Life in the Medieval University

er was of O

logik hadd

his hors a

ot right fat

lwe, and the

was his ove

eten him yet

rldly for to

ever have at

s, clad in

e and his p

e, or fithele,

at he was a

but litel g

might of his

on lerninge

gan for the

af him wherwi

he most cure

spak he more

seyd in forme

quik, and ful

oral vertu wa

e he lerne, and

medieval English student. His dress, the character of his studies and the nature of his materials, the hardships and the na

icious

m here to

mpt to picture the environment o

of the church bells, a lover of dogs and horses, of rich clothes and great feasts. The portrait of the friar is still less sympathetic; he is a frequenter of taverns, a devourer of widows' houses, a man of gross, perhaps of evil, life. The monk abandons his cloister and its rules, the friar despises the poor and the leper. The poet is making no socialistic attack upon the foundations of society, and no heretical onslaught upon th

r no pompe a

m a spyced

re, and his ap

first he folwe

ndowment of the friars had alike ceased to attract the benevolent donor, who was turning his attention to the universities, where secular clergy were numerous.

t of learning would be to wander from our special topic; but we may take the period from the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century as that in which the medieval University made its greatest appeal to the imagination of the peoples of Europe. Its institutional forms had become definite, its terminology fixed, and the materials for a study of the life of the fourteenth century student are

iters on University history have pointed out that Universitas vestra, in a letter addressed to a body of persons, means merely "the whole of you" and that the term was by no means restricted to learned bodies. It was frequently applied to municipal corporations; Dr Rashdall, in his learned work, tells us that it is used by medieval writers in addressing "all faithful Christian people," and he quotes an instance in

e a phrase sometimes written as Studium Universale or Studium Commune, but more usually Studium Generale. It was used in much the

rel with Henry II., the disputes between the sovereigns of England and France led to the recall of English students from the domain of their King's enemy, there grew up at Oxford a great school or Studium, which acquired something of the fame of Paris and Bologna. A struggle between the clerks who studied at Oxford and the people of the town broke out at the time of John's defiance of the Papacy, when the King outlawed the clergy of England, and this struggle led to the rise of a school at Cambridge. In Italy the institutions of the Studium at Bologna were copied at Modena, at Reggio, at Vicenza, at Arezzo, at Padua, and elsewhere, and in 1244 or 1245 Pope Innocent IV. founded a Studium of a different constitution, in dependence upon the Papal Court. In Spain great schools grew up at Palencia, Salamanca, and Valladolid; in France at Montpellier, Orleans, Angers, and Toulouse, and at Lyons and Reims. T

ne (cf. Rashdall, vol. i. p. 9). But the title might still be adopted at will by ambitious schools, and the intervention of the great potentates of Europe was required to provide a mechanism for the differentiation of General from Particular Studia. Already, in the twelfth century, an Emperor and a Pope had given special privileges to students at Bologna and other Lombard towns, and a King of France had conferred privileges upon the scholars of Paris. In 1224 the Studium Generale of Naples was founded by the Emperor Frederick II., and in 1231 he gave a great

IV. Some of the Studia which we have mentioned as existing in the first half of the thirteenth century-Modena in Italy, and Lyons and Reims in France-never obtained this privilege, and as their organisation and their importance did not justify their inclusion among Studia Generalia, they never took rank among the universities of Europe. The status of Bologna and of Paris was, of course, universally recognised before and apart from the Bulls of Nicholas IV.; Padua did not accept a Papal grant until 1346 and then merely as a confirmation, not a creation, of its privileges as a Studium Generale; Oxford n

or Emperor, the jus ubique docendi, was generally accepted throughout Europe, we find the occ

e guild of the School, became, technically and officially, the Studium Generale itself, and Studia Generalia were distinguished by the kind of Universitates or guilds which they possessed. It is usual to speak of Bologna and Paris as the two great archetypal universities, and this description does not depend upon mere priority of date or upon the impetus given to thought and interest in Europe by their teachers or their methods. Bologna and Paris were two Studia Generalia with two different and irreconcilable types of Universitas. The Universitates of the Studium of Bologna were guilds of students; the Universitas of the Studium of Paris was a guild of masters. The great seats of learnin

all, and it is with the universities of masters that we shall be chiefly concerned. It is, however, essential to understand the powers acquired by the student-guilds at Bologna