2

In Athens, as we have already seen, the magistrates participated in the patronage of the University, and, according to Suides,' regularly attended the opening lectures of the professors of philosophy, a practice imitated in the case of Hypatia by those of Alexandria also. The senate of Antioch was, according to Libanius, like an assemblage of regularly trained sophists. In Bologna, on the other hand, no scholar who was a native of the town was permitted to vote in the assembly of the University, or hold academic office. The same rule prevailed in Padua with reference to natives of the town and Venetians. The law school in Bologna was many times in danger of complete downfall in consequence of feuds with the town. On these occasions the scholars shook off the dust from their feet, and walked forth from amongst the "ignobile vulgus," swearing by all that was high and sacred, never again to be contaminated by their company.

who figured in their eyes as the representatives of the opposite tendency. As the former hap. pened moreover to be bachelors for the most part, the frivolous propensities incident to that uneasy condition could not but give frequent occasion for grounds of far more deadly offence. Old father Chaucer in some of his best and broadest stories (the Milleres tale, and the Reves tale for instance) furnishes but too much reason to conclude that the "domestic felicity" of Oxford aldermen was often most grossly invaded. Terrific town and gown riots ensued, many of them assuming the form and proportions of pitched battles, and terminating with a list of killed and wounded which need not fear comparison with any Parisian emeute of the present century On these occasions the tocsin for the gownsmen rang from the tower of St. Mary's, and a rising en masse of the peasantry of the whole countryside (" a numberless multitude of country clowns") in some measure counterbalanced the well known prowess in arms of these redoubtable disciples of the church militant. Another fertile source of academic disorder in Oxford arose out of the presence of a parasitic colony of Hebrews, who had been attracted to the University by the general youth and inexperience of its members Rapidly accumulating arrears of pecuniary villany had swift and sudden justice meeted out to them in the shape of a sound cudgeling vigorously inflicted npon the whole of this respectable community. Personal indignities the Israelites would make very light of, and even severe bodily ill usage probably occasioned less anguish than the merciless fines by which, it would appear, such an adventure was commonly concluded In grave Bologna this last part of the proceeding was so highly approved of as to be thought worthy of being reduced to a system. The Jews were annually muleted in certain moneys which served to defray the expenses of an excellent dinner at which the assembled University was entertained A Jew was regarded not only as an abominable "dun," but as an unclean beast into the bargain. Whatever may be thought of this estimate of the charac ter of our newly discovered Arabians, supported, as it is, by the consensus gentium of some eighteen hundred years, there is no lack of evidence to show that our sturdy ancestors were not so regularly in the wrong on these occasions as their old-womanish descendants are in the habit of assuming. That in a usurious point of view the Jews had little to complain of is evident from a law of Henry III. (1248), in which it is kindly enacted that no Jew shall exact from a scholar interest to the amount of more than 40 per cent.

1 8 Υπατία.

2. Αντιοχικός, p. 317.

3 Savigny Gesch. des R. R im Mittelalter. III, p. 160. 4" This story I could not without guilt of concealment let pass, because thereby might be beheld the constancy of the academicians in those times in revenging affronts and abuses done to any of their party. They were always so zealous in that matter that they would have justice done them, or else be gone, as from various instances will appear, especially in that of Robert Wells, a crafty veterano, Baillive of Northgate Hundred in the suburbs of Oxford. For the truth is he did in such measure confront and nose them in relation to their liberties in that Hundred that they seriously vowed before Almighty God that all scholastic exercises should cease, their school doors be shut up, and their books be flung away, unless he was punished ac

The commercial consequence of this measure speedily brought their adversaries to reason, upon which a dispensation from the oath had to be obtained from the Pope. When a reconciliation was finally brought about, the privileges of the University were generally confirmed, or even farther enlarged.'

ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION OF FACULTIES.

53. Sentiments of this description soon found expression in a system of forms and ordinances serving to mark the existing separation more strongly, and to awaken a more vivid consciousness of the difference between the life of the academic body and that of common men. The University thus acquired an intensity of internal unity, and a distinctness of corporate organization infinitely beyond anything with which antiquity was acquainted. Nor was the consecration, by which the student was formally set apart to a nobler and higher mode of existence, confined to the early period of his academic course. The investure with a diploma and degree at the termination of his scho

cording to his crimes. And as they vowed so their desires came to pass, though not to the content of all." (A. Wood on the riot of 1248 in the Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, 1, p. 238.)

1. The extraordinary reverence with which the University was then regarded, and the deference which the loftiest and most absolute temporal powers rendered to its authority, may be seen in the fact that Henry II. of England proposed to refer the points at issue between himself and Becket to the decision of the University of Paris, as represented in the Nations, or widest assemblage of the academic body. Deputies from the same University sat in 1588 in the parliament at Blois amongst the estates of the realm. Nor does the University appear to have been in the least disposed to regard these tokens of respect as arising out of any stretch of courtesy, or as at all in excess of its actual and proper merits. Savigny tells us that the University of Paris in particular not unfrequently carried its just sense of its own dignity to a perfectly intolerable pitch of pride and arrogance. On the slightest suspicion of an infringement of its privileges the most high-handed measures were resorted to. A universal strike of learned labor, with threats of departure to another town, was followed by commotions of the populace which the government was fain to appease by such concessions as the learned body was pleased to express itself satisfied with. Savigny goes on to remark that "what rendered the University of Paris espe cially powerful, nay positively formidable, was its poverty. The University itself, the faculties, the Nations, were one and all of them poor, and even the Colleges, though 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." (Gesch. des R. R. im Mittelalte. III, p. 319.

2. The precise time at which academic degrees were first taken is involved in much obscurity. Wood mentions (Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, I, p. 50) that St. John of Beverly (A. D. 680) was commonly reported to have been the first who held the degree of Master of Arts at Oxford. The same writer informs us that this degree had become common in the reigns of John and Richard I. According to Bulacus (Hist. Univ. Paris, II, pp. 256, 679, sqq.) academic degrees were first instituted at Bologna. The forms designative of the various orders of academic dignity in that University are stated to have been the Baccalaureatus, Licentiatus, and Doctoratus. Of these the last two were probably equivalent to the degrees of the magister incipient, and magister socius, or regent in Paris. Certain stadia, or successive courses of legal study are said to have been in existence from the time of Justinian. The five years devoted to the acquisition of juristic knowledge were divided into the anni Justiniani, Edictales, Papinianistae, Lytae, and

lastic career publicly attested his permanent adoption into a distinct order of society, and designated him as a member of a class whose profession and avowed function in life consisted in cultivating, applying, and communicating knowledge in some one of its specific forms. The degree admitted the graduate of the University amongst the body of "magistri" (doctores) of his own peculiar faculty, that is to say, recognized him as competent to officiate in the capacity of a teacher of that branch of academic learning which he had hitherto studied. This division into certain professional faculties, so called because represented by the body of individuals, each of whom had been invested with the "facultas docendi," is found in full existence long before the Universities had arrived at the acme of their importance. The University, as Savigny observes, grew out of Theology and Law in conjunction with Arts.' The truth of this observa

Prolytae. The student who had passed through all successively was described as a Licentiatus, from the circumstance that he was considered qualified to discharge the duties of an Antecessor or public professor of this subject. The practice adopted in this respect by the schools of jurisprudence was afterwards transferred to theology at Paris by Peter Lombardus. The name Bachelor is supposed by Malden (History of Universities and academic degrees, p. 23.) To have been borrowed from the terminology of the military hierarchy of those ages, and to have denoted one who had just entered upon a career of chivalry. The Knight Bachelor (chevalier bachalier) fought merely in his own person, while the Knight Banneret headed a body of adherents who combated under his banner.

Bachelors are often styled scholars in ancient writers (Wood Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford I, p. 59), and the individual invested with this degree was regarded as at the utmost an imperfect graduate. At the same time, in accordance with the system of mutual instruction so thoroughly adopted in the schools of the middle ages, the more advanced class of scholars were both encouraged aud commanded to perfect their own acquirements, and extend the educational influences of the University into the minutest ramifications of the system by teaching and catechis ing the junior members of their own body (Crevier Histoire de l'université de Paris II, p. 160). Bachelors though thus entrusted with certain tutorial functions never possessed any of the legislative powers assigned to the masters.

With reference to the term "regent", as previously employed in this note, we will observe, that it was incumbent upon every individual who had taken the Masters degree to begin (încipere), and for some time continue to preside (regere) over a class in the University. After having completed a course of public instruction he was permitted to retire into the class of non regents," if so disposed. Except in very rare and exceptional cases, non regent masters were excluded from all share in the legislation and government of the University (Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. III, p. 420.)

1. See also Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. III. p. 567. In all assemblies of the University the scholars met on the common ground of their studentship, or mastership in Arts. A degree in this department constituted the widest and most comprehensive category of the University student (A. Wood Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford I, p. 55). "The foundations of the University, according to Bonaventura, were laid in Arts. Law and Physics were the walls, and Divinity the roof of the academic system" (ib. I, p. 57. A degree in Arts was insisted upon as a preliminary condition for all desirous of entering upon the studies of the other Faculties (b. p. 64). Although the name of the Faculty of Arts was no doubt originally suggested by those of Medicine, Law, and Theology (Crevier histoire de l'université de Paris. I, p. 90, note) the importance of the first mentioned subject, as the primary element of academic study, and its historical rank in the genetic process of the principle of higher education, was attested in the part assigned to the representatives of the Faculty of Arts in the public administration of the University. The gov. erning bodies in the academic state of Paris consisted of two, to wit, the Nations with their proctors, and the Faculties under their respective deans. (Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. I, p. 250).

2

tion is more than borne out by the fact that the cathedral and abbey schools which contained the gerins of the academic institutions of the north of Europe originated in the very bosom of the church. The instruction there imparted was designed with almost exclusive reference to the wants of the priesthood, which constituted, not only the most honorable and important, but for many ages the only known profession. The origin of the faculty of theology in the person of Anselm of Laudun, the preceptor of Abelard, gave, as Malden justly observes,' a new life to Paris, and marks the virtual beginning of its University existence. Up to this era it had ranked as a mere cathedral school, inferior in celebrity and importance to many similar institutions in the provinces. There exists moreover abundant evidence to prove, that the type of higher education set forth in the law professorships of the metropolitan schools of the later Empire, was never wholly lost sight of in the deepest barbarism of the period which intervened between the decay of ancient arts and wisdom, and their glorified reappearance in the vaster forms of modern civilization. An unbroken succession is maintained from the schools just mentioned until the appearance of the maediaeval Universities, and in every part of the chain we have indisputable evidence of the existence of that professional education which is so conspicuous in their full maturity. Although, from the extreme rudeness of the period, much of what was merely elementary entered into the instruction imparted in the schools of the earlier middle ages, Law and Theology constituted the two main subjects of ultimate study which invariably recur in all the most distinguished learned institutions of that epoch. The knowledge of both was almost exclusively preserved amongst the clergy. Roman law, as contained in works which stand in imme

The nations were identical and coextensive with the faculty of Arts, the only distinction being found in the fact that the former term properly denoted all those members of the University who were registered in the same album, as living under the same laws, observing the same usages on the other hand and obeying the same head. The Faculties on the other hand designated the body of masters who professed the same department of knowledge, without reference to national distinction. The latter comprised only Doctors, the Bachelors and Licentiates being included in the Nations, wherever, namely they had promoted in Arts (Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. III. p. 558). The Faculty of Arts was for a considerable time less distinctly represented as such, because virtually comprehending the whole University. The importance of the former, as exhibiting the basis of academic instruction, seems to have been further recognized in the cir cumstance that in the assemblies of the University it possessed four votes, one viz. for each of its component Nations, while the remaining faculties were entitled severally to but one (Bulaeus His. Univ. Par. III, p. 566). Duboullay aptly illustrates the respective positions of the Nations, and the Faculties of Medicine, Law and Theology, by a comparison with the political constitution of Rome. Here was the whole community, he remarks, distributed amongst three orders, the Senate, Equites, and Plebs, while its suffrages were ultimately taken for the most part according to the division into thirty-two tribes in which all were included (Hist. Univ. Par. III, p. 566.) 1. History of Universities and Academic degrees, p. 7.

2. Crevier Histoire de l'Université de Paris I, p. 111.

2

diate connection with ancient literature, formed one of the leading subjects taught in grammatical schools, and was doubtless imparted in connection with dialectics. It was owing to their utility in this respect that Wipo exhorted the Emperor Henry III. to establish similar schools in Germany. So strong was the influence of the traditional type inherited from the educational institutions of the Roman empire that throughout the whole of the middle ages jurisprudence was, according to Savigny, one of the leading if not the chief study cultivated in Universities. It was indeed often prose. cuted to such an extent as to threaten the very existence of the other academic faculties. Canon law formed an essential part of the professional training of the priesthood, and was regarded as the completion of a course of theological study. We may further mention that the corporate existence of the several faculties at Paris is first attested by the fact of their possessing public seals in 1170. Though we read of a decree, in which mention is made of the concurrence of the four faculties in one common act,3 at a full century previous to this date. They do not appear however to have formally received a distinct position until towards the middle of the thirteenth century, when the entire academic system of the middle ages attained its noon in conjunction with the matured perfection of the scholastic theology. The mendicant monks by whom this study had been prosecuted with extraordinary ardor, and from whose midst the most eminent schoolmen had proceeded, laid claim, with the support of the Pope, to the right of holding the professorial appointments of the University. The position of these orders, as heading the great scientific movement of the age, would doubtless have at once entitled them to the privilege to which they aspired, had not circumstances existed which gave a peculiar and exceptional character to their case. Their training was not so much preeminently as exclusively theological, to the signal nglect of that basis of humanistic study upon which the University has never failed to insist. They were unwilling, and most probably, from the rules of their body, unable to submit to the exercises of the pre

1. At so early a period as the end of the seventh century St. Fonitus of Auvergne is said to have been grammaticorum imbutus initiis, nec non Theodosii edoctus decretis. In A. D. 804, a school existing at York is described by Alcuin where instruction was given in Grammar, Rhetoric and Law, and Lanfrancus (born at Pavia in 1089) is spoken of as "ab rnis puerilibus eruditus in scholis liberalium artium et legum secu'arium ad suae morem patriae."

2 A. Wood Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, 1, pp. 153, 151, 242, 304. Rozer Pacon assaile ! the value of the Roman law as an element of University study, on the ground of its possessing no elim to universal authority.

3. Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. III, p. 567. Originally no doubt Masters of Arts communicated such rudiments of instruction as then existed on all these subjects. (Malden Hist. of Universities and academic degrees, p. 24. Bulaeus de Patron. 4. Nation. Univ, Par. p. 2.)