Glass. Book. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/riseearlyconstit01laur INTEKNATIONAL EDUCATION SEEIES. Edited by "VV. T. Harris. It is proposed to publish, under the above title, a library for tesi- hvi-i and school managers, and text-books for normal classes. The aii be to provide works of a useful practical character in the broadest s*;u3e. The following conspectus will show the ground to be covered tj the series : I. — History of Educatioilo (a.) Original systems a ■■-- pounded by their founders, (b.) Critical histories which set fort customs of the past and point out their advantages and defects, ex ing the grounds of their adoption, and also of their final disuse. II. — EdHcational Criticism, (a.) The noteworthy an ments which educational reformers have put forth against existinj, ,-/•,- tems: these compose the classics of pedagogy, (b.) The critical hisotis: above mentioned. III.— Systematic Treatises on tlie Theory of Edu- cation, (a.) Works written from the historical standpoint; t:;:.-- f or the most part, show a tendency to justify the traditional coui study and to defend the prevailing methods of instruction, (b.) "0 written from critical standpoints, and to a greater or less degree re ;' ! tionary in their tendency. IV.— The Art of Education, (a.) Works on instruj : ■ r and discipline, and the practical details of the school-room, (b.) "VM o, : • on the organization and supervision of schools. Practical insight into the educational methods in vogue can nc >c attained without a knowledge of the process by which they have cor .0 be established. For this reason it is proposed to give special promir •:■ ice to the history of the systems that have prevailed. Again, since history is incompetent to furnish the ideal of the fu . <- it is necessary to devote large space to works of educational criti* Criticism is the purifying process by which ideals are rendered clear iUl potent, so that progress becomes possible. , History and criticism combined make possible a theory of the whole. , with an ideal toward which the entire movement tends, and an ac- nt of the phases that aave appeared in time, the connected develop- 01. it of the whole can be shown, and all united into one system. Lastly, after the science, comes the practice. The art of education is ited in special works devoted to the devices and technical details use- '■'■' in the school-room. It is believed that the ^.eacher does not need authority so much as in- at in matters of education. When he understands the theory of edu- c ., ion and the history of its growth, and has matured his own point o( view by careful study of the critical literature of education, then he is : y.apetent to select or invent such practical devices as are best adapted his own wants. The series will contain works from European as well as American i: L 'hors, and will be under the editorship of W. T. Harris, A. M., LL. D. '"t 3 price for the volumes of the series will be $1.50 for the larger '. •>!umes, 75 cents for the smaller ones. Vul. I. Tlie Fliilosophy of Education. By Johann Xarl Friedrich Rosenkranz. Vul. II. A History of Education. By Prof. F. V. K Painter, of Roanoke, Virginia. 1. III. The Rise 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 8ERIE8 THE EISE AND EAELT OF UNIYER SUEVET OF MEDIJiTAI EDUCATIOM" S. S. LAXJRIE, LL. D. PKOFESSOR OP THE INSTITUTES AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION Df THE , ', UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET 1887 p Copyright, 1886, D. APPLET0N MUD COaiPANY. 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 oi 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 ma.y 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 modern 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 to 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 Irnerius at Bologna initi- ates the thoi"Ough 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 modern 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. xii 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 {Selbstentfrenidimg 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 VI. Rise of Universities (a. d. hoc) .... 91 VII. The First Universities — the Schola Salernitana and the University of Naples .... 106 VIII. The University of Bologna 124 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. Ephem- 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 Csesar, Augustus, and others. Law was a specialty at the universities of Rome and Beiytus ; 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, Besan9on, 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 exedrce (por- ticoes). Lecture II. Injliience of Christianity on Education ajid 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 Licuge 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 Etymologicse"), 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 Leidi-ade, 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 yEsop, 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 Euclid, 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 ; allegoiy 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 ; Ltibeck, Hamburg, Breslau, Nord- hausen, Stettin, Leipsic, and Niirnberg, 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 fi-om the old Episcopal schools founded on the old imperial provincial foundations, at Bologna, Paris, Rheims, and Naples. The Benedictine schools at St. Galle, Bologna, EDITOR'S ANALYSIS. xix Paris, Salernum, Bee, Rheims, and Oxford, in the eleventh century, were universities after a sort. Anselm, at Bee (1033-1108), had been student and prior. The imiversity 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 differed from the school of arts (a), in giving instruction (disciplinse) in law, medicine, and theology ; {b), in accessi- bility as to place ; {c), in being founded by popes and kings and general rulers instead of local ones ; {d), in having special privileges, pecuniary and legal ; {e), in being republics of letters (Bulasus — Professor Laurie dissents from him in second and third items). Studhim 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 modern 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 modern. 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 1 100 Irnerius 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 tlie university. The school of Salerno, tlie " 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. Constantino of Carthage took refuge at Salernum, 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 11 60, the pri- orate before 1 100. 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 Bolog7ia. — There were schools of law at Rome, Constantinople, and Ber}'tus. Justinian endowed the one at Rome, 554. Tlie 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 Notre 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 I113. 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 Constihition of Universities. — A studium gene- rale 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 medieval 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 Discipline ; 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 I 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 known 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. xxiil ing or not). British universities recognize the double 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 Charles IV. Copied Paris, where he had been a student. The Pope issued 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 religious 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 degree from another university ; 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 regens 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 : theology, 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, Erfurt, Heidelberg, and Leipsic. iioo to 1300, 10 universities founded; four- teenth century, 18 ; fifteenth century, 29, including 3 Scotch. Lecture XV. University Studies mid the Conditions of Gradua- tion. — Trivium still 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 Villedieu, 1200 ; remained text-book till 1550. Dialectic and rhetoric taught from Epitomes. Cicero, Virgil, 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 modern rationalism. Daily programme : regent met pupils at sun- rise, noon, and toward evening. One of these daily sessions devoted to definition (" detennination ") and disputation. No books owned by pupils, hence much memory-work. Robert Cour^on (i2co) 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 centuiy 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 Dollinger. " 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. Tins 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. ^^1^ 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 " Histoire 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 chansre 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 Graecia ; 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 Ouintilian 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), + Grafenhahn (iii. p. 29) says ten. 4 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. throne of the school, and had attached to it a salary of i^soo 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 Piraeus 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. k himself to study, John Roscelin, a .litvp -f Brittany and Canon of Compiegne, had begun 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 triviurn and qiiadriviuni) 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 1 102, when he was only twenty-thi'ee 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 Heloi'se took the veil at Argenteuil. He was now thirty-six or thirty- seven years of age. It was only at the urgent solici- tation 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 allovt^^^d 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. With 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. 145 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 deaHng with questions of abstract philosophy and theology, that we are indebted primarily for the scien- 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 l 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 Irnerius 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 Carolinglan 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 Liege, 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 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. One of Manegolde's pupils was the celebrated William of Champeaux, who, Villivry 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 Manegolde is an open question. t Quoted by Mabillon, in " De Studiis Monasticis," pt. i. c. 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- betica, nunc ad ecclesiastica se contulisse studia . . . ad quem audiendum cum mitlti nosU'atiun (i.e. 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 MEDIEVAL 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 1 1 5 1, if not before. UNIVERSITY OF PAk.S. T51 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 1 159, 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 iioo, 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 152 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. about the time of Abelard's death, in fact, that the ■ i:r*j;c: 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 ^.s 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 organizatio7i. If degrees began to be given before 1159, 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- einninsrs of faculties. Matthew of Paris relates that UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 153 Jean de la Celle, elected Abbot of St. Alban's in 1 195, had studied at Paris, and had been admitted there ad electorum consortium magistrot'um. The masters evidently held meetings and regulated all matters connected with instruction, and thus formed the first development of the studium generale out of the original school of arts. It would be superfluous to show that this was all both natural and necessary. True, both theology and the Decree were spoken ot in the twelfth century as artes liberales, and the word "faculty," where it occurs, is simply equivalent to subject or department of study, but none the less were the beginnings of what afterwards became " faculties " then visible. And this beginning of the university in a consortium magistrorum influenced the organization of the universitas throughout its whole history. Paris, in fact, was commonly differentiated as a universitas magistrorum, 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 Notre 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- liarities. For example ; it was because it was the centre of theological learning that it received so many ^,.;,,:i r. fj-om the pope, and was kept in such close \ • the papal see by a continuous succession again, it was because it remained an arts 154 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 palace, 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 ' ; Deo ; alone continuing to be taught there. The after tl- i UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, 155 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. Dbllinger, 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. 156 MEDIMVAL 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 mediaeval 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. 157 canonists in the beginning of the twelfth century- taught civil law in Paris, this teaching (if prior to the death of Irnerius, 1 138?) 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 civ is ; 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. (12 16- 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 1 60, 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 1231. Thus by the year 1200 we find Paris an active 158 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. and flourishing high school of theology (this subject still classed, however, as one of the liberal arts), of arts, canor\ 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 12 15 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 studlum 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. (11 59)? 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 scholarimn 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. 159 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 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. The circumstances which led to a ratification and further extension by Phihp Augustus, in 1200, of the privileges already enjoyed by the University of Paris under the edicts of Louis VI I. 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 com'munities. The servant of a member of the university (the Archdeacon of Liege) 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 university 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. Kirkpatrick, p. 205. i62 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. 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 MEDIMVAL 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 schools. 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 2 20.* 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 official 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 regarded 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. Montpellier 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 iinpej'ium in imperio. Every student had to be enrolled with some magister, but, subject to this, there was great freedom. The community was a respuhlica 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 triviiim 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 Lettres au xiv^ Siecle," i. 269, quoted by Mullinger. I70 MEDIEVAL 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 fuiimis simul in Garlandia ; or they remembered how they had once shouted in the ears of the watch the defiant menace, Allez au clos Bruneau* vous troiiverez a qui parler / " 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, which 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, wlio 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 Facultv of Arts. 172 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. LECTURE X. THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. The Terms "Studium Generale" 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 medieval uni- THE CONSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. 173 versitles by an historical explanation of certain words : — Studium Generate 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 scholcs publiccB. 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 (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 " scholce',' sometimes " universitates " with the addition of the words "magistrorum et scholarium." The name " studium generale " 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 exedrcs 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 with " 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 (cclxi.), written in 1168 to the Conventus of the Ecclesia Cantuariensis, which begins thus : " Universitati sanctorum qui in prima Britanniarum sede . . . Domino famulantur," etc. In fact, the term " universitas " was in the earlier part of the Middle Ages applied to towns or comimmia regarded as organized 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 tmiversitas liter aria. 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 tmiversitas 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) doctorum et scholarium. Now, the mere epistolary recognition 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 modern 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 charters 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 MEDIJEVAL 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 the 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 MEDIMVAL 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 m 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 som.e 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 effects. 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, 1 82 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 also 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 sequel. 10 i84 MEDIMVAL 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 the highest Church tribunal. So far, then, universities were Church institutions. And yet, the universities were essentially autcno- 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 study, 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 questioned ; 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 theit conflict between 1 86 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, mediaeval 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 regulations 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, Wickliffe, 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 occasional cowardice, their own corporate rights of free organiza- tion and free thought, but they sent out thousands 188 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 ! THE 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 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 noTi- 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 Mullinger) 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 resum.e 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, 191 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 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Even to the most republican academic mind of medieval 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 (inagistri actu regentes) sufficient, though not necessarily predominant, power, and above all include representatives of the Crozvn. For I would point out 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 contimiators 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 (5) 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 Edinburgh, owing to the traditionary connection of the 194 MEPI^VAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Any reform 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 recognized, 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 muncipalities. university with the municipality, the provost of the city and a repre- sentative of the town council are also members. The Scottish university constitution will be seen to be a remarkable survival of medieval organization. LECTURE XL 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 Anstey'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 MEDIMVAL 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, 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 monasteiy hospitia — travelling scholars were always accommodated gratuitously, and even 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 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, and enter himself for these. The censor is required to 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 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 have 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- diseval 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 f salaries to professors at * Justinian also held out this inducement. His words were (Prooem, Instit.), " Summa igitur ope et alacri studio has leges nostras accipite ; at vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite ut spes vos pulcherrima foveat, toto legitimo 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 Lecture I. 2CO MEDIEVAL 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 {annon(2, stipendia, salaria). 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. iii. l). 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. 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 vv^ell summed up in the Theodosian Code, iii. 3 (a.D. 'i,},'^^, in the following words : " Quo facilius liberalibus 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 priest.f 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," ist series, p. loS. t Thomas a Becket was not a priest till he was appointed to the primacy. PRIVILEGES AND FACULTIES. in 1158, to all students, wherever they were, the right to be judged coram domino aut magistro siio v el ip sites 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, also 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 chirurgice facultatem in- struunt, which I translate as "who instruct in the knowledge of chirurgy." * As in the earlier pai't of the Middle Ages the Roman provincials, and the population of Teutonic origin, frequently lived in the same town, each under its ovi'n laws (Savigny), the separate jurisdiction of universities would not appear to contemporaries so inconsistent with social order as it does to us. .v.^ mj:.uimval 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 studying the same group of subjects. And it is so we now popularly regard it. Until some time after the bull of Gregory IX., in 123 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 PRIVILEGES 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 MEDIEVAL 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 traditional " 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- moruin magistroriim certce alicni disciplines addictnm sine ulla distinctio7te nationis (i. 251). But he after- wards (iii. Z%) 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. 207 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 MEDIMVAL 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. So) ; 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 128 1 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 liberales 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 Champeaux. 2IO MEDIMVAL 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 1260, 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. 2II 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 licita 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 century, 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 century, accordingly, fifteen universities PRIVILEGES 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 also 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 garqons 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 1 1 50, 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 W9,s only if this chef d'(^tivre was found satisfactory that they were installed as master — a 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 niedendi. But as these medici were then held to be "masters" in their art, they constantly carried with them into ordinary hfe 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 term "magister" 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 Salernum ; for the ceremony was simply the granting of a licencia doccndi* 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'crtcvi^e 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 — Baccalaureus 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 Salei-nitan 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 trivium — 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 baccalarins, and this is said to be derived from the low Latin, bacca (for vacca), 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) gargojt, 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 wrs 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, i.e. baccalarms and baccalaria, to denote young persons above eighteen years of age serving under a master. The French feminine was bachehtte. GRADUATION. 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 ustd geiierically, 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." 222 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 were 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 1 142, that he had no formal authority to teach ; and we know from the poem of ^gidius (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. forbade them, on the ground that the teaching faculty was a gift of God. 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 liberaliuni avtium. Even in Salernum 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 liceitcia medendi 'merely. In 123 1, 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, {i.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 Facvilty 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 Irnerius, 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 medicincB, philosopJiicB, 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 MEDIMVAL 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 docejidi. 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 became 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. GRADUATION. 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 MEDJMVAL 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 in 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 Magisier regetis 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 narrowest 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 understood, 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. v/e 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 efiiciency 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, b)^ 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 liberal 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. 236 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. 'J'^Sj 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 very 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 form ; 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 recognition was by Henry HI., who summoned Parliament to meet at Oxford in 1258. But we must date the starting- 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 MEDIMVAL 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. Mullinger 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 1200 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 rent) raged at Oxford in 1153. 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 tarn 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 Cambriae " 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 w^o.J 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 (i 220-1 230) 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. • Roger of Wendovei's "Flowers of History," by Giles, ii. 249; quoted by Denifle, p. 242. 242 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 organisation took its form about 1230, after the Paris migration. Cambridge first received a papal bull in 13 18 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 ■J 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 ecclesiastical 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 MEDIEVAL 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 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. " hostels " {Jiospitia^ 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.! 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. Kiikpatrick (p. 252) quotes from Bulaeus, part iii. p. 392, in evidence that a college for one hundred poor clerks Mas founded in the eleventh 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 UNVERSIITES. 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 b2 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 fourteenth century. The others sought lodgings where they could get them ; and the University of Paris, after 12 15, 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 1231, 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 Oxford. 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 many. 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 oi Domns, or Aiila ScJwIaidum. The term "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 151 1, 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 1 264 f— 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. X Preceded, however, some say, by an earlier foundation. 252 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES, eye on the Sorbonne. Morton'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 natiiralis. 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 WilHam 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 svstem 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" (Mullinger, p. 309).* * Before the Reformation, permission to wealthy students to reside in colleges, 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 proper destination of the great wealth of the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. It is curious to note that in these latter days the non-collegiate or unattached system of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has been revived. Under- graduates may now live in licensed lodging-houses, and 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," scq. 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 II33, 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 al 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 MEDIMVAL 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 throne in 1346. He founded it, as from the first, a stiidiuin 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 Foitarre, wished to have a copy of the university there, in his hereditary kingdom of Bohemia " (Bollinger, 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 under 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. 257 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 258 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 the administration of the university purse. The primary assembly, whereby its statutes were made or altered, was the congregation {congregatio universitatis\ in which masters and students had equal votes. By an edict of the archbishop, a special university council {concilium imiversitatis), consisting of eight members, two from each nation {j>rocuratores natiojium), 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 nni- versitas magistj^orum et scholarium, became, practically, a imiversitas inagistroruin 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 MEDIMVAL 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." f 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. 261 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- 262 MEDI^ VAL ED UCA TION AND UNIVERSITIES. tmiversitdt, and had a collegiate house assigned to it by Charles in 1373. The general body of students might attend what- ever lectures thej^ 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 ariibus, 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 least six times. They were held on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The bachelors who were going for- ward to the mastership had to be ahvays present at the disputations, and take part in them. In addition to the disputations ordered by the liniversity, 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 dispictatio de qiiolibet, 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 Lav/. „ 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 European 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 modern 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 the 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 mediaeval 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 extensiv^e 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 high. 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 MEDIEVAL 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 barren 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 neglect 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 as they might be in ■ UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 271 their immediate results, cultivated acuteness of mind, loosened old conviction, and laid the foundations of modern 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(jon, the papal legate, fixed in the earlier part of the thirteenth century the books to be lectured on in the Paris faculty of arts for the master- ship — viz. Aristotle, in so far as he bore on dialectic and ethics; "Topics" (fourth book); Priscian (with the abridgment) ; and other works, by authors now unknown, on philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, and grammar. The Metaphysics and Physics of Aristotle were proscribed, but the interdict was subsequently removed. The most popular text-book of logic was, for centuries, the *' Summulae " of Petrus Hispanus. The reforms of the papal legate were carried out before a distinct faculty of theology was formed. But theology was, yet, recognized by him as a separate 272 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. study (facultas in its earlier sense), and none allowed to lecture in it " publicly " till they were thirty-five years of age. The highest study of the Universities of Paris and England was theology ; but let us never forget that theology comprehended philosophy, and indeed frequently touched the whole range of knowledge. At first and for long, however, theology was apt to be buried under dialectic disputations in a narrow sense. Text-books of theology, or " Sentences," had come from various hands long before this time; the science had been thoroughly systematized and reduced to a corpus by the famous Peter the Lombard, after many attempts by others. His " Liber Senten- tiarum " became, from 1 150, the universal text-book of the schools — text-book of philosophy as well as of theology — although his systematization was based very largely on Scripture and the Fathers. The writing to dictation, the discussion, and reproduction of this book, seem to have been the great end of theological study, the master or doctor of theology confining himself to commentaries on the text ; but, by means of these commentaries, a great deal of Aristotelianism, pure or spurious, was always taught. In 1257-1270, the religious orders, after a struggle, secured, as I have previously mentioned, the recogni- tion of their own claustral teaching by the University of Paris, and became an integral part of it, sharing in its privileges. But in order to preserve the supre- macy of " artSi," which up to that time included UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 273 theology, the " faculty " of theology was created, and assigned a subordinate place in the university organi- zation to that of arts. But none the less did theology continue to be regarded as queen of the sciences. Again, about the time that Petrus Lombardus issued his Corpus Theologiae, there emanated from Bologna (1157) a Corpus juris Canonici, which went by the name of the Decretum. Thereafter, canon law, which had been previously studied as part of the general theological course, now became a separate and specialized study under the direct mandate of the pope. Hence arose the faculty of the decree or the canon law. Meanwhile the old Theodosian Code had been superseded by the labours of Irnerius and his pupils, and the issue of the "Pandects" of Justinian, about the middle of the same century, gave rise to the faculty of civil law. Even the higher teaching of all the universities was confined to the dictation and exposition of the recognized authoritative books which I have named. Intellectual activity had to expend itself — not, how- ever, fruitlessly — on the definitions and propositions involved in the dogmatic utterances of the recognized authorities. No doubt these discussions gave occasion for much dialectic absurdity as well as subtlety. They are regarded with feelings of contempt by some. But this is to misread history. For such dialectic, even in its crudest form, was in marked and significant con- 274 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. trast to the dead conformity of the centuries preced- ing universities, and familiarized the minds of the students to a quasi-independence in speculation which had great issues. When Thomas Aquinas had written, and Duns Scotus speculated, theology tended to pass more and more into metaphysics. Scotus Erigena had at last triumphed. Prior to the intellectual movement which led to the specialization of theology as including dialectic, the theological teaching was simply a study of the Scriptures and the Fathers. To study, copy, compile, and abridge the latter was the task of the professed theologian, and what was sought was not proof, but authority. Scholastic theology, on the other hand, meant the systematizing of theo- logy on the basis of reason as well as of authority, and its method of procedure was by way of axioms, definitions, and deductions. Graduation* — For the B. A, degree it may perhaps seem to us that the university requirements were con- temptible, viz. grammar, with elementary logic and rhetoric ; but if we keep in mind the youth of the candidates, the want of books, and the method of teaching, we shall be satisfied that even this minor degree marked the conclusion of a period of hard and sustained work. There was no food for the mind, but there was a great deal of severe discipline of the memory and intellect. After a disciplinary course of three or four years, the young student " determined," * See also Lecture XII. UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 275 that is to say, he defined or determined, logical terms and propositions in the presence of his master and fellow-students, and maintained his definitions against objectors. This having been done satisfactorily, he was named a bachelor by the masters of that subject, and had now the right to wear a round cap, and not only the right, but the obligation, to teach freshmen. He was then said incipere in artibus* For the Mastership his qualification was teaching in this private fashion (generally under some master) for a few years (apparently three), and attending public lectures, till he considered himself qualified to apply for the licencia. In 121 5, Robert de Courgon, the papal legate who had been appointed to settle differ- ences that arose in Paris, decreed that none should lecture or teach, i.e. publicly as a magister, till he was twenty-one, and had attended six years in arts and had passed an examination. This examination consisted in maintaining theses or disputations in public. The candidate was then presented by the other masters to the Chancellor for the licence, which gave him freedom to teach publicly all and sundry, and made him a member -of the university in the fullest sense — the master- ship being merely (as I have previously explained) a ceremonial act following the licence. In the fourteenth century, when the graduation system was * This is my interpretation of " inception " at Paris. I fail, after many perusals, to understand Mr. Mullinger's account of inception at Cambridge. 276 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. more fully organized, the artist who desired a master- ship (unless he confined himself to a mastership in grammar alone*) had to study first arithmetic and music, then geometry and perspective, and finally astronomy ; but the higher dialectic seems to have always governed the other schools. From the letter of the Paris masters (1254) we learn that arts included ethics and the philosophy of nature. It is difficult to say whether all the above-named subjects were compulsory, as preparatory for the licen- tiateship (or mastership) in Arts. A decided advance seems to have been made in the mathematical studies at the universities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ; but, at best, the mathematical attainment was very narrow in its range. Roger Bacon (died 1294) complains that in his time very few went beyond the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid ; and for two or three centuries after his time, the six books were regarded as a very ample mathe- matical equipment. There can be no doubt that metaphysics, in some form or other, dominated the upper schools, and indeed the whole university both before and after St. Thomas Aquinas. In theology^ a course of five years was required by De Courgon to qualify for private, and a course of eight years for a public, course of lectures, * This grammar degree for those who wished to be teachers of gram- mar schools existed, I think, only in England. It was a schoolmaster's degree. UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 277 The above brief sketch is of general application, and though specially relating to Paris, is in the main true of university studies as a whole down to the Humanistic revival at the beginning of the fifteenth century. A slight sketch of the peculiarities of Bologna is, however, necessary in order to show the influence it had on subsequent university organizations. The course of instruction there consisted of lectures, repe- titions, and disputations. It was only towards the end of the thirteenth century that the word " bacha- larius" is found at Bologna, and then confined to mark a stage in the study of law, not of arts. A student who had studied under the doctors (and the lecturing and disputation system seems to have been very strictly organized) for a certain number of years might get permission from the Rector, on payment of a certain sum, to conduct " repetitions." A repetitio was the taking up of some point or text, already ex- pounded, generally in a doctor's lecture, and con- sidering all possible difficulties suggested by it, and all possible objections.* The text of a repetitio was announced some days beforehand. After one year of this work, the aspirant was called Bachalarius. For the Licencia, the bachelor continued to attend the doctors, and had to take part in the periodical disputations, which could be held only under the • A somewhat similar kind of disputation was known even in the private provincial schools of law under the empire. 278 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. presidency of the doctors. Scholars were also free to take part in these. The qucestio of a disputation was, like the text of a repetitio, always posted up some days before the meeting. After having studied law eight years in all, the bachelor applied for the licencia. For this there were two examinations, a private and then a public. The candidate selected a doctor as his promoter. Two texts were prescribed by him on which the candidate had to write a criticism. He then appeared before the college of doctors. The promoting doctor had alone the right to examine his candidate generally, but the other assembled doctors present might put questions on the prescribed texts. They then voted, and the candidate, if successful, became a licentiate. The next or public step (the Conventus) was for the candidate to go, in festive manner, to the cathedral, and there deliver a lecture on some point of law, and submit to any discussion arising out of the lecture into which the students might draw him. This was the public examination, evidently of a merely ceremonial charac- ter ; and after it, the archdeacon proclaimed the new doctor and his right to the insignia. The hat and the ring and the book were then formally presented to him by his promoter or promoters. The public exami- nation might follow close on the private one,* * The doctors seem to hnve divided the graduation fees among them, the promoter getting a very large proportion of the whole. The above order of graduation was in existence in the thirteenth UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 279 As to England : in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,* the want of grammar schools throughout England led to a large influx of boys of eleven or twelve years of age to Oxford and Cambridge. There were numerous monastery and cathedral schools, but these were generally in a decayed or decaying condition ; and it can easily be understood that if a boy had to leave Yorkshire or Sussex for his education, he would prefer wending his way at once to the famous centres, where preparatory in- struction was fully organized, to entering himself at a cathedral school of less reputation. To meet the wants of these boys, the schools of the Grammatici were numerous at both Oxford and Cambridge, and these the boy attended until he was qualified to enter the university as an arts student or artist. The reflex effect of the competition of the uni- versities on provincial, cathedral, and monastic schools can easily be understood. These found their work done for them, and largely ceased to do it. The weak " secondary " schools (as we should now call them) became weaker. " As the universities," says Warton, "began to flourish, . . . the monasteries, of course, century. It was only after 12 19, apparently, that the archdeacon had a part to play in the ceremony. Even then his duty was purely formal and official. Abuses in granting the degree had arisen, and the pope appointed the archdeacon to an office similar to that of the cathedral chancellor at Paris. * And we may add the fifteenth. William Bingham, who founded Clare Hall, Cambridge, says that in 1439 he passed seventy deserted schools in travelling from Hampton to Ripon, by way of Coventry. U 28o MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. grew inattentive to studies which were more strongly encouraged, more commodiously pursued, and more successfully cultivated in other places." To meet this evil to some extent, the abbeys and monasteries and cathedrals began to send boys to Oxford and Cambridge with small allowances, and after 1335 every Benedictine and Augustinian monastery was ordered to send docile boys to the universities in the proportion of not less than one in twenty of the whole community (Wilhs's "Cambridge"). It was only after the age for matriculation was heightened, that the secondary schools of England reached a standard much higher than that of a superior primary school. We see also in Scotland a good secondary- school system made impossible,. up to the present day, by the action of the universities, and we have even in recent years seen that action defended by disinterested professors. Neither in England nor Scotland have we yet organized a secondary system comparable to that existing during the first three centuries after Christ under the Flavian and Antonine dynasties and their immediate successors. Thus the standard of local or provincial culture is depressed, and the first year's course at our Scottish seats of learning brings discredit on the very name of univer- sity. After all, is it much better at Oxford and Cam- bridge? What are the private records of the "little go " ? The universities themselves are depressed by the dead weight of the incompetent on whom they UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 281 spend their best energies. It was so also in the four- teenth century. The boys at the grammar schools of the university had to rush their preparation, and as " they were not grounded in their first rudiments at the proper time, they built a tottering edifice on an insecure foundation." * A boy who had gone the regular course in the grammar schools would find himself qualified for the university generally about the age of fourteen. He then matriculated and ente'red himself under a Master of Arts, by whom he was prepared during a period of four years for Determinations, i.e. the BA. degree. In Oxford he had to pass the half-way house of Responsions. The examination at Responsions (and here we simply summarize Mr. Anstey's account) had reference to grammar and arithmetic, and until he passed the examination the scholar was called " sophista generalis ; " after this his designation was " questionist" The second examination embraced rhetoric and logic (and probably music) ; and was called " determinations " because of the questions put to the candidate to be determined. Mr. Anstey says, ** It seems to me that at Paris determination simply meant defining in logic and rhetoric, and maintaining the definition against the master or other determiners;" and this quite accords with the conclusion to which I had myself come in the case of Paris. But Mr. Mullinger (p. 354) points out that at Cambridge the * Richard of Bury (died 134S), quoted by Mullinger, p. 206. 282 MEDIMVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. questionist was first required to answer questions — respottdere ad qucBStionem — and this seems to have been the true examination for the bachelorship. When he had done this satisfactorily, he was then required for a certain number of days determinare qucestionem, that is to say, to preside over meetings when the quaestio was put, and to sum up and decide. It is only in this presiding over meetings that the Cam- bridge practice really differed from that of Paris and Oxford. The bachelor who was still in statu piipillari now devoted three years to attendance on lectures and disputations — studying geometry, astronomy, and philosophy, in the old sense of that term, viz. physics, ethics, and metaphysics. At every stage of the student's career, text-books were prescribed, and no departure from these allowed. The master read a portion of the text to his scholars, and then proceeded to prelect on it, and finally raised points for class discussion. At a time when there were few books, much must have depended on the acquired learning and teaching-power of the master whom the bachelors elected to attend. The method of teaching was, so far as it went, admirable. Three years having elapsed in such studies, the bachelor was recommended by a certain number of masters to the Chancellor, who granted him a licence to "incept," i.e. to begin lecturing and disputing in arts in the presence of an audience of " masters.' UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 283 This he did for a year or more before he was recog- nized as a " master," Mr. Anstey refers the festivi- ties, fees and presents imposed on the candidate to the period of inception, and does not point to any ceremony of magistration.* The Master of Arts might then remain at the university as a regent, or go out to the world as one of the regular clergy or as a schoolmaster. If, however, he desired to continue his studies, he entered one of the higher faculties — medicine, law, or theology — and then went through a course substantially similar to that of the arts ; " masters " in each of these " higher " faculties being ultimately called doctors, to distinguish them from Masters of arts.f I have followed Mr. Anstey in the above summary of the master's course and inception so far as Oxford is concerned. Mr. Mullinger gives a somewhat dif- ferent account of the proceedings at Cambridge, and one more closely in accord with the continental practice. The chief difiference is that Mr. Anstey represents the candidate as being declared " master " after an exercise at public lecturing and disputa- tion, and says that this was follozved by a year's lecturing. Is Mr. Anstey not mistaken on this point ? Again, Mr. Mullinger points out that the bachelor * At Paris the " licence " was given after disputations and lecturing, and the ceremony of " magistration," with all its attendant expenses, followed immediately thereafter. t But for long the word "master" in theology was preferred to " doctor " at Oxford. 284 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. might lecture ciirsorid. It was a matter of course in Paris that he should lend assistance in preparing the sophisters, and this was part of his preparation for the licence. In Prague also, founded on the Parisian model, the young bachelor was required to promise that he would teach for two years. I do not quite under- stand the meaning which Mr. Mullinger would attach to the bachelor's lectures cursorie. From my own reading I would explain the word as simply mean- ing lectures delivered while the bachelor was running his course for master. On the other hand, it is worthy of remark that in Prague the bachelor was always restricted to the text-book, and prohibited from explaining or expounding. Hence, perhaps, a secon- dary meaning to the expression " cursory lecturing." When now we survey the school grammar course, the university baccalaurean requirements, the subse- quent studies for the Arts mastership, and thereafter the repetition of each graduation step of the Arts course in the higher faculties, and compare this with the scholastic curriculum of the eleventh century, we must admit that the education of Europe had in the course of little more than a century become revo- lutionized. The academic organization was indeed already, in all essential respects, complete, and we cannot but wonder at the activity of mind which in so short a time produced such remarkable changes. Along with the new organization there arose, as we UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 285 have seen, the idea of a literary repubh'c independent of monastic rule, and a freedom of speculation within this republic out of which has come our modern life. From time to time the Church, as represented by its central authority at Rome, had its own difficulties with individuals, especially at Paris and Oxford ; but on the whole, up to the fifteenth century, it was the nurse of universities, and regarded them with favour. It threw its shield over them more than once. We may indeed suspect that its patronage had often political aims, and that it hoped, by securing a direct and ultramontanist allegiance, to weaken the nationalism of the academic clerics. If the pope had this pur- pose, then, spite of occasional successes, he ultimately failed. The sporadic humanism of the thirteenth century reappeared in the end of the fifteenth in full force, and, aided by the art of printing, was, then and for ever, too strong for pope or monk. It has had its own battle since, and has it now — a battle that has to be fought with Protestant obscurantism as well as with ultramontanism. But it cannot fail to be victorious, for it represents the mobility of the spirit of man as opposed to crystallized forms, and the essential freedom of mind as opposed to the tyrannous usurpation of the empire of reason by mere authority. The Catholic idea of the spiritual unity of mankind was certainly a grand one, but it is not to be accomplished by utter- ances ex cathedra, nor, indeed, on any terms yet dis- cernible by the eye of either historian or philosopher. 286 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. Any further consideration of the work done in the universities in the latter portion of the Middle Ages, in so far as they were the centres of speculation, or reflected the ecclesiastical and political movements of successive generations, would demand special and extended treatment. The historian would have to take for his guide the special histories of medicine, of Roman law, of philosophy and philology, down to about the year 1 500 ; and, thereafter, the history of the Humanistic revival and its varied fortunes. Especially after the revival of letters, the annalist would have to acknowledge that the history of pro- gress of the human intellect no longer finds its ex- clusive centre in the universities. Outside these, though no doubt largely influenced by them, there has run a parallel influence, literary, scientific, and philosophical, which would have to be taken account of. We see an analogy in political history during the last century ; for this is no longer to be studied in the formal acts of kings, cabinets, and councils, but in the activity of the Publicists outside these, who first supply the ideas, and then largely shape the policy, of States.* The mediaeval universities gave a liberal interpre- tation to " Arts," I have said ; but I do not mean it to * Even in 1623 the University of Oxford, in acknowledging a presentation copy of Bacon's "De Augmentis," says, "She (i.e. the university) readily acknowledgeth that, though the Muses are born in Oxford, they grow elsewhere." UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 287 be inferred that they consciously aimed at free and encyclopaedic investigation. The idea of a university as an academy of free scientific inquiry may, in a sense, have existed at Athens, or, at least, at Alexandria, but, strictly speaking, it is a modern conception. The universities of the Middle Ages had to discharge their functions in subordination to the Church. Nor did they attempt, except in the department of metaphysics, to start new questions of a fundamental kind. The business of the doctors of law was to expound the civil law of Justinian and the Decretum of Gratian, and if they extended their area at all, to extend it by means of interpre- tations and commentaries. In medicine, Galen and Hippocrates and Avicenna, or manuals based on these writers, were expounded, and extended by new observations. In theology, the decrees of the councils were expounded and commented on, and the authority of the Fathers brought into requisition in support of them, the great text-book being the Sententiae of Peter the Lombard and afterwards the Summa of Aquinas. As regards the preliminary course of studies in arts which terminated in the bachelorship, it was confined very much, as we have seen, to the old trivium — grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. These subjects also were taught from authoritative books, the learners taking ample notes from the dictation of the masters, and "getting these up." It was only in connection with the philosophical questions closely related to 288 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. theology, that discussions early arose which led to free thought, and foreshadowed heresies. The practice of disputation in the schools unquestionably promoted freedom. Not only those seeking the higher degree of masters, but the students, had to debate questions in public and take sides, one of which at least might lean to heterodoxy. They were playing with danger- ous weapons, as it turned out. But during the first centuries of university life the papal authority had no fear of universities. St. Andrews, in Scotland, founded so late as 141 1, was founded by the pope (spite of all that had happened at Paris) for the defence of the faith. So with Heidelberg five and twenty years before. The true Catholic attitude to all investigation was, and is, one admitting of great advances in every department of learning, while checking all true free- dom of thought It is well described by Mabillon when speaking of the use of reason in theology : " Hie autem rationis usus malus non est si coercitus intra terminos et a regulis limitatus. . . . Quiescere non potest unquam hominum ratio ; minus sufferre leges, segerrinie limites et terminos. Attamen in theologia pati debet eosdem et a fide accipere." * He also, quite consistently with Catholic interests, guards the faithful against dialectic and philosophy, and looks with little favour on the practice of disputation. Even in these days, outside Catholic restrictions, * " De Studiis Monasticis," pt. ii. c. vi., Latin Trans, of 1702. UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 289 the function of universities in the body politic is still debated. There seems to be a growing consensus of opinion, however, in favour of the view that they must be at one and the same time scientific institutes and training schools for the business of life. The latter function of universities — the training of the youth of the country for their public duties — has been very well expressed in the North American Review for October, 1842, "In the colleges," the writer says, " is determined the character of most of the persons who are to fill the professions, teach the schools, write the books, and do most of the business of legislation for the whole body of the people. The general direction of literature and politics, the prevail- ing habits and modes of thought throughout the country, are in the hands of men whose social position and early advantages have given them an influence, of the magnitude and permanency of which the pos- sessors themselves are hardly conscious." If this be true — as it undoubtedly is — it becomes us to look upon these institutions even with anxiety, and to cease regarding them as merely large schools in which knowledge is bought and sold. The prepara- tion for public life must be an organized preparation. As academic institutes, again, devoted to the in- vestigation and propagation of truth, they are to be jealously guarded. Especially in these days, when the influence of the few must yield to the voice of the many, it is imperative on all who wish well to their 290 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. country to hedge round with privilege all centres of intellectual and moral power. It is only thus that their freedom can be secured. They are in their essence the friends of true liberty, and the sworn foes of despotism, whether autocratic or democratic. Withdraw organization, privilege, and protection, and they are dissolved as universities, whatever else they may become. On the other hand, they cannot expect to retain at once the privileges of a public, and the irresponsibilities of a private, corporation. Academic privileges, like the political or social privileges of individuals and families, whether directly conferred by the State or merely acquiesced in by it as a tra- ditionary survival, exist for public purposes, and the return which the universities are expected to give is not only philosophical and scientific guidance to the nation, but also that training for public life to which the American writer refers in the passage quoted above. And this they give, I think, not so much in the formation of character as in the furnishing of ideas and principles of action, which give direction and purpose to character already largely formed by the home and the school. Let the governing members of universities them- selves realize that they are members of scientific cor- porations. This they can never truly be while they use their resources for the enrichment of individuals, and not for the general academic good. They have, in their primary idea and organization, far more UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 291 affinity to the monastic community than to the shop. Whatever intrinsic differences there may be in the subjects taught and the persons teaching them, all the members of the encyclopaedic body are to be recognized as discharging functions equally important in their relation to the universal scientific aim and to the practical wants of the nation. From the fact that purely professional training pays, there has always been a tendency in univer- sities themselves to look too exclusively to the prac- tical aim of their existence, and to lose sight of the purely scientific function. Even after the great wave of the revival had passed over them, they failed to realize this function. We find Lord Verulam com- plaining of the narrow aims of the university as under- stood in his own time. In his " Advancement of Learning " he says, " First, then, among so many great foundations of colleges in Europe, I find it strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large. For, if men judge that learning should be referred to action, they judge well ; but in this they fall into the error de- scribed in the ancient fable, in which the other parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle because it neither performed the office of motion as the limbs do, nor of sense as the head doth ; but yet, notwithstanding, it is the stomach that digesteth and distributeth to all the rest. So that if any man thinks philosophy and universality to be idle studies, 292 MEDIEVAL EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITIES. he doth not consider that all professions are from thence served and supplied. And this I take to be a great cause that hath hindered the profession of learning, because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage. For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it used to do, it is not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth and putting new mould about the roots that must work it." Lord Verulam, hope- less of reforming existing institutions, had formed the conception of a great university, which should be the mother of others, and which should be devoted entirely to the investigation and dissemination of scientific truth. In the "New Atlantis" the father of Solomon's House sketches an university on a vast scale, not yet, nor ever likely to be, realized. The movement of late years for the endowment of research is thus only the revival of a Baconian dream. Dr. Dollinger also speaks of universities as " corporations devoted to the advancement of the kingdom of know- ledge by means of investigation and literary produc- tivity." Nay, more, as " the supreme court of appeal in things of the mind." It is from this point of view that he ventures to say that " Oxford and Cambridge are as far removed from what we call an university as heaven from earth" — are, in fact, only big schools where mere gymnasium work is prolonged. We are content to be less exacting than Bacon and Dollinger, and to be satisfied if we see the combination of scientific re- UNIVERSITY STUDIES. 2.ijz search with the professional instruction of youth ; and we believe that the one is essential to the life and virility of the other. A professor's true attitude was well expressed a thousand years ago by a humanist born long before his time — the eminent Loup de Ferrieres — in a letter to Charles the Bald : " I desire to teach what I have learned and am daily learningr * * Crevier, i. 57, edit. 1761. THE END. INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. Edited by W. T. HARRIS, LL. D. The undersigned have pleasure in announcing that they have arranged for the publication of a series of volumes on education, such as is needed by teachers and managers of schools, for normal classes, and for the professional reading and training of educators generally. There will be four departments represented : I. History. — The first step out of routine is to make one's self acquainted wiih the work of others. The teacher who is anxious to improve in his profession turns first to the history of education. He desires to see what others have done and what others are doing. He can not be certain of his own work until he has compared it with the work of others. II. Criticism.— As he studies the educational systems of the present and past and sees their relations to each other and to his own, he gradually advances to the standpoint of criticism. In comparing one with another, he discovers special features of excellence and corresponding defects. He begins to derive useful and practical lessons from his study of educational literature. By the aid of criticism he gradually purifies his own methods or adopts improved ones. He thus re-enforces his own in- vention by the inventive powers of the entire educational profession. III. Theory. — When one has reached a critical point of view, and made clear for himself his educational idea, it becomss possible to form a system. Not only the teacher and the school manager are interested in explaining the origin and growth into maturity of the educational systems that have prevailed, but all students of social science also find in the philosophy of education a common key to the growth and decay of social institutions. IV. Practice. — Finally, by the realization of the educational idea in a consistent theory, the way is prepared for the art of teaching and practical management of the school. As it is proposed to admit different works on the theory of education, diverg- ing as widely as the two extremes of educational ideas, it is determined to be even more tolerant of diiferences in the practical matters of management and devices for instruction and discipline. As the series will contain works from European as well as from American authors, it will be called the "International Education Series." It will be under the editorship of W. T. Harris, LL. D., who will contribute more or less matter for the different volumes in the way of introductions, analysis, and commentary, as well as some of the works entire. Arrangements for the first fifteen volumes have already been made, and prepara- tions are in progress for others. It is intended that the "International Education Series" shall cover the entire field of practical, theoretical, and historical education. The price of the volumes of the series will be $1.50 for the larger volumes, and 75 cents for the smaller ones. VOLUMES NOW READY : Vol. I THE PHII