be rightly called a studium generale or universitas, as we shall see when we come to speak of the historical meaning of this and other academic terms, but after the foun- NAPLES. 123 dation of the Neapolitan University it would be more correctly called a colUgiutn or " faculty " of the Uni- versity of NaplesL And this although it had always a preliminary course in arts. Even after Salemum had a teacher of law (his epitaph, 1340, calls him juris civUis professor) it could not doctorate in law.* * In 1252 Conrad IL, finding tlie UiiiTersit7 of Naples nnsncces^ul, or latlier dissolred, endeaTOured to make Salenunn the stadimn generate of aS the fa cnlt iea. It was probably after this that law was taught Bnt in 1258 Manfred restored the Uonrenity of Naples, and SaJemnm fell hack to its (dd place. 124 MEDIEVAL EDUCATWJSI AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE VIII. THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. In speaking of mediaeval education, we referred to the schools of law in Constantinople, Rome, and Berytus {legum nutrix). In 554 Justinian confirmed the Roman school, securing its endowments. These schools continued till the beginning of the seventh century at least. At what date they ceased to exist is uncertain. A law school arose at Ravenna after the cessation of the Roman school and the trans- ference of the seat of government As Savigny points out, it is absurd to suppose that three en- dowed public schools could supply the wants of the Eastern and Western empires. Law in its higher aspects was taught at these schools alone : but at the provincial secondary schools, the addition of law, for the instruction and preparation of ordinary practi- tioners, was not uncommon ; and this long after these schools had ceased to have advanced teaching under the orator, or rhetorician, or sophist. Pope Leo IX., in 1054, refers to instruction in law as part of a THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. 125 curriculum of what in other respects would be called a " Trivial " or secondary school. Alcuin mentions jurisprudence among the studies pursued at the York school in the latter portion of the eighth century. Of Lancfranc, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1089), it is stated that he studied at Pavia the "liberal arts and jurisprudence according to the custom of his native city, and soon acquired credit as a debater of law questions." * There is also evidence that law was part of the instruction at Orleans in the ninth century. Whether the school of law at Rome was finally removed to Ravenna or not, this final removal could not have taken place, according to Savigny, till the end of the tenth century. In 964 judices diXid legis doctor es are spoken of as attending an ecclesiastical synod. Further evidence might be adduced ; but what I have said suffices to show that, while " high schools " of jurisprudence, such as existed in the fifth and sixth centuries, had ceased to exist, Roman law continued to be taught in a few pro- 7 vincial grammar schools, and afterwards in some • higher monastery schools. Throughout the Middle Ages the Roman lavir, that is to say, the Code of Justinian, the Pandects, and the Institutions, were partially known. But such law as was taught north of the Alps was represented by the Theodosian Code. A few quota- tions from the Institutions or the Pandects in the • Milonis Crispini Vita Lancfranci, cap. 5, quoted by Savigny. 126 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. writings of a monk here and there can scarcely satisfy us that these books were to be found in the monastic libraries. South of the Alps, manuscripts were to be found, but the study of these had prac- tically ceased before the time of Charlemagne. I say practically ceased, for there were feeble survivals of a restricted law teaching which recognized the Justinian books, at Pavia, Ravenna, and Bologna. It was the learning and earnest devotion of one mind — that of Irnerius — to the civil law which re- vived the study ; but had not time and circumstances favoured, the influence of Irnerius would have been as restricted and fleeting as that of Scotus Erigena two hundred years earlier in the field of metaphysics. The time was, however, ripe, and a combination of circumstances contributed to the revival of the teach- ing of Roman law at the beginning of the twelfth century. The municipalities, very many of which had never quite lost their Roman constitution, had recovered, especially in Lombardy, much of their ancient vigour, and consequently demanded a more thorough and scientific legal system. The gradual amalgamation of the population in Italy and beyond the Alps under civil and ecclesiastical influences, the universal diff"usion of the Latin tongue, and the (restitution of the Roman empire under its new spiritual form, facilitated the acceptance of the old Roman law. That it should have been at Bologna and not elsewhere that the new school arose, is to THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. 127 be explained, partly by the vicinity of the still sur- viving law school at Ravenna, partly by the rise of Bologna itself to be one of the most populous and wealthy cities of Italy. This is all true; but still one man did the work, and that man was Irnerius (Werner, Guarnerius, Guernerius, etc.). Towards the end of the eleventh century he seems to have been a teacher in the Arts school at Bologna. We soon find him, however, professing the civil law, and after- wards taking his part in important affairs of state. As with the beginnings of all movements, we find legendary explanations of the causes which led Irnerius to the study and profession of the civil law. It is said that, having been consulted one day as to the meaning of a Latin legal term, he was led, by his inquiries into its signification, to enter into the whole subject of Roman law, and thereupon to " professing " it in connection with the school of arts where he was a master. Another account, repeated by Crevier, is that a manuscript of the Pandects of Justinian was discovered at the taking of Amalfi, and was sent to Irnerius to edit, he having already some reputation as a causidicus ; and that, having accom- plished this task, he thereafter devoted his life to the exposition of the whole civil law as contained in the Codex, the Institutions, Pandects, etc. It is not necessary to accept either of these fables. The important fact is, that Irnerius was publicly teaching the civil law to all who chose to study it in 128 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION' AND UNIVERSITIES. the first years of the twelfth century. It is not too much to say that this jurist rediscovered Roman law for Europe. It would be difficult to over-estimate the effects of his labours on the progress of civilization. The probable date of his birth was somewhere about the year 1070, and he died somewhere about 1138, after having attained great distinction both as a jurist and a judge. To the school of law founded by Imerius there flocked great numbers of youths, some of whom were preparing for ecclesiastical work, some for the work of lay practitioners or the secular service of the States to which they belonged. The lectures were public, and not in any way connected with a monastic institution. From Bologna the civil law travelled to many Italian towns, as well as to Angers and Orleans. Here, again, we find confirmation of the view which we have taken of the causes which led to the rise of universities, in so far as these are to be dis- tinguished from the ordinary monastic gymnasia and cathedral schools. One Italian writer speaks of the school of Bologna as an archigymnasium. But it was an archigymnasium differentiated from an ordinary arts gymnasium, not by the fact that it carried farther the general Arts studies of the gymnasium, which there is no evidence that it did, but rather by the fact that it specialized a department of study, and professed to teach it in all its extent to youths beyond the Arts stage of progress. In Salernum, as we said. THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. i?f) this specialization was due to the intellectual activity of a few individuals, and to the accumulation of the stock of Greek and Arabic medical lore, which made a thorough knowledge of the whole field im- possible for any one save a specialist So now, in Bologna, we see a specialization of the study of civil law — to which was soon added the canon law — under the influence of a single mind. As the Salernitan, so the new Bononian university school, was not founded, but grew out of small beginnings, under the general intellectual impulse of the time. Neither the one centre of learning nor the other was called an "university" in our modern sense, but constantly a " universitas " in the then sense of a "community." The institution was called a schola or studium, or, more generally (but only after a considerable period), a studium publicum or generate, i.e. a school ogen^ to^ all, free from the conditions of monastic vows or monastic discipline in any form, and where the curri- culum of arts was taught as well as the specialized study of the universitas.* As in many other Mediterranean towns, so in Bologna, the old Roman school of Arts, which reached its highest ideal conception under Quintilian, seems never to have quite died out. It survived under Christian influences. There was such a school in 450 A.D. Charlemagne and his grandson Lothair did * But the arts were not at first drawn into the university system, except at Paris and in England. I30 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVEXSITIES. much in the ninth century, as I have pointed out to stimulate this and other Italian institutions, and here, in the eleventh century, we find Irnerius at first teaching the ordinary curriculum of the trivium and quadrivium.* Bologna had shortly before this become a free town, and we cannot doubt that this accession of dignity, and the introduction of self-government, would give a fresh impulse to all the civic institutions, including schools. The first formal recognition of the universitas of Bologna was by Frederick I., in 1158, when the lead- ing juridical doctors were Bulgarus, Jacob, Martin, and Hugo. This " privilege," however, was based on the assumption that the school was already a flourishing one, with recognized usages, and it directed itself mainly to securing protectioii for travelling students and resident aliens, giving them the right of being judged by their own dominus or magister, or by the bishop. This right extended to criminal as well as civil cases, and long existed. It was only after thi«; date that Bologna was a formally privileged studium. The university statutes of 1254 were fbrmsdly confirmed by the then pope ; but the action of Pope Honorius III., in 1216, to which we shall have imme- diately to refer, was itself as valid as a formal con- firmation of consuetudinary laws. Irnerius had distinguished pupils, who, as doctors of law, maintained the reputation of the school after * There is no evidence that this was a cathedral school THE UNIVERSITY OP BOLOGNA. 131 his death. It became known as the " Mother of Laws," and attracted ever-increasing numbers from all Europe. When Frederick II. established the University of Naples in 1224, he did so partly, as he himself states, to bring the best teaching within reach of the youth of Southern Italy, and to make it unnecessary for them to travel to Bologna. He was also influenced by the disputes which had already arisen between town and gown in Bologna, and which gave rise to frequent breaches of the law. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, in the time of the celebrated jurist Azo, there were, it is said, already 10,000 students at' Bologna, and in the time of Roger Bacon there were 20,000. So large a body of youth, and among them hundreds of mature men, collected in one small town soon felt the ne- cessity of organization, with a view to mutual help and to common protection against civic interference. They had not at first, let it be remembered, the defence which the monastic and conventual estab- lishments had always found in the all-powerful pro- tection of their own recognized constitutions and the supreme protection of the pope. Here, in fact, was a new kind of community altogether, — new in the history of Christendom at least, — essentially lay in its characteristics, and yet so far connected with the monkish orders that it had intellectual and moral aims. Already the example of organizations within the existing municipal organizations was before 132 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. them. The trade guilds and the order of chivalry were within the knowledge of all. Accordingly, students from the same part of the world naturally imitated these institutions and coalesced into groups of communities, loosely held together, perhaps, but yet recognizing that they had common interests. Thus arose the " nations," so famous in all university history, to one or other of which all students belonged They constituted free self-governing societies within the universitas.* These " nations " existed in the latter half of the twelfth century, if not earlier. Through their con- siliarii (or procurators, as they were called in Paris) they gradually acquired certain student privileges, among which the most important was the right, for- mally conceded by Frederick I., of being judged by the university authorities, and this even in criminal cases. That there was a tendency to abuse these privil^es, especially in the democratic University of Bologna, is certain. The civic power granted or acquiesced in the assumption of many rights, and condoned even many licences, because they were afraid to lose the students. There were no university buildings of any importance : the doctors taught in their own houses or in hired apartments ; and it would have been an easy thing for the whole university to migrate, and desert the town, which owed much of its prosperity • The students wh) belonged to the town of Bologna were not included in the " nations." THE VNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. 133 to them ; and this threat, indeed, was often held over magistrates. At the same time it lay with the doctors rather than the pupils to migrate, and this gave additional authority to the doctors, and enabled them to keep the civic magistracy in awe of their power ; indeed, they feared them so much that they ultimately demanded from them an oath, on their entering ofRce, that they would not teach elsewhere. On the other hand, the students, when other schools arose, could keep the doctors in subjection by threatening to leave in a body and study elsewhere.- It was not while the "nations" were numerous and divided that they were a source of danger to the discipline of the university and the supremacy of the civic power. But when they began to combine and to pass their own laws, and look to a rector elected by themselves for guidance and protection; and especially when this tendency to union with a view to strength resulted in the combination of the various bodies into two, — universitas citramontanorum and universitas uUramontanorum (12 10-1220), — the doctors, in whom the sovereign authority lay, and who exercised it in harmony with the civil power, would naturally feel anxious. The universitas ultramontanorum was com- posed of eighteen nations, the universitas citramonta- norum of seventeen. Each universitas elected its own rector and other university authorities.* Each of these • It is not till the beginning of the sixteenth century that we find only one rector. 134 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. united bodies practically constituted themselves into two powerful corporations within the university. The students had now virtually superseded the doctors in the government. Accordingly, at the instigation of the latter, the magistrates of Bologna endeavoured by a civil enact- ment to restrict the student organizations. Hence many strifes ; and it is to this kind of antagonism between civic authorities and university authorities, and the difficulties arising out of the conflicting municipal and university jurisdictions, that we owe the long series of town-and-gown riots which once had a meaning, but which are now mere ghostly survivals of defunct realities. The students, being hard pressed by the doctors of civil law and magis- trates combined, finally resolved to appeal to the pope, who would be (as may be supposed) very ready to interfere, as he thereby had his own supreme au- thority over the rising university school acknowledged. The students boldly alleged that their customary rights were being interfered with, and that the magistrates, and not they, were infringing the law. Pope Honorius III. (died 1216), a man reputed learned and pious, took the part of the students, and ordered the magistracy of Bologna to respect their rights. In the pope's epistle, he says that the new municipal statutes were unjust and in the teeth of scholastic liberty, and of an ancient freedom up to that time THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. 135 exercised.* Rights and privileges, and a certain constitutional organization, had been simply assumed by the rising school, and formally recognized by Frederick I. ; the civic power had either aided and abetted the organizations in their claims, or acquiesced in their acts. It was now too late to interfere. This gradual assumption of rights has to be specially noted in connection with the rise of all universities prior to that of Naples (1224). Padua was so destitute of civil or papal charters, that the question at one time arose whether it was entitled to exercise the university powers which it assumed, and distinguished jurists decided that long usage was as good a title as any papal bull or royal charter, if not, indeed, a better title. Nothing, indeed, can more strikingly illustrate the true primary character of a university, as simply a voluntary association of teachers (Doctores, Magistri) and learners usurping to themselves certain rights and privileges, than the origin of Padua. The disputes at Bologna caused a secession which established itself in Padua, and of its own motion called itself the studium generate of Padua, and began to discharge the duties and exer- cise the rights of such a body. This was in 1222. Vicenza arose in a similar way in 1204. It was not till 1228 A.D. that Padua had any formal recogni- • "Statuta. . . sunt iniqua et manifeste obviant scholasticse libertati . . , contra Ubertatem hactenus habitam," etc. 136 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. tion, and it even seems to be doubtful if we can date this before the "letters" of Urban IV., thirty- years later. It was not till 1158, as I have already stated, that Bologna was formally recognized, and this by \ letters of privilege issued by Frederick I. These letters of privilege, I have also pointed out, assumed already existing usages. One can easily understand that, where local questions as to the powers of the university body arose, the authorities would take steps to get something of the nature of statutory defi- nition from either pope or prince, as Bologna after- wards did in 1254. This was manifestly the case again and again with Paris, which, as the centre of theological teaching, bore always a closer relation to the pope than the Italian schools, and was fondly called the Mother of Universities and the Sinai of the Middle Ages. The papal recognition was always of great im- portance, if not essential, to universities. It brought the power of the Church, then dominating all civil powers, to the help of the young communities as schools of learning, and gave universal European validity to the degrees which the protected university might confer, and not merely to the doctorship, as has , ; been sometimes said. A licentia docendi in a papal university, whether it took the form of a mastership of arts, as in Paris, or of a doctorship, as in Italy, entitled the holder to teach at any university seat in THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. 137 " Christendom. The popes had no jealousy of the universities. On the contrary, they hastened to recog- nize them. It may be that they astutely saw that, by conferring privileges, they indirectly acquired rights over both teachers and students. But, the rescripts proceeding from the papal chair in favour of universities were not, in the case of the earliest universities, bulls or charters of foundation, but letters of privilege issued simply for the purpose of strengthening the infant communities. Though Bologna, Padua, and Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, received many such letters, none of these studia was formally constituted an university by the pope. It is only after the erection of the University of Naples by Frederick II. in 1224 that we find the pope formally instituting universities ; and this right continued to be exercised by him till the Reformation, generally in conjunction with the civil power. As to the governing authority : At Bologna, a rector, elected by the outgoing rector, the consiliarii, and the general body of students, held office for one year, and wielded great power during his term. No member of a monastic order could hold the rector- ship. The teaching doctors or professors, no less than the students, were subject to the rectors. A professor could not leave his duties for a few days without obtaining formal permission from him, and if the term of absence exceeded eight days, he had to get permission from the whole university. So entirely l^ M£DIM¥AL EDDCATHUf ASTD meiWBMSXTIES. were die p i ufcsMMa; loeft s^i^ect to die wlmle ■■£- wcuiLjf, disit Aey vc>e diwyi ailirlirtf for ' oflk'iitl positiceis. Xbeir Malwlnty ^wiwliiiii veie fitde better tiiaa Aase of die stadeiMs. Birt: ia Aen- capaatyat srhnLirs or stMieats &e prafeaaoB «^n i *i**^ i l power ala^ «d& diase Acy l-wigji^-. ft was mexdfy fHC twift siwt Aafc ikc^ kad ao ad- ditinwal fSEfagiiiacs. Tbe o i wiilne s (/rii i ni) » li i Mii I bxfc namrd diuvt^ stf with eadt cectou TlKy sepneseatcd de "yp aiJ lR aaiiaBSv aad wene «'ltTt>'iJ lijr dicin. Tkie «ac^ «iii nin B aiuk i g w ilk Aeiector of thel aad acimt ec u vidi tibe rector of ifae The o^olfaer ofiixxswcxe a3yHdk;«ko both —in I lit III I faelbce vAer coBts^ tneasHiEi; aad tao beades. Tbe the rise of an university. At the two former I con- sider that the universities were offshoots of the schools ; but at Paris the universitas arose directly out of the Arts school, and from the first enjoyed such privileges as were possessed by the claustral or cathedral school. It does not clearly appear to what i extent the suburban schools of St. Genevieve and St. Victor contributed to the formation of the univer- sitas, but they could not but have had great influence. In the Paris school, in the beginning of the eleventh century, a learned monk, William of Champeaux, taught theology. A still more famous theological school, however, existed at Bee, in Normandy, pre- sided over by Lancfranc, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; while Rheims and Chartres were also important centres of instruction. It was at Bee, not Paris, that Anselm studied in 1060, succeeding 142 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVRESITIES. Lancfranc as head of that monastery and school, and subsequently following him as Archbishop of Canter- bury, to which primacy he was appointed in 1093. That the intellect of the Church was deeply stirred at this time is evident from the reception accorded to Anselm's writings. He endeavoured, in full sub- mission to the faith, to rationalize Christian doctrine, and was himself of so ardent a nature that it is highly probable that we should have had to name him and not Abelard as giving the first intellectual impulse which initiated the University of Paris, had he not been preoccupied by his work at Bee and Canterbury. When Anselm became Archbishop of Canterbury, Abelard was only fourteen years old. This remark- able man sacrificed high prospects in a secular career in order to devote himself to theology and philosophy, preferring, as he said, to enrol himself under the standard of Minerva rather than that of Mars. A few years before this ardent and ambitious youth betook himself to study, John Roscelin, a native of Brittany and Canon of Compi^gne, had begun to speculate on the nature of abstract concepts and terms, and had laid the foundation of the doctrine of Nominalism.* Abelard became a pupil and a promulgator of his philosophy. From Roscelin and Anselm, Abelard drew his first inspiration. William of Champeaux, • The discussions on universals is said to have started from a passage in Porphyry's " Isagoge," a book studied in the monasteries. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 143 pupil of Anselm, surnamed the " Pillar of Doctors " was at this time at the head of the Episcopal (or Cloister) School of Paris, where the usual course in arts (both trivium and quadrivmm) was taught. This school was then the most famous in Europe, and had been raised under William to a higher eminence than it had ever before held. In truth, it so entirely out- stripped its rivals under his presidency, that we might almost regard him as the founder of the university as a specialized school. Abelard could not have been more than a boy when he came to Paris to pursue his studies there. For, as early as 1102, when he was only twenty-tbree years of age, we find that, after having questioned the doctrines of his master, and incurred his serious dis- pleasure by his independence of opinion, and doubtless also by the youthful sauciness of his argumentation he opened a school of dialectic of his own at Melun. In 1 1 13 we find him, after many successes and re- verses, teaching theology as. well as dialectic, as the head of the Paris school, William of Champeaux having been meanwhile promoted to the bishopric of Chalons-sur-Marne. It would be out of place here to follow the roman- tic and tragic story of Abelard. Our concern is simply with his relations to the intellectual move- ments of Europe, and the universities which grew out of them. Having had to retire from the Paris school owing to the scandal which arose out of the mis- 144 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. fortunes and indiscretions of his career, he retired into the monastic life ; but he afterwards reopened his school at St. Denis, where he had become a Bene- dictine monk at the same time that Helofse took the veil at Argenteuil. He was now thirty-six or thirty- seven years of age. It was only at the urgent solici- tatiqij of crowds of students that he consented again to teach. He taught in a hospitium attached to the monastery, and it is said that his students numbered at one time three thousand, and included youths from all parts of Europe. The jealousy of the doctors of the Paris school, and the suspicions of heresy under which he fell, ultimately drove him to take refuge in Champagne, where he built a hut in a desert place, six miles from Nogent-sur-Seine, and called it Para- clete, or " The Consolation." But he was not allowed to remain and nurse his melancholy in solitude. Students again began to crowd round him, and, erect- ing tents and mud huts covered with thatch, they prosecuted their studies in the wilds, contenting themselves with the simplest rustic fare. Witli their own hands, it is said, they rebuilt with stone the oratory which he had himself built with reeds and thatch. Thus was what might quite correctly be called the University of Paris now transferred from St. Denis to the forests of France. From this retreat Abelard had, however, again to seek safety in flight The doctors of the Church, with St. Norbert and St. Bernard at their head, did not cease to denounce UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 14S him to the pope as a heretic. " The human mind," writes St Bernard to the pope, "usurps everything, leaves nothing to faith." Here we see for the first time, and this in France, the intimate connection of the university movement with freedom of inquiry. It is, in truth, to the free activity of the human mind in dealing with questions of abstract philosophy and theology, that we are indebted primarily for the scien- 1 tific spirit. It was not the study of physical science / which, either in the eleventh or twelfth, or afterwards ' in the fifteenth century, gained for mankind liberty of / thought. This was the work of the philosopher and the man of letters. Physical science entered into the possession of a kingdom of liberty already conquered. Abelard, after having been twice condemned by Church councils, died in 1142 in the Abbey of Clugni.* But the impulse he had given to philosophic disputa- tion remained, and Paris, under his pupils and their rivals, became the centre of a higher specialized school of philosophy and theology, to which students con- tinued to flock from all parts of Europe. In this way the University of Paris, as distinguished from the Arts school, began. The theory of the rise of universities, which alone seems to me to interpret historical facts in the case of Salernum and Bologna, is thus, in the case of Paris, further confirmed. For in what respect did the school of Abelard differ from that of William * Strictly speaking, in a dependence of this abbey situated at Chalons, to which he had been sent for the bettering of his health. 146 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. of Champeaux, which was a famous school of arts, including theology? Only in this — that it was a specialized school of theology and its handmaid phi- losophy, intended for those who desired to continue their studies beyond the school age, open to all, and independent of monastic or canonical obligations — a studium generale. Hence numerous masters to meet the demand. As their number increased, organization became necessary. Note also that in the eleventh century it became the custom to require priests to learn by heart the decrees of councils and other Church laws. This body of ecclesiastical legislation, known as the Body of the Canon Law or the Decretum, had reached such pro- portions and complexity as to demand that specialized treatment which it now received at Paris alongside of theology. Having now indicated generally the origin of the Paris University as an intellectual movement, let us look for a moment at its historical antecedents. Although I hold that Abelard was to Paris what Constantinus was to Salernum, and Imerius to Bo- logna, I am well aware that, prior to the appearance of Abelard on the scene, the Paris school had been for long a much-frequented and active centre of learn- ing,* and, indeed, had never lost the impulse given to it • Whether this centre was a monastery school or cathedral school (or a palatine school, as Bulaeus thinks, and as Crevier is disposed to think) matters little. It was the recognized arts school of Paris, and UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 147 by the Carolingian revival. A monk of Auxerre, the well-known Remi, had lectured publicly at Paris on dialectic and music about 900 A.D.* He died about 908, That he had successors there can be no doubt, for in 960 A.D., Abbon, subsequently Abbot of Fleuri, after having directed the studies of his monastery for some years, betook himself to Paris to extend his own knowledge. In 990 Bulaeus (i. p. 313) says that a canon of Li^ge, named Hubold, had a large school at Paris in connection with the chapter of St. Genevieve. Crevier also concurs. Public lectures were delivered by Lambert in 1022, and he acquired wealth by his teaching. In the middle of the same century a Parisian, named Drogon, lectured. The Pole St. Stanislas, afterwards Bishop of Cracovia, came to Paris about this time to complete his studies. Other men, afterwards holding high offices in the Church, resorted to Paris for instruction towards the end of the eleventh century; and in 1053 it is stated that Valram, who had already studied at Bee under Lancfranc, came to Paris to lecture. Manegolde, a German, lectured in various towns of France, and ultimately at Paris in 1082. Crevier relates that this Manegolde was married to a cultivated wife, and that his daughters afterwards opened a school in Paris for girls — an interesting fact in the history of education. as closely connected with the cathedral of Notre Dame, was most probably a cathedral school with some monastic ties. * Acta Sane. Ord. Ben., torn. vii. p. 151. Also Crevier, i. p. 67, quoted by Viriville. 148 UEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. One of Manegolde's pupils was the celebrated William of Champeaux, who, VilHvry says, succeeded him as master of the Paris school. It is in connection with the above facts * that the question of the precise point at which the school of arts grew into an uni- versity becomes a question as interesting as it is diffi- cult This is certain, that William of Champeaux became master of the cathedral school, and lectured specially and publicly, like his predecessors, on the- ology, and that under him Paris outstripped all its rivals, and became the recognized European centre of theological instruction. If further evidence be needed as to the pre-eminence of Paris as a central school in the end of the eleventh century, it will be found in a letter of Anselm's, written about 1090, when he was still Abbot of Bee. In this letter he refers to one of his monks — " qui propter scholas moratur apud Parisium et conversatur in monasterio S. Maglorii." f The specialized study of theology and canon law, wherever it existed, attracted students who had com- pleted their monastery or cathedral course in arts, or as much of it as they meant to take, and who intended to continue in the service of the Church. This habit of seeking instruction at learned centres existed, as I have shown, throughout the eleventh * For which I do not cite authorities, because the evidence is so ample. But in what sense Champeaux succeeded Man^olde is an open question. t Quoted by Mabillon, in " De Studiis Monasticis," pt. i. t. 12. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 149 century, and, indeed, to some extent in the tenth. Accordingly, many other centres of study than Paris, Bologna, and Salernum might have become the first universities, had the accidents of time and place favoured them. Bee in Normandy, for example, was a greater theological school in the beginning of the eleventh century than either Paris or Rome ; and in the time of Lancfranc it was much frequented. In the prolegomena to a mystical explanation of the Song of Solomon by Wiliramus there occurs the following passage : " Unum in Francia comperi Lanc- francum nomine, autem maxime valentem in dia- lectica, nunc ad ecclesiastica se contulisse studia . . . ad quem audiendum cum multi nostratum («.d| Germanorum) confluant," etc., etc. (quoted by Specht)!! But such local schools had to give way before the' superior attractions and facilities of access and of living which towns like Paris afforded. In the time of William of Champeaux Paris finally established its supremacy. "When one hears William of Cham- peaux," writes a contemporary, " one believes that an angel from heaven is speaking, not a man." Thirty years after William ceased to teach, John of Salisbury spent twelve years as a student in Paris, beginning in 11 36, and from him we learn that there then existed in Paris a large number of able masters who taught arts and theology in their own schools. He himself names twelve, whom he either attended or personally knew. But as yet no common bond ISO MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. united them. They were not a community living under general rules, and therefore not a universitas. The number of students who gathered round those teachers was very great. We begin to form some conception of the quality as well as the quantity of the auditors when we read that, of Abelard's pupils alone, twenty became cardinals, and fifty bishops or archbishops. The crowd of scholars had made it necessary to restrict the cloistral central school, at least in so far as its precincts afforded a residence, to members of the Church of Paris, so early as 1127. Foreigners had to seek accommodation elsewhere. When William of Champeaux was lecturing in 1097, and had among his pupils Abelard, the lectures were public, and the school was a schola publica. . There were other schools held in the houses of St. Victor and St. Genevieve. Whether these latter were originally " public " schools or not, we know that the central school of arts, held in the cloister of Notre Dame, was certainly public, and had probably retained its " public " character from the time of Charlemagne. Other public schools arose about this time in the district afterwards called the "university" — many of these, doubtless, confining their curriculum to the trivium. The only restriction in opening a school was that it should be in the vicinity of the principal school. In this central school canon law as well as theology were publicly taught, — the former certainly after the Decretum of Gratian, dated ii 5 1, if not before. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 151 While, therefore, we find in the impulse Abelard gave to philosophy the force that finally converted the arts school of Paris into a universitas, we see that public teaching had long existed. But, spite of this, it would be inaccurate to say that the central and surrounding schools actually constituted a universitas much before 1 140, for, although there was specialized instruction of a public character, there was no free literary organization of masters. The spirit and essence of a studium generale was there, but not yet the form. It was in the reign of Louis VII., who ascended the throne in 1135, that privileges were first conferred on the Paris school ; that is to say, in addition to those already adhering to it as an evo- lution of the old arts school of Notre Dame. If we further bear in mind that Alexander III., who ascended the papal chair in 1159, issued two bulls in favour of the rising school, in both of which it is recognized as an organization^ of some duration, we are justified, I think, in concluding that the Paris cathedral school never lost the impulse given to it by Charlemagne, that throughout the whole of the eleventh century it was an active centre both of theology and canon law, as well as of arts ; further, that it had not begun to free itself from the canonical organization till about 1 100, under William, and that it did not wholly free itself until the specialization into a great theological and philosophical school was finally determined by the genius of Abelard. It was just IS2 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. about the time of Abelard's death, in fact, that the large and ever-increasing concourse of students not only testified to the celebrity of the new centre of learning, but led to the division of the students into "nations" for purposes of mutual intercourse and protection ; but this as yet in a quite rudimentary and tentative form. Peter the Lombard lectured 1145-1159. The marking of the progress of studies by means of degrees seems to have begun during his regency, but this as yet in a somewhat irregular fashion. Nations existed about 1 1 50 in some form more or less lax ; but they were certainly not yet organized. The offer of Henry II. of England to appeal his quarrel with Thomas of Canterbury to the school of Paris makes mention of the nations, at least as provincial unions. But the "nations" were not the University of Paris, nor did they form the original basis of its organization. The numerous masters of arts, with the addition of the masters of theology and canon law, constituted the starting-point of the university as an organization. If degrees began to be given before 1 1 59, it follows that the masters were organized in some fashion before that date ; nay, that those teaching arts, theology, and canon law had respectively some understanding among themselves which, though not constituting them faculties in the later sense, were certainly the be- ginnings of faculties. Matthew of Paris relates that UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 153 Jean de la CeUe, dected Abbot of St Alban's in 1 195, had studied at Paris, and had been admitted there ad decbfmm amsortatm magistronim. The masters evidently held meetings and regulated all matters connected with instruction, and thus formed the first development of the studium generale out oS the original school of arts. It would be superfluous to show that this was all both natural and necessary. True, both theolc^y and the Decree were spokoi ol ( in the twelfth centurj- ss artes liber ales, and the word ' "feculty," where it occurs, is simply equivalent to subject or department of study, but none the less were the begirmings of what afterwards became " faculties " then visible. And this beginning of the university in a consortium magistrorum influenced the organization of the urm-ersitas throughout its whole historj*. Paris, in fact, was commonly difierentiated as a universitas magistrorvun, although it called itself in its official documents a universitas magistrorum et scholarium, and the pope so addressed it. Thus the public arts school of Xotre Dame took the first great step in its new evolution. The above view of the rise of the University ot Paris furnishes an explanation of many of its pecu- Uarities. For example; it was becaiise it was the centre of tfaeolc^cal learning that it received so many privil^;es from the pope^ and was kept in such close relation to the papal see by a continuous succession of bulls: again, it was because it remained an arts IS4 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. school that its students were so young. The students of Bologna and Padua were much older than those of Paris, because the specific professional studies for which these universities were famous began only after the conclusion of an arts course. The quiet super- session of the old episcopal arts school by the uni- versity teaching of arts is also now quite intelligible. As soon as Paris became an European centre of education, it would be impossible for one cathedral school to accommodate all seeking admission, however willing the authorities might be to receive them. It was thus that various schools were opened, and that ere long teachers arose in connection with the nations, who carried the boys, who came from all parts of Europe, through a course precisely similar to that given in the monastery and cathedral schools ; that is to say, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, including under grammar the study (but a restricted one) of Latin authors. All the facts known to us seem to support the view I have set forth. For example, William of Champeaux delivered his lectures first in the episcopal pcilace, and afterwards removed to the Priory of St Victor on the other side of the Seine. Abelard, too, seems to have lectured in the episcopal palace till he had to take refuge on the hill of St. Genevieve. Thereafter, the arts school specially attached to the cathedral broke up and took other quarters, theology and the Decree alone continuing to be taught there. Then, after the UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. iss formation of the students into nations, four halls were erected by the four nations respectively, where the students of each nation received instruction. But, outside these halls, any licentiate {i.e. master) might hire a room and advertise his lectures ; and thus in the course of time arose the Quartier Latin, so called because inhabited almost solely by masters and scholars. There were hundreds of masters. In 1348 there were 514 actu regentes in arts alone, not to speak of other faculties. There were no special uni- versity buildings. Even for their great assemblies the authorities had to borrow the Church of St. Maturin. The scholars who frequented these various schools were very numerous, but they were also, as I have said, very young. In the thirteenth century Bulaeus tells us that it was necessary to pass a statute excluding from the university all under twelve years of age. The fact that the mediaeval universities of Oxford and Paris included in their organization the work of grammar schools explains the large attendance at these seats of learning. Accordingly, when we hear of twenty thousand or thirty thousand students,* we have to bear in mind that boys came to these university centres to receive secondary instruction, which terminated with the bachelor's degree. It has • Some are disposed to throw doubt on these large numbers. DoUinger, however (" Die Universitaten sonst und jetzt "), quotes the general procurator, Arnauld, for the number (20,000 to 30,000) at a much later period, when there were rival universities. 1S6 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. also to be noted that the personal attendants of the wealthier students, and the college cooks and servitors, were matriculated as cives, in order that they might share the privileges and protection of person, which were extended by royal charter or papal bull to the universitas as a whole. We are not to conclude that a large proportion of these students went for- ward either to professional or scientific studies. It was, in fact, partly with a view to retain men, after graduation, in the interests of learning and science, that collegiate foundations arose, and partly for the purpose of providing gratuitous maintenance for poor scholars. These objects of collegiate foundations have been too often forgotten by Oxford and Cambridge. Every pursuit outside the professional or money-making had, in medieval times even more than in our own, to be artificially fostered. But even in these days, it is generally believed that the scientific investigator, in the field of either matter or mind, has not so good a chance of obtaining recognition at our English universities as those who possess, not knowledge, but a mere instrument of knowledge in the shape of a minute acquaintance with the tongues in which Latins and Greeks wrote. As to the study of Law in Paris : I have pointed out that instruction had frequently been given in the monastery schools in the Theodosian Code after the seventh century, and that Charlemagne to some extent revived the study. When we see it stated that the UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. IS7 canonists in the beginning of the twelfth century taught civil law in Paris, this teaching (if prior to the death of Imerius, 1 1 38 ?) must have been of a very fragmentary kind. The Church, in fact, never looked with favour on the study of the civil law at Paris. It was regarded by others than ecclesiastics as lower- ing the scientific character of universities, and as training a class of mere practitioners. It is on the surface, too, that the Church could not look with much favour on the rise of a rival to the canon law. The civil law is the law of the civis ; it is the law of the state, not of the Church, and is the bulwark of liberty. At Paris, above all — the centre of theological thought and ecclesiastical jurisprudence — it was felt to be necessary to protest against the intruder. Accordingly Pope Honorius III. (1216- 1227) prohibited the teaching of it in Paris ; and it was authoritatively taught there only after 1679. Meanwhile it was the specialty of Orleans and other towns of France and also of Italy. Medicine was not taught at Paris during the twelfth century. John of Salisbury, writing as late as 1 160, says that those who desired to study medicine had to go to Salernum or Montpellier. But the names of distinguished physicians occur in the Parisian records after this date, and the subject was formally taught not later than 1200. Degrees or licences in medicine were conferred in 123 1. Thus by the year 1200 we find Paris an active iS8 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. and flourishing high school of theology (this subject still classed, however, as one of the liberal arts), of arts, canon law, and medicine, and organized as a universitas magistrorum, with a more or less lax organization of the students into nations. At the same time, the silence of Robert de Courgon, the papal legate sent to settle differences that had arisen, leads to the conclusion that canon law and medicine had not in 1215 assumed any prominence in the uni- versity work. "The foundations of the university," says Bonaventura, " were laid in arts ; law and physics were the walls, and divinity the roof of the academic system." The formation of the faculties will be referred to in a subsequent lecture. Privileges. — In evolving itself, the rising studium generale school carried, I say, with it the privileges of the Paris arts school. How else can we explain the reference to " ancient " privileges by Pope Alexander III. (1159)? But it also carried with it the superin- tendence of the Chancellor of Notre Dame. In the future history of the universitas, the question of the respective rights of the universitas magistrorum et scholarium and the chancellor were a matter of con- stant contention, until the latter were restricted to the merely formal conferring of degrees. As regards further privileges, we do not need a knowledge of the facts to understand what a consortium magis- trorum, with a large and increasing number of students, UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. IS9 would seek to acquire. They would naturally assume and demand the recognition of their inner autonomy and their control over the testing of the qualifications of those who sought to join them. They would also seek protection from the interference of alien powers such as already was possessed by the clerus ; and if they could not secure endowments, they would yet seek to obtain such immunities from public service and from taxation as had been possessed by the sophists and orators of the Roman empire, as well as by the Church. In default of liberal local recogni- tion of their presumed rights, they would go to king, emperor, or pope, and so transfer their allegiance from the civic to the civil power, and if necessary from the civil to the supreme ecclesiastical authority — the pope. And this is precisely what the early universitates did. The privileges which they gradually acquired were due in Paris, as in Bologna and elsewhere, to two causes — the desire to foster learning, and the desire of the civic authorities to give dignity to their town, and to attract students who came in such numbers as to be of great value to local trade. But larger and more liberal views prevailed among governing men. " We owe," says Frederic Barbarossa in 1 1 58, "our protection to all our subjects, but above all to those whose knowledge enlightens the world, and whose teachings instruct our people in their duty to obey God and us who are the ministers of the divine power." 9 i6o MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. The circumstances which led to a ratification and further extension by Philip Augustus, in 1200, of the privileges already enjoyed by the University of Paris under the edicts of Louis VII. and the Papal Letters, or simply assumed without being' questioned, are worth relating as throwing light on the way in which the earliest universities acquired an extension of their immunities and prerogatives, and became independent and autonomous communities. The servant of a member of the university (the Archdeacon of Li^ge) having been sent to fetch wine for his master, quarrelled with some one in the tavern, was beaten, and had his flask broken. As both servant and master belonged to the English nation, a crowd of students of this nation attacked the tavern-keeper's house, and left him for dead. The Paris citizens, with the provost at their head, rose to take vengeance, and, attacking the English boarding-house or hostel, slew several of the inmates, including the member of the university who had sent for the wine. The teachers of the university at once indignantly sought satisfaction from the king ; and he, fearing that the masters and their scholars would leave Paris in disgust, punished the provost of the town and his subordinates with great severity,' and gave fresh privileges to the university which should protect them from all such exercises of civic authority in the future. The popes, too, supported this view of university privilege, and even restricted (though not UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. i6i till afterwards, in the time of Honorius III., after- wards confirmed by Gregory IX.) the episcopal power of excommunicating members of the Uni- versity of Paris without the approval .of the Holy See being first obtained. Thus the university was protected in its privileges on both sides — ^the civic and the ecclesiastical. In 1229, under Gregory IX., we find the chancellor finally restricted to the formal and purely ministerial act of granting the licentia. " What rendered the University of Paris especially powerful [but Paris was no exception to other schools], nay, positively formidable, was," says Savigny, " its poverty. The university itself, the faculties, the nations, were one and all of them poor, and even the colleges, burdened with many expenses, could by no means be described- as wealthy. The univei'sity did not possess so much as a building of its own, but was commonly obliged to hold its meetings in the cloisters of friendly monastic orders. Its existence and power thus assumed a purely spiritual character, and was rendered permanently independent of the temporal authority." * The next most important events, after the ex- tension of privileges by Philip Augustus in 1200, were unquestionably the disruption of 1229 and the separation of the theological faculty from that of arts ; or rather, let us say, the formal institution, * Quoted by Mr. Kirkpatripk, p. 205. i62 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND VNIVERSITIES. for the first time, of a specific theological faculty, which took place in 1270. I say the "formal" in- stitution, for the " Littera universitatis magistrorum et scholarium Parisiis studentium" of 1254 recognizes the existence of four faculties — theology, canon law, medicine, and philosophy — comparing them to the four rivers of Paradise. It was only after this date, however, that they had a formal existence. The disruption to which we have above alluded, and which preceded the formal institution of the theo- logical faculty by forty years, was caused by a town- and-gown riot, in which Queen Blanche, under the advice of the bishop and the papal legate, unfortu- nately opposed the university, and indeed committed herself to the infliction of unmerited castigation on certain students. The provost of Paris, proceeding to punish the students, under her direction, attacked them while at their games outside the city, and slew several who had taken no part in the previous riot The uni- versity authorities were violently excited : they de- manded satisfaction, and, this having been refused, a large number of masters and their pupils left Paris in disgust, and settled at various younger university seats which had begun to arise in France, such as Orleans and Toulouse, and even reopened indepen- dent schools at Angers, Poitiers, and Rheims. The English portion of the university went to Oxford and Cambridge, and Henry III. took advantage of the opportunity to invite the foreign masters also to with- UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 163 draw to England and take refuge under his protection. It is said that not a single master of any eminence remained in Paris. Notwithstanding the efforts of kings and bishops, including the thunder of excom- munication, Paris never quite recovered from this secession. But other towns gained by it, and Meiners (I think rightly) is of opinion that it was the migration to Oxford at this time which first converted Oxford into an "university," in the full sense of the term as understood in France and Italy. Those who, yielding to royal and papal pressure, ultimately returned to Paris, did so only on receiving the most solemn promises that satisfaction would be given. And as the Bishop and Chancellor of Paris had been among the chief offenders, the pope (Gregory IX.) restricted in all time coming the powers previously exercised by them over the university, but astutely made it, at the same time, more dependent on himself. We learn from this secession (and from those of Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, and Prague) that the early universities regarded themselves as autonomous organizations; that they consisted, in their own opinion, merely of a community or universitas of teachers and scholars, electing their own governors, regulating their own studies, and promoting their own candidates for degrees, without the necessary inter- vention even of a chancellor. The Nations. — I have already had to refer to the "nations" in general terms. Natural and obvious 1 64 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. causes led to the formation of these, at Paris as at Bologna ; but, like every other part of the university- organization, it was not till the beginning of the thirteenth century that they took their well-known historical form. All the students belonged to one or other of four nations — the Picard, the Norman, the French (which embraced Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, and Orientals), and the English (which embraced the English, Irish, Germans, Poles, and all others from the north of Europe). The "English" nation was subsequently called the German, probably because the secession from Paris and the growing fame of Oxford and Cambridge had lessened the proportion of students from England. The subdivisions of the nations were determined by the localities from which the students and masters came. Each subdivision elected its own dean, and kept its own matricula- tion-book and money-chest. The whole "nation" was represented, it is true, by the elected procurator ; but the deans of the subdivisions were regarded as important officials, and were frequently, if not always, assessors of the procurators. The procurators, four in number, were elected, not by the students as in Bologna and Padua, but by the students and masters. Each nation with its procurator and deans was an independent body, passing its own statutes and rules, and exercising supervision over the lodging- houses of the students. They had each a seal as distinguished from the university seal, and each pro- UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 165 curator stood to his " nation " in the same relation as the Rector did to the whole universitas. The Rector, again, was elected by the procurators, who sat as his assessors, and together they constituted the governing body ; but this for purposes of discipline, protection and defence of privileges chiefly, the consortium magistrorum regulating the sclwols. But so indepen- dent were the nations that the question whether each had power to make statutes that overrode those of the universitas, was still a question so late as the beginning of the seventeenth century. The complete organization of the nations, I have said, did not exist till the beginning of the thirteenth century. There were nations in the form of spon- taneous aggregations of students for mutual help and protection as early as the middle of the twelfth century, but there is no evidence that they had the formal constitution which I have briefly sketched till 1 200-1 220.* The Rector was originally head of the nations only as such, and as they existed for purposes of discipline and protection, he had consequently at first no authority in the general government of the university. His power was greatly increased when he became, not only Rector of the nations, but also of the Arts faculty, which he did before 1274. It is first in 1341 that he appears as head of the whole * According to Denifle, p. 106. I have deleted in my proof what I had said on the subject of " nations " in deference to the irresistible argument of this author. See preface to these lectures. i66 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. university, and that the form " Nos rector et universitas magistrorum et scholarium," is used. Long before that, the Chancellor, who was the original ofBcial head of the universitas, had been restricted to the conferring of degrees. That Paris should have been regarded throughout the Middle Ages as the mother of universities arose mainly from its cultivation of philosophy. For philosophy was then understood in a wide sense, including the rational interpretation of the phenomena of both mind and matter. A philosophical course thus afforded in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the widest possible culture. It was free from all professional and technical aims, except in so far as it ministered to theology, out of which it indeed arose, and for which the whole arts course was a preparation. When the separation of the specifically theological teaching took place, all the remaining studies continued to be classed, as formerly, under the common name of " arts." That the faculty was called the Faculty of "Arts" and not of " Philosophy," arose out of the historical continuity of the university with the old school of arts under William of Cham- peaux. In Germany the Faculty of Arts is to this day called the Faculty of Philosophy, and includes the pure sciences. At the beginning of the fourteenth century an university was r^arded as incomplete which did UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 167 not provide for instruction and graduation in all four faculties at least, and hold from the pope or some royal or imperial authority the power of doing so ; though, as a matter of fact, Bologna did not possess a faculty of theology till 1360, nor Padua till 1363. But in their beginnings the universities were wholly specialist schools, generally absorbing, however, into their teaching-organization the work of the local cathedral or municipal schools of arts. Montpellicr was the first great rival of Salernum as a medical school, though law also was from the first taught there. It became an university by charter in 1229. Toulouse dates as an university (or formally privileged school) from 1228. Orleans was late in obtaining formal recognition, not indeed till 1305, although it had been to all intents and purposes an university of civil law for a hundred and fifty years before this. There were also schools of law at Cahors, Angers, and Bourges. When we cast a retrospect over the past history and argument, we see, in the midst of some complexity of detail, certain things which stand out conspicuously and fix our attention. While recognizing the germ of the universities in the already existing arts schools, we yet see that the new institutions, in so far as they had the making of universities in them, early assumed a distinctive or specialized character. We further see i68 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. that they were commonwealths of learning, which simply assumed certain rights and privileges after- wards confirmed. The humblest student was a member of this commonwealth. Multitudes of regents may be almost said to have touted for pupils : these they carried forward to their first degree, and thereafter lectured to them as candidates for the mastership. The students led a free and uncontrolled life, seeking and finding protection in their own university authori- ties even from the civil power. There was an imperium in imperio. Every student had to be enrolled with some magister, but, subject to this, there was great freedom. The community was a respublica literaria in the fullest sense, and chose its own governors and regulated its own police as well as its own education. Any attempt to interfere with the complete autonomy of the university was stoutly resisted. "It would be," says Savigny,* "altogether erro- neous were we to look on the earliest universities of the Middle Ages as educational institutions in our modern sense — as foundations in which a monarch or a town might have in view the provision of in- struction for a native population, the admission of strangers being, however, recognized. It was not so. A teacher inspired by a love of teaching gathered round him a circle of scholars eager to learn. Other teachers followed, the circle of listeners increased, and thus by a kind of inner necessity an enduring school * "Geschichte des Romischen Rechts,'' xx. 58. UNIVERSITY OF FARIS. 169 was founded. How great must have been the reputa- tion and influence of such a school at a time when they were but few in number throughout Europe, and when oral instruction was nearly the only path to comprehensive knowledge ! How great the pride of the professors, how great the enthusiasm of the scholars, who perhaps had traversed Europe to spend long years in Paris and Bologna ! " Again, "the distinguishing traits of the student- life," says Le Clerc, speaking of Paris,* "the memories of which survived with singular tenacity, were poverty, ardent application, and turbulence. The students in the faculty of arts — 'the artists' — ^whose numbers in the fourteenth century, partly owing to the reputation of the Parisian trivium and quadrivium, and partly in consequence of the declining ardour of the theo- logians, were constantly on the increase, were by no means the most ill disciplined. Older students, those especially in the theological faculty, with their fifteen or sixteen years' course of study, achieved in this respect a far greater notoriety. At the age of thirty or forty the student at the university was still a scholar. This, indeed, is one of the facts which best explain the influence then exercised by a body of students and their masters over the affairs of religion and of the state. However serious the inconvenience and the risk of thus converting half a great city into a school, we have abundant evidence how great was • " Etat des Letties an xiv*. Siecle," i, 269, quoted by MuUinger. 170 MEDIAiVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the attraction exercised by this vast seminary, where the human intellect exhausted itself in efforts which perhaps yielded small fruit, though they promised much. To seekers for knowledge the whole of the Montagne Latine was a second fatherland. The narrow streets, the lofty houses, with their low arch- ways, their damp and gloomy courts, and halls strewn with straw, were never to be forgotten ; and when, after many years, old fellow-students met again at Rome, or at Jerusalem, or on the fields of battle where France and England stood arrayed for conflict, they said to themselves, Nos fuimiis simul in Garlandia ; or they remembered how they had once shouted in the ears of the watch the defiant menace, Allez ati clos Bruneau* vous trouverez d. quiparler ! " Note. — The constitution of the University of Paris, given by Crevier as existing in his own time (1761), had been for so long substantially the same as he gives it, that it may well be inserted here as a help to a knowledge of the constitution of universities generally. SCHEME OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. The University of Paris is composed of seven companies, viz. : The Faculty of Theology, with the oldest of its secular doctors for its chief, under the name of dean. The Faculty of Law, M'hich had been established for canon law only, but which is authorized by the Ordinance of 1679 to teach civil law also. It has its dean, who is chosen annually from its professors, following the order of seniority. The Faculty of Medicine, which has an elected dean whose office lasts two years. • The head-quarters of the schools of arts and canon law. UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 171 The Nation of France. The Nation of Picardy. The Nation of Normandy. The Nation of Germany, formerly of England. These four Nations have each their chief, who is called procurator, and is changed yearly. All these together form the Faculty of Arts ; but they no less consti- tute four distinct communities, each of which has its vote in the general affairs of the university. The rector chosen by the Nations or their representatives, and drawn from the body of the Faculty of Arts, is chief of the whole university and chief of the Faculty of Arts especially. Three principal officers who are perpetual, viz. : The Syndic — the Secretary and Registrar — the Treasurer : — all three officers of the university, and all three drawn from the Facultjr of Aits. 172 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE X. THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. The Terms " Studium GENERAtE " and " Universitas "— University Constitutions, etc. I HAVE endeavoured in past lectures to show, by reference to the three primary institutions — Salernum, Bologna, and Paris — how universities gradually came into existence as the expression of the reviving intellect of Europe, and for the satisfaction of new intellectual and social needs. Incidentally I have had to sketch the fundamental constitution of these first universities ; and in doing so, I have had, by im- plication at least, to interpret the nature of the con- stitutions by reference to their historical origins. From what has been said, it seems to follow that the notes of an university or studium generale are three: (i) That, whatever else it may include, it is a specialized school for men open to all ; (2) that there is free teaching and free learning ; (3) that it is a free autonomous organization of teachers and scholars. We shall best extend our view of mediaeval uni- THE CONSTITCrrWN OF UNIVERSITIES. 173 versities by an historical explanation of certain words : — Studium Generale or Publicum. — In a document addressed to Lewis the Pious, two or three years after the death of the great Charles, the bishops suggest the erection of scholce fublicce. At that time monas- tery schools, interior and exterior, existed, and epis- copal or cathedral schools were to be found at most of the episcopal seats. We are not to conclude that the bishops were aiming at the institution of some- thing different from either, and that they had in view specially lay schools such as the palatine. All they aimed at was an increase in the number of those schools, which would give to all who chose to attend them^ and not to ecclesiastics only, instruction in the liberal arts. Dr. Specht is of opinion that a "schola publica" meant a school which was not confined to the training of monks or of the clergy, but which afforded a wider curriculum in the arts (trivium and quadrivium) than was considered necessary for the ordinary preparation of the ecclesiastic. The liberal arts were sometimes spoken of as studia publica y (Specht, p. 37). A schola publica might thus be any episcopal or monastery school, provided it was practi- cally a gymnasium, and as such had retained, or rather revived, the traditions of those provincial high schools, which had been instituted by the Roman emperors in the first and second centuries, and fostered by their successors. There seems to be no doubt that at a 174 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. schola publica, a liberal course was given, but there can be as little doubt that the original signification of the word was simply " open to all." Accordingly, the word "publicum" was soon used with a twofold meaning. A "schola publica" was an arts school, and therefore a public school ; a public school, and therefore an arts school. It would appear that the new term "studium" arose only in the period immediately preceding the birth of universities, the addition publicum being understood. What we have for centuries called " universities " were first called sometimes " schola^' sometimes " universitates " with the addition of the words "magistrorum et scholarium." The name " studium genera,le " does not seem to have been used till the thirteenth century, and it meant simply a place where one or more of the liberal arts might be prosecuted, and which was open to all who chose to go there and study, free from the canonical or monas- tic obligations and control ; but the term " generale " did not convey that the liberal arts generally were taught The name " studium generale," however, ere long succeeded to the double meaning which had be- longed to "studium publicum," and meant both a school for liberal studies and a school open to alL When, therefore, Mr. Anstey (" Monumenta Aca- demica," Introd.), following others, translates generale as " a place of general resort for students,*' he takes a partial view of the meaning of the term as popularly understood by those who used it. THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 175 At Rome and Alexandria and Constantinople, to teach " publicly " was to teach in places of common resort and open to all, such as the exedrce of a palace or temple, as opposed to teaching in one's own house. This appears from the Valentinian edict regarding the school of Constantinople referred to in the first lecture. Universitas. — The term " universitas " had no connection witli " universale," and did not, any more than the word " generale," carry with it any reference to the universality of the curriculum of study. This is now beyond all question. It was again and again formally applied by popes and kings to institutions which made no pretension to teach the circle of knowledge. Mr. Anstey scarcely exaggerates when he says that " vestra universitas " in a papal rescript may often be translated simply "all of you." In running over the works of John of Salisbury, I find a letter (cdxi.), written in 1168 to the Conventus of the Ecclesia Cantuariensis, which begins thus: " Universitati sanctorum qui in prima Britannicirum sede . . . Domino famulantur," etc. In fact, the term "universitas" was in the earlier part of the Middle Ages applied to towns or communia reg^arded as oi^nized bodies ; hence its application by John of Salisbury to a conventus. As applied to a studium, it simply meant a community, the word being in- the course of time restricted to a learned com- munity — a universitas literaria. We learned in a 176 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. previous lecture that in Bologna the general uni- versitas of students divided itself into two sections — the universitas ultramontanorum and the universitas citramontanorum. When the popes issued letters of privilege to an university, they addressed it (as did Frederick in the case of the University of Naples, founded by him) as a universitas (or community) doctorutn et scholarium. Now, the mere epistolary reo^nition of these com- munities, by pope or monarch, as possessing certain privileges and internal rights of self-government, was practically their incorporation, and the term "uni- versitas " thus gradually acquired the signification of "incorporated community," at about the same time that it began to be restricted to learned institutions. The use of the term " universitas " by the pope was in no way influenced by the number of "faculties" or subjects in a Schola or Studium. The designation which corresponded to universitas as understood in more modem times was, in the thirteenth century, as I have stated, studium generale, and a studium generale might contain one or more universitates, e.g. uni- versitas artistarum, universitas juristarum, etc The earliest of the universities which did not grow, but was from the first founded, after older universities had fully developed their own constitutions, was that of Prague in 1347, and by that time the words "studium generale," which originally meant only a general and specialized school open to all, and THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 177 where public courses of lectures were delivered, had come to hold the secondary meaning of a school which comprehended all the recognized "faculties." The word "university" (universitas magistrorum et scholarium), it is interesting to note, was the word first used in official documents to designate the rising schools as differentiated from the studium or schola of the eleventh century, and, after passing through various connotations, it is now again always used. Constitutions. — In the eleventh century the towns in Italy and France were reviving or initiating their municipal constitutions, and seeking and obtaining choulers which gave the right of free popular govern- ment, and independence of feudal and episcopal interference. Nor was this all : for within the munici- palities themselves, the various trades were forming themselves, under the free impulse of a desire for self- government and self-defence, into guilds. Each trade elected its own administrators from among the masters in the trade. Whether they had formally obtained corporate rights or not, they assumed these, and had them afterwards recognized by the municipal or civil power. They acquired and administered property. Moreover, through their "jurors" or "syndics" they not only enforced the rules of the trade on their own members, but they exercised civil, and in some cases even aimed at exercising criminal, jurisdiction. This 178 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. last they tried to exercise in defiance of municipal authority, but they were soon compelled to restrict their jurisdiction to matters bearing on the rules of their crafts. The jurors acted as arbitrators between master and man, saw that the quality of work- manship was kept up, received taxes from members of the guild, examined apprentices, and initiated "masters." These jurors (sometimes called syndics, elders, guards, or wardens) were elected by the votes of the members of the craft The spirit of democratic freedom was particularly strong in the Italian muni- cipal republics, and, in Bologna especially, the guilds exhibited a feverish activity in the eleventh century. In the thirteenth century we find them confederated there under one powerful head. It was usual to call the head of a guild "rector," and when there grew up a federation, the general head was called "rector societatum." Let us now turn from the guilds and look at a studium generale in the twelfth century. Dis- tinguished teachers have drawn round them from every, part of Europe thousands of ardent pupils. These are supposed to be all working to obtain some learned or professional qualification, and they move among each other in a spirit of great freedom, and animated by a common purpose. Buildings and laboratories do not exist The master or doctor- regents teach where and when they can — generally in their own houses or hired rooms, or sometimes THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 179 (as in Paris) in the lodging-houses called "hostels," belonging to the English or Picard, or some other nationality. The students lead an almost uncon- trolled life, which too often tends to become a licentious and lawless one. In Paris and Oxford a large number are mere boys ; in Bologna and Padua, as students of law, they are of more mature years. Some sort of organization is manifestly needed, especially as the numbers increase. The practice of the free trade-guilds is present to the mind, and indeed to the eyes, of all. The students coming from the same quarter naturally stand together, and by the help of the masters of the same nationality con- stitute societies or nations, and at once proceed to elect their own chief. In Bologna, where the nations num- bered thirty-six in all, each nation elects a consiliarius, and as the interests of foreigners might sometimes clash with those of Italians, the nations coming from beyond the Alps combine into one large universitas of Ultramontanes, while tjje Italians combine into a universitas of Citramontanes. Each universitas, with the help of its own consiliarii, then elects its rector, and he and they quietly assume such powers of government and claim such rights as they see exercised by the guilds around them. In Paris they aggregate themselves into four nations, but, owing to the great youth of the students, it is the "masters" who control the organization. It is they i8o MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. who elect the procurators,* who again elect the rector, and together they constitute the governing body for all purposes of discipline and protection until the rise of separate faculties leads to the intro- duction of the decani or deans. Emanating from these authorities, statutes are from time to time passed for the regulation of the students, houses, funds, etc. They assume corporate rights, as did the guilds, and these in the course of time become recognized by pope, king, or emperor. Meanwhile the masters also form a consortium gradually breaking up into " faculties," and in Bologna strengthening themselves as collegia, f They regulate the studies and degrees. The literary universitates are lay in their character, like the guilds. They keep monks out of the rector- ship, and are as jealous of the local episcopal inter- ference as they are of civic control or of royal intrusion. As difficulties arise, they desire to protect themselves, as did constantly the monastic com- munities, from local tyranny, and they seek pro- tection from the pope as the universal father. Hence rescripts from Rome, acknowledging existing rights and privileges, and conferring new ones. The early universities were thus learned guilds which, soon after * Denifle seems to say that the students had a vote. Surely not those under the degree of baccalaureus ? t It is scarcely necessary to say that a collegium may exist without a building. THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. i8i their rise, begin to look to the pope (nothing loath) to shield them from both the ecclesiastical and civil power. Given the conditions which I have explained, this early organization was all quite simple and natural and obvious. The Rectors (not at first, but ultimately) exercised, along with their procurators in Paris and their consiliarii in Bologna, great and almost arbitrary power. They were assigned a high social position, and in some cases on great occasions took precedence even of archbishops and cardinals. Cardinal Newman, in his "Historical Studies," points out that even so early as the time of the pre- Christian schools of Athens there was a classification of the students into nations. Students would in those days range themselves under some sophist who came from their own part of the world, and call themselves by his name. Again, Viriville (" Hist, de I'ln. Pub.") says that at the Romano-Hellenic schools in Gaul, in the third and fourth centuries, there was a classifi- cation into nations, each of which had its procurator. Although these Roman provincial schools may have borrowed the practice from Athens, there is no evidence that the mediaeval universities were con- sciously reviving an ancient practice. Like causes, operating in similar circumstances, produce like qSects. Even at this day a movement very much akin to that which led to the formation of nations in mediaeval times may be noticed in the University of Edinburgh, to which, more than to any other British university. i82 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the colonies send students. Australia and Canada have their separate associations, and the students, as a body, have a representative council to attend to their interests.* The Chancellor resident at the university seat formally granted the degrees (or granted permission to grant them, for this is really what it meant in the case of the archdeacon at Bologna), and thus had a titular position. He, however, exercised very restricted powers at Paris from the first, except over the theological, and ultimately scarcely any ; in Bologna he was little more than a ceremonial and titular official ; but in Oxford and Cambridge he was a part of the governing body. An universitas was autonomous ; but the chancellor had always a certain position which entitles us to say that he at least reigned, if he did not govern, and in England he governed as well as reigned. Some have wished to deduce from the position occupied by this ecclesi- astical dignitary that the universities were originated by the Church, while others have as eagerly sought to minimize his position and authority in order to main- tain the thesis that the universities were a distinctively lay or secular development. This discussion arises out of a want of historical imagination. We may say that the Church originated chivalry as truly as that it originated universities. It saw the two social move- ments growing up around it out of the needs and * They ako by statute elect the Rector. THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 183 aspirations of the time, and it had no cause to be jealous of them ; for all were of the Church, all belonged to the community of the faithful. Accord- ing to the early mediaeval constitution, we must re- member, long before the days of Charlemagne, the bishop held high office alongside the lay governor of a town — the defensor. The latter was an elected head whose functions varied from time to time, but who generally seemed to combine in himself many of the functions of an English mayor and a French prefect. The bishop was, as early as the sixth century (at least), an imperial officer for certain temporal affairs, and discharged many functions in conjunction with the defensor. When Charlemagne feudalized the Church at the beginning of the tenth century, these secular episcopal powers were increased rather than diminished. Indeed, counties were, after this date, frequently known by the name of their dioceses, not dioceses by those of their counties. It was quite natural, therefore, that in seeking for a high official who should perform final ceremonial acts, the universities should seek the bishop, or, in his place, the chancellor of the diocese. Who else was there to ask ? Moreover, he already exercised educational supervision over the cathedral schools of arts, which were little more than secondary schools, but yet were the highest then known.* In England, and • To his precise relation to the licencia docendi I shall advert in the sec^uel. 10 l84 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. especially at Cambridge, we see brought distinctly into view the ecclesiastical nature and origin of the chancellor's functions. These, speaking generally, were a mere continuation of power over the scho- lastic institutions which preceded universities; and if the earlier universities sought at any time pro- tection from local ecclesiastical oppression, they went straight to the pope for it, thereby acknow- ledging their subordination to tlie highest Chunk tribunal. So far, then, universities were Church institutions. And yet, the universities were essentially autono- mous lay communities. It would be an anachronism, however, to speak of them as being a lay force antagonistic to the ecclesiastical. There was unques- tionably a growth of what may be called lay feeling in connection with the rise of universities, and this, indeed, was already visible in the order of chivalry ; but of actual antagonism to the ecclesiastical power there could be none. It is not to be supposed, of course, that the popes gave their protection without also interfering. But their interposition seems to have been very rarely arbitrary. While Rome was not the mother, she was yet the nurse of universities, and a kindly genial nurse. Honorius III. is said to have interdicted the study of medicine at Paris, but it was only for monks and the regular clergy that he forbade this .J5tudy, as well as that of civil law ; but in the department of medicine the bull became a dead letter. THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 185 Had there been any antagonism between the aims of universities and the papal policy, there can be no doubt of the immediate result : the infant institutions would have been at once and easily crushed out. Freedom from monastic restrictions for the new commonwealths of learning was never questionied ; and these commonwealths themselves wished for nothing so much as for the enrolment of their members among the clerici, so that thereby they might obtain ecclesiastical protection. Why should there be any objection on the part of the pope to the encouraging of new communities of clerici, who were neither monks nor secular priests, but who none the less were pursuing studies beneficial to their fellow- men, and who were, therefore, promoters of the aims of the Church itself — communities which, to use the words of Pope Honorius III., were "spreading everywhere the salutary waters of its doctrine, and irrigating and making fruitful the soil of the Church universal"? At any moment the Church could take action : its power was supreme and virtually arbi- trary : why should it invent restrictive laws ? Laws, moreover, are primarily for protection, though they may be used for oppression. Where law enters a constitution enters, and, with it, freedom. It can never be the true interest of a pure despot to make laws, for thereby arbitrary power is limited, and the decay of despotism has begun. It was not, indeed, till the Lutheran reformation that conflict between i86 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. universities and the papal power as hostile forces really arose, although long before that, and indeed always, the popes kept a watchful eye on possible heresies, especially in Paris, and frequently intervened in individual cases. Yet, in the main, medisval universities were regarded as defenders of the faith ; and, in return, the universities generally looked with confidence to Rome. But while recognizing the papal authority in the last resort, they were, yet, self- governed republics. To this day Cambridge calls itself in its calendar a " literary republic" The Rector actually ruled the university along with the consiliarii in Bologna and the procurators in Paris, although, in the latter city, the Chancellor of the primary theological school at Notre Dame continued to exercise certain powers, not very clearly defined, over the theological school,* and was at first and for long the head of the university. It was only by degrees that the Rector attained to the first place, having first to pass through the stage of being the official head of the Arts faculty as well as of the nations. • In Paris, after 1266, the rector might be elected either by the procurators or by four men chosen for this special duty ; and r^ulations made in 1281 evidently contemplated the possibility of the electors not being the acting procurators. In these regulations it is ordered that the electors shall be shut up in a room and not allowed to communicate with the external world until a wax candle of a prescribed length is burned to the socket. If they have not decided by that time, other electors are to be chosen. If two of these agree, the outgoing rector is to be called in to give his vote with them, and so make a majority. THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 187 Thus the Church allowed to grow up — nay, fos- tered — specialized schools of learning with republican constitutions, each of which, as it embraced a new faculty, became more and more powerful, until at last, combined, they led the thought of Europe, revived in men an interest in speculation, led to the asking of endless questions, and initiated that scientific spirit which finally rendered the Church in its mediaeval form for ever impossible as a Church universal. Out of this movement, set in motion by Constantinus and Anselm, by Berengar, Roscelin, Abelard, and Irnerius, we may fairly say grew the Oxford Reformers of the end of the twelfth century ; thereafter, Roger Bacon, Petrarch, Dante, WicklifTe, Huss, and, finally, the whole modern spirit. As heresies arose, the Church naturally tried to tighten its grip of universities, just as the civil power did in the face of political heresies. But with occasional lamentable defections, the history of universities is the history of freedom. The moment monasteries became organized, they formed centres of resistance to the tyrannical exercise of feudal power, and thus contributed to the growth of civil freedom quite as much as municipalities ; so, the moment the masters of learning became organized, they formed potent centres of resistance to ecclesi- astical, as well as to civil, despotism. They not only upheld, in the main, and notwithstanding occasi«nal cowardice, their own corporate rights of free organiza- tion and free thought, but they sent out thousands i88 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. annually to every part of Europe to fill the various pro- fessions, animated with some share of the academic spirit, and possessed of that virile independence of mind which it is one of the chief objects of universities to promote. Whether or not it will be possible for universities ultimately to maintain their freedom under a demo- cratic social system, is a grave question. The tendency of the democratic spirit is certainly to reduce great institutions, whether they be Churches or universities, to be tools of dominant though temporary opinion, or servants of a central bureau.* The importance, in the interests of liberty, of in- stitutions endowed with rights and privileges is apt to be lost sight of on the occasion of every successive wave of fanaticism. Fanaticism is always unhistorical : it looks neither to the past nor the future. It has no perspective. The present fills its eye and shuts off all else. The experience of France is not encouraging, where, under democratic influences, the ancient uni- versity has become a mere administrative body under the direct control of the state, and where the pro- fessors and faculties have no independent powers, no uniting bond, no common life, and where the idea of an autonomous commonwealth, or republic of letters, has utterly disappeared. •"Even in our own days we have seen a radical member of Parlia- ment propose to starve out the head of a university because he did not agree with him on some passing, but exciting, question of educational politics I TBE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 189 To sum up : like the guilds of the Middle Ages, the university communities were republics, the nations ; being the primary source of power as regards disci-' pline and privilege, and the masters as regards studies. ,. They freely elected their own rulers and judges, and, as we shall shortly see, examined and promoted their ; own apprentices. They regulated their own studies v and their whole inner policy. At Paris, however, the " masters " were the true source of power. At Bologna and Padua the case was very different, but it was to the too democratic constitution of Bologna, combined with the municipal narrow-mindedness which gave a preference to natives in granting the doctorship, that Bologna owed its fall. Even the Paris constitution, in which a governing body of rector, procurators, and ultimately, also, deans of faculty, were elected by the members of the university, may seem democratic enough. But lest any one should think of drawing an argument from the Paris constitution in favour of larger powers being given to the graduates of our modern universities than they now have, I would point out that the masters who elected the university governors were all engaged in the business of teaching or administration. The Parisian magistri non-regentes had, however, a voice in important deliberations ; at least this is to be in- ferred from the assembly called in 1259 to consider the pope's order to admit members of certain monastic orders and the scholars they examined and promoted, 190 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. to the privileges of university teachers. But it was only when specially called that the magistri non- regentes took part in the assemblies, and a rule to this effect was made in 131 5, at Paris. In the Universities of Prague and Vienna — the earliest universities, ex- cept Palentia and Naples, formally founded {ah initio) — the source of government was more and more restricted to the faculties and the masters actually engaged in university work. As it was in Paris so it was in Cambridge, and indeed all universities, with some modifications. Dean Peacock (as quoted by MulHnger) says, " The enactments of these statutes would lead us to conclude that in the earliest ages of the university the regents alone, as forming the acting body of academical teachers and readers, were authorized to form rules for the regulation of the terms of admission to the regency, as well as for the general conduct of the system of education pursued, and for the election of the various officers who were necessary for the administration of their affairs. We consequently find that if a regent ceased to read, he immediately became an alien to the governing body, and could only be admitted to resume the functions and exercise the privileges of the regency after a solemn act of resumption, accord- ing to prescribed forms, and under the joint sanction of the chancellor of the university and of the house of regents. The foundation, however, of colleges and halls towards the close of the thirteenth and beginning THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. igi of the fourteenth century, as well as the establishment of numerous monasteries within the limits of the university, with a view to participation in its franchises and advantages, increased very greatly the number of permanent residents in the university, who had either ceased to participate in the labours of the regency, or who were otherwise occupied with the discharge of the peculiar duties imposed upon them by the statutes of their own societies. The operation of these causes produced a body of non-regents, con- tinually increasing in number and importance, who claimed and exercised a considerable influence in the conduct of those affairs of the university which were not immediately connected with the proper function of the regency ; and we consequently find that at the period when our earliest existing statutes were framed, the non-regents were recognized as forming an integrant body in the constitution of the university, as the house of non-regents, exercising a concurrent jurisdiction with the house of regents in all questions relating to the property, revenues, public rights, privi- leges, and common good of the university. Under certain circumstances, also, they participated with the regents in the elections ; they were admitted likewise to the congregations of the regents, though not allowed to vote ; and in some cases the two houses were formed into one assembly, which deliberated in common upon affairs which were of great public moment" 192 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Even to the most republican academic mind of mediaeval times, the suggestion which we see made in these days in Scotland, that university governors should be chosen by graduates scattered all over the world, who are engaged in pursuits which make it im- possible for them to maintain acquaintance with the circumstances and needs of their alma mater, would have seemed, as it unquestionably is, supremely ridicu- lous. Such a system could have only one result, the handing over of the graduate vote to a few non- regents resident at the university seats. On the other hand, it has to be admitted that the professors or acting-masters are now so few in number, and have so strong an interest in perpetuating what is for their own advantage, with which it is always easy for human nature to identify the general academic welfare, that it is not for the public interest that they should exercise more than a restricted power in the government. In searching for a governing body, accordingly, we cannot well do better than base it on university citizenship generally, provided we secure for the teaching body {magistri actu regentes) sufficient, though not necessarily predominant, power, and above all include representatives of the Crown. For I would point put that universities do not exist for the localities in which they are situated, but for the nation and the empire. My conviction is that if the power of the pro- fessorial faculties, sitting as a senate or consortium THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 193 magistrorum, were not felt, as it is now in Scotland, in every part of the body academic, especially in the organization of studies and in examinations, the uni- versities would soon degenerate into mere examining boards, and the professors be degraded into tutors. There would thus be revived the old regenting, the abolition of which was the beginning of the philo- sophic and scientific life of our northern universities more than 150 years ago. The Scottish universities are now, it is interesting to note, the only true continuators of the mediaeval organization, for they; recognize the following elements as constituting the "university" : (i) the students, (2) the graduates (or magistri non-regentes), (3) the pro- fessors (or magistri regentes), (4) the rector, and (s) the chancellor. The supreme governing body is the Court, but the body which practically governs — the Court having only carefully defined and restricted powers — is the Senatus Academicus ; in other words, the principal and the professors of the four faculties. The Court, again, draws its members from the students, who elect a rector to be head of the Court, he further appointing an assessor; from the Senatus, whose principal sits in the Court, ex officio, and is accompanied by a representative of the Senatus ; from the general body of graduates, called the " Council," who elect an assessor ; and from the Chancellor who elects an assessor, but does not himself sit.* • In Edinbui^h, owing to the traditionary connection of the 194 MEVIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Any refonn of the supreme governing and appellate court that would give it increased powers, must, of course, be preceded by increasing its numbers and influence. This can best be done by increasing the representatives of the various constituent elements of the university already raognized, adding Crown nominees in the general interests of the state. To admit representatives of " public bodies " is the be- ginning of the end as regards the free and republican character of universities. Alien government would destroy entirely the Universitas and convert it into a college. Better that our old universities should become a department of State at once than accept such degradation. But let the " people" bear in mind that a " department of State " is only another name for a political instrument The autonomy of uni- versities is of more importance to the future liberties of our country than the autonomy of mimcipalitiesL niuTeisitf with the mimicipality, the provost of the city and a repre- sentatire of the town cotmcil are also members. The Scottish imiTeisty coDstitntion will be seen to be a remarkaMe sorriral of medianral organization. LECTURE XI. STUDENTS, THEIR NUMBERS AND DISCIPLINE — PRIVILEGES OF UNIVERSITIES — FACULTIES. When one hears of the large number of students who attended the earliest universities — 10,000, and even 20,000 at Bologna, an equal, and at one time, a greater, number at Paris, and 30,000 at Oxford — one cannot help thinking that the numbers have been ex- aggerated. There is certainly evidence that the Oxford attendance was never so great as has been alleged (see Anstejr's " Mon. Acad.") ; but when we consider that attendants, servitors, college cooks, etc., were regarded as members of the university community, and that the universities provided for a time the sole recognized training-grounds for those wishing to enter the ecclesi- astical, or legal, or teaching professions, I see no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the tradition as to attendance, — especially when we remember that at Paris and Oxford a large number were mere boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age. The chief objection to accepting the tradition lies in the difficulty of seeing how in those days so large 196 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. a number of the youth of Europe could afford the expense of residence away from their homes. This difficulty, however, is partly removed when we know that many of the students were well to do, that a considerable number were matured men, already monks and canons, and that the endowments of cathedral schools also were frequently used to enable promising scholars to attend foreign universities.* Monasteries also regularly sent boys of thirteen and fourteen to the university seats. A papal instruction of 1335 required every Benedictine and Augustinian community to send boys to the universities in the proportion of one in twenty of their residents. Then, f State authorities ordered free passages for all who were wending their way to and from the seats of learning. In the houses of country priests — not to speak of the monastery hospitia— travelling scholars were always accommodated gratuitously, and even j local subscriptions were frequently made to help them on their way. Poor travelling scholars were, in fact, a mediaeval institution, and it was considered no dis- grace for a student to beg and receive alms for his support One result of this was, as might have been expected, the production of a large number of tramps who called themselves students, and who wandered about over Europe and lived on the charitable. They were little better than sturdy beggars and idle vaga- * I am disposed to think that guild funds were also sometimes so applied. PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. 197 bonds, and as such gave no small trouble to the monasteries and towns and villages at which they halted* I cannot find that in the first two centuries of universities, before the foundation of colleges, students were under very strict discipline. They were under surveillance, however ; they had to attach themselves to some magister, and breaches of university rules were sharply punished by the rector. Then the larger " nations " were composed of numerous smaller sections, which had their own officials, matriculation- books and money-chests, and the hostels or boarding- houses of these nations had a " master" as superinten- dent There were certainly many scandals and much licence — especially, of course, among those who frequented Paris and Bologna and Oxford without a serious purpose of study. It is this class now which alone gives trouble to university authorities, and causes, I presume, the maintenance at Oxford and Cambridge of rules and restrictions originally framed for little boys or licentious youths. It was for dis- ciplinary, as well as for literary and charitable objects, that colleges within the universities subsequently arose. ' It IS interesting and instructive, in this connection, to recall the discipline of Rome (and doubtless also of Constantinople) under imperial rule. The edict * Events repeat themselves. Valentinian had to issue an edict directed against pseudo-philosophers who frequented the larger provincial towns in the end of the fourth century — the wandering sophists. Our i modern tramp, too, is always a respectable artisan, " in search of work." 198 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. of Valentinian, issued in 370, makes more explicit a system which had existed in more or less force for 250 years. This edict (Theod. Cod., xiv. tit. ix.), brief as it is, may be said to constitute the complete corpus of university statutes of imperial times. It first re- quires that the young student shall bring with him from a provincial judge or the rector of a province a certificate of character and of his age and country, which shall be presented to the Magister Census. This is equivalent to our modern matriculation. He must distinctly state what studies he means to pursue, I and enter himself for these. The censor is required to j keep a record of lodgings, and to see that they are fit places for young lads to live in : he is also to keep an eye on their conduct and their associates, and see that they do not too much frequent public places of - amusement, or convivial entertainments. If a student I misconducts himself, he is to be flogged and put on board a ship and sent to his parents. None are allowed to continue their studies beyond their twentieth year, at which age they have to return to their homes.* Monthly inquiries are to be made at the residences of the students, and an annual report sent to the emperor, that he may know the qualifications of each, and judge "utrum quandoque nobis sint neces- sarii." This annual report must have been a powerful inducement to study, as the commendation of a • As the study of law extended over five years, the students must liave come up very young. PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. 199 student would lead to his employment in the public service.* Privileges. — I suppose China and Athens, prior to the Roman period, are the only countries which, recognizing the importance of education, yet made no provision for it by way of either endowment or privilege. The former relied, and continues to rely, on State examinations, which, if passed, bring State employment and social position to an extent not dreamt of by the student of the empire or of me- diaeval times ; the latter relied on the public spirit of the citizens and the supervision of the court of the Areopagus. In the former case the result is what we see ; in the latter, the " adventure " system suc- ceeded because of the restricted field, the genius of the Hellenic race, and peculiarly favourable conditions. Like many of the characteristics of the earliest^ universities, the privileges conferred had their parallel in ancient laws or customs. Among privileges I may include fixed salaries paid by the State. Vespasian is held to have been the first who ordered to be paid out of the public treasury \ salaries to professors at * Justinian also held out this inducement. His words were (Prooem. Instit), " Summa igitur ope at alacri studio has leges nostras accipite ; et vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite ut spes vos pulcherrima foveat, toto legitime opere perfecto, posse etiam nostram rempublicam in partibus ejus vobis credendis gubernari." t The payment made to Quintilian prior to this was rather, I think, of the nature of a pension, out of what we should call the " privy purse." See, however, the reference to Grafenhahn in l.ecture I. 200 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Rome, and in the more important provincial towns. Successive emperors confirmed and extended this law, doubtless originally suggested by the constitution of the Ptolemaic schools of Alexandria. Gratian, so late as A.D. 376, also issued an edict regarding the salaries of professors {annoncB, stipendia, salarid). If not at the time of Vespasian, certainly not long after, immunities were also granted. The Medici and the professors of liberal arts, who taught in the Roman Capitol and large provincial towns, were exempted from imperial taxes, from service in war, and from discharging municipal duties except when they were desirous to do so. These privileges were, of course, extended to the University of Constantinople. Constantine, in his edict of A.D. 321, continues and confirms past privileges as they had existed in all parts of the empire (vide Theod. Cod., iii. tit iiL i). ,He also protects professors from all insult and injury by the threat of severe fines to be imposed on offenders. These privileges and immunities extended to the persons and property of the wives and children. I In the West, senatorial rank was frequently, if not indeed always, conferred on the professors of the Capitol. The object of conferring such privileges is well summed up in the Theodosian Code, iii. 3 (A.D. 333), in the following words : " Quo facilius Hberalibus studiis et memoratis artibus multos instituant" When Christianity was recognized by Constantine, he extended these academic privileges to the new PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. 201 nation of the Clerus. " The whole body of the Catholic clergy," says Gibbon, c xx. (and I may add this in- cluded servitors in churches), " more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted from all service private or public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions which pressed on their fellow- citizens with intolerable weight, and the duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the republic." Thus the immunities of the learned class passed, but in a more extended form, to the clerical. These privileges of the Clerus continued through- out the Middle Ages, and still to some extent survive. When the new universities, i.e., communities of teachers and scholars, arose, most of the former already be- longed to the clergy, and it was natural, on this and on other grounds, that they should assume clerical privileges for the whole body of scholars, with the expectation that the assumption would pass un- questioned or be confirmed by pope or prince at some future time. To what extent the clergy as individuals were free from taxes in the twelfth century I do not know ; but the chief privilege, which covered many minor ones, was the right of internal jurisdiction, which had gradually been acquired under the canon law, though not originally contemplated by the Roman emperors either of the East or West. We are in these days naturally surprised that such things should be possible as the exercise of civil and criminal jurisdic- 202 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. tion over the students by university authorities. But when we realize that the guilds frequently exercised a similar authority over their members, and could interpose their protection against the interference of either municipal or feudal authority, we should rather be surprised if the new guild of scholars and teachers had not laid claim to those privileges of internal government which they saw existing both in guilds and in monastic orders, and in the Church generally. " In the Middle Ages," says Freeman,* " every class of men, every district, every city, tried to isolate itself within a jurisprudence of its own.'' The word " clericus " was accordingly applied, not merely to the ministers of the Church and those in preparation for the ministry, but to all educated persons. ' Cleric or clerk was opposed, not to the laity, but to the illiterate laity. A simple deacon or monk was, as such, not a priestt For the in- struction of the laity during the Middle Ages, as we have seen, little was done, or, indeed, could be done. " Benefit of clergy " meant the right to be judged by an ecclesiastical tribunal. Accordingly, when students obtained the privilege of being judged by the uni- versity authorities alone, this was merely a natural extension of a practice already existing within the ecclesiastical order. Frederic of Barbarossa granted, * "Historical Essays," 1st series, p. loS. t Thomas 4 Beclcet was not a priest till he was appointed to the primacy. PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. sai in 1 158, to all students, wherever they were, the right to be judged coram domino aut magistro suo vel ipsiiis civitatis episcopo, and this privilege was further ex- tended even to the postal messengers of students. Thus, curiously enough, privileges originally con- ferred on scholars had passed to the Church, and . having been aggrandized in its hands, returned again to scholars.* Faculties. — The word " faculty" has been sometimes regarded with a feeling amounting to superstition, and this even by university reformers. It primarily means " the power of doing something." To this day, in ' the Church of England, a vicar or rector has to obtain a "faculty" from his ecclesiastical superiors to effect certain changes. The word, in this ecclesi- astical application, is equivalent to dispensation. The word " faculty " was originally used (in mediaeval times) as equivalent to knowledge, alsp as equivalent to study with a view to special knowledge, and further it was applied to any subject of study. In Frederick II.'s Neapolitan statutes, those who mean to be merely surgeons, and not medici, are ordered to attend for one year the masters qui chirurgia facultatem. in- struunt, which I translate as "who instruct in the knowledge of chirurgy." * As in the earlier part of tlie Middle Ages the Roman provincials, and the population of Teutonic origin, frequently lived in the same town, each under its own laws (Savigny), the separate jurisdiction of universities would not appear to contemporaries so inconsistent with social order as it does to us. 204 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. In later times the word was used to denote a specific body within the university. Sir W. Hamilton defines ("Discussions," p. 490) a "faculty" as a body of teachers who had the privilege of lecturing on a department of knowledge and of examining in it. In this definition Hamilton follows Bulaeus. Du Cange more correctly defines it as those teaching and studjung the same group of subjects. And it is so wenow_£0£ularly regard it. Until some time after the bull of Gregory IX., in 1 23 1, what are now known as distinct "faculties" were all Arts studies. The bull of that year speaks of the various studies, including medicine ; but when it uses the word "faculty" it uses it as equivalent merely to department of knowledge. Medicine and law were both originally classed under the general head of " liberal arts." The masters of the several departments of study, however, had been in the habit of meeting for business connected with their depart- ment long before they were recognized formally as faculties (just as now happens in Edinburgh, in the department of science, which is not yet technically a faculty) ; and in the "littera universitatis " of 1254, to which I have previously referred, the four " faculties " are named ; but not in the sense of separate corpora- tions. It was the formal constitution of a theological "faculty" in Paris apart from the arts faculty, in 1259-60, which first led to the separate incorporation of the other faculties in that university. When faculties FRIVILEGEH AND FACULTIES. 205 were at last formally constituted, they were, to all intents and purposes, universities within a university. Each elected its own dean, and these deans thereafter sat as part of the governing body, along with the rector and procurators. In 1277, we first, in an act of the University of Paris, find the words " with the consent of the four faculties.'' By that time each had its dean and seal. The medical faculty had a dean in 1265 — always the senior doctor till 1338, after which the Dean was an elected officer. The rise of faculties naturally broke up the republi- can organization as based on " nations " exclusively, but that organization never at any time controlled the "masters" in Paris to the extent which it did in Bologna. And, indeed, in both places the regulation oi studies and promotions was in the hands of the magistri. Some- times there were five faculties, or even six — canon law constituting a faculty, as distinct from civil law. The only faculties generally recognized in Paris were our traditionary four. There is no reason, however, why there should not be twenty faculties in a uni- versity. Wherever the studies in arts for a degree are broken up into specialized sections, there we have a "faculty," whether we call it by that name or not In Oxford and Cambridge, Arts students can now graduate in half a dozen different ways. Each of these ways is really a " faculty ; " nay, we may say that each subject is a faculty. There is no reason, in the nature of either things or words, why we should 2o6 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. not speak of the " faculty of English," or the " faculty of mathematics," or the " faculty of Latin." It may, perhaps, be better, however, "in these days to keep the tiaditional " four faculties," and to institute as many " sub-faculties " as the circumstances of a university may demand. It is an historical blunder to separate the pure sciences from the general designation " arts." The words of Bulaeus in defining faculty are, Facultatis vero nomine quod ad regimen et administra- tionem attinet, intelligimus corpus et sodalitium. pluri- morum magistrorum certce alicui disciplines addictum sine uHa distinctione nationis (i. 251). But he after- wards (iii. 83) considers it essential to a faculty that it should have its own seal, its own private comitia, and a caput or decanus. Meiners further adds that the essential prerogative of a faculty was the right to examine entrants, and candidates for degrees in its own subject or group of subjects. But long before "faculties" existed in any formal sense, examinations were held and licences (or degrees) conferred in the various differentiated subjects of study. At first, the several masters of theology, or law, or arts exercised the right of examining and of presenting for promotion aspirants in their respective departments (this right, however, being on some occasions apparently shared with the chancellor), and the informal coming together of the masters of a subject to promote their candi- dates constituted the first germ of a faculty. The next step was for the masters to meet to discuss matters PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. ■2a^ affecting the studies in which they were specially interested ; and finally, the body of masters profess- ing a certain subject or group of subjects formally constituted themselves, elected a dean or head, and began to make statutes, to collect and hold fees, and to act in all respects as corporations or universitates within the larger corporation of the universitas. Thus the rise of faculties was closely connected with the teaching and graduation system. Originally it would appear that the master who taught or re- gented the boy-students also conferred on them the B.A. degree. Afterwards, when faculties were organ- ized, it was the privilege of each faculty to examine their own candidates and to confer the bachelorship. The faculty also examined and promoted its licen- tiates or masters, the Chancellor being little more than the channel through which their decision as to the fitness of a candidate was ceremonially confirmed and announced. I have been speaking chiefly of Paris. In Bologna it is uncertain at what date the doctors of civil and canon law acted as separate bodies for purposes of promotion and other business. They existed as separate bodies in the thirteenth century, with the designation of " colleges," and were followed by phi- losophical, medical, and theological colleges. These colleges, corresponding to the Parisian faculties, con- sisted of the " masters " alone. The head was always called " prior " in Italy, not dean. 11 2o8 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. The above statement exhibits generally the rise and nature of faculties. The first separation of a " faculty " arose in Paris out of a quarrel. Regular examinations and promotions had been in operation in Paris for nearly a hundred years,* when the Franciscan and Dominican monks in 1243 demanded that the pupils taught by them in their cloister schools, and examined and promoted by them, should be admitted as members of the university, and to all its privileges. This would seem to have been an attempt on the part of what we should in these days call an extramural school to constitute itself a part of the university, and at the same time to transfer theo- logical teaching to the hands of monks. The pope supported the claim, and, in spite of the strong reluctance of the university, it had ultimately to yield, merely securing for Arts precedence in all public acts and ceremonies. The monks then entered into a union with the secular teachers of theology, and, forming with them a separate body, elected a dean as their head. This movement to form a "faculty" was now strenuously encouraged by the university Arts masters, who were virtually already separated into faculties of medicine and arts or philosophy, as it more clearly distinguished them from the monkish element in the university, which they hated. But the immediate result was that the medical masters and * According to Meiners (i. 80) ; but the consolidation of the rules for promotion occurred in 1215. PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. 209 the masters of canon law formed similar associations, each electing its dean. The formation of the theo- logical faculty took place in 1259-60, and that of the medical faculty must have followed very closely, be- cause there existed a medical dean in 1265, and in 1270 they inflicted a punishment on one of their members for the breach of a statute. They, certainly, had a seal in 1274. In 1271, the law faculty had a seal. The period 1260-70, then, may be fixed as the date of the formal constitution, but not the rise, of the three faculties of theology, law, and medicine — afterwards called the three " higher " faculties, to dis- tinguish them from " arts." It was not, however, till 1281 that the faculties were fully recognized in the sense that their separate acts were held to be university acts. The above narrative suggests to us the question of precedence among the faculties. If this is to be determined by the date of their origin, arts has a strong claim, as it was out of arts that all the specialized schools called universities grew, and certainly at Paris it contained within itself the specialized schools as artes liberates before there was any formal differentiation. But, on the other hand, the evidence we' have is in favour of Salernum as being the earliest school of a really advanced or university type,* and of Bologna as being at least • Unless we date the Paris University from William of Champeaujc. 210 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. contemporaneous with Paris — law with arts. The- ology comes last at Bologna, that is to say, as a distinct school from arts ; and this in 1 260. Ques- tions of precedence are, however, to be settled by the sovereign or supreme authority from which uni- versities hold their title. If we accept the pope as supreme authority, we shall find that, in the earliest letters addressed to Paris, he names theology first and (canon) law next. On the ground of antiquity, and of its being one of the so-called " higher " faculties, medicine should come third, and arts last of all — the studies in arts as far as the baccalaureateship (and for theology the mastership) being for centuries regarded as preliminary to the studies of the other faculties. It might now, however, and with historical truth, be urged that the " arts," or, to use the German term, the " philosophical," faculty, may be held to embrace all studies that have not necessarily any direct pro- fessional bearing — such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, philology, literature, philosophy, biology, geology, history, political economy, etc., and that they thus occupy a higher position in the temple of know- ledge than subjects directly practical or professional in their relations. A difficulty would again, however, here present itself For not only are chemistry and botany and zoology regarded as part of professional medical training, but so, still more, are physiology and anatomy, which yet are pure sciences. Pathology, in its modern development, is also a pure science. PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. 211 The institutes of law, again, is a purely scientific study, but forms part, or ought to form part, of the professional equipment of the practising barrister. To determine so complex a question on general principles would, I suspect, be impossible. His- torically, we can only fall back on the terms of charters as issued by the sovereign, and on the whole question I would refer the reader to the " History of the University of Prague " (vid. seq). When the organization reached maturity, there existed in Paris the general body of the four nations, regarded as the Faculty of Arts, constituting, as such, the supreme governing authority of the university, and to which all students were held to belong till they attained the mastership or doctorship in one of the three " higher " faculties, when they seem to have ceased to belong to Arts.* From the general adminis- tration of the university, the higher faculties were, as such, at first excluded ; but they resented this, and ere long, as I have shown, they received a governing position for their deans side by side with the rector and the procurators of nations, and carried on two or three centuries of discussion as to the right of the primary Faculty of Arts to four votes in public as- semblies as representing the ancient four nations. (For the final organization, see note appended to lecture on Paris.) The direct power of the nations in the government • But this is doubtful 212 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. of the universities was, as we see, seriously affected by the constitution of faculties ; but before this, the rise of colleges must have had a tendency to divide the interests of members of the same nation. Before leaving the subject of faculties, it is worth while here to point out that, when the papal bulls authorized the institution of degrees " in quacunque liciti facultate," this was not done to restrict the growth of faculties, but merely to exclude an " illicit " faculty or study, such as necromancy and witchcraft. Among the autonomous powers of a university are the consti- tuting of faculties and the institution of additional regents or professors, except in so far as these powers may have been specifically restricted by an act of State. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, France and Italy and England had had considerable expe- rience of universities. It was in this centur)', the fourteenth, the epoch of the first reformation and revival of letters, that sovereigns began to see the importance of founding universities in their own do- minions, so as to give to them some of the dignity of learning, and to obviate the necessity, up till then im- posed on their subjects, of travelling to distant coun- tries in order to be trained for the various professions. The pope also was, for various reasons, glad of an opportunity to lower the troublesome pretensions of Paris. In this centuiy, accordingly, fifteen universities FKIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. 213 were founded. In the fifteenth century, twenty-nine. Many of these never rose above the position of minor colleges, and have since disappeared. If we wish to see the conclusions to which the academic mind of Europe had been led, after many fluctuations and intestine contests, as to the constitution and adminis- tration of universities, we cannot do better than look at the organization given to the first of the uni- versities which was deliberately founded after things had settled down — that of Prague. Its organization will also, I think, throw a retrospective light on the previous history and constitution of the earlier seats of learning which had gradually grown up.* * If we had the materials, something alsQ might be learned from the original organization of the University of Salamanca in Spain, which was founded by Alfonso VIII. in 1212-14, in Palentia, and transferred before 1230 to its present seat by Alfonso's grandson. But it is probable that the University of Naples has already given us all that Salamanca would yield.' * Denifle seems to regard Palentia and Salamanca as quite separate and independent erections. 214 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE XII. GRADUATION. This is a difficult and complex subject, but I shall endeavour to state, as clearly as the subject admits of, the conclusions to which I have come. Graduation was, in the mediaeval universities, simply the conferring of a qualification and right to teach (or, in the case of medicine, to practise), given after a certain length of attendance at an university, and an examination conducted by those already in the position of teachers. The earliest reference to a formal qualification for the office of instructor known to me is contained in a Valentinian edict of 329. The immunities granted to oratores and other professors led to the assumption of the title by many who wished to share in the privi- leges of the professorial class, while wholly without claim to belong to it. These pseudo-philosophers, who wandered about from one provincial city to another and gave themselves great airs, were to be appre- hended and sent back to their own countries " exceptis GRADUATION. 215 his qui, a probatissimis adprobati, ab hac debuerunt conluvione secerni." It does not appear what steps were taken to give effect to this decree. In the Theodosian Code the generic title of all higher teachers is " professor," but as equivalent to this we find the words " magister " and " doctor." In one edict (Theod. Cod., xiii. iii. 16) the expression "prse- ceptor" is reserved for the professor of philosophy, the others being designated Grammatici, Oratores, Rhetores, Jurisperiti, etc. In considering the subject of mediaeval graduation, two antecedent customs furnish both a point of de- parture and an interpretation. These are, first, that certainly in the eleventh century, if not earlier, the chancellor of a cathedral, or, in his stead, the scho- lasticus, granted a licencia or facultas docendi. The one or the other was the titular head of the school.* The conditions we do not know. Secondly, the mem- bers of a guild corporation were divided into three dis- tinct classes — apprentices, assistants or companions, and masters. These assistants were in France frequently called gar^ons or compagnons de devoir. As a general rule, the gargons were not admitted to the grade of " master " until they had performed some special task assigned to them, during the performance of * Sometimes the archdeacon. At what date I do not know, but certainly before 1150, the chancellor or scholasticus was compelled to grant the licence to all competent persons. How the " competency " was determined does not appear. 2i6 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES which they were kept apart from their fellows. It was only if this chef d'cBuvre was found satisfactory that they were installed as master — 3, ceremony which was generally followed by a banquet The gargon who obtained his mastership obtained thereby for the first time freedom to exercise his trade or craft, and all the rights of a member of the guild Let us consider now what the specific function of universities was, and we shall be at once struck by the analogy of their inner constitution with that of the guilds. In their beginnings the aim of the young commu- nities, at Salernum, Bologna, and Paris, was simply to instruct those who wished to practise medicine, law, or theology. There were no specific titles. At Salernum the student went forth to the world simply as a medicus, as he did in the imperial times. When the organization became more settled a formal ex- amination had to be passed.* The teachers were called sometimes magistri, sometimes doctores, these terms being quite generically used, and not yet being confined to teachers who had graduated. Frederick in 1224 statutes "imprimis quod in civitate predicta (Naples) doctores et magistri erunt in qualibet facul- tate." Master and doctor are still in this statute used generically, and they were to be found, as a matter of • I am not aware that any candidates who had fulfilled the require- ments as to attendance and study and were recommended by their master were ever "plucked." GRADUATION. 217 course, in every faculty as it arose. Even the licentiate of the faculty of theology was long known simply as "master," not "doctor," in England as well as on the continent of Europe. Just as the mastership in a guild conferred freedom to practise, so the form which the certificate of completed study took in Salernum was a licencia medendi. But as these medici were then held to be " masters " in their art, they constantly carried with them into ordinary life the title of " magister," just as in these days a B.M. or CM. is popularly called a " doctor." In Bologna the teachers were called "doctores." In Paris, again, and in England they were called "magis- tri." As the various faculties differentiated them- selves, the terih -f^niagister " became ultimately con- fined to arts, and "doctor" was assigned to those who, having completed their art studies (usually at the age of twenty-one), had further qualified in the special studies of theology, law, or medicine. But to reach so advanced an organization as this required a century and a half. The various universities, being familiar with each other's practices, gradually borrowed the one from the other. The University of Paris, how- ever, led the rest of Europe, and generally had its authority recognized without question, as the mother of universities.* When a formal recognition crowned the student's course, the guild practice ruled at Paris, as we have • Although in France itself Bologna had more influence than Paris. 2i8 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. said it did at Naples and Salemum ; for the ceremony was simply the granting of a liceitcia docendi* in other words, conferring the freedom of a craft. It is true that in Paris the induction into the "mastership" was distinct from that of obtaining the licence, but the licence conveyed the right to the mastership. There was no fresh trial for the title of " magister ; " it was merely a formal admission by the other masters into their body — the ceremonial of investing with cap and gown, followed by some festivity. Here, again, the guild installations seem to have largely influenced university practice.-f Further, the trial for the licence or mastership, by public disputations against all comers in presence of the other masters of the university, was analogous to the chef d^ceuvre that the aspirant to the mastership of a craft had to submit to the judgment of the jurors of his craft. Our position is further illustrated by the minor title or degree which had arisen at Paris — Baccalauretis Artium. The "Arts" schools seem, in university towns, to have been gradually absorbed into the university organization, which, indeed, itself originally either grew out of them or in connection with them. • I am not aware that the Salernitan words licencia medendi were used at Paris. t Albertus Magnus was thirty-five years of age before he was " doctored " by the University of Paris in 1228, but this was a special case, and probably simply an honorary admission to the body of theolo- gical teachers. GRADUATION. 219 Boys from all parts attended the Magistri Artium of the Parisian University merely for instruction in the old triviuna — grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; and after three or four years' study, they received the title of Baccalaureus. In Bologna and Salernum the pre- paratory or " trivial " instruction was so much subor- dinated to the specialized function of these seats of learning that, for a time at least, no occasion arose for marking the completion of it by a degree. In Paris, on the other hand, the university rose more directly out of the school of "arts," and continued to comprise in its recognized academic work the in- struction of boys. Quite naturally, accordingly, there arose a necessity for marking the completion of the old trivial course. The word baccalaureus naturally presented itself. The original of the word seems to have been baccalarius, and this is said to be derived from the low Latin, bacca (for vaccd), a cow. Accordingly, it originally meant a cowboy or herd, serving under a farmer. This history of the word curiously illustrates the analogy of the organization of universities with that of trade guilds. For in France, where the term was first applied, the youth who had finished his apprenticeship was called (as we have already stated) gargon, and might receive pay as an assistant to a master. So also the ap- prenticeship to the trivium being finished, the youth was formally presented to the faculty, and recog- nized as a gargon or Baccalarius Artium, i.e. as a 220 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. young man serving under masters with a view to the mastership. When he reached this stage, which he generally did about the age of seventeen or eighteen, he then began to study for the mastership, and was often (if not indeed always in Paris and Bologna) employed as an assistant to the master in preparing other bachelors or (as we may call them) arts' ap- prentices. The bachelorship had, it seems to me, a prospective rather than a retrospective significance; that is to say, it did not so much mark a course finished as "inception in arts" with a view to a mastership. The bachelor, in short, was only now entitled to say that he was a " youth in arts." It was only later that the word, through a mistaken etymology, became baccalaureus, and was supposed to have connection with the laurel-berry, and graduation was called laureation. In chivalry the word "bachelor" was also used, but not in the same sense.* The word " bachalarius " was adopted by Bologna only in the course of the thirteenth century. In 1297 • "An honorary distinction was made," says Ilallam (cap. ix. partii.), "between knights-bannerets and bachelors. The former were the richest and best accompanied. No man could be a banneret unless he possessed a certain estate, and could bring a certain number of lances into the field." But a knight-bachelor might hold higher military command under the Crown than a knight-banneret. It is unnecessary to point out that " bachelor " is used in our own early literature to denote a young man simply, without reference to his being married. It was generally used in the Middle Ages, ue. baccalarius and baccalaria, to denote young persons above eighteen years of age serving under a master. The French feminine was bachelttte. GKADUATION. 221 we find it; but it was then applied to a stage of progress in the specialized studies of law, etc. If the student, after a certain length of attendance and payment of a certain sum, had conducted " Repeti- tions " * for one year, he was then called Bachalarius (Savigny). Each faculty as it became organized adopted the term " bachelor " to mark the half-way house to a full degree. The words " doctor " (teacher) and " magister " (master) — equivalent terms — ^were first used generically, I have said, by those who taught and examined others, but when the universities began to organize a gradua- tion system they were largely, I cannot but think, under the influence of the practice of mediaeval guilds. They were guilds of learning. We must at once see, indeed, that in every nation where letters flourished the names "master'' and "doctor" would, as a matter of course, be found ; these words being used, as we have said, only in a generic sense. But when we speak of academic " degrees," we use the words in a specific sense and mean dignities and titles, formally con- ferred in accordance with certain regulations, which dignities carried with them certain rights to teach and practise a science or art. It would seem that titles of honour in this sense were conferred among the ancient Jews. But though it may be true that in the Jewish schools, before Christ, the titles of doctor * See sequel for explanation of this and for the conditions of graduation, under " University Studies." i22 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. and master (Rabbi) were not simply assumed but formally conferred, it would be absurd to trace the introduction of these titles in the Middle Ages to a conscious imitation of a then hated and despised race. If these designations were in use in the Arab schools, it might be reasonable perhaps to find in the Arab custom a partial explanation of the European usage ; but I am not aware that they wdre sO used. In China, again, three titles are conferred after public examination, corresponding to bachelor, licentiate (or master), and doctor. But this simply means that the Chinese terms are best represented (not translated) by these European words. The literal translation is of a very " flowery " character. The next question of interest in connection with degrees is that of the time of their institution. Up to the middle of the twelfth century, any one taught in the infant universitates who thought he had the requisite knowledge. It was made a matter of reproach against Abelard, who died 1142, that he had no formal authority to teach ; and we know from the poem of .(Egidius (quoted by Meiners, ii. p. 208), that young men, wholly unfit, ventured to teach medicine at Salerno. Even in the second half of the twelfth century, when the bishops and' abbots, who acted, personally or through their deputies, as chancellors of the rising university schools, wished to assume to themselves exclusively the right of grant- GRADUATION. 223 ing the licence (with a view to check abuses, I pre- sume), Pope Alexander III. forbacie them, on the ground that the teaching faculty was a gift of jGod. This itself is evidence, no doubt, that the custom of granting licences or degrees only after examination had begun ; but it also shows that it had not estab- lished itself. We may fix the establishment of the custom at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century ; but in theology it must have been much earlier. In 1207, the increasing number of students of theology had led so many masters to assume the teaching of that subject, that Pope Innocent III. wrote to the Bishop of Paris, as Chancellor of the University, to restrict the number of theological teachers to eight. From this we may date the beginning of the degree in theology, in any formal or technical sense, that is to say, the " licence " to teach theology, but not, therefore, a " doctorship " in name. From this, too, we may conclude, as I have before said, that the pope never ceased to exercise, without hindrance, a certain control over the theological school much more direct than he ever pretended to have over the schools of arts, in which, shortly before, a " licence " had been instituted at the instance of the university itself The distinction between " masters " and " doctors " was not even yet, however, made, as we may see from a letter of Pope Innocent in 12 10, where he refers to the 224 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. whole body of teachers of theology, arts, and canon law, as doctores liberalium artium. Even in Salernutn the distinction between "licentiates" and "doctors" was not recognized. This college first granted a formal licence under the statute of Roger, in 1130, but it was a practical or professional liceticia medendi merely. In 1231, degrees in medicine were conferred in Paris before the formal existence of a separate medical " faculty." "Master" and "doctor" still continued to be interchangeable titles. The history of universities shows much fluctuation both as to periods of study for degrees and the designations given. In Germany, - for example, the " mastership " never took hold ; but, instead of it, as to this day, the " doctorship." As soon as " faculties " established themselves, the degrees of bachelor and licentiate (master) were im- ported into them. Each faculty had a recognized graduation scheme in the latter decades of the thirteenth century ; that is to say, there was a bachelorship of medicine and theology and law, as well as a licentiateship, or mastership, or doctorship in these subjects. Source of Graduation. — According to Meiners (ii. p. 213), the attainment of a licentiateship by a bachelor originally depended entirely on the masters who taught him.* It was an university act, but not * I am disposed to think, on the contrary, that the chancellor always conferred the licencia. GRADUATION. 225 a corporate act. The next step was that the master, or masters, presented the candidate to the chancellor, who conferred the licence which carried with it, as I have already explained, the mastership. When faculties were finally formed, it was the faculty that presented the candidate.* Meiners notwithstanding, I am of opinion the " licencia " was never conferred in Paris except by the Chancellor. During the disper- sion of the Paris masters, however, in 1229, they them- selves, without the authority of chancellor or bishop, examined and promoted to licence or mastership. The well-known Bull of Gregory IX. (123 1) refers to bachelors as receiving their titles from the masters alone — the chancellor being called in only in the case of licentiates or masters. It also confirms what we have previously stated, that licentiates or masters were practically one and the same, of which indeed there can be no doubt. The assumption of the title of " master " by the licentiate was, I repeat, a merely ceremonial introduction into the magistral body, the new master being then invested with the biretta. There followed fees and festivity, and this was all as in the trade-guilds.. • At this day, in Scotland, each faculty presents its candidates to the Senatus, [j-e. the united faculties), by laying the names of those who have passed their trials before that body, and then, through its dean, presents them to the chancellor at a public ceremony. We learn, from a statute of the Paris Faculty of Arts (1279), that they admitted to "proofs" for the licence men trained at other seats of learning— an interesting and significant fact. 226 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. In Oxford and Cambridge the degree system was much the same as at Paris. At one time Oxford gave degrees for single subjects, such as grammar, rhetoric, poetics, and music ; but the " masters '' in these single arts took rank only with Bachelors of Arts in the full sense, and were consequently not full " masters " of the university. Cambridge at one time gave a degree in grammar alone : * The last degree in grammar was conferred in 1542. The old term of attendance for the bachelorship, namely, four years (now three), and seven years, in all, for the mastership, was long retained at Oxford and Cambridge. The latter degree, however, has not for centuries (?) been the mark of any attainment above the bachelorship. Degrees in theology, medicine, and law, granted after academic training and examination, fell into disuse, as did the whole professorial and specialized system. " Professional " studies also became virtually extinct, and are only now in these days being revived. If we turn to Bologna, we shall find that the title of " magister " and " dominus " was applied to Imerius, but not doctor. The first teachers, however, early began to co-opt others who had shown their fitness to instruct, and these were known as " doctors " or teachers, not officially " masters," as in Paris, though this term was also often used. This co-optation seems to have been the earliest form of faculty-promotion. * This was specially intended for schooolmasters. GRADUATION. 227 In the course of the thirteenth century there are to be found doctores medicinee, philosophic^, etc. By that time examinations had been introduced. The jurists held that the title " doctor " should be specially re- served for their subject. While the degrees were as yet confined to law, Pope Honorius III. interfered with the granting of degrees in 1 2 19, and in order to impose a check on abuses, directed that they should be conferred (not by, but) by permission of,* the arch- deacon of the cathedral and under his presidency. The mere right to teach — the " licencia " — did not of itself confer the doctorship ; but this latter title was given after the licencia, and involved a further and public, but evidently quite formal, examination in the presence of the archdeacon as Chancellor. Though arts were taught in Bologna, there seemed to be no promotion in arts till long after the custom was established in Paris ; and it would appear that the title of bachelor was never known in Italy as an arts title or degree. With these remarks on what we conceive to have been the origin and growth of university degrees, we would now sum up as follows : — The gradus, steps, or degrees in the ladder of knowledge, as soon as the organization was fairly complete, were nominally four, actually three— viz. bachelor, licentiate or master, and finally doctor, but ♦ I so interpret the Bull. 228 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. this last outside " arts." I am, of course, giving the general usage or rather generalizing the usage ; for each university had its own peculiarities. At first, each man who had it in him, or thought he had, began to lecture and took his chance.* As a lecturer, he was called magister or doctor in the generic sense of these words — that is, simply a master or teacher. As the universities gradually hardened down into definite self-governing organizations, the chancellor, on the presentation of the "masters" or "doctors," as the case might be, formally granted a licence to competent students after examination. Just as the universities had in their origin practical and profes- sional specialized aims, so the licence they at first granted was practical and professional — licencia medendi and licencia docendi. In Paris, owing to the dominating influence of arts studies, the old title connected with arts survived — viz. magister, and the conferring of this followed on the licence as a mere ceremonial. In Salernum, the title was sometimes " master," sometimes " doctor ; " in Bologna, and Italy generally, it was " doctor." When theology becam,e separated from arts, as a separate study or faculty, the title doctor was also assigned to this new faculty as a " higher " faculty, it being already found to exist in Italy, if not also in France, for civil and canon law. Again, a preparatory course of in- • I refer to Bologna and Salernum. In theology at Paris, the Chancellor of Notre Dame always conferred the title. GRADUATIOr^. 229 struction for boys having always existed in the monas- tery and cathedral schools, a title was invented to mark the completion of this course wherever the universities included the work of secondary or "trivial" schools. This title was Baccalarius. Itter informs us, in his learned and clumsy work " De Gradibus sive Honoribus Academicis," that the licentiateship was, subsequently in some universities, higher than the mastership, so that a complete university course was then represented by four de- grees — bachelor, master, licentiate, and finally doctor, which last was usually taken at the age of thirty or thirty-five ; but, in general, there were only three degrees, the mastership being included in the licen- tiateship, and, in some cases, the mastership including the doctorship. Each specialist university, as we saw in a previous lecture, early set itself to add on the specialist studies of other universities. Bologna added to the arts course and to civil law, colleges or faculties of theology and medicine. And when, in 1224, Frederick II. instituted the University of Naples, he included all "lawful" studies or faculties, though the term " faculty " was not then in use in its later and present technical sense. The next development of the degree system was the introduction of the grades of bachelor and master or licentiate into each of the higher faculties — theology, law, and medicine. Thus a man who had finished his preliminary arts studies, generally at 230 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the age of twenty-one, and wished to specialize in theology or medicine or law, had to pass through the stages of bachelor of theology, or of medicine, or of law, and then of master or licentiate, before he attained the title of doctor. The bachelorship of medicine or law was reached in three years, of theology in seven. Four years' further study brought the doctor's degree. Thus a man might be doctor of medicine or law at the age of twenty-seven, and of theology at thirty -one. A doctor in both civil and canon law was called J.U.D. (Juris Utriusque Doctor); afterwards LL.D. was substituted. D.C.L. may (I presume) mean either civil or canon law according to its historical relations. This was the complete graduation system ; but it did not obtain in every university ia its completeness. That the bachelorship was taken very young, we know from the history of many universities. In the seventeenth century a statute was passed at Oxford fixing fourteen as the youngest age for matriculation, and, centuries before this, twelve years of age had been fixed as the minimum at Paris. As early as 1380* the statutes of King's Hall, Cambridge, require that the matriculant shall be at least fourteen, and that he shall be sufficiently proficient in grammar to take up logic or any other " faculty which the warden might select for him " (Willis). • I had written 1326, but altered to 1380 on the authority of the recent beautiful edition of Willis's "Architectural Cambridge" (1886). GRADUATION. 231 The bachelor course was, in fact, a grammar school or trivium course. And in our own time, we see that the German universities have relegated it entirely to the gymnasiums or high schools, reserving the universities for specialized study. The gymna- sium course is, however, a far wider and more pro- longed course than the baccalaurean course of the mediaeval universities. The question now await- ing solution in Scotland (and in England, too, for that matter) is whether the properly secondary-school instruction shall be relegated entirely to schools, as in Germany and France, or continue to hold a place in the Faculty of Arts. In England, elementary and advanced school work choked off specialized university teaching till recently. The solution will probably be a compromise. Boys of seventeen ought to come to the universities with a preliminary training sufficient to enable them to enter upon an academic treatment of Arts subjects. Certainly neither Church nor School can afford to drive out Arts studies, pursued as a branch of liberal education, from the universities. It would be (it seems to me) a retrograde movement. At the same time the masters' degree must be so specialized as to secure high attainments in those special departments of study which a man intends to make his life-profession. The Baccalaureate should be restored in Scotland. On the subject of degrees an interesting discussion 12 232 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. arose in Paris in the thirteenth century — viz., whether the licence and mastership could be rightly conferred on those who did not mean to teach. It was settled in the affirmative, and hence arose the distinction between Magistri regentes (governing) or legentes (lecturing) and Magistri non-regentes. The Magister- regens was ultimately known by the name of regent simply, and carried his pupils through the whole curriculum for bachelor, and in many universities also for master, until the development of literature, philosophy, and science made it desirable to appoint special "masters" for each department, and these were then called professors. But long before this title was recognized in Scotland it existed elsewhere. In fact, it is used as applied to theology in Frederick's statutes of 1224. With the rise of professors arose also departmental studies in arts, and scientific investi- gation ; indeed, until the departmental and specialized professoriate was instituted, the universities were little more than gymnasia for the training of aspirants to the professions ; but in Paris the aim was always higher than this, owing to the philosophic character of the " arts " studies. The British universities have for the last hundred and fifty years gradually been recognizing their double function as at once teach- ing schools and academic institutes for the ad- vancement of learning. A professor who does not fulfil both functions is not a professor in the strict sense of the word at all, but merely a kind of GRADUATION. 233 Magister regens or legens. In a sense, he is a fraud. ( He is a great obstacle also in the way of scientific progress ; for, if he does not investigate himself, he will look coldly on young aspirants in the field of investigation. In Oxford and Cambridge, till quite recently, the function to which these universities mainly restricted themselves, that of schools of arts, has been inter- preted in the nacrowest sense. By " arts" the mediaeval universities meant all departments of knowledge not specifically professional — that is to say, language, rhetoric, logic, psychology, metaphysics, politics, physics, natural history, geometry, music, astronomy, and so forth. This scheme of knowledge translated into modern language becomes the whole range of learning, science, and art, in so far as pursued in a scientific spirit, and with a view to the advancement of knowledge merely. An university, properly ufiderstood, is the home of the arts and sciences. It exists to teach them, and it equally exists to promote them. In the English universities, the culture and discipline of the general student has been the almost exclusive aim. To speak of "culture" as the aim of college and uni- versity life is to throw a mere phrase at the head of the public. Culture can never be a conscious end to a man without unmanning him. Still more must it emasculate an university where it is achieved, after all, by not more than one in five hundred. And when 234 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. we do find it in its supremest and most precious form, we cannot say we like it. It is always narrow, and must, from the psychological nature of the case, be egotistical. That, indeed, is a poor result of the highest education — a man who thinks himself supreme or precious, and who spends his life in turning pretty phrases when not engaged in admiration of his own exclusive intellectual possessions. Such a man admires even his own college only in so far as it con- tains himself. Style and form are excellent things, but they never yet existed in perfection, except when there was an ardent soul, a fiery enthusiasm, a great human purpose, behind them. Mr. Edward Kirk- patrick, in his book on the universities, well says, "An institution which stakes its whole power and credit in society upon refinement and intelligence not evinced in any one particular form of efficiency will inevitably disappear more and more from connection with a world of flesh and blood into a kindred cloud- land of unrealities and abstractions." Indeed, may we not truly say that it is our relation to the concrete life of humanity that gives, not merely substance and stability, but also stimulus and inspiration to all thought of much value ? It is this that breathes into abstract pursuits a living soul and animates the worker to renewed efforts. The culture of the few, and the giving of the many a certain amount of discipline, by means of the ancient tongues, mathematics, and a little logic, to fit them for GRADUATION. 235 the professions of clergyman and schoolmaster, is not the only return society expects from great univer- sities. The large rewards of study, especially fellow- ships, should be directed to the encouragement of pursuits which do not " pay," and no longer reserved mainly for men who can find in clerical or scholastic situations the proper prizes for excellence in Latin, Greek, and mathematics. The money should be devoted to the equipment of the arts (including of course ancient literatures) and sciences, and the sus- tenance of those who pursue them from the pure love of knowledge and in the interests of mankind. " Pro- fessions " can take care of themselves.* • I cannot but think that the present outlay on physical science at Oxford and Cambridge is to be justified only if it restricts itself within the purely scientific and avoids the strictly professional. The numerous modifications of the B.A. course with a view to admit of men taking up a line of A&ra/ study which may prepare them for "professional" study are, in principle, to be commended ; but the circumstances of the country do not call upon Oxford and Cambridge for a fresh supply of medical and legal practitioners. Their proper function is much higher. MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE XIII. OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. I HAVE some difficulty in deciding whether I should now treat of " university studies " as the natural com- plement of the preceding lecture on graduation, or ask your attention to the early constitution of those other universities which laid the foundations of the European system. On the whole, I think it better to take the latter course. In a former lecture I referred to the educational activity of England before the time of Charlemagne. Bede, one of the most illustrious of those who main- tained the reputation of his country, died in A.D. 735, and we may say with William of Malmesbury that almost all knowledge of events was buried with Bede for four centuries. Before the time of Alfred there were schools in connection with the Priory of St. Frideswyde in Oxford, and also with the conventual establishment at Ely from veiy early times. It was doubtless out of, or in close affiliation with, these two insti- OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 237 tutions that the Universities of Oxford and Cam- bridge first arose. The discrediting of certain passages (recognized to be interpolations) in Asser's "Vita Alfredi," and of the chronicle of Ingulphus, compels us to say that there is no evidence that Oxford was more than an arts school of the type of the Benedictine down to the beginning of the twelfth century. From the point of view from which I regard the rise of univer- sities, I should say that Oxford only then first showed a disposition to pass from a secondary school to an university when Vacarius, about 1 149, lectured there on civil law. Had this specialty been fostered at Oxford, it would have become an university of law with a strong " arts " basis ; especially as at this very time there was great dialectical activity among the Oxonians. But King Stephen and the Church ob- jected to civil law, and nothing came of Vacarius' venture. Anstey, in the introduction to " Monumenta Aca- demica," i. xxxiv., considers that there is no evidence that Oxford was an university before the Conquest. This at least is, I should say, quite certain. It would be pedantic, however, to say that no educational in- stitution was an university till it had the constitution of an university as that was shaped by the " nations " at Bologna and Paris, or by an universitas magis- trorum ; but it is certainly correct to say that no school, however efficient, is an university until it does 238 MEDI/EVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the work of an university, that is to say, provides for the teaching of men as well as of boys, and this by specialist regents or professors. About twenty years before Vacarius lectured, Robert Pulleyne returned from Paris, and endeavoured to revive the teaching of theology, and succeeded in infusing a higher spirit into the Oxford schooL Here was another oppor- tunity afforded to Oxford of developing into an universitas. Our past lectures on the birth of universities sufficiently show that it is exceedingly difficult to put our finger on the precise date at which a good " arts " school became an university, or studium generale. I should certainly not postpone the date of the evolu- tion, from the lower to the higher, till the period of the formal adoption of more or less of the Paris con- stitution. A studium generale may exist in substance though not in external fonn ; but I am not aware that this designation was ever authoritatively given to any school which had not a specialized as well as a "public" course of instruction. The first royal recc^jnition was by Henry III., who summoned Parliament to meet at Oxford in 1258. But we must date the steurting- point of the universitas long before this. University College was instituted in 1232. We know that the Benedictine Order was in a corrupt state in the time of Robert Grosseteste, who died in 1253; and that this eminent man had much to do with the de- nunciation of abuses, the encouragement of the OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 239 (then) new Dominicans and Franciscans, who gave so great an impulse to learning in Europe, and the advocacy of a higher learning generally. He was a patriot and a scholar and a humanist. His authority alone would carry the university back to A.D. 1200. In speaking of Paris, I have already told you of the students' riot of 1228, which resulted in the maltreatment of many of the citizens, and how Queen Blanche, acting under bad advice^ caused the students to be attacked while engaged with their sports outside the walls. Driven into the city and unarmed, many students, while seeking safety in places of concealment, were killed, and a still larger number seriously wounded. The university, resenting this treatment, broke up and migrated to Orleans, Angers, Rheims, and other towns, where teaching was conducted and degrees conferred in- dependently of Church or King. Henry HI. of England seized the opportunity to invite the dis- persed scholars to the rising schools of Oxford and Cambridge. These students came, and brought with them the university idea of studies and privileges ; and we are certainly safe in maintaining that, concurring as this date does with the foundation of University College and the activity of Robert Grosseteste, the date of the university could not possibly be put later than 1200 ; and this applies to both Oxford and Cam- bridge. For we may fairly conclude that the immi- grants, after the migration from Paris in 1229, would 240 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. not have directed their steps to Oxford and Cam- bridge at all had they not known that it was possible there to continue studies above those which belonged to a good Arts cathedral school. The influence of the Paris migration must have been very great, for, as Mr. MuUinger says, " the University of Paris throughout the thirteenth century well-nigh monopo- lized the interest of the learned in Europe. Thither thought and speculation seemed irresistibly attracted. It was there the new orders fought the decisive battle for place and power ; that new forms of scepticism rose in rapid succession, and heresies of varying moment riveted the watchful eye of Rome ; that anarchy most often triumphed and flagrant vices most prevailed ; and it was from this seething centre that those influences went forth which predominated in the cotemporary history of Oxford and Cam- bridge" (i. 132). The migrating masters would carry the genius of Paris with them. But while it is highly probable that the date 1 200 may be assigned to Cambridge, there can be no doubt that at Oxford there was an university, in fact if not in form, sixty years before this. Had there not been a well-known and active higher school there in the earlier decades of the twelfth century, Robert Pulleyne would not* have come from Paris about 1130 to lecture there, nor would Vacarius have endeavoured to found a school of civil law in 1 149, nor should we hear (on the authority of John of Salisbury) that dis- OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 241 cussions regarding universals {in re or ante rem) raged at Oxford in 1 153. Again, to prove that Oxford was largely frequented in 1200, it is sufficient to say- that in 1209 there was a secession from Oxford: "Recesserunt ab Oxonia tria millia clericorum tam magistri quam discipuli ita quod nee unus ex omni universitate remansit." * Of these some went to Reading, some to Cambridge. Then, Giraldus Cam- brensis read his " Topographia Cambrioe " to the inhabitants of Oxford, and the second day's reading (he tells us) was addressed to the " doctores diversa- rum facultatum (studies) omnes et discipulos famae majoris et noticise." This was in 11 86. Accord- ingly, we may conclude that Oxford was entitled to the name " universitas " about 1 140. That there was a decline is clear enough from the writings of Grosseteste and the complaints of Roger Bacon and Merton. And, further, that it was to the settlements of Franciscans and Dominicans (1220-1230) that the revival was chiefly due is also, I think, clear. The date of papal bulls is always an important one in the history of universities ; but, as I have again and again said, all the earliest universities (with the exception of Palentia and Naples) grew and were not founded, and it would consequently be incorrect to date the existence of an university from a papal or royal charter such as that of Henry III. to Oxford. * Rc^er of Wendover's " Flowers of History," by Giles, ii. 249 ; quoted by Denifle, p. 242. 342 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. To sum up, I conclude that the true university life of Oxford began about 1140, of Cambridge about 1200, and that their university organization took its form about 1230, after the Paris migration. Cambridge first received a papal bull in 1318 from Pope John XXII., but in 1231 it began to be recog- nized by royal letters. So active was the life of Cambridge, that (owing to local riots) it could afford a migration to North- ampton in 1261. Subsequently there was a migration from Oxford to Stamford. As at the seats of learning abroad, so at Oxford and Cambridge there were no university buildings or schools. These did not begin to exist till the fourteenth century. The students were taught in the hostels, or in private rooms ; and the churches were used for large assemblies. Somewhat later, houses were specially hired by masters for the purposes of instruction, and these were called " schools." There were thirty-two such schools in Oxford at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Besides these, there were the schools in the religious houses, and extra-academic grammar-schools for those not yet fit to enter on university work, it being im- possible at that time to obtain in the greater part of England the necessary preparatory instruction in grammar. While it is beyond all question that both the universities and colleges of Oxford and Cambridge OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 243 modelled themselves largely on Paris, there are yet peculiarities deserving of notice as throwing additional light on the earliest conception of an university. In Cambridge, for example, the functionary on whom we have to concentrate our attention is not a Rector, but a Chancellor, who, though elected by the two houses of regents and non-regents, derived only a part of his authority from the bodies that elected him. Dean Peacock emphasizes this peculiarity. The chancellor, he says, had powers independent of the regents, and his authority was necessary to give validity to their acts. He was not necessarily a regent himself, but constituted a "distinct estate in the academical commonwealth." " His powers, though confirmed and amplified by royal charters, were ecplesiastical both in their nature and origin. The court over which he presided was governed by the principles of the canon as well as of the civil law ; and the power of excommunication and absolution, derived in the first instance from the Bishop of Ely [who claimed a visitatorial power resisted by the university] and subsequently from the pope, became the most prompt and formidable instrument for extending his authority. The form likewise of con- ferring degrees, and the kneeling posture of the person admitted, are indicative both of the act and the authority of an ecclesiastical superior." It is clear, accordingly, that the chancellor in England possessed many of the powers of the Parisian and 244 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Bononian rectors. The internal regulation of the education and of the degree system rested practically, however, with the regents, the non-regents exercising a concurrent jurisdiction in matters of property and privileges only. There were only two procurators or proctors (called also rectors), and their authority was next to that of the chancellor and his vice. They were chosen annually by the regents ; • and among their other academic duties they regulated the markets and hostelries, and supervised the revenues. The immediately preceding remarks refer specially to Cambridge, but they are substantially applicable to Oxford also. Indeed it would appear, from Mr. Anstey's "Monumenta Academica," that the power of the chancellor was even greater at the latter seat of learning than at Cambridge ; and in this respect the English universities, while adopting, after 1230, the general characteristics of the Parisian system, yet deviated from it in what seems to me an essential particular. I am speaking of the early external constitution, not of the inner life, of the English universities. This latter question is a large and complex one, and bound up with the history of England ; but although I shall not venture to touch it myself, I cannot re- frain from quoting here an interesting passage from DoUinger's " Universitaten jetzt und sonst " :— • "England, pursuing throughout its whole history * Not by the students. OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 245 the twofold aim of practical activity and political freedom, and hostile to all centralization, has confined itself to two universities, two learned corporations which have preserved down to this day their republican constitution and autonomy.* A single university would have become too exclusive, too much of a monopoly, and ultimately would have gone to sleep on the pillow of its privileges and traditionary honours. But the two watched and stimulated each other, and each of them specially cherished one of the two main tendencies of the English mind, — Oxford the ecclesi- astical, and the disciplines subserving this ; Cambridge the mathematical and more practical aims." Hostels, Halls, and Colleges. One cannot refer to English universities without having one's attention fixed by the collegiate system which so soon dwarfed the university. Like all the other parts of university organization, halls and colleges arose quite naturally to meet the wants of the hour. The multitude of students congregating at the university seats made it often very difficult for them to find lodgings, and their extreme youth exposed them to many temptations and evils. Accordingly, there arose at Paris, as we saw (and at Paris especially, because at Bologna and Salernum those recognized as university students were for some time much older than the undergraduates of Paris), • To these have now been added Durham, Victoria, and London. 246 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. " hostels " {Jtospitia, a name taken from the monastery hotels), or " houses," set apart for the various nations, where lodging and some sort of protection and super- intendence might be obtained at a moderate cost. Even at Bologna the poor students who were main- tained at the cost of some charitable foundation, formed a kind of college and lived together under rule. The date of the first college there was 1263,* but long prior to this charitable funds were dispensed to students. Collegiate institutions, however, never flourished in Italy. So early as the beginning of the thirteenth century (and doubtless before this) hostels existed at Paris ; but the name " college " seems first to have been specially applied to the houses of religious orders, where were accommodated those youths who meant to devote themselves wholly to a " religious " life. So far at least as "secular" students were concerned, the ''colleges" at Paris were charity houses, dependent largely, if not wholly, on the goodwill of the well-disposed. Even in the twelfth century there were colleges (such as the Danish), which seem, however, to have soon disappeared.t They were all in the first instance merely boarding- houses, not schools. One of the earliest, if not the • Collegium Avenioniense (see Savigny, xxi. 72). t Mr. Khkpatrick (p. 252) quotes from Bulaeus, part iii. p. 392, in evidence that a college for one hmidred poor clerks was founded in the elmetUh century (?). OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 247 earliest, of the colleges which held its ground, was the "College des Bons Enfans," founded in 1209. The poverty and dependence of this institution is pre- served in the old rhyme — " Les bons enfans orrez crier ; Du pain ! n'es veuil oublier." But though the students of this first college do not seem to have belonged to any religious order, their aim was ecclesiastical work of some kind. Even the first purely secular college, and the most famous of them all in history, was founded for the study of theology — that, namely, instituted by Robert de Sor- bonne, chaplain to Louis IX., who also contributed to its foundation. It was intended only for those who had already graduated in arts and meant to devote themselves to theology. It was thus a college com- posed solely of "Fellows," as we should say in England. It was founded in 1250. The college of Navarre was founded in 1304, by Jeanne of Navarre, for the board and lodging of seventy poor scholars at all the stages of the university curriculum — twenty grammarians, i.e. boys preparing for their B.A. ; thirty arts students, i.e. preparing for masterships ; and twenty theological students. So with the college of Montagu. In the thirteenth cen- tury sixteen colleges were founded in Paris. In the course of time some seventy or eighty arose, many of which, however, ceased to exist after a brief and in- glorious career. The Scots college was not founded 248 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND VNVERSniES. till 1326 by David, Bishop of Moray. About that date, the houses and colleges contained the great pro- portion of the members of the university, but there was no enforcement of residence. Eighteen were colleges of religious orders. At the date of the Revolution only ten survived. The old rule, that every student must be enrolled with some "master,'' always held good, and was necessary in the interests of discipline. It is not to be supposed that the original hostels accommodated more than a small proportion of the students — at least until the fourteentia century. The others sought lodgings where they could get them ; and the University of Paris, after 1215, had the right to inquire into, and approve of, the rents charged, so as to protect the students against extortion — a right confirmed by the Bull of 123 1, and exercised, as I have previously said, by the municipality of Bologna, and also at Cambridge.* I think it is sufficiently apparent from my previous lectures that the universities arose out of or in con- nection with the existing Schools of Arts, and were at first simply an expansion and evolution of the existing ecclesiastical organizations. This view is further incidentally confirmed by the fact that it was not only the regents resident in the colleges who were required to be celibate, but all masters of all faculties in Paris. This rule naturally arose out of the close affinities of the academic with the monastic * Doubtless also at Oxfonl. OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 249 and canonical life. It was not till 1452 that in Paris the masters of even the medical faculty were allowed to marry. That magistri-regentes residing within college walls should be bound to celibacy is intelligible. In England the hostels were regulated lodging- houses, where the students resided at their own cost, under the supervision of a principal admitted by the chancellor. The students would club together and hire a house or houses, and call it a hospitium. The members of a hospitium were either from the same part of the country, or pursuing the same studies. There existed in Cambridge, Hospitia Artistarum and Hospitia Juristarum. It was only by slow degrees that these disappeared, giving way as colleges multi- plied during the latter half of the thirteenth and the whole of the fourteenth centuries. These hostels were sometimes called " inns," "' entries," or " halls ; " also litterarum diversoria. The principal (always either a bachelor or, more generally, a master) and his hall were substantially independent of the university authorities, but were, of course, subject to certain general regulations. The monastic institutions at Paris, and of the Fran- ciscans and Dominicans at the English universities, were practically colleges, as this word was afterwards understood, because there was in them a common life under rule. The term " college '' was primarily applied to a corporation of individuals having a common purpose, and not to buildings. The latter went by 250 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. the name of Domtis, or Aula ScJwlariuni. The term i" college" was next used as equivalent to endowed hall ; and while the residents at halls or hostels paid for their own lodging and maintenance, with such help as they could obtain from loans out of the uni- versity chests in return for the articles they pawned, or from the proceeds of begging, the occupants of colleges had free quarters ; but they had to accept with this privilege the detailed regulations of the college statutes. Eighty seems to have been the largest number of halls ever existing in Oxford. Owing to the increase in the number of colleges, the halls numbered only twenty-six in 1511, and as colleges increased in number and wealth they bought up the hostels at both the university seats. " As stars lose their light," says Fuller, " when the sun riseth, so all these hostels decayed when endowed colleges began to appear in Cambridge." " It is customary, with the ignorant," says Dean Hook, " to speak of our colleges as monastic institu- tions ; but, as every one knows who is acquainted with the history of the country, the colleges, with very few exceptions, were introduced to supplant the monasteries. Early in the twelfth century the opinion began to prevail that the monasteries were no longer competent to supply the education which the im- proved state of society demanded. The primary object of the monastery was to train men for what was technically called the " religious life " — the life of OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 251 a monk. Those who did not become monks availed themselves of the advantages offered in the monastic schools ; but still a monastic school was as much designed to make men monks as a training school at the present time is designed to make men school- masters, although some who are so trained betake themselves to other professions." * This was equally true of the monastic institutions at the universities ; hence the need of " colleges " for seculars free from monastic obligations. I would here recall to mind the distinction between the three kinds of mediaeval schools — interior monastic schools for the oblati, the exterior schools, and the canonical cathedral schools — and I would point out that a college more closely resembled the residential part of a cathedral school, such as Canterbury, than a monastery. True, the colleges were intended for^ those who meant to be " clerics ; " but this order, in those days, did not mean the regular and parochial clergy only, but comprised all the professions. By far the most important of the early college foundations of England was that of Walter de Merton, chancellor of the kingdom in 1264! — called "Domus Scholarium de Merton." % This foundation furnished a model for all succeeding colleges both in Oxford and Cambridge. Merton himself must have had his * Lives of the Archbishops, iii. 339. t The second charter dates 1274. J Preceded, however, some say, by an earlier foundation. 2S2 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. eye on the Sorbonne. Merton's House was substan- tially what we should now call a secular college. No ■' religious person/' that is no monk or friar, was to be admitted. He had in view the supply of regular clergy, and we may say clerici generally, that is to say, the learned class. His aim was to produce a " constant succession of scholars devoted to the pur- suits of literature," " bound to employ themselves in the study of arts or philosophy, theology or the canon law ; the majority to continue in the arts and philo- sophy until passed on to the study of theology by the decision of the warden and fellows, and as the result of meritorious proficiency in the first-named subjects." It would be difficult even in these days to form a more liberal conception of a college. Mr. Mullinger says that science was not included in the curriculum ; but there can be no doubt that arts and philosophy in those days covered the field of science. The " littera " (1254) of the Paris universitas, to which I have several times referred arts, comprised philosophia rationalis, moralis, and naturalis. It was only the scientific professions of medicine and law, it seems to me, that were left out, in so far as these were practical and commercial pursuits.* "Within the walls of Merton," says Mr. Mullinger (p. 169), "were trained the minds that chiefly influenced the thought of the fourteenth • The Mendicants were students of both law and medicine. This fact may have affected Merton's views. The study of law always tended to lower the scientific and academic character of mediaeval universities. OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 253 century. It was there that Duns Scotus, the ' Subtle Doctor,' was educated ; it was there that he first taught. Thence, too, came William of Occam, the revolutionizer of the philosophy of his age ; and Thomas Bradwardine, known throughout Christendom as the ' Doctor Profundus,' whose influence might vie even with that of the 'Doctor Invincible,'" etc. We have said enough for the general purposes of these lectures. In thus briefly describing Merton, we have described the aim and constitution, allowing for minor differences, of the whole collegiate system of Oxford and Cambridge : in so far as the aim was not charitable, it was for the furtherance of the higher learning. University Hall, Oxford (1280), was to provide for "four masters to live together, and study theology." It is interesting to note that originally there seems to have been no marked line of demarcation between the scholar and fellow of a college. The distinction first formally appears in the statutes of King's College, Cambridge. "It is not until after a three years' probation, during which time it has been ascertained whether the 'scholar' be ingenio, capacitate sensus, moribus, con- ditionibus et scientia, dignus, habilis, et idoneus FOR FURTHER STUDY, that the provost and fellows are empowered to elect him one of their number" (MuUinger, p. 309).* • Before the Reformation, permission to wealthy students to reside in college^ even on payment of rent, was reluctantly granted. 254 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. With these remarks and this quotation before him, I may leave the unprejudiced reader, who knows what the mediaeval word " arts " truly means in its modern translation, to form his own judgment of the pi-oper destination of the great wealth of the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. It is curious to note that in these latter days the Inon-collegiate or unattached system of the thirteenth (and fourteenth centuries has been revived. Under- graduates may now live in licensed lodging-houses, land we may yet see restored both in England and Scotland the hostels of the Middle Ages.* • What else I have to say on the English universities will be found under "University Studies," siq. As bearing on the rise of the Cam- bridge schools, it may be mentioned (vide Willis's " Architectural His- tory ") that the Augustinian Priory of Barnewell was established in 1 1 12, the Benedictine Nunnery of St. Rhadegund in 1 133, and the Augustinian House, called St. John's Hospital, in 1135. In the earlier half of the twelfth century, too, there was considerable literary activity at not a few cathedral and monastery centres (not to speak of the Royal Court). All this tended to centralize itself at Oxford and Cambridge. LECTURE XIV. THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE. I THINK it of importance to give some attention to the history of the University of Prague, because (if we except Naples, already a subject of consideration in one of the preceding lectures, and Palentia, of which I have no knowledge) it was the first university formally founded. It was, moreover, quite the first founded after Europe had had experience of the university system. We may consequently expect to find in its constitution not only the conclusions to which the best minds had then come as regards the higher education, but we shall also find in its organi- zation much that throws a retrospective light on questions in university history which have frequently given rise to discussion. The University of Prague was also the starting-point of the great German system; and, indeed, when we look at this system in its full modern development, we are justified in saying that its formative idea is to be discerned in this the earliest German foundation. I shall be as 13 2S6 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. succinct as possible, believing that those who have followed the previous survey of university history will be able to see for themselves the significance of the facts, and to supply their own comments and conclusions. The University of Prague was founded in April 1348, by Charles IV., who ascended the Bohemian 1 throne in 1346. He founded it, as from the first, a \studium generale of all the faculties, and confirmed his foundation the following year, conferring on it all the rights, privileges, and immunities which had been conferred by his ancestors from time to time on other universities. The university was not founded in response to a national demand. Charles had him- self been a student at Paris, and "now, in memory of his student-life in the rue de Fouarre, wished to have a copy of the university there, in his hereditary kingdom of Bohemia " (DoUinger, p. 7). But before Charles issued his charter, he had been in communication with the pope, and in the year prior to the formal institution (1347) had obtained from him a Bull, founding an university in all the faculties, and giving catholic validity to its degrees. He appointed the Archbishop of Prague chancellor. It will be remembered that in Paris the chancellor grew up with the university, simply retaining undei new and gradually restricted conditions the position he had held over the school of arts, out of which the university grew. We also saw that Pope Honorius III. THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE. 2S7 appointed the Archdeacon of Bologna to discharge the functions of chancellor there, and that in Eng- land the ecclesiastical relations of the universities were even closer than on the Continent of Europe. The formal appointment of a chancellor at Prague by the pope was, accordingly, a matter of course. Indeed, the whole history of mediaeval univer- sities shows that the pope was the constant referee when questions of difficulty arose, even prior to any formal letters of privilege or protection issuing from him. He took it for granted that he was supreme arbiter, and as his interference generally brought with it protection, if not always privilege, it was not resented. If Paris was the "mother," the pope was the " father," of universities. And now, in 1346, we find Charles at once recognizing the hopelessness of founding a university which would have any academic status without the direct support of the papal chair. After this date, and until the Reformation, we find that important universities had usually two charters — the one papal, the other royal or imperial. Charles called professors of known eminence to Prague and gave endowments for their support. He appointed a professor of theology, but, in addition to this official, other teachers or professors belonging to the monastic orders lectured on the same subject in their cloisters, and had their teaching recognized for graduation. A professor of law was called from 2S8 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Bologna, and a professor of medicine was appointed to represent the medical faculty, and as many pro- fessors of arts as there were liberal arts at that time recognized. These professors gave their lectures in their own dwellings, there being no public university buildings. To all the sovereign gave a fixed salary ; the collegiate churches and cloisters being required to contribute, as (by a strange coincidence) in these days the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge con- tribute to professorial salaries. The university was divided into, the usual four faculties. He left it to the university itself to construct its statutes according to the best models. This was a recognition of its autonomy. The members of the university were divided into four nations. The highest official was the Rector, who was chosen half-yearly. Each of the nations chose an elector ; the four so chosen co-opted seven others, and the united body then selected five by whom the rector was chosen. The office of rector could not be filled by any one belonging to a religious order. The most important duty of the rector was jurisdiction over all members of the university, not only in ordinary cases of discipline, but also in civil and in criminal processes. A court was held by him twice a week. His next most important duties were to see that the statutes of the university were observed, to take precedence in all functions of the university, and to administer its property. A vice- THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE. 259 rector was also appointed, and two collectors for tlie administration of the university purse. The primary assembly, whereby its statutes were made or altered, was the congregation {congregatio universitaiis), in which masters and students had equal votes. By an edict of the archbishop, a special university council {concilium universitatis), consisting of eight members, two from each nation (jirocuratores nationum), was instituted, to be elected half-yearly. These nomi- nated their successors, and were almost always "masters" of the university. Ere long the half- yearly meetings of the congregation became a mere form, for the council of the university exer- cised sole, as well as supreme, power in conjunction with the rector, so that before the end of the four- teenth century, Prague, which was originally a uni- versitas magistrorum et scholarium, became, practically, a universitas magistrorum alone. Each of the four faculties elected a dean. In point of dignity the Deans came next to the rector, just as the rector was of less dignity (though of more power) than the chancellor, who conferred degrees. In the discharge of their special official work both the rector and the deans were wholly independent The deans were chosen once or twice a year, and with them were chosen two collectors for each faculty, to manage the receipts and disbursements specially belonging to it. There were also other faculty officers. The university gave two degrees — the bachelorship, 26o MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. and the degree of master or doctor. The only difference between the title of master and doctor in Prague was, that the title of master was used in the faculties of theology and arts, that of doctor in the faculties of law and medicine. In the faculty of law there were two degrees, the doctorate in canon law and that in civil law. For these degrees an examination was held. Four examiners were appointed, one out of each nation, and these were presided over by the dean of the faculty in which the student sought promotion. Those who passed for the bachelor's degree were arranged in order of merit, and entered in this order in the faculty graduation book. The fee for the bachelor- ship was twenty Bohemian groschen, which was paid to the faculty, but was always remitted in the case of poor students. The young bachelor had to swear (i) that he would give lessons for two years in the university;* (2) that he would accept a like degree from no other university ; (3) that he would do his utmost to promote the interests of his university. The examination consisted in " determining." t The candidate's promoter was generally the master whom he had most regularly attended (or in whose house he had lived), and the bachelorship was conferred, not by the university through the chancellor, but by the Faculty. * Consider the bearing of this on the question of " inception in arts." t See next lecture. THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE. a6i The mastership for which the bachelor now began to prepare himself, by teaching and by attending lectures, was conferred by the chancellor — the ex- aminers being, again, four in number, one from each nation. The chancellor conferred the licencia docendi, and the bachelor was then called a licentiate. It was not necessary that the licentiate should take the mastership, which was only a ceremonial act of admis- sion or " promotion " to the body of masters. Without the title he was free to teach, and he often post- poned taking the mastership because of the expense, although, until he took it, he could not exercise his rights as the member of a faculty. Most of the masters who taught kept houses in which students could lodge, and in these houses they also carried on their teaching. The custom of living in masters' houses must have been found to be a necessary protection, for in 1385 a statute was passed prohibiting students from living anywhere except with a master or a bachelor, unless he had a special dispensation. The colleges afterwards founded were colleges for masters. Almost, if not quite,from the beginning, the Faculty of law in Prague constituted itself into a separate university, which had nothing in common with the other three faculties except the chancellor. And yet the statutes gave them a recognized place in the university as a whole. It was called the juristen- 26a MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. universitdt, and had a collegiate house assigned to it by Charles in 1373. The general body of students might attend what- ever lectures they pleased, but they had to be present at not fewer than three a week. The object of this was to prevent people enrolling themselves as students for the sole purpose of escaping municipal jurisdiction, and living under the independent and privileged jurisdiction of the university. For those studying for degrees special subjects and classes were further prescribed. As to instruction: the general method was by dictation, the students writing down and afterwards "getting up " the lectures of their masters. The scarcity and cost of manuscript books made this course, as I have frequently pointed out, inevitable. In lecturing from any author, a master was free to give his own opinions ; a bachelor, whose business was incipere in artibus, was restricted to the letter of the works he read to the younger students, and had to submit his proposed readings with them to the dean of his faculty for approval. Just as the bachelors had to teach for two years, so masters who received regular stipends, or had a place in a college, were compelled to teach for at least two years. The magister or doctor regens was called professor. The masters arranged with their respective faculties their proposed courses, but a certain restricted competition was allowed — two masters (and never more than three) being THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE. 263 allowed to give similar courses. The students paid fees to the masters they attended, but the poor were constantly exempted. The "disputations" which were carried on in the lecture halls had two objects — the clearing up of difficulties, and dialectic practice. Bachelors before being presented for their degree had to furnish evidence that they had taken part in these disputa- tions at lecist six times. They were held on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The bachelors who were going for- ward to the mastership had to be always present at the disputations, and take part in them. In addition to the disputations ordered by the university, each master might (with permission) hold special dispu- tations called " exercises " with his own pupils. Once a year in January a grand disputation was held, called disputatio de quolibet, in which all the regenting masters had to take part The question or questions were submitted in writing to the president of the disputation four days before it took place, and the discussion used to extend over several days. As to property : the university, through its rector and collectors, administered what was general — such as the funds destined for the salaries of the ordinary professors. Each faculty and each college, however, had also its separate money-chest The university income came in the form of matriculation and graduation fees, fines, and taxes.* It was not usual • I do not know from what sources the " taxes " were obtained. 264 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. for a student to enter the " higher " faculties until a minor course in arts had been completed. But it is not distinctly stated whether it was usual to go beyond the bachelorship before entering the " higher " faculties. But we know that at, and even before, the date of the Prague foundation, it was quite usual in Paris to go forward to the degrees in law and medicine without taking the mastership in arts ; but not to the degrees in theology. We may learn something as to this, I think, from the order of precedence in public ceremonials. First came the Masters of Theology. Doctors of Canon Law. „ Civil Law. Masters of Medicine and the Dean. „ the Faculty of Arts. Licentiates of Theology. „ Canon Law. „ Civil Law. „ Medicine. (Formed) Bachelors of Theology. Masters of Arts. (Running) Bachelors of Theology. Licentiates of Arts. Bachelors of Law. „ Medicine. Arts. If we remember that the titles doctor, master, and THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE. 265 licentiate all denoted the same degree of attainment, and differed only in so far as the "doctor" or "master" had improved his university status by going through the ceremony of " promotion " after he had taken the licencia, we may conclude (i) that the order of precedence as regards faculties was theology, law, medicine, and arts ; (2) that before entering the theological faculty students took the licence, if not also the mastership, in arts ; (3) that the students of law and medicine took only the bachelorship in arts before entering their professional faculties : this is very interesting, as throwing light on the Evropean custom of the time ; (4) that deans of faculties did not sit with the procurators and rector as governing the university. In this respect Charles went back to the older constitution of Paris. It is not my purpose to follow the history of the University of Prague, nor indeed of any university, except in so far as certain crises in their gradual development down to 1350 throw light on the origin, constitution, and practical working of universities generally. In this connection, the secession from Prague in 1409 is as interesting and instructive as that from Bologna to Padua in the beginning of the thirteenth century, or the disruption of Paris in 1229, or the secessions from Oxford and Cambridge, In consequence of representations made to him by the Bohemians who constituted only one nation, while the Germans were divided into three, the sovereign 266 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. ordered that the Germans should henceforth be formed into only one nation, and the Bohemians into three. This, it will be seen, at once transferred the whole power of the university to the Sclavs. The German teachers and pupils at once left Prague, some going to strengthen the newly formed uni- versities at Vienna, Erfurt, and Heidelberg; but the greater portion settling at Leipsic, and so laying the foundation of the university there. The statutes and constitution of Leipsic were modelled on those of Prague. The constitution of the first German university could easily be shown to survive in the modem universities of Germany in very many par- ticulars. The chief difference is the direct inter- vention of the State in the conducting of examinations in the various faculties. In the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there grew up in Europe ten universities; while in the fourteenth century we find eighteen added ; and in the fifteenth century twenty-nine arise, including St Andrews (141 1), Glasgow (1454). Aberdeen (1477.) The great intellectual activity of the fourteenth century, which led to the rise of so many universities, coincides with the first revival of letters, or rather was one manifestation of the revival We see this period illustrated by the name of Petrarch, who, with many other men, began to feel the barrenness of scholasticism and the significance THE UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE. 267 of classical literature — an intellectual awakening which in the religious sphere found its most prominent ex- ponents in Wickliffe and Huss, The new current had to run underground during the French wars and the War of the Roses, but its influence was felt, in the teaching at least of the Continental universities, throughout the fifteenth century, till it culminated in the second revival — the period of tlie Humanists and the Lutheran Reformation. The great increase in the number of universities in the fifteenth century was not, however, solely due to the influence of new ideas, but also to the desire of the papal power to break down the domination of Paris, especially after the Council of Basel. Were it not that it would occupy too much space, I might here comment on the constitution of the Prague University, with a view especially to throwing light on that of Paris. Meanwhile I omit this. LECTURE XV. UNIVERSITY STUDIES AND THE CONDITIONS OF GRADUATION. In this, as in other university characteristics, there was an historical continuity. The work done in the medieval universities by the candidates for the bachelorship was the same as that which I have already described as constituting the trivial curri- culum of monastery and cathedral schools, but some- what more extensive and better organized. There was a distinct educational advance. But it has to be observed that, as in an account of the curriculum of the pre-university schools of Europe it was necessary to be guided by the practice of the best seminaries, so, in the case of the universities, we have to bear in mind that while the trivium — "grammar (including ancient literature), rhetoric, and dialectic" — has an imposing sound, the actual work accomplished, and consequently the attainments of bachelors, whose average age over Europe generally could not be more than seventeen or eighteen, were not very higL UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 269 There was, I say, no sudden breach of continuity in the curriculum of instruction in so far as it contem- plated a general education, and there was no better education in the humanities to be had in the univer- , sities than Bernard of Chartres was giving about the time the University of Paris began to exist. No doubt one or two teachers had preserved the tradition of Chartres till the end of the twelfth century ; but this is all that can be said, if we are to attach due value to the complaints of John of Salisbury, who may be regarded as the humanist of that period, and after- wards of Grossteste, Roger Bacon, and others. It was in the higher development and specializa- tion of medicine, civil law, and theology (with phi- losophy) that the university movement broke away from the mediaeval and monkish system. At the university seats, the more important parts of the grammars of Donatus and Priscian were, as at the monastery and cathedral schools, dictated, explained, and learned by heart ; and this after the boys had left the grammar school and become " arts " students. In the earlier part of the thirteenth century, Priscian's grammar was reduced to verse (leonine) by a regent of Paris, Alexander de Villedieu (de Villa dei), and this book became, up to the middle of the sixteenth century, the great text-book. Dia- lectic and rhetoric were taught from epitomes. Por- tions of Cicero, Virgil, etc., continued to be read ; but they were used, as in the cathedral and monastery 270 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. schools, simply as illustrations of grammar and rhetoric rules, not studied as literature. It is clear to any one who has looked into co- temporary writings that the tendency of universities was at first, and for long, away from literature and humanism. Grammar and rhetoric were formal, — a study of rules and inaccurate etymologies. Dialectic was logic in its most ban^n form. The true intellectual life of universities was to be found in the specialized studies of medicine, theology, including philosophy or the higher dialectic, and law. It is quite true, as I believe I have shown, that the grammatical and literary instruction of the pre- university schools was, except in the hands of a teacher here and there, restricted, arid, and uncultivating. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the rise of university teaching effected much change. On the contrary, the method of procedure was perpetuated ; and this even above the "trivial" stage, when we should have expected the study of the " humanities " to enter. Humane studies were entirely overshadowed in Paris and the universities which followed that model, by philosophy, which was generally limited to dialectic disputations on definitions, the nature of ideas, and the relative questions of metaphysical the- ology. The n^lect of literature led to barbarism in style. The report which John of Salisbury gives of Paris in 1 136 is only one of numerous evidences of this. These studies, however, unfruitful eis they might be in UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 271 their immediate results, cultivated acuteness of mind, loosened old conviction, and laid the foundations of modem rationalism. In giving instruction, the order of the day was generally as follows : — The regent usually met his pupils three times daily — at sunrise, at noon, and towards the evening — and at one of these meetings determining (defining) and disputation occupied the time. There can be no doubt that the want of books gave great opportunities to a regent of high teaching capacity to show what he could do. It also compelled in the pupil an amount of memory-work, and of reflection on the lessons dictated, which must have been highly effectual for the formal discipline of the mind. Robert de Cour