Chapter 10

LIFE IN THE STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES

The Universitates or guilds which were formed in the Studium Generale of Bologna were associations of foreign students. The lack of political unity in the Italian peninsula was one of the circumstances that led to the peculiar and characteristic constitution evolved by the Italian universities. A famous Studium in an Italian city state must of necessity attract a large proportion of foreign students. These foreign students had neither civil nor political rights; they were men "out of their own law," for whom the government under which they lived made small and uncertain provision. Their strength lay in their numbers, and in the effect which their presence produced upon the prosperity and the reputation of the town. They early recognised the necessity of union if full use was to be made of the offensive and defensive weapons they possessed. The men who came to study law at Bologna were not schoolboys; some of them were beneficed ecclesiastics, others were lawyers, and most of them were possessed of adequate means of living. The provisions of Roman Law favoured the creation of such protective guilds; the privileges and immunities of the clergy (p. 014) afforded an analogy for the claim of foreign students to possess laws of their own; and the threat of the secession of a large community was likely to render a city state amenable to argument. The growth of guilds or communities held together by common interests and safeguarded by solemn oaths is one of the features of European history of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the students of Bologna took no unusual or extra-ordinary step when they formed their Universitates.

The distinction of students into "Nations," which is still preserved in some of the Scottish universities, is derived from this guild-forming movement at Bologna at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. No citizen of Bologna was permitted to be a member of a guild, the protection of which he did not require. The tendency at first was towards the formation of a number of Universitates, membership of which was decided by considerations of nationality. But the conditions which had led to the formation of these Universitates were also likely to produce some measure of unification, and the law-students at Bologna soon ceased to have more than two great guilds, distinguished on geographical principles as the Universitas Citramontanorum and the Universitas Ultramontanorum. Each was sub-divided into nations; the cis-Alpine (p. 015) University consisting of Lombards, Tuscans, and Romans, and the trans-Alpine University of a varying number, including a Spanish, a Gascon, a Provençal, a Norman, and an English nation. The three cis-Alpine nations were, of course, much more populous at Bologna than the dozen or more trans-Alpine nations, and they were therefore sub-divided into sections known as Consiliariae. The students of Arts and Medicine, who at first possessed no organisation of their own and were under the control of the great law-guilds, succeeded in the fourteenth century in establishing a new Universitas within the Studium. The influence of Medicine predominated, for the Arts course was, at Bologna, regarded as merely a preparation for the study of Law and, especially, of Medicine; but this third Universitas gave a definite status and definite rights to the students of Arts. In the same century the two jurist universities came to act together so constantly that they were, for practical purposes, united, so that, by the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Studium Generale of Bologna contained virtually two universities, one of Law, and the other of Arts and Medicine, governed by freely-elected rectors. The peculiar relations of Theology to the Studium and to the universities is a topic which belongs to constitutional history, and not to our (p. 016) special subject.

The universities of Bologna had to maintain a struggle with two other organisations, the guilds of masters and the authorities of this city state. They kept the first in subjection; they ultimately succumbed to the second. A guild of masters, doctors, or professors had existed in the Studium before the rise of the Universitates, and it survived with limited, but clearly defined, powers. The words "Doctor," "Professor," and "Magister" or "Dominus" were at first used indifferently, and a Master of Arts of a Scottish or a German University is still described on his diploma as a Doctor of Philosophy. The term "Master" was little used at Bologna, but it is convenient to employ "master" and "student" as the general terms for teacher and taught. The masters were the teachers of the Studium, and they protected their own interests by forming a guild the members of which, and they alone, had the right to teach. Graduation was originally admission into the guild of masters, and the chief privilege attached to it was the right to teach. This privilege ultimately became merely a theoretical right at Bologna, where the teachers tended to become a close corporation of professors, like the Senatus of a Scottish University.

The Guild or College of Masters who taught law in the Studium of (p. 017) Bologna naturally resented the rise of the universities of students. The doctors, they said, should elect the rectors, as they do at Paris. The scholars follow no trade, they are merely the pupils of those who do practise a profession, and they have no right to choose rulers for themselves any more than the apprentices of the skinners. The masters were citizens of Bologna, and it might be expected that the State would assist them in their struggle with a body of foreign apprentices; but the threat of migration turned the scales in favour of the students. There were no buildings and no endowments to render a migration difficult, and migration did from time to time take place. The masters themselves were dependent upon fees for their livelihood; they were, at Bologna, frequently laymen with no benefice to fall back upon, and with wives and children to maintain. As time went on and the teaching masters became a limited number of professors, they were given salaries, at first by the student-universities themselves and afterwards by the city, which feared to offend the student-universities. They thus passed, to a large extent, under the control of the universities; how far, we shall see as our story progresses. The city authorities tried ineffectually to curb the universities and to prevent migrations, but the students, with the support of the Papacy, succeeded in maintaining the strength of their organisations, and (p. 018) when, in the middle of the fourteenth century, secessions from Bologna came to an end, the students had obtained the recognition and most of the privileges they desired. In course of time the authority of the State increased at Bologna and elsewhere, bodies of Reformatores Studii came to be appointed by republics or tyrants in Italian university cities, and these boards gradually absorbed the government of the universities. The foundation of residential colleges, and the erection of buildings by the universities themselves, deprived the students of the possibility of reviving the long disused weapon of a migration, and when the power of the Papacy became supreme in Bologna, the freedom of its student-universities came to an end. This, however, belongs to a later age. We must now attempt to obtain some picture of the life of a medieval student at Bologna during the greatness of the Universitates.

We will choose an Englishman who arrives at Bologna early in the fifteenth century to study law. He finds himself at once a member of the English nation of the Trans-montane University; he pays his fee, takes the oath of obedience to the Rector, and his name is placed upon the "matricula" or roll of members of the University. He does not look about for a lodging-house, like a modern student in a Scottish University, but joins with some companions (_socii_) probably of (p. 019) his own nation, to take a house. If our new-comer had been a Spaniard, he might have been fortunate enough to find a place in the great Spanish College which had been founded in the latter half of the fourteenth century; as it is, he and his friends settle down almost as citizens of Bologna. The success of the universities in their attempt to form a citizenship outside the state had long ago resulted in the creation also of a semi-citizenship within the state. The laws of the city of Bologna allowed the students to be regarded as citizens so long as they were members of a University. Our young Englishman has, of course, no share in the government of the town, but he possesses all rights necessary for the protection of his person and property; he can make a legal will and bring an action against a citizen. The existence of these privileges, unusual and remarkable in a medieval state, may excite his curiosity about the method by which they were acquired, and he will probably be told strange and terrible tales of the bad old times when a foreign student was as helpless as any other foreigner in a strange town, and might be tortured by unfair and tyrannous judges. If he is historically minded, he will learn about the rise of the smaller guilds which are now amalgamated in his Universitas; how, like other guilds, they were benefit societies caring for the sick and the poor, burying the dead, and providing (p. 020) for common religious services and common feasts. He will be told (in language unfamiliar at Oxford) how the proctors or representatives of the guild were sent to cheer up the sick and, if necessary, to relieve their necessities, and to reconcile members who had quarrelled. The corporate payment for feasts included the cost of replacing broken windows, which (at all events among the German students at Bologna) seem to have been associated with occasions of rejoicing. The guild would pay for the release of one of its members who was in prison, but it would also insist upon the payment of the debts, even of those who had "gone down." It was essential that the credit of the guild with the citizens of Bologna should be maintained.

Many of these purposes were still served by the "nation" to which our Bologna freshman belonged: but the really important organisation was that of his Universitas. One of his first duties might happen to be connected with the election of a new Rector. The title of the office was common in Italy and was the equivalent of the Podesta, or chief magistrate, of an Italian town. The choice of a new Rector would probably be limited, for the honour was costly, and the share of the fines which the Rector received could not nearly meet his expenses. As his jurisdiction included clerks, it was necessary, by the Canon (p. 021) Law, that he should have the tonsure, and be, at all events technically, a clerk. He could not belong to any religious order, his obligations to which might conflict with his duty to the Universitas, and the expense of the office made it desirable that he should be a beneficed clergyman who was dispensed from residence in his benefice; he could enter upon his duties at the age of twenty-four, and he was not necessarily a priest or even a deacon. Our freshman played a small part in the election. As a member of the English nation, he would help to choose a Consiliarius, who had a vote in the election, and who became one of the Rector's permanent Council. The dignity of the Rector's position would be impressed upon our novice by his senior contemporaries, who could boast that, if a Cardinal came to Bologna, he must yield precedence to the Rector, and the lesson would be emphasised by a great feast on the occasion of the solemn installation and possibly by a tournament and a dance, certainly by some more magnificent banquet than that given by a Rector of the University of Arts and Medicine. After our student's day there grew up a strange ceremony of tearing the robe of the new Rector and selling back the pieces to him, and statutes had to be passed prohibiting the acceptance of money for the fragments, although if any student succeeded in capturing the robe without injuring it, he might (p. 022) claim its redemption. The state and hospitality which the office entailed led to its being made compulsory to accept the offer of it, but this arrangement failed to maintain the ancient prestige of the Rectorship which, after the decline of the Universitates themselves, had outlived its usefulness.

Magnificent as was the position of the Rector of a Universitas, our young Englishman would soon discover that his Rector was only a constitutional sovereign. He had to observe the statutes and to consult his Council upon important questions. He had no power to dispense with the penalties imposed by the regulations, and for any mismanagement of the pecuniary affairs of the Universitas he was personally liable, when at the end of his period of office he had to meet a Committee and to render an account of his stewardship. He could sentence offending students to money fines, but he must have the consent of his Council before expelling them or declaring them subject to the ecclesiastical and social penalties of the perjured man. He claimed to try cases brought by students against townsmen, and about the time of our scholar's arrival, the town had admitted that he might try students accused of criminal offences forbidden by the University statutes, and had agreed to carry out his sentences. Too free a use of the secular arm would naturally lead to unpopularity and trouble; (p. 023) the spectacle of a student being handed over to the gaolers of the Podesta or of the Bishop can never have been pleasant in the eyes of a Universitas. Changes in the statutes of the University could not be made by the Rector; every twenty years eight "Statutarii" were appointed to revise the code, and alterations made at other times required the consent of the Congregation, which consisted of all students except citizens of Bologna and a few poor scholars who did not subscribe to the funds of the Universitas. By the time of which we are speaking, the two jurist-universities at Bologna met together in one Congregation, and if a Congregation happens to be held during our Englishman's residence at Bologna, he will find himself bound under serious penalties to attend its session, where he will mix on equal, terms with members of the Cismontane University, listening to, or taking part in, the debates (conducted in Latin) and throwing his black or white bean into the ballot box when a vote is necessary.

Although the city of Bologna never admitted the jurisdiction of a Universitas over citizens of the town, there were some classes of citizens whose trade or profession made them virtually its subjects. Landlords, stationers, and masters or doctors were in a peculiar relation to the universities, which did not fail to use their advantage to the uttermost. If our English student and his socii (p. 024) had any dispute about the rent of their house, there was a compulsory system of arbitration; if he found an error in a MS. which he had hired or purchased from a Bologna bookseller he was bound to report it to a University Board whose duty it was to inspect MSS. offered for sale or hire, and the bookseller would be ordered to pay a fine; he was protected from extortionate prices by a system which allowed the bookseller a fixed profit on a second-hand book. MSS. were freely reproduced by the booksellers' clerks, and were neither scarce nor unduly expensive, although elaborately illuminated MSS. were naturally very valuable. The landlords and the booksellers were kept in proper submission by threats of _interdictio_ or _privatio_. A citizen who offended the University was debarred from all intercourse with students, who were strictly forbidden to hire his house or his books; if a townsman brought a "calumnious accusation" against a student, and disobeyed a rectorial command to desist, he and his children, to the third generation, and all their goods, were to lie under an interdict, "_sine spe restitutionis_."

_Interdictio_, or discommuning, was also the great weapon which might be employed against the masters of the Studium. The degradation of the masters was a gradual process, and it was never complete. The privileges given by Frederick Barbarossa to Lombard scholars in (p. 025) the middle of the twelfth century included a right of jurisdiction over their pupils, and a Papal Bull of the end of the century speaks of masters and scholars meeting together in congregations. The organisation of the Universitas ultimately confined membership of congregation to students, and the powers of the Rector rendered the magisterial jurisdiction merely nominal. The loss of their privileges is attributed by Canon Rashdall to the attitude they adopted in the early struggles between the municipality and the student-guilds. The doctors, who were citizens of Bologna, allied themselves, he says, "with the City against the students in the selfish effort to exclude from the substantial privileges of the Doctorate all but their own fellow-citizens.... It was through identifying themselves with the City rather than with the scholars that the Doctors of Bologna sank into their strange and undignified servitude to their own pupils." They made a further mistake in quarrelling with the town--the earliest migrations were migrations of professors--and when, in the middle of the thirteenth century, a permanent _modus vivendi_ was arrived at between the city and the universities, the rights of the doctors received no consideration. Other citizens of Bologna were forbidden to take an oath of obedience to the rectors, but the masters, who, in theory, possessed rights of jurisdiction over their pupils, were, (p. 026) in fact, compelled by the universities to take this oath. Even those of them who received salaries from the town were not exempted. A doctor who refused to take a vow of obedience to the representative of his pupils had no means of collecting his lecture-fees, which remained of some importance even after the introduction of salaries, and he was liable to further punishment at the will of the Rector. The ultimate penalty was _deprivatio_, and when this sentence was pronounced, not only were the lectures of the offending doctor boycotted, but all social intercourse with him was forbidden; students must avoid his company in private as well as decline his ministrations in the Studium. His restoration could only be accomplished by a vote of the whole University solemnly assembled in Congregation.

The oath of obedience was not merely a constitutional weapon kept in reserve for occasional serious disputes; it affected the daily life of the Studium, and the masters were subject to numerous petty indignities, which could not fail to impress our English student if he was familiar with University life in his own country. He would see, with surprise, a doctor's lecture interrupted by the arrival of a University Bedel, as the debates of the House of Commons are interrupted by the arrival of Black Rod, and his instructor would maintain a reverent silence while the Rector's officer delivered some message from the (p. 027) University, or informed the professor of some new regulation. If the learned doctor "cut" a lecture, our student would find himself compelled to inform the authorities of the University, and he would hear of fines inflicted upon the doctors for absence, for lateness, for attracting too small an audience, for omitting portions of a subject or avoiding the elucidation of its difficulties, and for inattention while the "precepta" or "mandata" of the Rector were being read in the schools. He and his fellow-students might graciously grant their master a holiday, but the permission had to be confirmed by the Rector; if a lecture was prolonged a minute after the appointed time, the doctor found himself addressing empty benches. The humiliation of the master's position was increased by the fact that his pupils were always acting as spies upon him, and they were themselves liable to penalties for conniving at any infringement of the regulations on his part. At Bologna, even the privilege of teaching was, to a slight extent, shared by the doctors with their pupils. Lectures were divided into two classes, ordinary and extra-ordinary; the ordinary lectures were the duty of the doctors, but senior students (bachelors) were authorised by the Rector to share with the doctors the duty of giving extra-ordinary lectures. There were six chairs, endowed by the (p. 028) city, which were held by students, and the occupant of one of these was entitled to deliver ordinary lectures. Dr Rashdall finds the explanation of this anomaly in an incident in the fourteenth century history of Bologna, when the Tyrant of the City forbade the professors to teach. The student-chairs were rather endowments for the Rectorship or for poor scholars than serious rivals to the ordinary professorships, and the extra-ordinary lectures delivered by students or bachelors may be regarded as a kind of apprenticeship for future doctors.

There remained one department of the work of the Studium in which our Bologna student would find his masters supreme. The sacred right of examining still belonged to the teachers, even though the essential purpose of the examination was changed. The doctors of Bologna had succeeded in preserving the right to teach as a privilege of Bolognese citizens and even of restricting it, to some extent, to certain families, and the foreign student could not hope to become a professor of his own studium. But the prestige of the University rendered Bolognese students ambitious of the doctorate, and the doctorate had come to mean more than a mere licence to teach. This licence, which had originally been conferred by the doctors themselves, required, after the issue of a Papal Bull in 1219, the consent of the Archdeacon (p. 029) of Bologna, and the Papal grant of the _jus ubique docendi_ in 1292 increased at once the importance of the mastership and of the authority of the Archdeacon, who came to be described as the Chancellor and Head of the Studium. "Graduation," in Dr Rashdall's words, "ceased to imply the mere admission into a private Society of teachers, and bestowed a definite legal status in the eyes of Church and State alike.... The Universities passed from merely local into ecumenical organisations; the Doctorate became an order of intellectual nobility with as distinct and definite a place in the hierarchical system of medieval Christendom as the Priesthood or the Knighthood." The Archdeacon of Bologna, even when he was regarded as the Chancellor, did not wrest from the college of doctors the right to decide who should be deemed worthy of a title which Cardinals were pleased to possess. The licence which he required before admitting a student to the doctorate continued to be conferred by the Bologna doctors after due examination.

We will assume that our English student has now completed his course of study. He has duly attended the prescribed lectures--not less than three a week. He has gone in the early mornings, when the bell at St Peter's Church was ringing for mass, to spend some two hours listening to the "ordinary" lecture delivered by a doctor in his own house (p. 030) or in a hired room; his successors a generation or two later would find buildings erected by the University for the purpose. The rest of his morning and an hour or two in the afternoon have also, if he is an industrious student, been devoted to lectures, and he has not been neglectful of private study. He has enjoyed the numerous holidays afforded by the Feasts of the Church, and several vacations in the course of the year, including ten days at Christmas, a fortnight at Easter, and about six weeks in the autumn. After five years of study, if he is a civilian, and four if he is a canonist, the Rector has raised him to the dignity of a Bachelor by permitting him to give "extra-ordinary" lectures--and after two more years spent in this capacity he is ready to proceed to the doctorate. The Rector, having been satisfied by the English representative in his Council that the "doctorand" has performed the whole duty of the Bolognese student, gives him permission to enter for the first or Private Examination, and he again takes the oath of obedience to that dignitary. The doctor under whom he has studied vouches for his competence, and presents him first to the Archdeacon and some days afterwards to the College of Doctors, before whom he takes a solemn oath never to seek admittance into the Bolognese College of Doctors, or to teach, or attempt to perform any of the functions of a doctor, at Bologna. They then (p. 031) give him a passage for exposition and send him home. He is followed to his house by his own doctor who hears his exposition in private, and brings him back to the august presence of the College of Doctors and the Archdeacon. Here he treats his thesis and is examined upon it by two or more doctors, who are ordered by the University statutes not to treat any victim of this rigorous and tremendous examination otherwise than if he were their own son, and are threatened with grave penalties, including suspension for a year. The College then votes upon his case, each doctor saying openly and clearly, and without any qualification, "Approbo" or "Reprobo," and if the decision is favourable he is now a Licentiate and has to face only the expensive but not otherwise formidable ordeal of the second or Public Examination. As a newly appointed Scottish judge is, to this day, admitted to his office by trying cases, so the Bologna doctor was admitted to his new dignity by an exercise in lecturing. The idea is common to many medieval institutions, and it survived at Bologna, even though the licentiate had, at his private examination, renounced the right of teaching. Our Englishman and his socii go together to the Cathedral, where he states a thesis and defends it against the attacks of other licentiates. His own doctor, known in Bologna (and elsewhere) as the Promoter, (p. 032) presents him to the Chancellor, who confers upon him the _jus ubique docendi_. He is then seated in a master's chair, and the Promotor gives him an open book and a gold ring and (in the terminology of a modern Scottish University) "caps" him with the biretta. He is dismissed with a benediction and the kiss of peace, and is conducted through the town, in triumphal procession, by his friends, to whom he gives a feast.

The feast adds very considerably to the expenses of the doctorate, for which fees are, of course, exacted by the authorities of the University, the College of Doctors, and the Archdeacon. A considerable proportion of the disciplinary regulations, made by the student-universities, aimed at restricting the expenditure on feasting at the inception of a new doctor and on other occasions. When our young English Doctorand received the permission of his Rector to proceed to his degree, he was made to promise not to exceed the proper expenditure on fees and feasts, and he was expressly forbidden to organise a tournament. The spending of money on extravagant costume was also prohibited by the statutes of the University, which forbade a student to purchase, either directly or through an agent, any costume other than the ordinary black garment, or any outer covering other than the black cappa or gabard. Other disciplinary restrictions at (p. 033) Bologna dealt with quarrelling and gambling. The debates of Congregation were not to be liable to interruption by one student stabbing his opponent in Italian fashion, and no one was allowed to carry arms to a meeting of Congregation; if a student had reason to apprehend personal violence from another, the Rector could give him a dispensation from the necessity of attendance. Gaming and borrowing from unauthorised money-lenders were strictly forbidden; to enter a gaming-house, or to keep one, or to watch a game of dice was strictly forbidden. The University of Arts and Medicine granted a dispensation for three days at Christmas, and a Rector might use his own discretion in the matter. The penalties were fines, and for contumacy or grave offences, suspension or expulsion.

There are indications that the conduct of the doctors in these respects was not above suspicion; they were expressly prohibited from keeping gaming-houses; and the appointment of four merchants of the town, who alone were empowered to lend money to students, was a protection not only against ordinary usurers, but also against doctors who lent money to students in order to attract them to their lectures. That the ignominious position of the Bologna doctors had an evil effect upon their morals, is evident not only from this, but also from the existence of bribery, in connection with examinations for the (p. 034) doctorate, although corruption of this kind was not confined to the student-universities.

The regulations of the greatest of the residential colleges of Bologna, the College of Spain, naturally interfere much more with individual liberty than do the statutes of the student-universities, even though the government of the College was a democracy, based upon the democratic constitution of the University. We shall have an opportunity of referring to the discipline of the Spanish College when we deal with the College system in the northern universities, and meanwhile we pass to some illustrations of life in student-universities elsewhere than at Bologna.

At Padua we find a "Schools-peace" like the special peace of the highway or the market in medieval England; special penalties were prescribed for attacks on scholars in the Schools, or going to or returning from the Schools at the accustomed hours. The presence of the Rector also made a slight attack count as an "atrocious injury." The University threatened to interdict, for ten years, the ten houses nearest to the place where a scholar was killed; if he was wounded the period was four or six years. At Florence, where the Faculty of Medicine was very important, there is an interesting provision for the study of anatomy. An agreement was made with the town, by which (p. 035) the students of Medicine were to have two corpses every year, one male and one female. The bodies were to be those of malefactors, who gained, to some extent, by the arrangement, for the woman's penalty was to be changed from burning, and the man's from decapitation, to hanging. A pathetic clause provides that the criminals are not to be natives of Florence, but of captive race, with few friends or relations. If the number of medical students increased, they were to have two male bodies. At Florence, as almost everywhere, we find regulations against gambling, but an exception was made for the Kalends of May and the days immediately before and after, and no penalty could be inflicted for gambling in the house of the Rector. The records, of Florence afford an illustration of the checks upon the rectorial power, to which we have referred in speaking of the typical Student-University at Bologna. In 1433, a series of complaints were brought against a certain Hieronimus who had just completed his year of office as Rector, and a Syndicate, consisting of a Doctor of Decrees (who was also a scholar in civil law), a scholar in Canon Law, and a scholar in Medicine, was appointed to inquire into the conduct of the late Rector and of his two Camerarii. The accusations were both general and personal, and the Syndics, after deciding that (p. 036) Hieronimus must restore eight silver _grossi_ of University money which he had appropriated, proceeded to hear the charges brought by individuals. A lecturer in the University complained that the Rector had unjustly and maliciously given a sentence against him and in favour of a Greek residing at Florence, and that he had unjustly declared him perjured; fifty gold florins were awarded as damages for this and some other injuries. A doctor of Arts and Medicine obtained a judgment for two florins for expenses incurred when the Rector was in his house. A student complained that he had been denounced as "infamis" in all the Schools for not paying his matriculation-fee, and that his name had been entered in the book called the "Speculum." The Syndics ordered the record of his punishment to be erased. The most interesting case is that of student of Civil Law, called Andreas Romuli de Lancisca. He averred that he had sold Hieronimus six measures of grain, to be paid for at the customary price. After four months' delay, the Rector paid seven pounds, and when asked to complete the payment, gave Andreas a book of medicine, "for which I got five florins." Some days later he demanded the return of the book, to which Andreas replied: "Date mihi residuum et libenter restituam librum." To this request the Rector, "in superbiam elevatus," answered, "Tu reddes librum et non solvam tibi." The quarrel continued, and (p. 037) one morning, when Andreas was in the Schools at a lecture, Hieronimus sent the servant of the Podesta, who seized him "ignominiose et vituperose" in the Schools and conducted him to the town prison like a common thief. For all these injuries Andreas craved redress and a sum of forty florins. The damages, he thought, should be high, not merely for his personal wrongs, but also for the insult to the scholar's dress which he wore, and, indeed, to the whole University. He was allowed twenty pounds in addition to the sum due for the grain. The Syndicate of 1433 must have been an extreme case; matters were complicated by the fact that the Rector's brother was "Executor Ordinamentorum Justitiæ Civitatis Florentiæ," and he was therefore suspected of playing into the hands of the city. But the knowledge that such an investigation was possible must have restrained the arbitrary tendencies of a Rector.

A reference to the imitation of the Bolognese constitution in Spain must close this portion of our survey. At Lerida, in the earliest code of statutes (about 1300), we find the doctors and master sworn to obey the Rector, who can fine them, though he must not expel them without the consent of the whole University. Any improper criticisms of the Rector ("verba injuriosa vel contumeliosa") by anyone, of whatsoever (p. 038) dignity, are to be punished by suspension until satisfaction is made, and so great is the glory of the office ("Rectoris officium tanta [excellentia] præfulget") that an ex-Rector is not bound to take the oath to his successor. The regulations affecting undergraduates are more detailed than at Bologna, and indicate a stricter discipline. After eight days' attendance at a doctor's lecture, a student must not forsake it to go to another doctor; no scholar is to go to the School on horseback unless for some urgent cause; scholars are not to give anything to actors or jesters or other "truffatores" (troubadours), nor to invite them to meals, except on the feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, or at the election of a Rector, or when doctors or masters are created. Even on these occasions only food may be given, although an ordinance of the second Rector allows doctors and masters to give them money. No students, except boys under fourteen, are to be allowed to play at ball in the city on St Nicholas' day or St Katherine's day, and none are to indulge in unbecoming amusements, or to walk about dressed up as Jews or Saracens--a rule which is also found in the statutes of the University of Perpignan. If scholars are found bearing arms by day in the students' quarter of the town, they are to forfeit their arms, and if they are found at night with either arms or musical instruments in the students' quarter, they are to (p. 039) forfeit arms or instruments. If they are found outside their own quarters, by night or by day, with arms or musical instruments, the town officials will deal with laymen, and the Bishop or the Rector with clerks. Laymen might be either students or doctors in Spain as in Italy; at Salamanca, a lecturer's marriage was included among the necessary causes which excused a temporary absence from his duties. In the universities of Southern France, the marriage of resident doctors and students was also contemplated, and the statutes of the University of Aix contain a table of charges payable as "charivari" by a rector, a doctor, a licentiate, a bachelor, a student, and a bedel. In each case the amount payable for marrying a widow was double the ordinary fee. If the bridegroom declined to pay, the "dominus promotor," accompanied by "dominis studentibus," was, by permission of the Rector, to go to his house armed with frying-pans, bassoons, and horns, and to make a great tumult, without, however, doing any injury to his neighbours. Continued recusancy was to be punished by placing filth outside the culprit's door on feast-days. In the University of Dôle, there was a married Rector in 1485, but this was by a special dispensation. There are traces of the existence of married undergraduates at Oxford in the fifteenth century, and, in the (p. 040) same century, marriage was permitted in the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, but the insistence upon celibacy in the northern universities is one of the characteristic differences between them and the universities of Southern Europe.