Life in the Medieval University

Cathedral Schools, and recognition as a Master was granted by the Chancellor of the Cathedral, whose duty it was to confer it upon every competent scholar who asked for

The bond of union they describe as a "jus speciale" ("si quodam essent juris specialis vinculo sociati"), and this conception explains the appearance of their earliest code of statutes in the first decade of the thirteenth century. The Guild of masters, at Paris, like the Guild of students at Bologna, could use with advantage the threat of a migration, and, after a violent quarrel with the town in the year 1200, they received special privileges from Philip Augustus. Some years later, Pope Innocent III. permitted the "scholars of Paris" to elect a procurator or proctor to represent their interests in law-suits at Rome. Litigation at Rome was connected with disputes with the Chancellor of the Cathedral. Already the scholars of Paris had complained to the Pope about the tyranny of the Chancellor, and Innocent had supported their cause, remarking t

our proctors or other representatives of the nations elected a Rector, who was the Head of the Faculty of Arts. The division into nations and the title of Rector may have been copied from Bologna, but the organisation at Paris was essentially different. The Parisian nations were governed by masters, not by students, and whereas, at Bologna, the artists were an insignificant minority, at Paris, the Rector became, by the end of the thirteenth century, the most powerful official of the University, and, by the middle of the fourteenth, was recognised as its Head. The superior Faculties of Theology, Canon Law, and Medicine, though they possessed independent constitutions under their own Deans, consisted largely of men who had taken a Master's or a Bachel

shall depute to this office." The clause lays stress upon the authority of the Bishop of Lincoln, which must in no way be diminished by any action of the townsmen. The ecclesiastical authority of the Bishop was welcomed by the University as a protection against the town, and the Chancellor was too far away from Lincoln to press the privileges of the Diocese or the Cathedral against the clerks who were under his special care. The Oxford Chancellor was a master of the Studium, and, though he was the representative of the Bishop, he was also the Head of the masters guild, and from very early times was elected by the masters. Thus he came to identify himself with the University, and his office increased in importance as privileges were conferred upon the University by kings and popes. No Rectorship grew up as a rival to the Chancellorship, thoug

discipline and could settle disputes between members of the University. In this, the University of Oxford had a position of independence which Paris never achieved, for though the Parisian Rector's court dealt with cases of discipline and with internal disputes, criminal jurisdiction remained the prerogative of the Bishop. In the middle of the fourteenth century, royal grants of privileges to the University of Oxford culminated in the subjection of the city,

. The first Scottish University dates from the early years of the fifteenth century. While the provincial universities of France tended to follow Bologna rather than Paris as their model, the German universities approximated to the Parisian type, and although the founders of the