14 2.2 ACADEMIC WORK AND DEVELOPMENT
The Academic Year
In the earlier period lectures were given throughout the year, with short recesses at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost and a longer vacation in summer. At Paris this vacation was limited by order of Gregory IX (1261) to one month, but by the end of the fourteenth century it had been extended for the arts faculty from 25 June to 25 Aug., for theology and canon law from 28 June to 15 Sept.
The year really began on 1 Oct., and was divided into two periods; the grand ordinary, from 1 Oct. to Easter, and the little ordinary, from Easter to the end of June. At Bologna the vacation began 7 Sept., and the scholastic year opened again on 19 Oct.; this, however, was interrupted for ten days at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, and three weeks at carnival.
In Germany, there was considerable difference between the calendars of the various universities and even between those of the faculties at the same university. In general, the year began about the middle of October and closed about the middle of June. But at Cologne, Heidelberg, and Vienna there was a little ordinary from 25 Aug., to 9 Oct. The vacation, however, was not a complete suspension of academic work; the extraordinary lectures, given for the most part by bachelors, were continued, and credit was given to students who attended them.
About the middle of the fifteenth century, the division of the year into two semesters, summer and winter, was introduced at Leipzig, and eventually was adopted by the other German universities.
Lectures
Both the annual calendar and the daily schedule took into account the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary or cursory lectures. This originated at Bologna where certain books of the civil law were ordinary, while others were extraordinary. In canon law, the ordinary books were the Decretum and the five books of the Decretals (Gregory IX); the extraordinary were the Clementines and Extravagants.
Ordinary lectures were reserved to doctors, and were given in the forenoon; extraordinary lectures, known at Paris as cursory, and given by masters or by bachelors, were assigned to the afternoon during the year; in the vacation they might be given at any time of the day, as the ordinary lectures were then suspended.
In all the faculties the work of teaching centred around books, i.e. the texts, compilations, and glosses which were regarded as the chief authorities in each subject. At the beginning of the year (or semester) the books were distributed among the professors, who were obliged to use them in accordance with the regulations established by each faculty regarding the daily schedule, the length of the course, the hall to be used, the academic dress to be worn, and the method to be followed.
The lecture was in the strict sense a rendition of the text; in the ordinary lectures, he was not allowed to dictate anything beyond the divisions and conclusions and such corrections of the text as he deemed necessary. The scholars were supposed to have their own copies of the text; if they were too poor to procure the books, the professor might dictate the text to them, not in the regular lecture but at special classes or exercises (repetitions).
The plan of the lecture was analytic: careful explanation and definition of terms; division of the matter and discussion of the several points followed by a summary of the essential elements; presentation of problems suggested by the text, and solution of objections.
In lectures on law the reading of the glosses was an important feature, and cases were frequently proposed to illustrate principles. At the ordinary lectures, the scholars were not supposed to ask questions; at the extraordinary, greater freedom was permitted, the scholars being encouraged to express their doubts as to the meaning of the texts and to request further information on obscure matters.
More thorough training, however, was given in the resumption and repetitions which the masters held at stated times for the treatment of special problems. The exercises, conducted in dialectical form, afforded full opportunity for discussion between scholar and master; and they served as examinations by which the progress of the scholar was tested. But the most important of the academic exercises was the “disputation” or formal debate. The disputation took place every week and lasted from morning till noon, or till evening according to the number of participants. On the day set apart for this purposes the lectures and other exercises were suspended, so that all the masters, bachelors, and scholars might be present at the disputation.
One of the masters announced, in the form of question or thesis, the subject of the debate; other masters presented arguments against the thesis; answers to the arguments were given by two or three bachelors appointed for the occasion. The number of arguments were fixed by statute or was fixed by the dean of the faculty whose duty it was to preside. Throughout the disputation the syllogistic form was employed.
disputation de quodlibet was held only once a year, but with greater solemnity than the ordinary, and over a wider range of topics. The master elected or appointed for the occasion, and known as the quodlibetarius, had to debate a separate question with each of the other masters who chose to enter the lists. The disputation lasted several days, sometimes a fortnight. The arguments and their solutions were written out and preserved in book form. A specimen may be found in the “Quodlibetales” of St. Thomas. It was mainly out of these lectures, repetitions, and disputations that the works of the medieval doctors grew; so that the various commentaries, summae, and books of “sentences” afford the best idea of university teaching both as to content and as to method.
Courses of Study: Degrees
The distribution of the subjects to be studied and of the books to be read in the course was regulated in view of the degrees, i.e. of the various steps by which the student advanced from the stage of a simple scholar to that of a master or doctor.
The system of degrees developed out of the necessity of restricting the right to teach, and consequently of fixing the qualifications which the teacher should possess. It did not, any more than the university itself, spring suddenly into existence, nor did it everywhere present the same details. Three degrees, however, were generally recognized: baccalaureate, licentiate, and doctorate or mastership. The requirements for these varied at different periods and in different universities; each faculty, moreover, had its own regulations regarding the length of courses and the subjects of study; in particular, there was a rather broad division between the faculty of arts and the superior faculties of theology, medicine, and law.
In theology, for example, the texts were the Bible and the “Sentences” of Peter Lombard; in law, the books mentioned above; in medicine, the works of Galen, Avicenna, and other writers prescribed for Montpellier by Clement V in 1309. The medical course included also practical work in anatomy, for which the “Anatomia” of Mondino (1275-1237) of Bologna and a similar text by Henri de Mondeville (1260-1320) of Montepllier, served as guides. The student was further required, before graduation, to accompany the professor on the latter’s visits to the sick for the purpose of clinical study.
Students
The most conspicuous feature of the student body as a whole was its cosmopolitan character. This is evidenced by the division into Nations mentioned above. The University of Bologna owed its origin mainly to associations of foreign students, and among these the Germans enjoyed exceptional privileges. At Paris the English nation was prominent, and Irish scholars were found in the continental universities long before they were expelled from the English universities in 1423.
What the total number was at any of the older universities is a debated question. According to one source, Bologna, at the close of the twelfth century, had 10,000; Oxford, according to Richard Fitz Ralph (d. 1360), had at one time 30,000 and in his own day 6,000, while Wyclif (d. 1384) placed the “heroic” number at 60,000, in his own day at 3,000; the earlier accounts gave Paris between 20,000 and 40,000.
Recent estimates have reduced these numbers, allowing Paris a maximum 6000-7000, Bologna about the same, Oxford 1500-3000 (Rashdall, op. cit. infra). For the German universities, the numbers are still smaller; in 1380-1389 Prague had 1027, in the second half of the sixteenth century Vienna had 933, in 1450-1479 Cologne had 852, in 1472 Leipzig had 662; while Greifswald in 1465-1478 had only 103 and Freiburg, in 1460-1500, only 143 (Paulsen).
In respect of age the differences were considerable. A boy could begin arts at between twelve or fifteen years of age and graduate at twenty or twenty-one. The students of the superior faculties were, of course, older men. Candidates for the doctorate in theology at Paris must have been over thirty; and it was not uncommon for priests who had already spent some time in the ministry, to matriculate at the university; an abbot, a provost, or even a bishop might become a student without any sacrifice of his dignity.
The frequent use of the work “cleric” to designate a university student, does not imply that every student was an ecclesiastic. At Bologna the distinction was clearly drawn between the ‘scholar’ and the ‘cleric’ the statutes concerning the rector provide that he must be a scholar of Bologna and, in addition, “an unmarried cleric, wearing the clerical dress and not belonging to any religious order”. Similar provisions are found at Florence, Perugia, and Padua.
Long before the rise of the universities, clerics enjoyed certain privileges and immunities, and these were extended, when the universities had been established, to all the students, lay and clerical alike. The layman would naturally wear the clerical garb not merely as an academic costume but as an evidence that he was entitled to clerical privileges. Even at Paris and Oxford, where the ecclesiastical element dominated, the enjoyment of these privileges was not dependent on the reception of tonsure, i.e. on admission to the clerical state in the canonical sense.
Celibacy, however, was obligatory on all scholars and masters; as a rule, a master who married lost his position, and though married scholars are sometimes mentioned, e.g. at Oxford, they were disqualified for taking degrees. Still, celibacy was not universally enforced; there were married professors of medicine at Salerno, and at the university of the Roman Curia, which was under the direct supervision of the pope, the masters of law had their wives and children.
One of the famous canonists of Bologna was Joannes Andrea (1270-1328, whose daughter Novella sometimes lectured in his stead. At Paris the obligation of celibacy for masters in medicine was removed by Cardinal Estouteville in 1452, for those in law by the statutes of 1600. The first rector at Greifswald (1456) was married, as was also the rector at Vienna in 1470. In other German universities the requirement of celibacy remained longer in force, owing in part, at least, to the fact that many of the chairs were endowed with the revenue of canonries; but this did not imply that laymen were excluded from university positions.
An important element in the student body and in the entire life of the university was contributed by the religious orders. In Italy they had long been the recognized teachers of theology, and when the faculty of theology was established at Bologna in 1260, they supplied the professors and the majority of the students. The Dominicans settled at Paris in 1217 and at Oxford in 1221; the Franciscans at Paris in 1230 and at Oxford in 1224. At both universities the Carmelites and Augustinians also had their convents. The members of these orders in their community life enjoyed many advantages; a permanent home in which their material needs were provided for, regular hours of study, discipline, and religious practice; and for each order the bond of membership was a source of strength and solidarity. It is not then surprising that the regulars took high rank as scholars and teachers. Of the secular clerks some lived in apartments, others with their masters, and other again, the “martinets”, with the townsmen.
The students frequently banded together and lived in a rented hall under the management of one of their own number, a bachelor or a master elected by them as principal. For the poorest students colleges were established and endowed with burses by generous founders.
Between 1200 and 1500 Paris had six colleges; Oxford, eleven; Cambridge, thirteen. The founders were mostly bishops, canons, or other ecclesiastics; but the laity, including the sovereigns, did their share. At Bologna the most famous was the College of Spain founded by Egidio Albornoz, Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo (d. 1367). The colleges at the German universities were primarily for the benefit of the teachers, though scholars also were received. The college residents at Paris were students in arts or theology; they were known as ‘fellows’ and were governed by a master, or by several masters if the students belonged to different faculties. The masters were required to hold repetitions on the subjects treated in the university schools and “faithfully to instruct the scholars in life and in doctrine”. This tutoring gradually became more important than the university lectures, and attracted to the colleges large numbers of students besides the holders of burses or scholarships; by the middle of the fifteenth century almost the whole university resided in the colleges, and the public lecture halls served only for determination and inceptions. In this way the Sorbonne, originally a hospice for poor clerks, became the centre of theological teaching at Paris. The university, however, claimed and exercised the right of visitation and of disciplinary enactments; in 1457 it obliged the martinets to live in or near some college, and forbade the migration of scholars from one master’s home to another; and in 1486 it enacted that teachers in colleges should be appointed by the faculty of arts.
With the founding of the colleges, discipline improved. The earlier university regulations dealt chiefly with academic matters, leaving the students quite free in other respects. According to all accounts this freedom meant licence in various forms — fighting, drinking, and graver offences. With due allowance for the exaggeration of some writers who charge the scholars with every crime, it is clear from the college statutes that there was much need of reform. It should, however, be remembered that in any age the boisterous and lawless elements are more conspicuous than the serious, conscientious student; and it is doubtless to the credit of the medieval university, as a social factor, that it succeeded in imposing some sort of discipline upon the motley throngs which it undertook to teach. When the reform did come, it fairly rivalled, in minuteness and strictness, the monastic way of life. But it did not prevent the survival of certain practices, e.g. the initiation of new students into campus life.
SUMMING UP
In the calmer appreciation of modern historians the medieval university was a potent factor for enlightenment and social order. It aroused enthusiasm for learning, and enforced discipline. Its training sharpened the intelligence, yet subjected reason to faith. It was the centre in which the philosophy and the jurisprudence of antiquity were restored and adapted to new requirements. From it the modern university has inherited the essential elements of corproate teaching, faculty organization, courses of study, and academic degrees; and the inheritance has been transmitted through the manifold upheavals which submerged the ancient learning and rent Christendom itself asunder.
