Life in the Medieval University

n the University curriculum, he should have a competent knowledge of Latin. College founders attempted to secure this in various ways, sometimes by an examination (e.g. at the College of C

desirable when he ordained that there should be a Master of Grammar in his College to teach the poor boys, and that their seniors were to go to him in any difficulty without any false shame ("absque rubore"). Many universities extended certain privileges to boys studying grammar, by placing their names on matriculation rolls, though such matriculation was not part of the curriculum for a degree. Masters in Grammar were frequently, but not necessarily, University graduates; at Paris there were grammar mistresses as well as grammar masters. The connexion between the grammar schools and the University was exceptionally close at Oxford and Cambridge, where degrees in grammar came to be given. The University of Oxford early legislated for "inceptors" who were taking degrees in grammar, and ordered the grammar masters who were graduates to enrol, pro forma, the names of pupils of non-graduates, and to compel non-graduate masters to obey the regulations of the University. A meeting of the grammar masters twice a term for discussions about their subject and the method of teaching it was also ordered by the University, which ultimately succeeded in wrestin

ster of Glomery") brought his "sons" to St Mary's Church for eight o'clock mass. "When mass is done, fyrst shall begynne the acte in Gramer. The Father shall have hys sete made before the Stage for Physyke (one of the platforms erected in the church for doctors of the different faculties, etc.) and shall sytte alofte under the stage for Physyke. The Proctour shall say, Incipiatis. When the Father hath argyude as shall plese the Proctour, the Bedeyll in Arte shall bring the Master of Gramer to the Vyce-chancelar, delyveryng hym a Palmer wyth a Rodde, whych the Vyce-chancelar shall gyve to the seyde Master in Gramer, and so create h

c, Geometry and Astronomy). The Quadrivium was of comparatively little importance; Geometry and Music received small attention; and Arithmetic, and Astronomy were at first chiefly useful for finding

attention of students in Arts was chiefly directed to the logic, metaphysics, physics, and ethics of Aristotle. Up to the twelfth century, Aristotle was known only through the translations into Latin of the sections of the Organon, entitled De Interpretatione and Categoriae, and through the logical works of Boethius. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the range of medieval studies was greatly enlarged by the introduction of other works of Aristotle from translations partly from the Arabic and partly direct from the Greek. The conservatism of the University of Paris at first forbade the study of the new Aristotle, but it soon became universal in the medieval universities. In addition to the works of Aristotle, as they were known in the Middle Ages, medieval students read such books as Porphyry's Isagoge, or Introduction to Aristotle; the criticism of Aristotle's Categories, by Gilbert de la Porrée, known as the Sex Principia; the Summulae Logicales, a semi-grammatical, semi-logical treatise by

equivalent of an ordinary lecture. At Oxford, attendance on a lecture on the books or any book of the Metaphysics, or on the Physics, or the Ethics, was not to count for a degree, except in the case of a book largely dealing with the opinions of the ancients. The third and fourth books of the Metaphysics were excepted from the rule, "they being usually read cursorily, that the ordinary reading of the other books might proceed more rapidly." The cursory lecture was clearly beloved of the pupil, for Oxford grammar masters are reproved for lecturing "cursorie" instead of "ordinarie" for the sake of gain; and at Vienna, the tariff for cursory lectures is double that for ordinary lectures. At Paris the books of Aristotle de Dialectica were to be read "ordinarie et non ad cursum," and students of medicine had to read certain books "semel ordinarie, bis cursorie." The statutes of Heidelberg contrast "cursorie" with "extense."

er is the better way, and henceforth in any lecture, ordinary or cursory, or in any disputation or other manner of teaching, the master is to speak as in delivering a speech, and as if no one were writing in his presence. A lecturer who breaks the new rule is to be suspended for a year, and if the students showed their dislike to it, by shouting, hissing, groaning, or throwing stones, they were to be sent down for a year. More than two hundred years later, in 1452, the statute was rescinded by Cardinal Estoutville, but it was probably never operative. Estoutville permitted either method of lecturing, and contented himself with forbidding lecturers to use questions and lectures which were not of their own composition, or to deliver their lectures (however good) to be read by one of their scholars as a deputy. He instructs the masters to lecture regularly according to the statutes and to explain the text of Aristotle, "de puncto in punctum," and, holding that fear and reverence are the life-blood of scholastic discipline, he repeats an injuncti

vanced shall be bound daily to repeat the lectures to the more proficient." A later code of the same College provides that "All who study humane letters shall, on every day of the schools read in the morning a composition, that is a speech in Latin, Greek or the vernacular, to their master, being prepared to expound the writer or historian who is being read in daily lecture in their schools. At the end of the week, that is on Friday or Saturday, they shall show up to their master a résumé of all the lectures they have learned that week, and every day before they go to the schools they shall be bound to make repetitions to one of the philosophers or of the theologians whom the [College] master shall choose; for this work." At Louvain, the time between 5 a.m. and the first lectur

his regent for lectures in Logic, and fourpence a term for lectures in Natural Philosophy. The system was not a satisfactory one, and alike in Paris, in Oxford, and in Cambridge, it succumbed to the growth of College teaching. The Head of a Parisian College, from the first, superintended the studies of the scholars, and, although this duty was not required of an Oxford or Cambridge Head, provision was gradually made in the statutes of English colleges for the instruction of the junior members by t

disturbance in lecture-rooms abound in all statutes. At Vienna, students in Arts are exhorted to behave like young ladies (more virginum) and to refrain from laughter, murmurs, and hisses, and from tearing down the schedules i

until he had satisfied a Regent Master in the Schools, in public, "de Questione respondens." The determination itself was a public disputation, after which the determiner might wear the bachelor's "cappa" and lecture on the Organon. He continued his attendance on the lectures in the Schools up to the time of his "Ince

nguished as Rigorosi, Transibiles, and Gratiosi), failure was regarded as an exceptional event ("si autem, quod absit, aliqui inveniantur simpliciter gratiosi seu refutabiles, erunt de quarto ordine"). The regulations for examinations at Louvain prescribe that the examiners are not to ask disturbing questions ("animo turbandi aut confundendi promovendos") and forbid unfair treatment of pupils of particular masters and frivolous or useless questions; although at his Quodlibeticum, the bachelor might indulge in "jocosas questiones ad auditorii recreationem." The element of display implied

d then makes a bow, and departs, as he came and remained, in solemn silence. The disputants then return to the amusement of cutting the desks, carving their names, or reading Sterne's Sentimental Journey, or some other edifying novel. When the exercise is duly performed by both parties, they have a right to the title and insignia of Sophs: but not before they have been formally created by one of the regent-masters, before whom they kneel, while he lays a volume of Aristotle's works on their heads, and puts on a hood, a piece of black crape, hanging from their necks, and down to their heels.... There remain only one or two trifling forms, and another disputation almost exactly similar to doing generals, but called answering under bachelor previous to the awful examination. Every candidate is obliged to be examined in the whole circle of the sciences by three masters of arts of his own choice.... Schemes, as they are called, or little books containing forty or fifty questions on each science, are handed down from age to age, from one to another. The candidate employs three or four days in learning these by heart, and the examiners, having done the

etters, in which the ill-fated Walter Paston, writing in the summer of 1479, a few weeks before his premature death, says to his brother: "And yf ye wyl know what day I was mead Baschyler, I was maad on Fryday was sevynyth, and I mad my fest on the Munday after. I wa

ing for money. He has received ￡5, 16s. 6d., and his expenses amount to ￡6, 5s. 5d. "That comth over the reseytys in my exspenses I have borrowed of Master Edmund and yt draweth to 8 shillings." He might have applied for a loan to one of the "chests" which benevolent donors had founded for such emergencies, depositing some article of value, and receiving a temporary loan: but he preferred to borrow from his new tutor, Edmund Alyard. By March 1479, Alyard was able to reassure the anxious mother about her boy's choice of a career; he was to go to law, taking his Bachelor's degree in Arts at Midsummer. His brother, Sir John, who was staying at the George at Paul's Wharf in London, intended to be present at the ceremony, but his letter miscarried: "Martin Brown had that same tyme mysch mony in a bage, so that he durst not bryng yt with hym, and that same letter was in that same bage, and he had forgete to take owt the letter, and he sent all togeder by London, so that yt

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rican Journal of Philology (vol. xi. p. 80), insist upon the hardships of the student's life, and contrast his miserable condition with the happier lot of the citizens of Paris. For him there is no rejoicing in t

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SPEARS, PRINT

ause, like the mood known as "Bocardo" in the s