Life in the Medieval University

proceed at once to its most characteristic feature, life in a medieval College. The system originated in Paris. In the earl

e members of which elected their own principal and made the regulations which he enforced. This democratic constitution is found at Oxford as well as at Paris, and was, indeed, common to all the early universities. When a benevolent donor endowed one of these halls, he invariably gave it not only money, but regulations, and it was the existence of an endowment and of statutes imposed by an external authority that differentiated the College from the Hall. The earliest College founders did not necessarily erect any buildings for the scholars for w

claim upon places in the new Society, and, after them, natives of the diocese of Winchester; they were to have allowances of forty shillings each per annum, to live together in a Hall, and to wear uniform garb in token of unity and mutual love. As vacancies arose, by death, by admission into a religious order, by the acceptance of livings in the Church, or by appointments in other callings, they were to be filled up, and if the funds of the society permitted, the numbers, both of scholars and of priests, were to be increased. Scholars who proved to be incorrigibly idle, or who led evil lives, were to be deprived; but the sick and infirm were to be treated generously, and any of the Founder's kin who suffered from an incurable malady, and were incapable of earning an honest living in the Studium or elsewhere, were to be maintained till their death. It was assumed that the scholars had already received the preliminary training in Latin which was necessary for their studies, but provision was made for the elementary instruction of poor or orphan boys of the Founder's kin, until they were ready to enter the University. Once or twice a year all the members of the foundation were to meet and say mass for thei

c Orders in France were following the example of the Friars. These houses were, of course, governed by minute and detailed regulations, and it may have seemed desirable to introduce some stricter discipline into the secular halls. At all events, in 1270, Walter de Merton took the opportunity of an increase in his endowments to issue a code of statutes more than twice as long as that of 1264. These new statutes mark a distinct advance in the Founder's ideal of College life. The Warden becomes a much more important factor in the conduct of the Hall as well as in the management of the property; in the election and in the expulsion of scholars he is given a greater place; his allowa

his office. The Warden is not an absolute sovereign; the thirteen seniors are associated with him in the government of the College, and the Sub-Warden and five seniors are to inspect his accounts once a year. At the periodical scrutinies, when the conduct of all the members of the College is to be examined, accusations can be brought against him and duly investigated. This custom, and others of Walter de Merton's regulations, were clearly borrowed from the rules of monastic houses, and a company of secular clerks seems to have had difficulty in realising that they were bound by them, for as early as 1284 the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had become the Visitor of the College, had to issue a series of order

hare in the management of the affairs of the House. Routine business was frequently managed by the Head, the officers, and a limited number of the Senior Fellows, but the whole body of Fellows took part in the election of a new Head. A period of probation, varying from one year to three, was generally prescribed before an entrant was admitted a "full and perpetual" Fellow, and during this period of probation he had no right of voting. This restriction was sometimes dispensed with in the case of "Founder's kin," who became full Fellows at once, and the late Sir Edward Wingfield used to boast that in his Freshman term (1850) he had twice voted in opposition to the Warden of New College in a College meeting. As in a monastic house, this freedom was combined with a strict rule of obedience, and though the Head of a medieval College might be irritated by incidents of this kind, he possessed great dignity and high authority within his domain. As founders did more for their students, they expected a larger obedience from them, and attempted to secure it by minute regulations; and the authority of the Head of the College increased with the number of rules which he was to enforce. The foundat

forbids any meetings in bedrooms (even meetings of Masters of Arts) for the purpose of feasting or of talking. If anyone wishes to receive a friend at dinner or supper, he must apply to the Master for leave, and such leave is to be very rarely given. Conversation in Hall was prohibited by the rule of silence and by the provision of a reader, which we have already found at Merton. The book read was almost invariably the Bible. William of Wykeham, who was followed in this, as in other respects, by later College founders, forbade his scholars to remain in Hall after dinner or supper, on the ground that they were likely to talk scandal and quarrel; but on great Feast days, when a fire was allowed in the Hall, they might sit round and indulge in canticles and in listening to poems and chronicles and "mundi hujus mirabilia." The words, of the statute (which reappear in those of later colleges) seem to imply that even on winter evenings a fire burned in the Hall only on Feast days, and the medieval student must have suffered severely from cold. There were, as a rule, no fireplaces in private rooms until the sixteenth century, when we find references to them, e.g. in the statutes of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; and the wooden shutters which took the place of windows shut out the sc

d to apportion the rooms among other members of the College, and to see that the juniors were under proper supervision. At Peterhouse, and in many other colleges, there were to be two in each chamber. When William of Wykeham built on a large scale, he ordered that there should be four occupants in the ground-floor rooms and three in the first-floor rooms. At King's, the numbers were three in ground-floor rooms and two in first-floor rooms. At Magdalen, the numbers were the same as at New College, but two of the beds in the upper rooms and one in the lower were to be "lectuli rotales, Trookyll beddys vulgariter appellati." Separate beds were usually provided, though someti

s," and the Founder of Queen's College, Oxford, ordered that no animals were to be kept under the Fellows' rooms, since purity of air is essential for study. William of Wykeham expressly forbade chess, which he classed with games leading to the loss of money or estate, but King Henry VI., who made large use of the statutes of New College, omitted the mention of chess from his King's College statutes, while he added to Wykeham's denunciation of ferrets and hawks, an index expurgatorius of animals which included monkeys, bears, wolves, and stage, and he expressly forbade nets for hunting or fishing. The principle on which modern Deans of colleges have sometimes decided that "gramophones are dogs" and therefore to be excluded from College, can be traced in numerous regulat

s and younger Fellows may be punished with stripes. In the statutes of Magdalen, dated some seventeen years later, William of Waynflete returned to the New College form of the statute, but he provided that his demys (i.e. scholars who received half the commons of a Fellow) should be subject to the penalty of whipping in the Grammar School. The statutes of Christ's College prescribe a fine of a farthing for unpunctuality on the part of the scholars, studying in the Faculty of Arts, and heavier fines for absence, and it is added that if the offender be not an adult, a whipping is to be substituted for the pecuniary penalty. At Brasenose, where the Fellows were all of the standing of at least a Bachelor of Arts, the undergraduate scholars were subjected to an unusually strict discipline, and offenders were to be punished either by fines or by the rod, the Principal deciding the appropriate punishment in each case. For unpunctuality, for negligence and idleness, for playing, laughing, talking, making a noise or speaking English in, a lecture-room, for insulting fellow-students, or for disobedience to his pastors and masters, the Brasenose undergraduate was to be promptly flogged. Among the crimes for which the birch is ordered we find "making odious comparisons," a phrase which throws some light on the conversational subjects of sixteenth-century undergraduates. The kind of comparison is indicated in the statute; remarks about the country, the family, the manners, the studies, and the ability, or the person, of a fellow-student must be avoided. Similarly, at Jesus College, Cambridge, it is forbidden to compare country to country, race to race, or science to science, and William of Wykeham and other founders had to make similar injunctions. The medieval student was distinctly quarrelsome, and such records as the famous Merton "scruti

ermitted from an officer to the Head, and even to the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor of the University. The oath taken by scholars frequently bound them to reveal to the authorities, any breach of the statutes, and there are indications that members of the College were encou

sed from the priesthood. When they became priests they were, like other priests, to celebrate mass regularly in the Chapel, but were not to receive payment for celebrations outside the College. As mere tonsured undergraduates, they were not, at first, subject to regulations for daily attendance at divine service; but later founders were stricter in this, as in other matters. Bishop Bateman, who, in the middle of the fourteenth century, legislated for the infant Gonville College, ordered that every Fellow should hear one mass daily and say certain prayers, and in his own foundation of Trinity Hall, he repeated the injunction. The prescribed prayers included petitions for the Founder, or for the repose of his soul; every Fellow of Trinity Hall was to say, immediately upon rising in the morning and before going to bed at night, the prayer "Rege quaesumus Domine," during the Bishop's lifetime, and after his death, "Deus qui inter Apost

healthy exercise. ("Non prohibemus tamen lusum pilae ad murum, tabulata, aut tegulas, in horto, causa solum modo exercendi corporis et sanitatis.") Associations with home life were maintained by vacation visits, but the influx of "people" to the University was, of course, unknown. The ancient statutes of Peterhouse permit a woman (even if she be not a relation) to talk with a Fellow in the Hall, preferably in the presence of another Fellow, or at least, a servant; but the legislator had grave fears of the results of such "confabulationes," and the precedent he set was not followed. A Fellow or scholar is frequently permitted by College statutes to entertain his father, brother, nephew, or a friend, obtaining first the consent of the Head of the College, and paying privately for the entertainment, but no such guest might sleep in College, and th

geten him ye

rldly for to

s purpose. His "obsequium" would naturally lead to his ceasing to reside, and so vacate his fellowship, and his acceptance of a benefice over a certain value brought about the same result. Some such event was expected to happen to every Fellow; unless he happened to be elected to the Headship, it was not intended that he should grow old in the College, and at Queen's College, Oxford, the arbitrary or unreasonable refusal of a benefice vacated a Fellowship.

and the language he used was part of the ordinary formulas of the time, and ought not to be interpreted more strictly than the ordinary phrases of legal and Diplomatic documents or than the conventional terms of courtesy, which begin and conclude a modern letter. That an English College Founder wished to give help where help was required, is undeniable, but help was required by others than the poorest. The advancement of the study of theology was near the heart of every medieval founder, and the study of theology demanded the surrender of the best years of a man's life, and the extension of the period of education long after he might be expected to be earning his own living. A curriculum in

the sum to be thus administered was strictly limited and the recipient had to prove his poverty, and to swear to the truth of his statement. The very frequent insistence upon provisions for a Founder's kin, suggests that the society, to which he wished a large number of his relations to belong, was of higher social standing than an almshouse; and the liberal allowances for the food of the Fellows, as contrasted with the sums allotted to servants and choristers, show that life in College was intended to be easy and comfortable. The fact that menial work was to be done by servants and that Fellows were to be waited on at table by the "poor boys" is a further indication of the dignity of the Society. At New College, it was the special duty of one servant to carry to the schools, the books of the Fellows and scholars. The possession of considerable means by a medieval Fellow, is

sions, an arrangement so little in harmony with the ideas of English founders, that William of Wykeham provided that Canonists and Civilists, should be mixed in chambers with students of other Faculties "ad nutriendam et conservandam majorem dilectionem, amicitiam et charitatem inter eosdem." As colleges at Paris were frequently confined to natives of a particular district, they tended to become sub-divisions of the Nations. The disadvantages of restricting membership of a college to a diocese or locality, were seen and avoided by the founder of the College of Sorbonne, in the middle of the thirteenth century, and the founder of the sixteenth century College of Mans protested against the custom, by instructing his executors to open his foundation to men, from every

on is only to induce them to proceed to the degree of master in theology." They were furnished with books, which they were forbidden to lend, and they were placed under the immediate superintendence of the senior Bursar or Foundationer, whose duty it was to call them together once a week, and inquire into their conduct and their progress in their studies. Some general rules were laid down by the Founder, and offenders against them were to be expelled at these meetings. They were permitted to receive a peaceful commoner, who paid for his chamber and was a student of Theology. The interest of the Treasurer of Rouen in Theology is characteristic, and the great College of the Sorbonne, founded about the same time, was also restricted to theologians. The College of Navarre, founded in 1304, provided for twenty students of grammar, twenty in logic and philosophy (Arts) and twenty in Theology, each Faculty forming a sub-college, with a separate hall. A doctor in grammar was to superintend both the studies and the morals of the grammarians and to receive double their weekly allowance of four shillings, and similarly, a master of Arts was to supervise the Artists and receive double their weekly allowance of six shillings. The "Dean and University of the masters of the schol

Bearing arms or wearing unusual clothes was forbidden, and singing, shouting and games were denounced as interfering with the studies of others, although the Parisian legislators were more sympathetic with regard to games, than their English contemporaries. Even the Founder of the Cistercian College of St Bernard, contemplated that permission might be obtained for games, though not before dinner or after the bell rang for vespers. A sixteenth-century code of statutes for the College of Tours, while recording the complaints of the neighbours about the noise made by the scholars playing ball ("de insolenti

here is a fine of "the price of a pint of wine," but, as the usual direction about drinking it, is omitted, this was probably not a sconce; at the Cistercian College, the penalty for this offence was a sconce. So far, the offences for which a sconce is prescribed, might in most cases, be paralleled in more recent times in an English college, but the statutes of Cornouaille also make sconcing the penalty for striking a servant, unless the injury was severe, in which case, more serious punishments were imposed. The whole sentence is an illustration of the lack of control over outbursts of bad temper, which is characteristic of medieval life. All the scholars are to be careful not to strike the servants in anger or with ill-will, or to injure them; he who inflicts a slight injury is to be fined a quart of wine; if the injury be more severe, the master is to deprive him of his burse for one day or more, at his own discretion and that of a majority of the scholars: if there is a large effusion of blood or a serious injury, the provisor (the Bishop of Paris or his Vicar General) is to be informed, and to deprive the offender of his burse, or even punish him otherwise. At the Sorbonne, an assault on a servant was to be followed by the drinking of a quart of specially good wine by the Fellows, at the culprit's expense; for talking too loud in Hall, the sconce was two quarts (presumably of ordinary wine). Dr

's work began; attendance at the Schools and the performance of exercises for their master in College. Dinner was about twelve o'clock, when either a bursar or an external student read, "first Holy Scripture, then a book appointed by the master, then a passage from a martyrology." After dinner, an hour was allowed for recreation-walking within the precincts of the College, or conversation-and then everyone went to his own chamber. Supper was at seven, with reading as at dinner, and the interval until 8.30 was again free for "deambulatio vel collocutio." At 8.30 the gates of the College were closed, and evening Chapel began. Rules against remaining in Hall after supper occur in Parisian as well as in English statutes, and we find prohibitions against carrying off wood t

neherds and other rustics, use their mother tongues. Silence and the reading of the Bible at meals was usual, and students are sometimes told to make their needs known, if possible, by signs. Fines for lateness at meals are common, and there are injunctions against rushing into Hall with violence and greed: no one is to go near the kitchen to seize any food, and those who enter Hall first, are to wait till the rest arrive, and all are to sit down in the proper order. Prohibitions against dogs are infrequent in the French statutes; at the College des Douze Medecins at Montpellier, one watchdog was allowed to live in College. Women were often forbidden to enter a college, "quia mulier caput est peccati, arma dyaboli, expulsio paradysi, et corruptio legis antiquae." The College of Saint Ruf at Montpellier, in the statutes of which this formula occurs, did, however, allow women to stand in the Chapel at mass, provided that they did not enter the choir. The monastic institution of Our Lady of Pity at Avignon, went so far as to have a matron for the young boys, an old woman, entitled "Mater Novitiorum Collegiatorum." At the College of Breuil at Angers, a woman might visit the College by day if the Principal was satisfied that no scandal could arise. Penalties for going about the town in masked bands and singing or dancing, o

enty-one, but this is a monastic college and the beating is monastic discipline.) The Prior further reports that Bertrand is quarrelsome; he has had to make him change his bed and his chamber, because the others could not stand him; he is idle and often says openly, that he would rather be a "claustralis" than a student. Breso is simple and easily led, and was one of Bertrand's conspirators. William is "pessimae conversationis" and incorrigible, scandalous in word and deed, idle and given to wandering about the town. Correction is vain in his case. After the Prior has reported, the students are examined viva voce upon the portions of the decretals, which they are studying, and the results of the examination bear out generally the Prior's views. Bertrand, Breso and William, are found to know nothing, and to have wasted their time. The others acquit themselves well, and the examin