Part 13

"Bruno appears before us as the man who most vitally and comprehensively grasped the leading tendencies of his age in their intellectual essence. He left behind him the mediaeval conception of an extra-mundane God, creating a finite world, of which this globe is the center, and the principal episode in the history of which is the series of events from the Fall, through the Incarnation and Crucifixion, to the Last Judgment. He substituted the conception of an ever-living, ever-acting, ever-self-effectuating God, immanent in an infinite universe, to the contemplation of whose attributes the mind of man ascends by the study of Nature and interrogation of his conscience.

"Bolder even than Copernicus, and nearer in his intuition to the truth, he denied that the universe had "flaming walls" or any walls at all. That "immaginata circonferenza," "quella margine immaginata del cielo," on which antique science and Christian theology alike reposed, was the object of his ceaseless satire, his oft-repeated polemic. What, then, rendered Bruno the precursor of modern thought in its various manifestations, was that he grasped the fundamental truth upon which modern science rests, and foresaw the conclusions which must be drawn from it. He speculated boldly, incoherently, vehemently; but he speculated with a clear conception of the universe, as we still apprehend it. Through the course of three centuries we have been engaged in verifying the guesses, deepening, broadening and solidifying the hypotheses, which Bruno's extension of the Copernican theory, and his application of it to pure thought suggested to his penetrating and audacious intellect."

Bruno was convinced that religion in its higher essence would not sufferer from the new philosophy. Larger horizons extended before the human intellect. The soul expanded in more exhilarating regions than the old theologies had offered.

"Lift up thy light on us and on thine own, O soul whose spirit on earth was as a rod To scourge off priests, a sword to pierce their God, A staff for man's free thought to walk alone, A lamp to lead him far from shrine and throne On ways untrodden where his fathers trod Ere earth's heart withered at a high priest's nod, And all men's mouths that made not prayer made moan. From bonds and torments, and the ravening flame, Surely thy spirit of sense rose up to greet Lucretius, where such only spirits meet, And walk with him apart till Shelley came To make the heaven of heavens more heavenly sweet, And mix with yours a third incorporate name."

VIII

STUDENT LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES[5]

[5] An Address given before the Chas. K. Mills Society of Students of the University of Pennsylvania, February 19, 1902.

[Reprinted from the _Univ. of Penna. Medical Bulletin_, March, 1902.]

I assume that every university student of today realizes that his possibilities and his opportunities are better in every way than were those enjoyed by students of bygone times. I take it, also, that you would not be averse to listening to an account of the habits, the surroundings, the privileges, and the disadvantages which surrounded students at a time when universities were young and when customs in general, as well as manners, were very different from those of to-day. With all this in view, I shall ask your attention to a brief account of Student Life in the Middle Ages, with especial reference to that of the medical student. Measured by its results, the most priceless legacy of mediæval times to mankind was the university system, which began in crude form and with an almost mythical origin, but which gradually took form and shape in consequence of many external forces. It represented an effort to "realize in concrete form an ideal of life in one of its aspects." Such ideals "pass into great historic forces by embodying themselves in institutions," as witness, for instance, the case of the Church of Rome.

The use of words in our language has undergone many curious perversions. Take our word "bombast," for instance. Originally it was a name applied to the cotton plant. Then it was applied to any padding for garments which was made of cotton. Later it was used as describing literary padding, as it were, as when one filled out an empty speech with unnecessary and long words, and, at last, it came to have the meaning which we now give it. So with the word "university." "Universitas" in the original Latin meant simply a collection, a plurality, or an aggregation. It was almost synonymous with "collegium." By the beginning of the thirteenth century it was applied to corporations of masters or students and to other associated bodies, and implied an association of individuals, not a place of meeting, nor even a collection of schools. If we were to be literal and consistent in our use of terms, for the place where such collections of men exercise scholastic functions the term should be "_studium generale_," meaning thereby a place, not where all things are studied, but where students come together from all directions. Very few of the mediæval studia possessed all the faculties of a modern university. Even Paris, in its palmiest days, had no faculty of law. The name _universitas_ implies a general invitation to students from all over the world to seek there a place for higher education from numerous masters or teachers. The three great _studia_ of the thirteenth century were Paris, transcendent in theology and the arts; Bologna, where legal lore prevailed; and Salernum, where existed the greatest medical school of the world's history. In spite of the fact that these, like all the other _studia_ of the Middle Ages, were under the influence of the Church, from them sprang most of the inspiration that constituted the mainspring of mediæval intellectual activity, although how baneful such influence could be may be illustrated by the Spanish--that is, the ultra-Catholic University of Salamanca, where not until one hundred years ago were they allowed to teach the Copernican system of astronomy.

Under the conditions existing during the Middle Ages, with relatively few institutions of advanced learning, and in the presence of that spirit which led men to travel long distances, and very widely out of the provinces, to the cities of the great scholia, or, as we call them now, universities, the most imperative common want was that of a common language; and so it happened that not only were the lectures all given in Latin, but that it was very commonly used for conversational purposes, and appears to have been almost a necessity of university life. Early in the history of the University of Paris a statute made the ability of the petitioner to state his case before the rector in Latin a test of his bona-fide studentship. This may perhaps, in some measure account for the barbarity of mediæval Latin. Still, as the listener said about Wagner's music, "it may not have been as bad as it sounded," since the period of greatest ignorance of construction and rhetoric had passed away before the university era began. John Stuart Mill even praised the schoolmen of the Middle Ages for their inventive capacity in the matter of technical terms. The Latin language, which was originally stiff and poor in vocabulary, became, in its employment by these mediæval thinkers, much more flexible and expressive. It was the Ciceronian pedantry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which killed off Latin as a living language. Felicity in Latin counted, then as now, as a mark of scholarship, and six hundred years ago a schoolmaster could come up to the university and, after performing some exercises and passing such an examination as the doctors of music do to-day, could write one hundred verses in Latin in praise of the university, and take his degree. The boys who went to the universities learned their Latin at inferior grammar schools, often in university towns. These schools were mainly connected with cathedrals or churches, although, in the later Middle Ages, even the smallest towns had schools where a boy might learn to read and write at least the rudiments of ecclesiastical Latin. In those days not only were the clergy Latin scholars, but the bailiff of every manor kept his accounts in Latin, and a tutor even formed part of the establishment of a great noble or prelate who had either a family or pages in his care.

In those good old days boys were accustomed to seek the university at the ages of thirteen to fifteen. A Paris statute required them to be at least fourteen, and naturally many were older. Many of these students were beneficed, and boys were canons or even rectors of parish churches. In this capacity they obtained leave of absence to study in the universities, and so it was quite common at one time for rectors and ecclesiastics of all ages to appear in the rôle of university students. At the close of the fourteenth century, in the University of Prague, in the law school alone there appeared on the list of students one bishop, one abbot, nine archdeacons, 290 canons, 187 rectors, and still other minor ecclesiastics. At one time in the University of Bologna, in the registry of German corps, more than half the students were church dignitaries. Sad to relate, many of these clerical students were among the most disorderly and troublesome of the academic population, the statutes vainly prescribing that they should sit "as quiet as girls;" while, as Rashdall says, "even spiritual thunders had at times to be invoked to prevent them from shouting, playing, and interrupting."

Considering the youthfulness of what we may call the freshmen, as many of them went up to the universities at the early age already mentioned, it is not strange that we hear of "fetchers" or "carriers" or "bryngers," who were detailed to escort them home; but we must remember that the roads were dangerous in those days, and that protection of some kind was necessary even for men. Proclamations against bearing arms usually made exceptions in favor of students travelling to or from the university. Students, many of them, lived in halls, or, as we would say now, dormitories, and one of them assumed the rôle of principal, or was delegated to exercise certain authority. Quite often this was the man who made himself responsible for the rent, whose authority came only from the voluntary consent of his fellow-students, or who was elected by them.

When it came to the matter of discipline, the good old-fashioned birchen rod was not an unknown factor in university government. There seems to have been always a certain relationship between classic studies and corporal punishment. In mediæval university records allusions to this relationship began about the fifteenth century. In Paris, about this time, when there were so many disgraceful factional fights, the rectors and proctors had occasionally to go to the colleges and halls and personally superintend the chastisement of the young rioters. We find also in the history of the University of Louvain that flogging was at one time ordered by the Faculty of Arts for homicide or other grave outrages. It is worth while to recall for a moment how grave offences were dealt with in those days. At the University of Ingolstadt one student killed another in a drunken quarrel, and was punished by the university by the confiscation of his scholastic effects and garments, but he was not even expelled. At Prague a certain Master of Arts assisted in cutting the throat of a friar bishop, and was actually expelled for the deed. In those days drunkenness was rarely treated as a university offence. The penalties which were inflicted for the gravest outrages and immoralities were for the greater part puerile in the extreme. In most serious cases excommunication or imprisonment were the penalties, while lesser offences were punished by postponement of degree, expulsion from the college, temporary banishment from a university town, or by fines.

In Leipzig, in 1439, the fine of ten new groschen was provided for the offense of lifting a stone or missile with a view of throwing it at a master, but not actually throwing it; whereas the act of throwing and missing increased the penalty to eight florins, while successful marksmanship was still more expensive. Later statutes made distinction between hitting without wounding and wounding without mutilation, expulsion being the penalty for actual mutilation. With the beginning of the sixteenth century the practice of flogging the very poorest students appears to have been introduced. During these Middle Ages they had a peculiar fashion of expiating even grave offences. For example, at the Sorbonne, if a fellow should assault or cruelly beat a servant he was fined a measure of good wine--not for the benefit of the servant, but for all the culprit's fellow-students. Those were the days, too, when trifling lapses incurred each its own penalty. A doctor of divinity was fined a quart of wine for picking a pear off a tree in the college garden or forgetting to shut the chapel door. Clerks were fined for being very drunk and committing insolences when in that condition. The head cook was fined for not putting salt in the soup. Most of these fines being in the shape of liquors or wines, I imagine that the practice was more general because the penalty was shared in by all who were near.

With lapse of time the statutes of the German universities gradually grew stricter until they became very minute and restrictive in the matter of unacademical pleasures. A visit to the tavern, or even to the kitchen of the college or hall, became a university offence. There were statutes against swearing, against games of chance, walking abroad without a companion, being out after eight in the winter or nine in the summer, making odious comparisons of country to country, etc. This was particularly true of the English universities, where a definite penalty was imposed for every offence, ranging from a quarter of a penny for not speaking Latin to six shillings eight pence for assault with effusion of blood.

The matter of constantly speaking Latin led to a system of espionage, by which a secret system of spies, called "_lupi_" or wolves, was arranged; these were to inform against the "_vulgarisantes_," or those offenders who persisted in speaking in their mother tongue.

It was the students of those days who set the example and the fashion of initiating, or, as we would say now, of hazing the newcomers. This custom of initiation, in one form or another, seems to have an almost hoary antiquity. As Rashdall puts it, three deeply rooted instincts of human nature combine to put the custom almost beyond suppression. It satisfies alike the bullying instinct, the social instinct, and the desire to find at once the excuse and the means for a carouse. In the days of which we are speaking the _Bejaunus_, which is a corruption of the old French _Bec-jaune_ (or yellow bill), as the academic fledgling was called, had to be bullied and coaxed and teased in order to be welcomed as a comrade, and finally his "jocund advent" had to be celebrated by a feast furnished at his own expense. A history of the process of initiating would furnish one of the most singular chapters in university records. At first there were several prohibitions against all _bejaunia_, for the unfortunate youth's limited purse ill afforded even the first year's expenses. As the years went by certain restrictions were imposed, and by the sixteenth century the _depositio cornuum_ had become in the German universities a ceremony almost equal in importance to matriculation. The callow country youth was supposed to be a wild beast who must be deprived of his horns before he could be received into refined society in his new home. This constituted the _depositio_ for which he was supposed to arrange with his new masters, at the same time begging them to keep expenses as low as possible. Soon after he matriculated he was visited in his room by two of the students, who would pretend to be investigating the source of an abominable odor.

This would be subsequently discovered to be due to the newcomer himself, whom they would take at first to be a wild boar, but later discovery to be that rare creature known as a _bejaunus_, a creature of whom they had heard, but which they had never seen. After chaffing comments about his general ferocious aspect it would be suggested, with marked sympathy, that his horns might be removed by operation, the so-called _depositio_. The victim's face would then be smeared with some preparation, and certain formalities would be gone through with--clipping his ears, removal of his tusks, etc. Finally, in fear lest the mock operation should be fatal, the patient would be shriven; one of the students, feigning himself a priest, would put his ear to the dying man's mouth and then repeat his confession. The boy was made to accuse himself of all sorts of enormities, and finally it was exacted as penance that he should provide a sumptuous banquet for his new masters and comrades.

This latter ceremony consisted of a procession headed by a master in academic dress, followed by students in masquerading costume. Certain further operative procedures were then gone through with, the beast was finally dehorned and his nose held to the grindstone, while a little later his chin was adorned with a beard made of burnt cork, and his wounded sensibilities assuaged by a dose of salt and wine. All this constituted a peculiar German custom, although some means of extorting money or bothering those who were initiated was practically universal. In Germany this ceremony of _depositio_ seems to have led later to the bullying and fagging of juniors by seniors, that gave rise to indignities while at the same time it more than exceeded in brutality anything of which we have read in the English grammar schools. These excesses reached their highest in the seventeenth century, and for a long time defied all efforts of both government and university authorities to suppress them.

In southern France this initiation assumed somewhat different form. Here the freshman was treated as a criminal, and had to be tried for and released by purgation from the consequences of his original sin. At Avignon this purgation of freshmen was made the primary purpose of a religious fraternity formed under ecclesiastical sanction, and with a chapel in the Dominican church. (Rashdall). The preamble of its constitution piously boasted that its object was to put a stop to enormities, drunkenness and immorality, but its practices were at extreme variance with its avowed purposes.

The matter of academical dress may interest for a moment. During the Middle Ages there was for the undergraduate nothing which could be properly called academic dress. In the Italian universities the students wore a long black garment known as a "cappa." In the Parisian universities every student was required by custom or statute to wear a tonsure and a clerical habit, such "indecent, dissolute, or secular" apparel as puffed sleeves, pointed shoes, colored boots, etc., being positively forbidden; and so the clothes of uniform color and material, like those worn in some of the English charitable schools, have been the result of the uniform dress of a particular color which mediæval students were supposed to wear, and which indicated that at the time they were supposed to be clerks. At one time the so-called Queen's Men in Oxford University were required to wear bright red garments, and differences of color and ornament still survive in the undergraduate gowns of Cambridge. While the students usually wore dark-hued material, the higher officials of the universities wore more and more elaborate garments, until the rector appeared in violet or purple, perhaps with fur trimmings. The hoods, which are still worn to-day, were at one time made of lamb's wool or rabbit's fur, silk, such as those which we wear, coming in as a summer alternative at the end of the fourteenth century. The birretta, or square cap, with a tuft on the top, in lieu of the modern tassel on top of the square cap, was a distinctive badge of membership, while doctors and superior officers were distinguished by the red or violet color of their birrettas.

This so-called "philosophy of clothes" throws much light upon the relation of the Church to the universities, as well as on the use and misuse of the term "clericus." That a man was a _clericus_ in the Middle Ages did not necessarily imply that he had taken even the lowest grade of clerical orders. It simply implied that he was a clerk, i. e., a student. Even the wearing of a so-called clerical dress was rather in order that the wearer might enjoy exemption from secular courts and the privileges of the clerical order. The lowest of the people even took the clerical tonsure simply in order to get the benefit of clergy; and to become a clerk was at one time almost equivalent to taking out a license for the commission of murder or outrage with comparative immunity. Nevertheless, the relation between clerkship and minor orders is still quite obscure.

It is quite evident that students of those days were not worked as hard as those of the present day. Three lectures a day constituted a maximum of work of this kind, beside which there were disputations and "resumpciones," which seem to have corresponded very much to the quizzes of to-day, scholars being examined or catechised, sometimes even by the lecturer himself. Gradually supplementary lectures were introduced, but there was a period during which the university seemed to decline and decay rather than the reverse, when intellectual life was not nearly as active and studies not nearly as closely pursued. In the days of Thomas Aquinas intellectual vigor was at its highest, but in the fifteenth century there was a distinct falling off.

During these centuries, too, it was not unusual that students attended mass or religious services before going to lectures. This practice grew during the latter portion of the Middle Ages. Attendance was not, however, compulsory. Even at Oxford the statutes of the New College were the first which required daily attendance at mass. In those days lectures began at six in the morning in summer, and sometimes as late as seven in the winter mornings. There is every reason to think that often lectures were given in the darkness preceding dawn, and even without artificial light. It should be said that these lectures were sometimes three hours in duration, and hence it might appear that three such lectures a day were about all that could be expected of a student.

The standard of living for the mediæval student was not always so bad as has been sometimes represented. University students then, as now, were recruited from the highest as well as the poorest social classes, and the young sons of princely families often had about them quite an establishment. At the lower end of the university social ladder was the poor scholar who was reduced to begging for his living or becoming a servant in one of the colleges. In Vienna and elsewhere there were halls whose inmates were regularly sent out to beg, the proceeds of their mendicancy being placed in a common chest. Very poor scholars were often granted licenses to beg by the chancellor. This was not regarded as a particular degradation, however, because the example of the friars had made begging comparatively respectable. Those who would have been ashamed to work hard were not ashamed to beg.