Volume 5 — From The Contemporary Review. Mediaeval Universities. [Footnote 46]

Universities are not mentioned in mediaeval documents before the beginning of the thirteenth century. At that period, however, they stand before the eyes of the historian already fully developed, and in the very prime of vigorous manhood, without offering any clue as to their birth and lineage, except such as they bear visibly imprinted in their very nature. This remark holds good only for the most ancient universities—Paris, Oxford, and Bologna—all the other institutions of the kind being easily traced to their foundation, and recognized as copies of the ancient types. There are, indeed, documents extant which refer the foundation of the three mentioned universities to a very respectable antiquity, and according to which Paris claims Charlemagne as its founder; Oxford, Alfred the Great; Bologna, the Emperor Theodosius II.; and Naples, the Emperor Augustus. But these documents are each and all the fabrications of later times, which, agreeably to mediaeval disregard of critical investigation, could easily spring up and find credence, because they supplied by fables what could not be gained by historic evidence, the halo of remote antiquity. Setting, therefore, apart these spurious credentials, we prefer to trace the lineage of our venerable institutions as near as possible to their source by reading and interpreting the record they bear of themselves.

Twice during the middle ages the church saved literature from utter ruin: first when barbarous nations overflooded Europe in the great migration, and a second time during the confusion which arose upon the death of Charlemagne. Science was indeed the enfant trouvé, to take care of which there was no one in the wide world but the church alone. Under its fostering care literature and learning started on a new career in the asylums erected in the schools of abbeys, monasteries, and convents—a career, however, characterized by a peculiar timidity, which shrank from a critical analysis of sacred and profane literature alike—abhorring the latter for its savor of heathenism, revering the former with too much awe to subject it to dissecting criticism. In this narrowness of space, this timidity of development, the youthful plant might have been stunted in its growth, but for the breath of life which the genius of human civilization imparted to its feeble offshoot to rear it to the full vigor of manhood. This inspiration again proceeded from the church, which made the very marrow of her substance over to the school, that it might feed on it and wax strong, so as to become the bearer of mediaeval civilization, the leader of society in science and education. At a period when the church had given form to its doctrines by investing them in a dogmatic garb, so as to remove them from beneath the ruder or careless touch of experimenting heresy, faith was satisfied, and in its satisfaction felt secure from any perilous raid on its domain. Hence, it became less timid in facing the dissecting-knife of the philosopher; nay, on the contrary, it soon detected the new additional strength it might derive from the disquisitions of philosophical science; and thus it came to pass that the dogma of the church left the bosom of the mother that gave it birth, and placed itself under the guardianship of the school. The result of this transmigration is but too evident. First of all, the interest of philosophical inquiry was duly regarded by obtaining by the side of faith its share in the cultivation of the human mind, and, on the other hand, the dogma or symbol of faith, which hitherto had evaded the grasp of human intellect, and therefore assumed the position of a power which, though not hostile, was yet not friendly to the aspirations of the human mind, now turned its most intimate and faithful ally. The motto of this alliance between dogma and philosophy—the well-known "Credo ut intelligam"—is the key-note of scholasticism. Thus, then, theology became the science of the school, when the dogma was completely confirmed and established, and the school sufficiently developed to receive it within its precincts; and this alliance, which produced a Christian philosophy in scholasticism, was the principal agent also in bringing about a new phase of the mediaeval school in the Studium Generale or University.

From the earliest centuries it had been a practice with the Christian church in newly converted countries to erect schools by the side of cathedrals. Where our Lord had his temple, science had a chapel close by. These cathedral schools became in the course of time less exclusively clerical, at the same rate as the chapters of cathedrals turned more secular in their tendencies. In consequence of this metamorphosis the cathedral school attracted a large number of secular students, while the monastic schools more properly limited themselves to the education of the clerical order. But for all that the cathedral school bore a decidedly clerical character. The bishop continued to be the head of the schools in his diocese, and through his chancellor (cancellarius) exercised over the students the same authority as over all others that stood under episcopal jurisdiction. Very often we meet with several or many schools connected with different churches of one and the same diocese. In this case each school had its own "rector," but all of them were subject to the supervision and jurisdiction of the bishop, or his representative the chancellor. Though they followed their literary and educational pursuits each within its own walls and independently of the others, yet on certain occasions they were reminded of their consanguinity of birth and their relationship to the church, when on festive celebrations, such as the feast of the patron saint of the diocese, rectors, teachers, and students of the different schools rallied round the banner of their diocesan, and appeared as one body under their common head, the bishop. Thus we see the cathedral schools brought nearer to each other by two agencies of a uniting tendency—the jurisdiction of the bishop and their relation to the church. That which had grown spontaneously out of the circumstances of the time awaited only the "fiat" of the mighty to accomplish its metamorphosis, and assume its final shape in the Studium Generale. The church required an able expositor of her dogmas, a subtle defender of her canonical presumptions, and both she found in the school. Popes then granted privileges and immunities to the cathedral and monastic schools of certain cities, and these schools, following the impulse and tendencies of the age, united in corporations and became universities. Under the circumstances it must appear a vain attempt to search for documentary evidence as to the first foundation of the three ancient universities. We can only adduce facts to show when and where such establishments are first mentioned, and yet we must not draw the conclusion that universities are contemporary with those documents which first bear direct testimony to their existence. For we all know that in primitive ages, when new institutions are gradually being developed, centuries may pass before the new-born child of a new civilization is christened, and receives that name which shall bear record of its existence to future generations. As far back as the eleventh century, we find at Paris schools connected with the churches of Notre Dame, St. Geneviève, St. Victor, and Petit Pont, but it appears doubtful whether they had been united in a Studium Generale before the end of the twelfth century. The first direct mention of a "university" at Paris is made in a document of the year 1209. Oxford may, in point of antiquity, claim equality at least with Paris; and the assumption that Alfred the Great planted there, as elsewhere, educational establishments is certainly not without some plausibility. Concerning the existence of monastic schools in that town previously to the twelfth century, not a doubt can be entertained; but to refer the foundation of Oxford University to the times of Alfred the Great is simply an anachronism. Oxford, quite as much as Paris, or rather more so, bears in the rudimentary elements of its constitution the unmistakable traces of its origin in the cathedral and monastic schools. Bologna was one of the most ancient law schools in Italy. Roman law had never become quite extinct in that country; and in the great struggles between spiritual and temporal power, ever and again renewed since the eleventh century, it was ransacked with great eagerness for the purpose of propping up the claims of either pope or emperor, as the case might be. The Italian law schools, therefore, enjoyed the patronage of powers spiritual and temporal, which raised them to the summit of fame and prosperity, and then again dragged them to the very verge of ruin by involving them in the struggles and consequent miseries of the two parties. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa well understood how to appreciate the vantage-ground which presented itself in the codices of the ancients for the support of imperial presumptions, and consequently he expressed his favor and good-will to the lawyers of Italy by confirming the ancient law school at Bologna—a confirmation which was combined with extraordinary privileges to professors and students sojourning in that town, or engaged on their journey there or back. Bologna may, therefore, be regarded as a privileged school or university since the year 1158, without, however, being such in the later acceptation of the term, that is, endowed with the four faculties. Concerning this distinction we shall have to advance a few remarks hereafter.

The term university (universitas), in its ancient signification, denotes simply a community, and may, therefore, be applied to the commune of a city. Hence, the distinction will be evident between the expression "Universitas Bolognae" and "Universitas Studii Bonnensis"—the commune of Bologna, and the community of the university of Bologna. The elder title of a university is Studium, a term applied to every higher school, and supplied with the epithet Generale either from the fact of divers faculties being taught, or students of all nations being admitted within its pale. The most distinctive trait of the Generale Studium is manifested in the social position it had gained as a corporate institution invested with certain rights and privileges, like all other guilds or corporations of the middle ages. The university was the privileged guild, the sole competent body from which every authority and license to teach science and literature emanated. The man upon whom it conferred its degrees was, by the very fact of gaining such distinction, stamped as the scholar, competent to profess and teach the liberal arts. The graduate, however, gained his social position not by the act of promotion, but by the privileges which the governing heads of church and state had connected with that act. Hence, it was considered an indispensable condition that a newly erected university should be confirmed in its statutes and privileges by the pope, the representative of the whole community of Christians. The universities having gained a social position, their members were henceforth not merely scholars declared as such by a competent body of men, but they also derived social advantages which lay beyond the reach of those who stood outside the pale of the university.

A short sketch of the universities erected in different European countries after the pattern of the three parent establishments may suffice to give our readers an idea of the zeal and emulation displayed by popes and emperors, princes and citizens, in the promotion of learning and civilization.

In the year 1204 an unfortunate event befell Bologna. Several professors, with a great number of scholars, removed from that place to Vicenza, where they opened their schools. This dismemberment of the university of Bologna must have had its cause in some—we do not learn exactly what— internal commotion. The secession was apparently of very little effect, for the university of Vicenza, to which it had given rise in 1204, ceased to exist in the year 1209, most probably in consequence of the professors and scholars returning to the alma of Bologna as soon as this could be opportunely done. A more detailed account has been handed down to us concerning the secession of 1215, when Rofredo da Benevento, professor of civil law, emigrated from Bologna to Arezzo, and erected his chair in the cathedral of that city. A crowd of scholars followed the course of the great master. From letters written by Pope Honorius between 1216 and 1220, it would appear that the citizens of Bologna, in order to prevent the dismemberment of their university, tried to impose upon the scholars an oath, by which they were to pledge themselves never, in any way, to further the removal of the Studium from Bologna, or to leave that school for the purpose of settling elsewhere. The students, however, refused to take this oath of allegiance, a refusal in which they were justified by the pope, who advised them rather to leave the city than undertake any engagement prejudicial to their liberties. The result was the rise of the university of Arezzo, where, besides the ancient schools of law, we find in the year 1255 the faculties of arts and medicine. From a similar dissension between the citizens and scholars seems to have been caused the emigration to Padua, where the secessionist professors and scholars established a university which soon became the successful rival of Bologna.

In the year 1222 the Emperor Frederick II., from spite to the Bolognese, and a desire of promoting the interests of his newly erected university of Naples, commanded all the students and professors at Bologna who belonged as subjects to his Sicilian dominions to repair to Naples. The non-Sicilian members of the Alma Bonnensis he endeavored to allure by making them the most liberal promises. At any other time this ungenerous stratagem might have resulted in the entire ruin of the university of Bologna; this city, however, being a member of the powerful Lombard League, could afford to laugh at Frederick's decrees of annihilation. As long as its founder and benefactor was alive, the university of Naples enjoyed a high degree of fame and excellence among the studia of Italy, for Frederick spared neither expense nor labor in the propagation of science and literature.

Pope Innocent IV. erected the university of Rome about the year 1250, and conferred upon it all the privileges enjoyed by other establishments of the kind. But the praise of having raised that university to its most flourishing condition, and endowed it with all the faculties, is due to Pope Boniface VIII.

Lombardy owed its literary fame to the noble Galeazzo Visconti, who formed the design of erecting a university close to Milan which should provide for the increased wants in science and education among the population of that capital and the surrounding cities. The site chosen for the purpose was Pavia, which had for a long time been the resort of literati of every description who had been educated in the neighboring university of Bologna. The new university soon acquired great fame, enjoying the special patronage of the Emperor Charles IV. of Germany.

The French universities were organized after the model of Paris, but most of them had to be contented with one or several of the faculties, exclusive of theology, which was, and continued to be, a privileged science reserved to Paris and a few of the more ancient universities. Thus we see that Orleans, where a flourishing school of law had existed since 1284, was provided in 1312 with the charters and privilege of of the Studium Generale. Montpelier University, according to some historians, was founded in 1196 by Pope Urban V.; but with certainty we can trace its famous school of medicine only as far back as the year 1221. To this was added the faculty of law in 1230, and Nicolas IV. finally established, in 1286, the faculties of civil and canon law, medicine and arts. Grenoble, Anjou, and a few others, though entitled to claim the privileges of the Studium Generale, hardly ever exceeded the limits of ordinary schools, whether in arts, law, or medicine.

The system of centralization, which at that time had already gained the upper hand in the church and state of France, impressed its type on social and scientific life as well. Paris became the all-absorbing vortex which engulfed every symptom of provincial independence; and the Alma Parisiensis developed in her bosom, as spontaneous productions of her own body, the colleges which were founded on so grand a scale as to outweigh in importance all the minor universities, each college forming, so to say, a "universitas in universitate." This observation holds good for England and the English universities.

Turning our attention to Germany, we find, in accordance with the social conditions of the country, the development of academic life taking a somewhat intermediate course between the Italian universities on the one side, and Paris and Oxford on the other. Though emperors and territorial princes vie with each other in the promotion of educational establishments, Germany nevertheless bears a close resemblance to Italy in so far as in both countries the opulent citizens are among the first to exert themselves in the propagation of science and the diffusion of knowledge. The university of Prague, founded by the Emperor Charles IV. in 1318, was soon followed by that of Vienna, founded in 1365 by Albertus Contraetus, duke of Austria, and Heidelberg, erected by Rupert of the Palatinate, and confirmed by the pope in 1386. The university of Cologne owed its origin to the exertions made by the municipal council, who succeeded in gaining a charter from Pope Urban VI. in 1388. Erfurt also is mainly indebted to the zeal of the citizens and the town council for its erection, which took place in 1392. Leipzig was founded, in its rudiments at least, in 1409 by the Elector Frederick I. of Saxony, but it started into the full vigor of academic life under the impulse imparted to it by the immigration of two thousand students, Catholic Germans, who, to escape Hussite persecution, had departed in a body from the university of Prague.

Spain, which we should expect to see forward in promoting institutions of learning, did not much avail herself of those fruits of science which had ripened to unequalled splendor under the Arabs in the eleventh century. Recalling, however, to mind the fearful struggles between the Christian and Arab population, struggles which for centuries shook that country to its very foundations, we can readily make allowance for the slow advance of learning in this state of bellicose turmoil. Yet, in spite of these unfavorable conditions, the schools received no inconsiderable attention from the Christian rulers of the country. The ancient school of Osca, or Huesca, was revived; Saragossa, which is said to have been founded in 990 by Roderico à S. AElia, began to thrive again; Valentia was founded by Alphonse of Leon, and Salamanca in 1239 by Ferdinand of Castile and Leon, both of which schools arrived at their greatest splendor and the position of universities at the beginning of the sixteenth century, as did also those of Valladolid, Barcelona, Saragossa and Alcala.

In order to give a general survey of the progress of academic establishments in the different European countries, we subjoin a list of all mediaeval universities, with the dates of foundation, which in doubtful cases are accompanied by a note of interrogation. The dates of the most ancient universities require no further remark after our previous observations:

England and Scotland.

Oxford 11-

Cambridge 11-

St. Andrews 1412

Glasgow 1451

Aberdeen 1494

Edinburgh 1520

Italy.

Bologna 11-

Piacenza 1248

Padua 1222

Piza 1339

Vercelli 1228

Arezzo 1356

Vicenza 1204

Rome 1250 (?)

Naples 1224

Fermo 1391

Perugia 1307

Pavia 1361

Siena 1420

Parma 1412

Turin 1405

Florence 1348

Verona 1339

Salerno 1250 (?)

France.

Paris 11-

Montpelier 1286

Avignon 1809 (?)

Cahors 1332

Anjou 1348

Lyons 1300

Grenoble 1339

Perpignan 1340

Poitiers 1431

Caen 1433

Bordeaux 1442

Nantes 1448

Germany.

Prague 1348

Vienna 1365

Heidelberg 1386

Cologne 1388

Erfurt 1392

Leipzig 1409

Rostock 1419

Greifswalde 1456

Freiburg 1457 (?)

Trier, (Treves)1472

Ingoldstadt 1472

Basle 1460

Mayence 1482

Tübingen 1482

Würzburg 1400

Spain and Portugal

Huesca (?)

Coimbra 1279

Lisbon 1283

Valentia 1210

Salamanca 1239

Valladolid 1346

Barcelona 1500

Saragossa 1474

Toledo 1499

Alcala 508

Other Countries.

Louvain 1425

Buda 1465

Upsala 1477

Copenhagen 1478

Cracow 1364

Entering upon the subject of the constitution or organization of the universities, we need hardly remind our readers that, in accordance with the nature of their origin and with the spirit of uniformity which pervaded the middle ages, the constitution of the different universities was everywhere essentially the same. The university of the most ancient date was not an exclusive school or establishment existing only for the higher branches of erudition, but it was a system or various schools, which chiefly aimed at the education of a competent body of teachers, a corporation of scientific men. This purpose could be, and indeed was, attained without splendidly endowed colleges or spacious lecture-rooms. The university, in its first rudimentary appearance, is an ideal rather than a reality. There are no traces of buildings exclusively appropriated to academic purposes, but the first house or cottage or barn, if need were, was made subservient to scientific pursuits, whenever a licensed teacher or magister pleased to erect his throne there. Nor did the Studium Generale confine itself to giving finishing touches of education, but it comprised the whole sphere of development from boyhood to manhood, so that the boy still "living under the rod" could boast of being a member of the university with the same right as the bearded scholar of thirty or forty years of age. The same academic privileges which were enjoyed by the magister or doctor extended to the lowest of the "famuli" that trod in the train of the academical cortége. A Corpus Academicum, with its various degrees of membership, its distinction of nations and faculties, its peculiar organization and constitution—such are the characteristic traits of all the mediaeval universities which we are about to examine. To the Corpus Academicum belonged the students (scholares), bachelors (baccalaurei), licentiates, masters (magistri), and doctors, with the governing heads, the proctors (procuratores), the deans (decani), and the rector and chancellor (cancellarius). To these were added officials and servants of various denominations, and finally the trades-people of the university, designated as academic citizens. Every student was obliged to present himself within a certain time before the rector of the university in order to have his name put down in the album of the university (matricula), to be matriculated. He pledged his word by oath to submit to the laws and statutes of the university, and to the rector in all that is right and lawful (licitis et honestis), and to promote the welfare of his university by every means in his power. At the same time he had to deposit a fee in the box (archa) of the academic community, the amount of which was fixed according to the rank of the candidate, as it was not unusual for bishops, canons, abbots, noblemen, doctors, and other graduates to apply for membership in some university. After being matriculated and recognized as a member of the body, the student had to assume the academic dress, which characterized him as such to the world at large. The dress was identical with that of the clergy, and from this and other incidents every member of the school was termed clericus, and all the members collectively clerus universitatis whence clericus (clerc) came to designate a scholar, and laicus a layman and a dunce as well. The wearing of secular dress was strictly prohibited, and we can appreciate the benefit of this arrangement on considering the exorbitant fashions which prevailed in those days, to the prejudice of propriety and the ruin of pecuniary means. To carry arms, chiefly a kind of long sword, was a matter allowed sometimes, more often connived at, but frequently prohibited at times of disturbances among the scholars themselves, or during feuds with the citizens. Against visiting gambling-houses or other places of bad repute, passing the nights in taverns, engaging in dances or revels, or other diversions unseemly in a "clerc," we find repeated and earnest injunctions in the statutes of the universities. Where scholars were living together in the same house under proper surveillance, they formed a community known as bursa. Bursa originally denoted the contribution which each scholar had to pay toward the maintenance of the community, whence the term was applied to the community itself. The bursae had, like inns and public-houses, their proper devices and appellations, commonly derived from the name and character of the house-owner or hospes (host). Corresponding with the Continental bursae were the English hospitia and aulae, or halls, which, however, may be traced to higher antiquity than the former. It is not difficult to recognize in these institutes the germs of the later colleges. At the head of the hospitium or bursa stood the conventor, who was commonly appointed by the rector, in some places elected by the members of the bursa, and who had to direct the course of study, guard the morals of the students, etc. If the hospes or host was a master or bachelor, the functions of conventor naturally devolved upon him. The provisor took charge of the victuals, watched over the purchase and preparation of the same, and settled the pecuniary affairs with the hospes. Discipline in the bursae and halls was rigorous and severe, and it could not be otherwise at a time when the individual man was not restrained by a thousand formalities and conventionalities, but allowed to develop freely his inherent faculties and powers, often to such a degree as to prove prejudicial to the peace of society, unless they were curbed by the severe punishment which followed transgression. We meet in the earliest times of the universities with but very few systematic regulations as far as internal discipline is concerned. This was a matter of practice, and left rather to be settled according to the requirements of each case as it arose. Practice, again, taught the pupil a lesson of abstemiousness and self-denial which might go far to outdo in its effect our best text-books on moral philosophy. The convictorial houses, as well as the university at large, were poor, being without any funds but those which flowed from the contributions of the scholars and members of the university. A life of toil and endurance was that of the scholar. If he had a fire in the winter season to warm his limbs, and just sufficient food to satisfy his gastronomic cravings, be found himself entitled to praise his stars. The lecture-rooms did not boast of anything like luxury in the outfitting. Some rough structure of the carpenter's making which represented the pulpit was the only requisite piece of furniture; chairs were not wanted, as the pupils found sitting accommodation on the floor, which was strewn with straw or some other substance of nature's own providing, and on which ardent disciples cowered down to listen to the words of wisdom flowing from the lips of some celebrated master. When, at a later period, the university of Paris went so far in fastidious innovations as to procure wooden stools for the pupils to sit upon, the papal legates who had come on a visitation severely censured the authorities for their indiscretion in opening the university to the current of luxury, which would not fail, they affirmed, to have an enervating effect on the mind and body of the pupil; and for a time the scholars had to descend again from the stool to the floor. Early rising was so general a habit in those days as to make it almost superfluous to mention that the pupils had gone through their morning worship and several lessons by the time the more refined student of modern days is accustomed to rise.

The lowest of academical degrees was that of Bachelor (Baccalaureus). [Footnote 47] Certain historical evidence of the creation of bachelors at Paris appears in the bull of Pope Gregory IX., of the year 1281, though the degree must be of a remoter date, for the pope alludes to it not as a novel institution, but in terms which induce us to admit its previous existence. When a scholar had attended the course of lectures prescribed by his faculty, and gone through a certain number of disputations, he might present himself as a candidate for the bachelorship. Having passed his examination before the doctors (magistri) of his faculty to their satisfaction, and taken the usual oath of fidelity and obedience to the university, he gained the actual promotion by the chancellor. Hereupon be proceeded with his friends and others whom he chose to invite, in a more or less brilliant cortége, to the banquet which he provided in honor of the occasion. In the procession the staff or sceptre (baculus, sceptrum, virga) of the university was carried in front of the new-made bachelor, as the emblem of his recently gained academical dignity. The bachelors were still only a higher class of students, and as such they are frequently called Archischolares. They, of course, preceded the students in rank, were allowed to wear a gown of choicer material, and the cap called Quadtatum, while the Birrettum [Footnote 48] was reserved for the doctors.

The bachelors were closely connected with their respective faculties, and could not renounce this connection, or even choose another place of residence, without special permission. They formed the transition from the students to the masters, as they participated in the functions of both. They had to direct the private study and repetitions of the scholars, and work out the doctor's system, which the latter merely sketched in its principal theses and rudimentary outline. The bachelors, in fact, represented the hardest worked people of the body academic. In later centuries they were actually ill treated by the doctors of Paris, who confined themselves to deliver one single lecture in the whole year, leaving all the rest of the work to their inferior fellow-graduates. Besides their share in teaching the students, they performed other important duties. They were the industrious copyists of classical works, and while they thus toiled for the instruction of others in narrower or wider circles, they at the same time qualified themselves for the attainment of higher degrees. Opportunities for the advancement of their own erudition were given in the disputations. It was incumbent upon every doctor or master (magister) from time to time to hold and direct a public disputation, at which the doctors, bachelors, and students were present. The doctors, clad in the furred doctor-gown (cappa, taphardum), and with the birrettum, took their places on elevated chairs, which were arranged in a circle round the walls of the hall. The cross seats were occupied by the bachelors, behind whom mustered the plebeian students, in earlier times cowering on the floor, later on provided with the luxury of seats.

The presiding doctor, who directed the disputation, having entered the pulpit, chose from the text-book a certain passage and formed it into an argument (quaestio), the development or exposition of which was called determinatio. Now the task of the bachelors commenced, who, with respect to their functions, were called respondentes and divided into defendentes and opponentes. They had their own pulpit, from which one or other individual of their class delivered his argumentatio, pro or con, and then awaited the response of his antagonist. When, however, the contest required a rapid succession of questions and answers, both occupied the same pulpit, facing each other in a contest which very often did not lack the stimulus of personal animosity. When they became extravagant in their argumentation, strayed from the original question, or in the heat of the combat fell into excesses of language, it was the office of the presiding doctor to recall them to the point at issue, or, if need were, to impose silence. Sometimes, and perhaps not unfrequently, matters became so complicated as to leave a solution of the question more than doubtful, in which case the doctor, on his own authority, pronounced a decision, to which the contending parties had to submit. Similarly to the practice prevalent in tournaments, the disputations were wound up with a courtesy (recommendatio), a harangue in favor of the opponent. Students were not allowed to take part in the disputations directed by a doctor; but they had their own combats of the kind, presided over by a bachelor.

While promotion to the bachelorship took place four times a year, the competition for the license could occur only once or twice, commonly at the opening of the new scholastic year. The scientific requirements differed in different universities and faculties, and the course of promotion was not everywhere the same in all its details, but the following outlines will, we hope, give a fair picture of the generality of cases. The day of competition for the license (licentia docendi) being agreed upon between the chancellor and the respective faculties, it was publicly announced by placards at the entrance of churches and other conspicuous places, and several times pronounced from the pulpits of the clergy. On the appointed day the candidates presented themselves before their respective faculties, and on the morrow they were introduced to the chancellor, to petition him that he would graciously accept them as candidates, and appoint the day of examination. Hereupon they pledged themselves by oath to be obedient to the chancellor, to promote the welfare of the university, to further peace and concord among the nations and faculties, to deliver lectures at least during the first year of their license, to be faithful to the doctrines of the church, and to defend them against every hostile aggression. Then the functions of the faculties began and ended with the examination of the candidate, who, upon having passed satisfactorily, was recommended to the chancellor for the actual reception of the license. Thus it becomes evident that the license was not the gift of the faculty, but emanated from the chancellor as the representative of the bishop, the church; nay, more, in several Italian universities it was, in spite of their democratic character, customary for the bishop himself to preside at the examination for the license and the promotion of the successful competitors. When the chancellor withheld his confirmation (as on several occasions of differences having arisen between him and the university it did happen), the most brilliantly sustained examination failed to make a licentiate out of a bachelor. The examination for the three higher faculties was held in the presence of all the doctors, any one of whom had a right to examine the candidate on the previously appointed "theses." In the theological faculty the questions were everywhere fixed by the episcopal representative, the chancellor, who even might interfere in the examination itself. The same right could be claimed by him in the faculty of law.

To pronounce judgment on the scientific qualifications of the candidate was the task of the whole faculty. On the appointed day the successful competitors appeared in the church in the presence of the chancellor, and, kneeling down before him (ob reverentium Dei et sedis apostolicae), they received the license, the chancellor using the formula: "By the authority of God Almighty, the apostles Peter and Paul, and the Apostolic See, in whose name I act, I grant you the license of teaching, lecturing, disputing, here and everywhere throughout the world, in the name," etc. (Ego, auctoritate Dei omnipotentis, et apostolorum Petri et Pauli, et apostolicae sedis, qua fungor in hac parte, do tibi licentiam, legendi, regendi, disputandi, hic et ubique terrarum, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.)

After the act was over there followed the payment of fees and the inevitable banquet. The arts faculty conferred with the license the degree of the magisterium at the same time. The license enabled the candidate to teach in public at all the universities of Western Europe. In the earlier centuries this prerogative of universal recognition of the license was not enjoyed by all the universities. That of Paris was honored with it as early as the year 1279 by Pope Nicolas III.; Oxford did not receive it until the year 1319; while the university of Vienna enjoyed it ever since its foundation by the bull of Pope Urban V. of the year 1365. When the church had performed her functions by bestowing the license upon the candidate, he was not therewith a member of the faculty. For this purpose he had to seek approval and reception from the respective faculty itself (petere licentiam incipiendi in artibus, in medicina, etc.), which, in the regular course of events, was never withheld. There was in this proceeding a manifestation of corporate right and independence which the faculties loved to display on this occasion. Though hardly more than a formality, it tended to give expression to their consciousness of being free corporations upon which no candidate could be intruded, though it were by the highest functionary of the university. The bachelors, as we intimated before, may be considered a higher degree of students, and the licentiates, we may add, formed a lower degree of masters. They, therefore, sat in the same compartments with the masters, but in the rear; they might, like the doctors, wear the cappa (gown), but not the birrettum; nor were they allowed to deliver lectures on their own responsibility, but had to do so under the direction of a doctor. Licentiates, however, if reading by appointment of a doctor, or in his stead, were considered independent lecturers. To make the licentiate a doctor, nothing was required but the act of promotion —a mere formality again, but of no slight importance, for it was the final transaction which stamped the candidate as a man of learning, the legitimate and competent teacher.

The act of promotion was celebrated with the greatest possible splendor. The tolling of the church bells gave the signal for the procession to prepare. All the doctors, licentiates, bachelors, and students, having previously assembled in front of the candidate's house, they, upon the second signal being given by the bells, move in a pompous cortége toward the church, where the sound of trumpets and timbrels received them upon their entrance. For the court, the judges, the magistrates, and the members of the different faculties, separate accommodation was provided, the populace filling the remaining space. The doctors of the respective faculties having taken their seats, the chancellor opened the proceedings by a brief allocution, in which he permitted the candidate to ascend the pulpit (auctoritate cancellarii). The candidate delivered a speech (pulchram et decentem arengam) in honor of the faculty, and finally petitioned for the insignia of doctor. Upon this the promoter (one of the doctors of the faculty) ascended the pulpit and held an oration recommendatory of the candidate, and then, following his invitation, all the doctors formed a circle and received the doctorandus in their centre, where the promoter transmitted into his hands an open and a closed volume as the symbols of his scientific avocations, gave him the kiss of peace as the mark of friendship and fraternity, and placed on his head the birrettum in manifestation of his new dignity. Immediately after these ceremonies the new doctor ascended the pulpit (now sua auctoritate) and delivered a lecture on any theme fitting the occasion, thus availing himself at once of the acquired privilege. From this it would appear that the act of promotion belonged to the chancellor and faculty jointly, and not to the university as such, for its actual head, the rector, took no part whatever in the proceedings. The doctor alone had the right of wearing a gown ornamented with silk and fur, and the birrettum as indicative of his rank. In his social position he was considered of equal rank with noblemen, and therefore wore the golden ring and other attributes of the nobility, and in public manifestoes he always appears included in the aristocratic class of society. The titles of doctor and magister designated one and the same degree, and yet there was a shade of difference in their meaning, magister (master) being applied to scientific superiority or mastership, while doctor signified the person who, in consequence of this degree, exercised the functions of teacher or professor; hence, magister was the title of courtesy, doctor that of the professional man, a distinction which will become evident from phrases such as this: Magister Johannes, doctor in theologia, etc. Every doctor enjoyed the right, and during the first year of his license undertook the duty, of lecturing in that faculty which had promoted him.

The officials and servants formed no inconsiderable appendage to the university. They are mentioned under the names of notarii, syndici, thesaurarii, and the lower orders of beadles or famuli of various descriptions. More important, if not in position, yet in number, were the academic citizens. To these belonged tailors, shoemakers, laundresses, booksellers, stationers, and a host of different trades, which had to provide for the wants of university men exclusively, and formed a body distinct altogether from the city tradesmen. All these servants of the university, the academic citizens and their servants, together with the servants of each individual belonging to the university, counted as members of this community. If we take into consideration that dignitaries of the church and of the state, and noblemen, visited the universities, accompanied by a numerous retinue of attendants and servants; that even scholars of the wealthier middle classes were followed by two servants at least (and in this case called "tenentes locum nobilium"—gentlemen commoners?), we can form an idea of the immense crowd of academic individuals resident in the great universities. As to the number of academic members in different places, the opinions of modern historians are at variance, and in spite of their controversies the real facts of the case have not been ultimately elicited. Wood, in his history of the university of Oxford, relates that in the year 1250 the number of members of that university amounted to 30,000! This fabulous number scarcely ever found credence among modern historians until Huber, the German historian of the English universities, entered the lists as the champion of Wood's thirty thousand. Though, historically, he has no new light to throw upon the subject, he makes his deduction in favor of the thirty thousand plausible enough. Taking into consideration the facts we have just advanced concerning the wide range of the term of academic members, adducing, further, the circumstance of Oxford having at that time attained the meridian of its glory by the immigration of Paris scholars in 1209, and the settlement of the mendicant friars there, he certainly urges on our minds the belief that the number of academic people must have been amazingly great. But looking apart from the circumstance that Wood's assertion is not confirmed by direct documentary evidence, that the average numbers mentioned before and after the year indicated turn in the scale between 3,000 and 5,000, we have scarcely any other measure by which to judge the above statement but the highest mark of numbers related of the other great universities. Allowing the most favorable circumstances to have worked in unison toward assembling a large crowd at Oxford University, we yet believe no one will be likely to uphold the assertion that Oxford University was at that time, or at any time, more densely populated than Paris or Bologna. In the year 1250, we know for a fact Germany was not in possession of one single university, and yet the number of academic scholars in that country was not inconsiderable. From want of a Studium Generale in their own country, German scholars had to visit foreign universities, and the current is clearly distinguishable in two directions, one to Italy for the study of law, the other to Paris for arts and theology. Even admitting Oxford's fame for its dialectic and theological schools having been on an equality with that of Paris, we cannot conceive how, in its insular position, it could rival with the great continental universities which offered ready access to students from all parts of Europe. Now the greatest number ever mentioned at the university of Paris is 10,000, when in the year 1394 all the members of the university had to vote in the case of the papal schism, and even this number cannot be relied on, as, according to Gerson's admission, several members gave more than one vote, and others voted who had no right to be on the academic suffrage. Admitting, however, that the gross sum may be an approximately fair estimate, we turn our attention to Bologna. This university undoubtedly contained all the advantages of celebrity, easy access, freedom of constitution, and whatever else may conduce to attract numerous visitors. Yet the highest number is 10,000, mentioned in the year 1262. The universities of Salamanca and Vienna, certainly not the least among academic establishments, even in the time of their greatest success and most flourishing condition, could not boast of a number exceeding 7,000. From these data it may become sufficiently evident what we have to believe of Oxford's thirty thousand, a number which must stand on its own merits until it can be supported and confirmed by direct historic evidence. It is true the line of demarcation between trustworthy and fabulous accounts concerning numbers is very difficult to draw in mediaeval records, especially when they refer to institutions which, exposed to the vicissitudes of fortune, experienced a continual influx and reflux of scholars, so that the famous Bologna, which numbered 10,000 members in 1262, had fallen to 500 in the year 1431, not to mention the intermediate degrees in the scale of numbers.

The whole body academic, numerous and complicated though it was, did not require any considerable amount of regulating and governing agents. By the simplicity of rule and government the middle ages characteristically differ from our own wonderful machineries which claim for every touch that is wanted the experienced hands of hundreds of officials, and even then they are oftentimes served badly enough. Self-government was the ruling idea in the middle ages, and consequently we see the universities directed in their complicated progress by a number of officials comparatively so small as to fill the modern observer with amazement. The university being divided into different bodies or corporations (the nations and faculties), it left the direction and management or these different institutions chiefly to themselves. At the head of the nations stood the proctors (procuratores), and the faculties were governed by their deans (decani). The range of their official rights and duties will be illustrated later on. The president of the different nations and of the four faculties was the rector. He was elected for the space of a year, or six months only, by the proctors or presidents of the nations, and in earlier times regularly out of the arts faculty; at a later period, and in the younger universities, out of one of the nations and one of the faculties alternately. The rector was not to be a married man—at Vienna no monk either; Prague required him to be a member of the clerical profession, imitating in this, as in almost everything else, the university of Paris, where even the professors were bound to celibacy (nullus uxoratus admittebatur ad regentiam). The rector was the head, the president (caput, principale) of the whole university. Oxford and Prague alone, where the supreme power was invested in the chancellor, form in this respect an exception, but only so far as names are concerned, for the Oxford chancellor was eo ipso rector of the university. The rector's high dignity found expression in the title of Magnificus, which, in the middle ages, was allowed to none but princes imperial and royal, and a suitable dress distinguished the highest official of the university whatever he appeared in public. It is surprising to learn what an important figure a university rector played on public occasions. At Paris, and later on at Vienna, the rector, when officiating in his avocation, preceded in rank even the bishops. The rector of the university of Louvain (Loewen) Was allowed a life guard of his own; and even Charles V., attending on one occasion the convention of the university, took his place after the rector. At Leyden, the stadtholder, when appearing in the name of the states-general, allowed the precedence to the rector of the university; and whenever the rector of Padua visited the republic of Venice he was received by the senate with the highest marks of honor. When at Vienna the court was prevented from attending at the procession on Corpus Christi, the rector of the university took the place of the sovereign immediately behind the sanctissimum. From the exalted station which a university rector occupied in society the fact is easily explained that dignitaries of the church, nobleman of the highest rank, and even princes of blood royal, did not slight the rectorial purple of the university. The rector wore, like the deans, a black gown, but on festive occasions he was dressed in a long robe of scarlet velvet. He acted as the president of the highest academic tribunal, and held his judicial sessions, assisted by the proctors, and if he so pleased he might invite the deans as well. In criminal cases occurring within the bounds of the university, he could inflict any, from the slightest to the severest penalties of the law. Hence, a sword and a sceptre, were carried before him when he traversed the streets or appeared on public occasions. He convened the meetings of the university corporations, and conventions held under any other authority (even that of the chancellor) had no legal power in carrying resolutions. What we have just stated concerning the rector holds good for the chancellor of Oxford. When Paris and other universities contrived to free themselves from the influence of their diocesan, Oxford never loosened the close ties which bound it to the church, and received without opposition its governing head from the bishop. But it must be borne in mind that the chancellor of the university had nothing whatever to do with the church of Lincoln, which had its own chancellor. Once appointed by the bishop, Oxford's chancellor entered upon all the functions, and the same independent position as the rector elsewhere. On the other hand, however, he represented the chancellor of the other continental universities, who formed the connecting links between the university and the church. During the middle ages the functions of the continental chancellor were restricted to the few cases of promotion at which be acted as the representative of the bishop, to give the sanction and blessing of the church to proceedings which were deemed as naturally belonging to her proper sphere of supervision and authority. Having so far finished our sketch of the different members of the Corpus Academicum, we may finally let them pass in review as they appeared at processions and other public occasions, according to rank and precedence. At the head of the train we see, of course, the rector followed by the dean, doctors and licentiates of theology, with whom went in equal rank the sons of dukes and counts, and the higher nobility generally. These were succeeded by the dean, doctors and licentiates of the law faculty, and the students belonging to the baronial order, and with the medical faculty proceeded the students of the lower nobility. The fourth division was formed by the dean and professors (magistri regentes) of the arts faculty and those bachelors of other faculties who were masters of arts, while the bachelors of arts followed, and the students closed the procession, they also being divided and following each other according to the succession of the faculties just described, where, ceteris paribus, seniority gave the precedence. As in all institutions of medieval society the division of ranks was strictly observed, and in case of need enforced in the most rigorous manner, a transgression in this respect being visited on any member with severe, sometimes the severest penalty, that is, expulsion from the university.

All the different degrees of individuals we have now examined were united in corporations, representing a union either according to local divisions in nations, or arranged with respect to scientific pursuits in faculties. Concerning the nations of the universities, former writers intricated [sic] themselves in great difficulties by recurring to hypotheses in which historical records did not bear them out. According to Bulseus and Huber the nations of the university represented the different tribes or nationalities which inhabited a country, and found a rallying point at the centre of science and education. Now, this assertion is in open contradiction to the character and nature of academic nations, as may become evident from the following data which we have to advance. The nations of the English universities were, and always continued to be, those of the Boreales or northerners, and the Australes or southerners. Among the Boreales were included the Scotch, and with the Australes figured the Irish and Welsh. If it had lain in the plan of those institutions to preserve and foster the difference of national extraction and to develop it to the highest degree or contrast, how could this end be obtained by a corporation of men which contained in itself the contradictory elements of Celtic and Saxon derivation, elements then more sharply defined and opposed to each other than now? Directing our attention to Paris, we find at an earlier epoch there also only two distinct nations, the French and the English, the former comprising Southern, and the latter Northern Europe. When these two nations were multiplied into four no regard whatever was paid to the different nationalities, for the divisions were the English, French, Picardian, and Norman. Why, we may ask, was the nation of the Normans to hold a separate position from that of the English, with whom they were one body from a political point of view, or from the French, whom they resembled closely enough in language and manners? When at the University of Vienna the Austrian nation comprised the Italians, and the Rhenish nation, besides Southern Germans, the Burgundians, French, and Spaniards, where is the principle of nationality preserved? Turning finally to the Italian universities, we meet with hardly any other distinction but that of Cisalpine and Transalpine. How wide the difference between the nationalities of these academic nations must have been we may leave it with our readers to conclude, when we state the fact that in the Transalpine nation we find Germans, Scandinavians, Frenchmen, Normans, Englishmen, and Spaniards. What then, will be the question naturally proposed, was the meaning, tendency, and character of academic nations? The middle ages, in defining and separating the members of the university into nations, did not intend to sharpen the national contrasts and differences, but, on the contrary, to soften them down, perhaps to destroy them altogether. Not natural natural extraction, but the geographical situation it was which proffered the criterion for such division. If it were otherwise, they would have applied to these divisions not the term of Nationes (that is, ubi natus), but that of Gentes. Its chief support our view will derive from the fact that in the middle ages the distinction of rank and avocations far outweighed that of nationalities in our acceptation of the term. Just as chivalrous knighthood represented, without respect to the different countries, an institution coalesced into one body or corporation, so likewise the school had its centres of unity, independent of nationalities. The chief criterion of nationalities, language, formed in the scholastic establishments a centre of unity, Latin being the medium of conversation and literature, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, and from Cracow to Lisbon. The division into nations consequently aimed at uniting the different tribes according to the different quarters of the globe whence they had come. Every university was looked upon as a geographical centre, and the different nationalities were grouped into nations, and designated by the names of those peoples which resided nearest to the central point, the university. It is true, the division recognized by the university did not object to secondary combinations among students of the same nationality if they wished to enter into a league with their countrymen, so that the Germans, for instance, who belonged to the English nation at Paris, and to the Transalpine nation of the Italian universities, might at any place form a separate corporation known as a province. These provinces, however, were not recognized by, or in any official relation to the proctors (procuratores). The name itself implies the nature of their office, that of being the representatives, the advocates, the attorneys of their respective nations. Not only graduates, but even students were eligible to the office, because doctrine or learning was not at all concerned where academic relationship offered the sole guide in the election. When the whole university was convened, each nation voted separately, and the majority out of the four votes (of the four nations) decided. Questions which concern the pecuniary contributions of all the members, or the external relations of the university and the like, were discussed and settled in the convention of the nations. The proctors, with the rector as their head, formed the court of academic jurisdiction, and they also elected the rector, who in early times was nothing but the supreme magistrate, the mayor, as it were, of the academic community.

The nations of which we have treated in the preceding paragraph formed the first and natural division of the Corpus Academicum into independent corporations, and may therefore outreach in antiquity the faculties. As soon, however, as the different branches of learning had fully grown into distinct sciences, it was merely in accordance with the corporate spirit of the times that the scholars of each respective science separated into independent bodies and assumed the form and constitution of corporations. The origin of these scientific corporations or faculties is, like that of the nations, and of the first universities themselves, shrouded in obscurity. The sciences represented in the different faculties may surely be traced back to the early centuries of mediaeval education, having their prototype in the Trivium and Quadrivium of the monastic schools; but without entering any further upon probabilities and conjectures about their origin, we proceed at once to a characterization of the faculties at the time of their full development, which is historically authenticated. In all universities the faculties represented the same quadripartite cyclus of sciences, that is, the Facultus Artium, Jurisprudentiae, Medicinae, and Theologiae. It was not requisite for a Studium Generale or university to comprise all the four faculties; on the contrary, we find at the early epoch of academic life hardly any university which professed the four branches of knowledge. Paris and Oxford, for instance, were originally confined to arts and theology, to which the schools of medicine and law were added at a later period, probably copied from the model schools of law and medicine in Italy. Turning to the peninsula of the Apennines we find there in the earlier times not a single university combining the theological with the other three faculties. Bologna did not gain the privilege of a theological faculty before the year 1362, when Pope Innocent VI. decreed that in the law university the faculty of theology should be established, and theological degrees conferred by the same. Till then it had been customary for Italians to betake themselves to Paris, for the sake of obtaining promotion in theology. Of other Italian universities, Padua received a theological faculty by Pope Urban V., upon the intercession of Francesco da Carrara, then, Signor of Padua. Pisa, when obtaining the confirmation of Pope Benedict XII., was allowed the "studium sacrae paginae;" but the right of promotion was a case altogether separately treated, and therefore expressly mentioned where it was bestowed, which, with regard to Pisa, did not take place. Ferrara also had a theological school exclusive of the right of promotion; but in the year 1391 it succeeded in gaining the privilege of promotion in theology, which, by the end of the fourteenth century, was more universally conceded. But even then we find famous schools, such as Piacenza, Pavia, Lucca, Naples, Perugia, and even that of Rome itself, not participating in the said prerogative. The university of Montpellier (like most of the French schools, Paris excepted) had no theological faculty; and Vienna, confirmed by Pope Urban in 1365, was not favored with a theological faculty previously to the year 1384. These exceptions were owing to various causes, partly of a local, partly of a higher and more important nature. The interests of neighboring universities, for instance, might threaten a collision (as in the case of Prague and Vienna), or the pursuits of theological studies could be amply provided for by monastic and cathedral schools. But the principal cause of this system appears to lie in quite a different circumstance. The method of Scholastic sophisms had, in spite of the opposing movements of the popes, gained day by day more ground in the theological department, a fact which made a strict supervision, and therefore a more limited scene for theological operations a real desideratum. The greatest caution was deemed necessary, owing to the fact that even at Paris, since the scholastic method had gained superiority, startling doctrines were advanced, divergent from the traditional teaching of the church, and sufficient to cause apprehension.

Admission to degrees depended first of all on the diligent attendance at lectures, which the candidate had to prove by testimonials, and secondly on a certain number of years which he had to devote to the special studies of his faculty. For the bachelorship of arts a study of two, for the magisterium a study of three years was required. In the faculty of law the bachelor had, previously to his promotion, to go through a course of three years, and after seven years of study the license would be granted; while the medical faculty imposed for the bachelorship two or three, for the license five or six years, differing in proportion to the candidate's previous studies in the faculty of arts. After six years of theological study the candidate could attain the bachelorship in theology, whereupon his faculty pointed out one or other chapter of Holy Scripture on which he had to lecture under the superintendence of a doctor. Having passed three years in these pursuits he might gain permission to read on "dogmatics" or doctrinal theology (libri sententiarii). Bachelors were, therefore, divided into baccalaurei biblici and baccalaurei sententiarii, and both designated as cursores. A bachelor who had begun the third book of the sentences became baccalaurens formatus, and after three years' further practice, that is, after eleven years of theological study, he presented himself for the license. The head of each faculty, the dean (decanus), was elected by the graduates out of his respective faculty, in some cases for six, in others for twelve months. The community of the university was represented in three different conventions: the consistory (consistorium), the congregation (congregatio universitatis), and the general assembly (plena concio). The first was originally the judicial tribunal, and though its functions became more varied at a later time, it continued to be the representative assembly of the academic nations. The congregation was a meeting of a more scientific, and, as it were, aristocratic character, including only the doctors and licentiates of the different faculties. It formed the court of appeal from the sentence of the respective faculties. The general assembly, comprising all the members of the university, was convened on but few occasions, and then only for the celebration of academic festivals, or for the publication of new statutes, or especially in cases when contributions were to be levied from all the members of the university. On the last-mentioned occasion only had the students or undergraduates the right of voting; in every other instance they were restricted to silence, or the more passive though uproarious mode of participation, by applauding or hissing the proposals and discussions of their elders and betters. Here, again, we have to point out a characteristic difference between the Cismontane and Transmontane universities. While the whole constitution of the universities on this side of the Alps, with their laws, statutes, etc., was dependent on the aristocratic body of the graduates, the universities of Italy, and chiefly that of Bologna, display a thoroughly democratic character. At Bologna the students were the gentlemen who, out of their number, elected the rectors. The Italian rector was, in fact, identical with our proctor, though his functions extended over a wider range. The aristocratic congregation of faculties is almost totally unknown in Italian universities, where the nations preserved their predominant position all through the middle ages. The professors were hardly more than the officials of the students, and in their service, though in the pay of the citizens. In the documents we never read of any legal transaction being performed by the faculties, but always by the rectors and the nations, or the rectors and the students, and even the papal bulls with respect to the Italian universities freely use the expression of a universitas magistrorum et scholarium. In short, the Italian universities were democracies, while the western, and chiefly the English universities present traits of a decidedly aristocratic character.

To complete the sketch of the organization of mediaeval universities we must add a few remarks concerning their position in society, and the relation in which they stood to civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The members of the body academic were subject to three distinct tribunals: internal discipline and jurisdiction belonged to the functions of the rector and proctors; violations of the common law which were committed outside the pale of the university, and required the apprehension of the delinquent, lay within the pale of the bishop's jurisdiction; and all cases falling under the head of atrocia were, for final decision, reserved to the law courts of the crown. The bounds of ecclesiastical jurisdiction being rather vague and undefined, collisions between the ecclesiastical and secular authorities would naturally arise. In order to provide for all emergencies the pope appointed conservatores, individuals who had no direct connection with the university, and could therefore the more effectually step forward as mediators when they considered its immunities and liberties endangered. The university of Oxford, for example, was placed under the guardianship of the episcopal sees of London and Salisbury, and the "ward," it would appear, contrived to get into so many scrapes that the charge of conservators was rendered anything but a sinecure. At one time we find them in a controversy with the crown, at another in a deadly feud with the city magistrates, and again occasionally exchanging not very friendly wishes with the bishop of Lincoln, the diocesan of Oxford. When they found their opponents refractory, they appealed to the pope, who at once despatched a legate to the scene of action, where, in nine cases out of ten, the controversy was decided in favor of the university, the darling child of the church. By the constitution of Pope Gregory IX., granted to Paris University in the year 1231, and soon extended to Oxford, the functions of the academic by the side of civil and ecclesiastic authorities were more clearly and satisfactorily defined. Most conspicuous in that constitution is a statute, according to which the chancellor of Paris as well as the municipal authorities had to take an oath to honor and maintain the privileges of the university. The relations between the academic authorities and the city magistrates, or, to use an academic phrase, between gown and town, remained at all times in an unsatisfactory state. In Italy the universities to a great extent owed their existence to the liberality of opulent citizens, who valued the institutions far too highly to disgust them by any infringement of their privileges. Should, however, the city of Bologna show difficulties in their path, the scholars, well aware of a friendly reception elsewhere, packed up their valuables, or pawned them in case of need, and emigrated to Padua. If the commune of Padua grew in any way obnoxious to the university, the rectors and students at once decided on an excursion to Vercelli. The good citizens of Vercelli received them with open arms, and in the fulness of their joy assigned five hundred of the best houses in the town for the accommodation of their guests, paid the professors decent salaries, and to make the gentlemen students comfortable to the utmost the city engaged two copyists to provide them with books at a trifling price fixed by the rector. If the Bolognese emigrants did not feel comfortable at Imola, there was its neighboring rival Siena, which allured the capricious sons of the Muses with prospects far too substantial to be slighted by the philosophical students. These gentlemen having pawned their books, their "omnia sua," the city of Siena paid six thousand florins to recover them, defrayed the expenses of the academic migration, settled on each of the professors three hundred gold florins, and—to crown these acts of generosity—allowed the students gratuitous lodgings for eighteen months. However much an Italian student might have relished an occasional brawl in the streets, there was hardly an opportunity given him to gratify his pugilistic tendencies, while in this country the street fights between students and citizens often assumed the most fearful proportions. The more English citizens fostered a feeling of independence, derived from increased wealth and social progress, the less were they inclined to expose themselves to the taunts, and their wives and daughters to the impudence, of some lascivious youth or other. The students, on the other hand, able with each successive campaign to point out a new privilege gained, a new advantage won over their antagonists, would naturally find an occasional fight tend to the promotion of the interests of the body academic, besides gratifying their private taste for a match, which in those days, and in this country especially, may well-nigh have attained the pitch of excellent performance. We do not think it necessary or desirable to enter into the details of these riots between town and gown which are very minutely narrated in Huber's history of the English Universities. From the position which they had gained in England, it will easily be understood that the universities could not keep aloof from the great political contests of the times, so that as far back as King John's reign the political parties had their representatives at the academic schools, where the two nations of Australes and Boreales fought many a miniature battle, certainly not always with a clear discernment as to the political principles which they pretended to uphold.

It is very curious to observe the manner of self-defence which those gigantic establishments adopted when they were pressed by the supreme powers of church or state. In the first instance, they had recourse to suspension of lectures and all other public functions, a step sufficiently coercive on most occasions to force even the crown into compliance with their wishes. Should, however, this remedy fail, they applied to still more impressive means, which consisted in dissolution of the university or its secession to another town. Even the most despotic monarch could not abide without apprehension the consequences of such a step, if resorted to by a powerful community such as Paris and Oxford, for it had received legal sanction in the constitution granted by Gregory IX., and its results were far too important to be easily forecast or estimated. We have already alluded to the frequent migrations of Italian universities, and need, therefore, only point out the impulse imparted to Oxford by the immigration in 1209 of a host of secessionist students and professors from Paris, the unmistakable influence on the development of Cambridge exercised by secessionist scholars of Oxford, and the rise of the university of Leipzig upon the immigration of several thousand German students who, with their professors, seceded from Prague, where Slavonic nationality and Hussite doctrines had gained the ascendency over Germans and Catholics.

The universities gradually emancipated themselves, rose higher and higher in the estimation of society, and thus became the sole leaders and guides of public opinion. Popes and emperors forwarded their decrees to the most famous universities in order to have them inserted in the codes of canon and civil law, discussed in the lectures of the professors, and thus commended to a favorable reception among the public. As the highest authorities of church and state, so did individual scholars appreciate the influence of Alma Mater. It was not uncommon for literary men to read their compositions before the assembled university, in order to receive its sanction and approval before publication. So did Giraldus, for example, recite his Topography of Ireland in the convention of the university of Oxford, and Bolandino his chronicle in the presence of the professors and scholars of Padua.

We cannot more fitly conclude our remarks on the social position of the mediaeval universities than by shortly narrating the occasion on which they displayed, for the last time in the middle ages, the immense power of their social position. The university of Paris, as it behoved the most ancient and eminent theological school, took the lead in the movements which were made in the case of the papal schism. Ever memorable will be the occasion when, on Epiphany, 1391, Gerson, the celebrated chancellor of the university of Paris, delivered his address on the subject before the king, the court, and a numerous and brilliant assembly. Owing to his exertions and the co-operation of the professors and members of the university, certain proposals were agreed upon which tended to restore peace and unity in the church. The king, for a time, was inclined to listen to these proposals, but being influenced again by the party of Clement VII., he ordered the chancellor to prevent the university from taking any further step in the matter. All petitions directed to the king for a revocation of the sentence proving futile, the university proceeded to apply means of coercion. All lectures, sermons, and public functions whatsoever were suspended until it should have gained a redress of its grievances.

In the year 1409 the Synod of Pisa was opened to take the long-desired steps against the schism. The universities were strongly represented by their delegates, not the least in importance among the venerable constituencies of the Occidental Church, the number of doctors falling little short of a thousand. Reformation of the church in its head and members, and a revision of its discipline and hierarchic organization, were loudly proclaimed by the representatives of the universities, foremost among all by Gerson, the chancellor of Paris, the most brilliant star in the splendid array of venerable doctors and prelates of the church.

Mediaeval universities were truly universal in their character, being united by one language, literature, and faith. With the sixteenth century nationalities were growing into overwhelming dimensions; national literature rose in defiant rivalry and joined revived antiquity in marked hostility against the scions of scholasticism; and, to give the final stroke, the unity of faith was crumbling; piecemeal under the reforming spirit of the age. The ties which had bound mediaeval universities to each other and to their common centre were sundered. Some became defunct; others led a precarious existence; all had a hard and troublesome time of it—a fact touchingly recorded in the annals of Vienna: "Ann. 1528: Propter ruinam universitatis nullus incorporatus est."

This sad epitaph might have been written over the portals of more than one university and public school by the middle of the sixteenth century.