We are now in a position to approach the main part of our subject—life in a medieval University of masters—and we propose to proceed at once to its most characteristic feature, life in a medieval College. The system originated in Paris. In the early days of the University, students at Paris lived freely in private houses, which a number of "socii" hired for themselves. A record of a dispute which occurred in 1336 shows that it was usual for one member of such a community to be responsible for the rent, "tanquam principalis dictae domus," and the member who was held to be responsible in the particular case is described as a "magister." At first it was not necessary that he should be a master, but this soon became usual, and ultimately (though not till the close of the Middle Ages) it was made compulsory by the University. Dr Rashdall has drawn attention to the democratic character of these Hospicia or Halls, the members of which elected their own principal and made the regulations which he enforced. This democratic constitution is found at Oxford as well asat 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 whose welfare they provided; a College is essentially a society, and not a building. The quadrangular shape which is now associated with the buildings of a College was probably suggested accidentally by the development of Walter de Merton's College at Oxford; but, long after the foundation of Merton College in 1263 or 1264, it was not considered necessary by a founder to build a home for his scholars, who secured a suitable lodging-house (or houses) and were prepared to migrate should such a step become desirable in the interest of the University.
The statutes of Merton provide us with a picture of an endowed Hall at the period when such endowments were beginning to change the character of University life. The conception of a College, as distinguished from the older Halls, developed very rapidly, and the Founder's provisions for the organisation of his society were altered three times within ten years. In 1264, Walter de Merton, sometime Chancellorof England, drew up a code of statutes for the foundation of a house, to be called the House of the Scholars of Merton. His motive was the good of Holy Church and the safety of the souls of his benefactors and relations, and these objects were to be served by providing for the maintenance of twenty poor scholars and two or three priests in the schools of Oxford, or elsewhere, if learning should, in these days of civil war, flourish elsewhere than at Oxford. The endowment which he provided was to consist of his manors of Maldon and Farleigh, in Surrey, to which was added the Merton estate, at the end of what are now the "Backs" in Cambridge. This was purchased in 1269-70. The lands were given to his scholars, to be held under certain conditions, in their own name. His own kindred were to have the first 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 their Founder and his benefactors, living and dead. The management of the property was entrusted to a Warden, who was to reside not at Oxford or any other Studium where the Hall might happen to be, but at Maldon or Farleigh. The Warden was a member of the Society, but had no authority over the scholars, except that, in cases of disputed elections, he, or the Chancellor or Rector of the University where the Hall happened to be at the time, was to act on the advice of six or seven of the senior scholars, and the senior scholars, rather than the Warden, were looked upon by the founder as the natural leaders of his Society. Every year, eight or ten of the seniors were to go to Surrey to stay for eight days to inquire into the management oftheir property, and, if at any other time, evil rumours about the conduct of the Warden reached the Hall, two or three of them were to go to investigate. The scholars could, with the consent of the Patron, the Bishop of Winchester, bring about the deposition of the Warden, and elections to the Wardenship were entrusted to the twelve seniors. They were to consult the "brothers" who assisted the Warden at Merton, and were also to obtain the sanction of the Bishop of Winchester.
These first Merton statutes clearly contemplate an endowed Hall, differing from other Halls only in the existence of the endowment. Some regulations are necessary in order that the tenure of the property of the Society may be secure and that its funds may not be misapplied, and the brief code of statutes is directed to these ends. Walter de Merton's earliest rules make the minimum of change in existing conditions. But the preparation of this code of statutes must have suggested to the Founder that his generosity gave him the power of making more elaborate provisions. The Mendicant Orders had already established at Oxford and at Paris houses for their own members, and the Monastic 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 intothe 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 allowances are increased, and his presence at Oxford seems to be implied. The scholars are to proceed from Arts to Theology; four or five of them may be permitted to study the Canon Law, and the Warden may allow some of them to devote some time to the Civil Law. Two Sub-Wardens are to be appointed, one at Maldon and one in Oxford; Deans are to watch over the morals of the scholars, and senior students are to preside over the studies of the freshmen. The scholars are to be silent at meals and to listen to a reader; there must be no noise in their chambers, and a senior is to be in authority in each chamber, and to report breaches of regulations. Conversation is to be conducted in Latin.
We have here the beginnings of a new system of University life, and we can trace the tendency towards collegiate discipline still more clearly in the Founder's statutes of 1274, which are much longer andmore elaborate than in 1270. The scholars or Fellows are now to obey the Warden, as their Superior; the Deans and the seniors in chambers are to bear rule under him and, in the first instance, to report to him; the Sub-Warden is to take his place in his absence and to assist him at other times; three Bursars are to help him in the management, of the property. The Patron or Visitor, may inquire into the conduct of the Warden or into any accusations brought against him, and has the power of depriving him of 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 orders for the observances of the statutes. The Warden and Fellows of Merton had permitted the study of medicine: they had interpreted too liberally the permission to study law; theyhad increased their own allowances and the salaries of their brewer and their cook; the Fellows had resisted the authority of the Warden; they had neglected the attendances at divine service enjoined by the Founder, and they had been lax about expulsions. The change which Walter de Merton had made in a scholar's life was so far-reaching that a secular would probably not have shared the astonishment of Archbishop Peckham (himself a friar) at the unwillingness of the Merton scholars to recognise the loss of their traditional freedom.
The system inaugurated by Walter de Merton was destined to have a great development. In the document of 1284, Peckham speaks of Merton as a "College," and its Founder was the founder of the Oxford College system. Although he repeated in his last statutes his permission to move his Society from Oxford, he regarded Oxford as its permanent home. Now that the civil war was over and England at peace, he had, he says, purchased a place of habitation and a house at Oxford, "where a University of students is flourishing." Not only had he provided a dwelling-place, he had also magnificently rebuilt a parish church to serve as a College-Chapel. The example he set was followed both at Oxford and at Cambridge, and the rule of Merton became the model on which College founders based elaborate codes of statutes. English founders generally followedWalter de Merton in making their societies self-governing communities, with an external Visitor as the ultimate court of appeal. There were in many colleges "poor boys" who were taught grammar, performed menial offices, and were not members, nor always eligible for election as members, of the Society; but as a general rule the Fellows or Socii all had a share 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 obediencefrom 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 foundation of New College at Oxford in 1379 marks the completion of the collegiate ideal which had advanced so rapidly under the successive constitutions of Merton College a hundred years before. William of Wykeham, in providing for the needs of his scholars, availed himself of the experience of the past and created a new model for the future. The Fellows of New College were to be efficiently equipped at Winchester for the studies of the University, and, as we shall see, they were to receive in College special instruction in addition to the teaching of the University. Their magnificent home included, besides their living-rooms, a noble chapel and hall, a library, a garden, and a beautiful cloister for religious processions and for the burial of the dead. King Henry VI. built a still more magnificent house for his Cambridge scholars, and his example was followed by Henry VIII. The later College-founders, as we have said, expected obedience in proportion to their munificence, and the simpler statutes of earlier colleges were frequently revised and assimilated to those of later foundations. We reserve for a later section what we have to say about education, and deal here with habits and customs.
TheMerton rule that conversation must be in Latin is generally found in College statutes. At Peterhouse, French might occasionally be spoken, should just and reasonable cause arise, but English very rarely. At New College, Latin was to be spoken even in the garden, though English might be used in addressing a layman. At Queen's College, Oxford, which was founded by a courtier, French was allowed as a regular alternative for Latin, and at Jesus College, Oxford, conversation might be in Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. In spite of the influence of the Renaissance, it seems unlikely that either Greek or Hebrew was much used as an alternative to Latin, but the Latin-speaking rule had become less rigid and in sixteenth-century statutes more generous provision is made for dispensations from it. The Latin rule was not merely an educational method; it was deliberately intended to be a check upon conversation. College founders accepted the apostolic maxim that the tongue worketh great evil, and they were convinced that a golden rule of silence was a protection against both ribaldry and quarrels. In the later statutes of Clare, the legislator recognises that not merely loss of time, but the creation of a disposition to be interested in trifles can be traced to "frequentes collocutiones," and he 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 scanty light of a winter day. When a Disputation (cf.p. 146) was held in Hall at night, a fire was lit, but we are not told how, when there was no Disputation or Colleges meeting, the medieval studentspent the time between supper and the "nightcap" which accompanied Compline. Dinner was at ten in the morning and supper at six in the evening. Dr Caius, in the middle of the sixteenth century, ordered his students to be in bed by eight o'clock in the evening, and "early to bed" must have been the custom on winter nights in a medieval College. "Early to rise" was the stern law, even in the dark mornings, for the student's day began at six o'clock, and he must often have listened to lectures which commenced in the dark, although dawn overtook the lecturer before he finished his long exposition. In early times there was no provision for breakfast, and, though the existence of such a meal is distinctly contemplated in the statutes of Queen's College, Oxford, there is no hint of it in those of New College. Probably some informal meal was usual everywhere, and was either paid for privately or winked at by the authorities. The absence of any general provision for breakfast led to its being taken in private rooms and not in Hall, and this is the humble origin of the College breakfast party.
The number of occupants of a single room varied in different colleges. Special provision was made in later College statutes for the Head of the College; at New College he was given (for the first time) a separate establishment and an allowance of plate andkitchen utensils; he was to dine in Hall only on some twenty great Feasts of the Church, and to sit at a separate table on these occasions. Henry VI. followed this precedent at King's, and elsewhere we find that the Head of a College is to have "principalem mansionem" with garden and stabling for the horses, without which it was not becoming that he should travel on College business. It was generally the duty of the Head 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 beddysvulgariter appellati." Separate beds were usually provided, though sometimes boys under fourteen or fifteen years of age were denied this luxury. The bedrooms were also studies; at Oxford there was no general sitting-room, except in monastic colleges, though Cambridge College statutes speak of a "parlura," corresponding to the modern parlour or combination room. Eachof the occupants of a room in New College was the proprietor of a small window, at which he worked, probably at some "study" or desk like the old Winchester "toys." The rooms had four windows and four "studiorum loca," and the general type of a College chamber, after the foundation of New College, was a room with one large window, and two, three, or four small windows for "studies."
A large proportion of the care of statute-makers was devoted to the prohibition of amusements. The statutes of Peterhouse forbade dogs or falcons, "for if one can have them in the House, all will want them, and so there will arise a constant howling" to disturb the studious. Dice and chess, being forbidden games to clerks, were also prohibited, and the scholars of Peterhouse were forbidden to frequent taverns, to engage in trade, to mix with actors, or to attend theatrical performances. These enactments are repeated in later College statutes, with such additions as the legislator's knowledge of human nature dictated and with occasional explanations of some interest in themselves. The keeping of dogs is often described as "taking the children's bread and giving it to dogs," 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, whichhe 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, anindex expurgatoriusof 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 regulations against musical instruments, which disturb the peace essential to learning. That the medieval student felt the temptations of "ragging" in much the same way as his modern successors, appears from many threats directed against those who throw stones and other missiles to the danger of the buildings. Wykeham thought it necessary to forbid the throwing of stones in Chapel, to the danger of the windows and reredos, and for the safety of the reredos he prohibited dancing or jumping in the Hall, which is contiguous to the Chapel. Games in the Hall were also forbidden for the comfort of the chaplains who lived in the rooms underneath. King Henry VI. forbade dancing or jumping, or other dangerous and improper games in the Chapel, cloister, stalls, and Hall of King's College.
Otherdisciplinary regulations common to all colleges deal with carrying arms, unpunctuality, talking during the reading in Hall or disturbing the Chapel services, bringing strangers into College, sleeping out of College, absence without leave, negligence and idleness, scurrilous or offensive language, spilling water in upper rooms to the detriment of the inhabitants of the lower rooms, and failure to attend the regular "scrutinies" or the stated general meetings for College business. At these scrutinies, any serious charges against members of the Society were considered, and it is in keeping with some of the judicial ideas of the time that some statutes forbid the accused person to have a copy of the indictment against him. For contumacy, for grave moral offences, for crimes of violence, and for heresy, the penalty was expulsion. Less serious offences were punished by subtraction of "commons,"i.e.deprivation of allowances for a day or a week (or longer), or by pecuniary fines. When College founders provided clothes as well as board and lodging for their scholars, the forfeiture of a robe took its place among the penalties with which offenders were threatened. The "poor boys" who sang in Chapel and waited on the Fellows were whipped like boys elsewhere, who were being taught grammar, but the birch was unknown as a punishment for undergraduates till late in the middleages. The introduction of corporal punishment into college life in England may be traced by a comparison of William of Wykeham's statutes with those of Henry VI. The King's College statute "De correctionibus faciendis circa delicta leviora" is largely a transcript of a New College statute, with the same title, and both contemplate subtraction of commons as the regular penalty. But the King's College statute contains an additional clause, to the effect that scholars 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, fornegligence 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 "scrutiny" of 1339, and investigations by College Visitors, show that the seniors set the undergraduates a bad example. The statutes of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, provide for two new penalties. An offending undergraduate might be sentenced to feed by himself, at a small table in the middle of the Hall, and in aggravated cases to the monastic penalty of bread and water. An alternative penalty was detention in the library at the most inconvenient time("per horam vel horas cum minime vellet"), and the performance of an imposition to be shown up in due course. The rough and ready penalty of the birch is, however, frequently mentioned in the statutes of Corpus and of other sixteenth-century Colleges. Cardinal Wolsey thought it proper that an undergraduate should be whipped until he had completed his twentieth year. At Trinity, Cambridge (where offenders were sociably flogged before the assembled College on Friday evenings) the age was eighteen. Dr Caius restricted the rod to scholars who were not adult. "We call those adults," he says, "who have completed their eighteenth year. For before that age, both in ancient times and in our own memory, youth was not accustomed to wearbrâccas, being content withtibialiareaching to the knees." The stern disciplinarian might find an excuse for prolonging the whipping age in the Founder's wish that, "years alone should not make an adult, but along with years, gravity of deportment and good character." As late as the foundation of Pembroke College at Oxford (1624) whipping is the penalty contemplated for undergraduates under eighteen. But when we come to the statutes which were drawn up in 1698 with a view to the foundation of Worcester College, not only is there no mention of the birch, but even pecuniary penalties are deprecated forminor offences, for which impositions and gating are suggested.
Minor penalties were enforced by the Head of a college, the Vice-Head, the Deans, and, in sixteenth-century colleges, by the tutors. By later college statutes, these officers received for their personal use a portion of the fines they inflicted, and appeals were sometimes permitted 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 encouraged to report each other's misdeeds. Thus the Master of Christ's is to fine anyone whom he hears speaking one complete sentence in English, or anyone whom he may know to have been guilty of this offence, except in sleeping-rooms or at times when permission had been given.
Oxford and Cambridge Colleges were, as we have seen, endowed homes for the education of secular clerks. All of them, on entrance, had to have the tonsure, and provision was often made for the cutting of their hair and beard. At Christ's College, there was a regular College barber "qui ... caput et barbam radet ac tondebit hebdomadis singulis." They wore ordinary clerical dress, and undue expenditure on clothes and ornaments was strictly prohibited,e.g.the Fellows of Peterhouse were forbidden to wear rings on their fingers "ad inanem gloriam et jactantiam." The early founders did not insist upon Holy Orders for the Heads or Fellows of their colleges, though many of them would naturally proceed to the priesthood, but in later college statutes all the Fellows were ultimately to proceed, at stated times, to Holy Orders and to the priesthood, though dispensations for delay might be granted, and students of Medicine were sometimes excused 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 hisdeath, "Deus qui inter Apostolicos Sacerdotes," and to say the psalm "De profundis clamavi" and a "Kurie eleeson" for the repose of the soul of the Founder's father and mother, his predecessors in the see of Norwich, and after his death for his own soul. The ten priests, who served the Chapel at New College, said masses for the Founder and his benefactors, but every Fellow was to attend mass every day and to say prayers in his own room, morning and evening, including "Rege, quaesumus, Domine, Willielmum Pontificem Fundatorem nostrum" or, after his death, "Deus qui inter Apostolicos sacredotes famulum tuum Fundatorem nostrum pontificali dignitate"; and every day, both after High Mass in Chapel, and after dinner and supper in Hall, the psalm "De profundis" was said. Penalties were prescribed for negligence, and as time went on, a whipping was inflicted for absence from Chapel,e.g.at Christ's College, and at Balliol, for which new statutes were drawn up in 1507.
Residence in College was continuous throughout the year, even during the University vacation, which lasted from early in July to the beginning of October. Leave of absence might be granted at any time in the year, on reasonable grounds, but was to be given generally in vacations. General rules were laid down for behaviour in keeping with the clerical profession during absence, and students on leavewere forbidden to frequent taverns or otherwise transgress the rules which were binding upon them in the University. Occasionally we find some relaxation in these strict regulations, as when the Founder of Corpus Christi at Oxford allows "moderate hunting or hawking" when one of his scholars is on holiday away from Oxford. The same indulgent Founder, after the usual prohibition of games in College, allows a game of ball in the garden for the sake of 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 the permission is carefully restricted to the male sex. Women were,as a rule, not allowed within a College gate; if it was impossible to find a man to wash clothes, a laundress might be employed, but she must be old and of unprepossessing appearance. A scholar or Fellow of a college had not, however, committed himself irrevocably to a celibate life, for marriage is included among the "causas rationabiles et honestas" which vacated a fellowship. It was possible, though probably infrequent, for a Fellow who had not proceeded to Holy Orders to leave the College "uxore ducta," giving up his emolument, his clerical dress, and the tonsure. Even if a Fellow enjoyed the Founder's provision for the long period of his course in Arts and Theology, and proceeded in due time to Holy Orders, it was not contemplated that he should remain a Fellow till his death.
"... he had geten him yet no benefyce,Ne was so worldly for to have offyce,"
says Chaucer, indicating the natural end of a scholar's career. He might betake himself to some "obsequium," and rise high in the service of the king, or of some great baron or bishop, and become, like one of Wykeham's first New College scholars, Henry Chichele, an archbishop and a College founder himself. Should no such great career open up for him, he can, at the least, succeed to one of the livings which the founders of English colleges purchased for this purpose. His "obsequium" wouldnaturally 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. The object of the College Founder was, that there should never be wanting a succession of men qualified to serve God in Church and State, and to Chaucer's unworldly clerk, if he was a member of a College, there would come, in due course, the country living and goodbye to the University. But statutes were not always strictly observed and the idle life-Fellow, who survived to be the scandal of early Victorian days, was not unknown in the end of the Middle Ages.
One of the causes of vacating a fellowship throws some light upon the class of men who became members of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The opening sentences of founders' statutes usually contain some such phrase as "collegium pauperum et indigentium scholarium"; but later sections of the statutes contemplate the possibility of their succeeding to property—"patrimonium, haereditatem, feudumve saeculare, vel pensionem annuam"—and if such property exceeded the annual value of ahundred shillings, a Fellowship wasipso factovacated. The "pauperes et indigentes" expressions must not be construed too literally; the Founder was establishing a claim to the merits of him that considereth the poor, 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 University which covered at least sixteen years, and might be followed by nothing more remunerative than the cure of Chaucer's poor priest, required some substantial inducement if it was to attract the best men. Canon Law, Civil Law and Medicine, if they offered more opportunity of attaining a competency, required also a very long period of apprenticeship in the University. There were many youths in the Middle Ages (as there are to-day) neither "pauperes" nor"indigentes" in the strict sense of the word, but too poor to be able to afford sixteen years of study in the University. The length of the medieval curriculum produced some of the necessities which colleges were established to meet.
That the founders were not thinking of the poorest classes of the community, is evident from many provisions of their statutes. They frequently provided only board and lodging, and left their beneficiaries to find elsewhere the other necessities of life; they appointed penalties (such as the subtraction of commons for a month) which would have meant starvation to the penniless; they contemplated entertainments and journeys, and in the case of a New College Doctor, even the maintenance of a private servant, at the personal expense of their scholars and Fellows; they prohibited the expenditure of money on extravagant dress and amusements. William of Wykeham made allowances for the expense of proceeding to degrees in the University when one of his Fellows had no private means and no friends to assist him ("propter paupertatem, inopiam, et penuriam, carentiamque amicorum"); but 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, suggeststhat 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 illustrated by two wills, printed in "Munimenta Academica." Henry Scayfe, Fellow of Queen's College, left in 1449, seven pounds to his father, smaller sums to a large number of friends, including sixpence to every scholar of the College, and also disposed by will of sheep, cattle and horses. In 1457, John Seggefyld, Fellow of Lincoln College, bequeathed to his brother tenements in Kingston by Hull, which had been left him by his father, twelve pence to each of his colleagues, and thirteen shillings and four pence to his executor. Whether the possessions of these men ought to have led to the resignation of their Fellowships, is a question which may have interested their colleagues at the time; to us the facts are important,as illustrating the private means of members of a society of "poor and indigent" scholars, and as indicating the class from which such scholars were drawn.
College regulations in other countries add considerably to our knowledge of medieval student-life. In Paris, where the system had its humble beginning in the hire of a room for eighteen poor scholars, by a benevolent Englishman returning from a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1180, the college ideal progressed slowly and never reached its highest development. Even when most of the students of Paris came to live in colleges, the college was not the real unit of university life, nor was a Parisian college a self-governing community like Merton or Peterhouse. The division of the University of Paris into Nations affected its social life, and the Faculties were separated at Paris in a manner unknown in England. A college at Paris was organised in accordance with Faculty divisions, 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-divisionsof 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 nation and province, insisting that association with companions of different languages and customs, would make the scholars "civiliores, eloquentiores, et doctiores," and that the friendships thus formed would enable them to render better service to the State. The tenure of hisbursaor emolument, by a member of a Paris college, was so precarious that he could not count upon proceeding to a higher Faculty in his own college, and the existence of an outside body of governors and of Patrons or Visitors, who had the power of filling up vacancies further checked the growth of corporate feeling and college patriotism. The large powers entrusted to an external authority made the position of the Head of a college at Paris, much less important than at Oxford or Cambridge.
The differences between English and Parisian colleges may best be realised by a reference to the statutes of some early Paris founders. About 1268, Guillaume de Saone, Treasurer of Rouen, founded at Paris, the "Treasurer's College" for natives of his owndiocese. It was founded for poor clerks, twelve of whom were to be scholars in Theology, and twelve in Arts. They were to be selected by the archdeacons of the Cathedral of Rouen, who then resided at Grand-Caux and Petit-Caux, from natives of these places, or, failing them, from the Diocese of Rouen. The scholars were to have rooms and a weekly allowance, not for the whole year, but for forty-five weeks from the feast of St Dionysius; no provision was made for the seven weeks of the vacation, except for two theologians, who were to take charge of the house at Paris. The revenues were collected and distributed by the Prior of the Hospital of St Mary Magdalen at Rouen, and the Archbishop of Rouen was Rector and Patron. The students in Arts never formed part of the foundation, for the Treasurer almost immediately restricted his community to Theologians, and their tenure of the endowment was strictly limited to two years after obtaining their licence. "For we do not wish to grant them anything more, because our intention 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 theirstudies. 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 scholars of the theological Faculty at Paris" were to choose a secular clerk to be Rector of the College, and to govern it in conjunction with the body that appointed him. The masters of the Faculty of Theology, or their representatives, were to visit the College annually, to inquire into the financial and domestic arrangements, and into the behaviour of the Rector, masters, and scholars, and to punish as they deemed necessary. Membership of the Collegewas restricted to the kingdom of France. Similarly, the College du Plessis, founded in 1322, by Geoffrey du Plessis, Notary Apostolic, and Secretary of Philip the Long, was restricted to Frenchmen, with preference to certain northern dioceses. Its forty scholars were in separate societies, with a Grand Master who had to be a master or, at least, a bachelor in Theology. The affairs of the College, as far as concerned the election, discipline and the deprivation of its members, were to be administered by two bishops and an abbot, in conjunction with the Master and with the Chancellor of the Cathedral of Paris, or, in the absence of the great dignitaries, by the Master and the Chancellor. But the financial administration was entrusted to a provisor or procurator, who undertook the collection and distribution of the revenues.
The details of college statutes at Paris, bear a general resemblance to the regulations of Oxford and Cambridge founders, and discipline became more stringent as time went on. Attendance at Chapel (the only meeting-place of students in different Faculties in the same College) came to be strictly required. Punctuality at meals was frequently insisted upon, under pain of receiving nothing but bread. Silence was enjoined at meal times and the Bible was read. Latin was, from the first, the only lawful medium of conversation. All the members ofa college, had to be within the gates when the curfew bell rang. 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 insolentiis, exclamationibus et ludis palmariis dictorum scolarium, qui ludunt ... pilis durissimis") permitted the game under less noisy conditions ("pilis seu scophis mollibus et manu, ac cum silentio et absque clamoribus tumultuosis"). The use of dice was, as a rule, absolutely prohibited, but the statutes of the College of Cornouaille permitted it under certain conditions. It might be played to amuse a sick fellow on feast days, or without the plea of sickness, on the vigils of Christmas, and of three Holy Days. But the stakes must be small and paid in kind, not in money ("pro aliquo comestibili vel potabili").
Penalties for minor offences were much the same as in England—forfeiture of commons for varying periods,pecuniary fines, and in the sixteenth century, whipping. In the College of Le Mans, bursars who were not graduates were to be whipped for a first offence in a school, and for a second offence in the Hall ("prout mos est in universitate Parisiensi"). The obligation of reporting each other's faults, of which there are indications in English statutes, was almost universal at Paris, where all were bound to reveal offences "sub secreto" to the authorities. The penalty of "sconcing," still inflicted at Oxford, for offences against undergraduate etiquette, finds a place in the Parisian statutes among serious punishments. We find it in the Statutes of Cornouaille for minor offences; if a man carries wine out of the College illicitly, he is to pay for double the quantity to be drunk by the members who were present at the time; if anyone walks through the confines or chambers in pattens ("cum calepodiis, id est cum patinis") he is to be mulcted in a pint of wine. If a stranger is introduced without leave ("ad mensam communitatis ad comedendum vel videndum secretum mensae"), the penalty is a quart of good wine for the fellows present in Hall. For unseemly noise, especially at meals, and at time of prayers, the ordinary penalty is a quart of ordinary wine ("vini mediocris"). For speaking in the vernacular, there is a fine of "the price of a pint of wine," but, as the usual direction aboutdrinking 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 Rashdall quotes from the MS. Register of the Sorbonne, actual instances of the infliction of sconces:"A Doctor of Divinity is sconced a quart of wine for picking a pear off a tree in the College garden, or again, for forgetting to shut the Chapel door, or for taking his meals in the kitchen. Clerks are sconced a pint for 'very inordinately' knocking 'at the door during dinner ...' for 'confabulating' in the court late at night, and refusing to go to their chambers when ordered.... The head cook is sconced for 'badly preparing the meat for supper,' or for not putting salt in the soup." Among the examples given by Dr Rashdall from this source are a sconce of two shillings for drunkenness and a sconce in wine inflicted upon the head cook for being found "cum una meretrice." An offence so serious in a bursar, is by many college statutes to be followed by expulsion, and Dr Rashdall quotes an instance of this penalty: but Parisian College Founders, were less severe in dealing with moral offences than English Founders. At the monastic College of Marmoutier, it was only on the second offence that bringing into College ("mulierem suspectam et inhonestam") led to expulsion, and at the College of Cornouaille, the penalty for a first offence was loss of commons or bursa for fifteen days, and for a second offence a month's deprivation; but even at Cornouaille actual incontinence was to be punished by expulsion.
A late code of statutes of the fourteenth-century Collegeof Dainville, give us a picture of a student's day. The hour of rising was five o'clock, except on Sundays and Feast days when an hour's grace was allowed. Chapel service began at 5.30, prayers, meditation, and a New Testament lesson being followed by the mass of the College at six. All students resident in the College had to be present. The reception of commoners, an early instance of which we noted in the College of the Treasurer, had developed to such an extent, that all Colleges had, in addition to their bursars or foundations, a large number of "foranei scholares," who paid their own expenses but were subject to College discipline, and received a large part of their education in College. After mass, the day'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 occurin Parisian as well as in English statutes, and we find prohibitions against carrying off wood to private rooms. The general arrangement of Parisian college chambers, probably resembled those of Oxford, or Cambridge, and we find references to "studies." The statutes of the monastic college of Clugny order that "because the mind is rendered prudent by sitting down and keeping quiet, the said students at the proper and wonted hours for study shall be, and sit, alone in their cells and at their studies." Parisian statutes are stricter than English statutes in insisting upon frequent inspections of students' chambers, and a sixteenth-century code for a Parisian college orders the officials to see their pupils every night before bed time, and to make sure, before they themselves retire for the night, that the students are asleep and not wandering about the quadrangles.
Strict supervision is found in colleges in other French universities, even in those which belong to the student type. It was, of course, especially strict in monastic colleges, which carried their own customs to the University; in the College of Notre Dame de Pitié, at Avignon, the master of the novices lived in a room adjoining their dormitory, and had a window, through which he might watch their proceedings. Supervision was sometimes connected with precautions against fire,e.g.at the College of SaintRuf, at Montpellier, an officer was appointed every week to go round all chambers and rooms at night, and to warn anyone who had a candle or a fire in a dangerous position, near his bed or his study. He was to carry a pail of water with him to be ready for emergencies. A somewhat similar precaution was taken in the Collegium Maius at Leipsic, where water was kept in pails beside the dormitories, and leather pails, some centuries old, are still to be seen at Oxford. As a rule, the dormitories seem to have contained a separate bed for each occupant, but in the College of St Nicholas de Pelegry at Cahors, students in arts (who entered about the age of fourteen) were to sleep two in a bed. Insistence on the use of Latin is almost universal; the scholars of the College de Foix at Toulouse are warned that only ploughmen, swineherds 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, occur in many statutes, but processions in honour of saints and choruses to celebrate the taking of degrees, are sometimes permitted. Blasphemy and bad language greatly troubled the French statute-makers, and there are many provisions against blaspheming the Blessed Virgin. At the College of Breuil at Angers, a fine of twopence, was imposed for speaking or singing "verba inhonesta tam alte," especially in public places of the College; in Germany, the Collegium Minus at Leipsic provides also against writing "impudentia dicta" on the walls of the College. The usual penalties for minor offences arefines and subtraction of commons: references to flogging are rare, though it is found in both French and German colleges. More serious crimes were visited with suspension and expulsion. At the College of Pelegry, at Cahors, to enter the college by a window or otherwise after the great gate was closed, involved rustication for two months for the first offence, six months for the second offence, and expulsion for a third. At the College de Verdale, at Toulouse, expulsion was the penalty for a list of crimes which includes theft, entering the college by stealth, breaking into the cellar, bringing in a meretrix, witch-craft, alchemy, invoking demons or sacrificing to them, forgery, and contracting "carnale vel spirituale matrimonium."
We may close our survey of the Medieval College, with a glimpse of a French college in the fourteenth century. We have the record of a visitation of the Benedictine foundation of St Benedict, at Montpellier, partly a monastery and partly a college. The Prior is strictly questioned about the conduct of the students. He gives a good character to most of them: but the little flock contained some black sheep. Peter is somewhat light-headed ("aliquantulum est levis capitis") but not incorrigible; he has been guilty of employing "verba injuriosa et provocativa," but the Prior has corrected him, and he has taken the correction patiently. Bertrand's lifeis "aliquantulum dissoluta," and he has made a conspiracy to beat (and, as some think, to kill) Dominus Savaricus, who had beaten him along with the rest, when he did not know his lessons. (Bertrand says he is eighteen and looks like twenty-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 examinedviva voceupon 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 examiners are merciful to a boy who is nervous inviva voce, but of whose studies Dominus Savaricus, who has recovered from the attack made upon him, gives a good account. Monks, and especially novices, were human, and the experience of St Benedict's at Montpellierwas probably similar to that of secular colleges in France and elsewhere. Even in democratic Bologna, it was found necessary in the Spanish College (from the MS. statutes of which, Dr Rashdall quotes) to establish a discipline which included a penalty of five days in the stocks and a meal of bread and water, eaten sitting on the floor of the Hall, for an assault upon a brother student; if blood was shed, the penalty was double. The statutes of the Spanish College were severe for the fourteenth century, and they penalise absence from lecture, unpunctuality, nocturnal wanderings and so forth, as strictly as any English founder.
The growing tradition of strict college discipline ultimately led to disciplinary statutes in the universities. From very early times, universities had, of course, made regulations about the curriculum, and the border-line between a scholar's studies and his manners and morals, could not be absolutely fixed. At Paris, indeed, it is not until the fifteenth century that we find any detailed code of disciplinary statutes; but fourteenth-century regulations about dress were partly aimed at checking misdeeds of students disguised as laymen, and in 1391 the English Nation prohibited an undue number of "potationes et convivia," in celebration of the "jocund advent" of a freshman or on other occasions. It was not till the middle of the fifteenth century that the University of Paris, awoke to the realisation of its own shortcomings in manners and morals; Cardinal William de Estoutville was commissioned by Nicholas V. to reform it, and internal reform, the necessity of which had been recognised for some years, began about the same time with an edict of the Faculty of Arts ordering ageneral improvement, and especially forbidding the celebration of feasts "cum mimis seu instrumentis altis." Estoutville's ordinances are largely concerned with the curriculum, he was at least as anxious to reform the masters as the pupils, and his exhortations are frequently in general or scriptural terms. The points of undergraduate discipline on which he lays stress are feasting, dressing improperly or wearing the clothes of laymen, quarrelling, and games and dances "dissolutas et inhonestas." Four masters or doctors are to inspect annually the colleges and pedagogies, in which the students live, and are to see that proper discipline is maintained. From time to time, similar regulations were made by the Faculty of Arts,e.g.in 1469, it is ordered that no student is to wear the habit of a fool, except for a farce or a morality (amusements permitted at this period). Any one carrying arms or wearing fools' dress is to be beaten in public and in his own hall. These last regulations are doubtless connected with town and gown riots, for which the Feast of Fools afforded a tempting opportunity.
The absence of disciplinary regulations in the records of the University of Paris, is largely to be explained by the fact that criminal charges against Parisian scholars were tried in the Bishop's Court, and civil actions in the Court of the Provost of Paris. At Oxford, where the whole jurisdiction belongedto the Chancellor of the University, disciplinary statutes are much more numerous. We find, from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards, a series of edicts against scholars who break the peace or carry arms, who enter citizens' houses to commit violence, who practise the art of sword and buckler, or who are guilty of gross immorality. A statute of 1250 forbids scholars to celebrate their national feast days disguised with masks or garlands, and one of 1313 restricts the carrying of arms to students who are entering on, or returning from, long journeys. Offenders who refuse to go to prison, or who escape from it, are to be expelled. As early as the middle of the thirteenth century, it was the duty of the proctors and of the principals of halls, to investigate into, and to report the misdeeds of scholars who broke the rules of the University or lived evil lives. A list of fines drawn up in 1432 (a period when in the opinion of the University a pecuniary penalty was more dreaded than anything else) prescribes fines of twelve pence for threatening violence, two shillings for wearing arms, four shillings for a violent shove with the shoulders or a blow with the fist, six shillings and eight pence for a blow with a stone or stick, ten shillings for a blow with a sword, a knife, a dagger or any similar "bellicose weapon," twenty shillings for carrying bows and arrows with evil intent, thirty shillings for collecting anassembly to break the peace, hinder the execution of justice, or make an attack upon anyone, and forty shillings for resisting the execution of justice or wandering about by night. In every case damages have also to be paid to any injured person. The device of overaweing a court (familiar in Scottish history) is prohibited by a regulation that no one shall appear before the Chancellor with more than two companions.
The records of the Chancellor's Court furnish us with instances of the enforcement of these regulations. In 1434, a scholar is found wearing a dagger and is sentenced to be "inbocardatus,"[1]i.e.imprisoned in the Tower of the North Gate of the city, and another offender, in 1442, suffers a day's imprisonment, pays his fine of two shillings, and forfeits his arms. In the same year, John Hordene, a scholar of Peckwater Inn, is fined six shillings and eightpence for breaking the head of Thomas Walker, manciple of Pauline Hall, and Thomas Walker is fined the like sum for drawing his sword on Hordene and for gambling. In 1433, two scholars, guilty of attacking Master Thomas Rygby in Bagley Wood and stealing twelve shillings and sevenpence from him, fail to appear, and are expelled from the University, their goods (estimated to be worth about thirteenshillings) being confiscated. In 1457, four scholars are caught entering with weapons into a warren or park to hunt deer and rabbits; they are released on taking an oath that, while they are students of the University, they will not trespass again, in closed parks or warrens. In 1452, a scholar of Haburdaysh Hall is imprisoned for using threatening language to a tailor, and is fined twelvepence and imprisoned; the tailor insults the prisoner and is fined six shillings and eightpence. We have quoted instances of undergraduate offences, but the evil-doers are by no means invariably young students,e.g.in 1457 the Vicar of St Giles has to take an oath to keep the peace, his club is forfeited, and he is fined two shillings; and in the same year the Master of St John's Hospital, who has been convicted of divers enormous offences, is expelled the University for breaking prison.
The increased stringency of disciplinary regulations at Oxford in the end of the medieval period is best illustrated by the statutes which, in the fifteenth century, the University enforced upon members of the unendowed Halls. Students who were not members of a College lived, for the most part, in one of the numerous Halls which, up to the Reformation, were so important a feature of the University. A code of these statutes, printed for the first time by Dr Rashdall, shows that the liberty ofthe earlier medieval undergraduate had largely disappeared, and that the life of a resident in a Hall, in the end of the fifteenth century, was almost as much governed by statute and regulation as if he were the partaker of a founder's bounty. He must hear mass and say matins and vespers every day, under pain of a fine of a penny, and attend certain services on feast days. His table manners are no longer regulated by the customs and etiquette of his fellows, but by the rules of the University. His lapses from good morals are no longer to be visited with penalties imposed by his own society; if he gambles or practises with sword and buckler, he is to pay fourpence; if he sins with his tongue, or shouts or makes melody when others wish to study or sleep, or brings to table an unsheathed knife, or speaks English, or goes into the town or the fields unaccompanied by a fellow-student, he is fined a farthing; if he comes in after 8p.m.in winter or 9p.m.in summer, he contracts a gate bill of a penny; if he sleeps out, or puts up a friend for the night, without leave of his Principal, the fine is fourpence; if he sleeps with another student in the Hall but not in his own bed, he pays a penny; if he brings a stranger to a meal or a lecture or any other "actum communem" in the Hall, he is fined twopence; if he is pugnacious and offensive and makes odious comparisons, he is to pay sixpence; ifhe attacks a fellow-member or a servant, the University has appointed penalties varying with the severity of the assault, and for a second offence he must be expelled. He has to obey his Principal much as members of a College obey their Head, and, in lieu of the pecuniary penalties, the Principal may flog him publicly on Saturday nights, even though his own master may certify that he has already corrected him, or declare his willingness to correct him, for his breaches of the statutes. The private master or tutor was, as Dr Rashdall suggests, probably a luxury of the rich boy, to whom his wealth might thus bring its own penalty.
It is startling to the modern mind to find University statutes and disciplinary regulations forbidding not only extravagant and unbecoming dress, but sometimes also the wearing of distinctive academic costume by undergraduates, for distinctive academic costume was the privilege of a graduate. The scholar wore ordinary clerical dress, unless the Founder of a College prescribed a special livery. The master had acappaor cope, such as a Cambridge Vice-Chancellor wears on Degree Days, with a border and hood of minever, such as Oxford proctors still wear, and abirettaor square cap. In 1489, the insolence of many Oxford scholars had grown to such a pitch that they were not afraid to wear hoods in the fashion of masters, whereas bachelors, totheir own damnation and the ruin of the University, were so regardless of their oaths as to wear hoods not lined throughout with fur. Penalties were prescribed for both kinds of offenders; but though the Oxford undergraduate never succeeded in annexing the hood, he gradually acquired thebiretta, which his successor of to-day is occasionally fined for not wearing. The modern gown or toga is explained by Dr Rashdall as derived from the robe or cassock which a medieval Master of Arts wore under hiscappa.
The disciplinary regulations of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Oxford may be paralleled from other universities. At Louvain there was a kind of proctorial walk undertaken by the University official known as the Promotor. On receiving three or four hours' notice from the Rector, the Promotor, with a staff of servants, perambulated the streets at night, and he and his "bulldogs" received a fine from anyone whom they apprehended. Offending students caughtin flagrante delictohe conducted to the University prison, and others he reported to the Rector. "Notabiles personæ" might be incarcerated in a monastery incorporated with the University. Arms found upon anyone were forfeited. The Promotor was also the University gaoler, and was responsible for the safe custody of prisoners, and he might place in fetters dangerous prisonersor men accused of serious crimes. Interviews with captives had to take place in his presence; male visitors had to give up their knives or other weapons before being admitted, and female visitors had to leave their cloaks behind them. Students were forbidden to walk in the streets at night after the bell of St Michael's Church had been rung at nine o'clock in winter, and ten o'clock in summer, unless they were accompanied by a doctor or a "gravis persona" and were bearing a torch or lantern. The list of offences at Louvain are much the same as elsewhere, but an eighteenth-century code of statutes specially prohibits bathing and skating. The laws against borrowing and lending were unusually strict, and no student under twenty-five years was allowed to sell books without the consent of his regent, the penalty for a sixteenth-century student in Arts being a public flogging in his own college.
At Leipsic, the University was generally responsible for the discipline, sometimes even when the offences had been committed in the colleges; and a record of the proceedings of the Rector's Court from 1524 to 1588, which was published by Friedrich Zarncke, the learned historian of Leipsic, gives us a large variety of incidents of University life in sixteenth-century Germany. Leipsic possessed a University prison, and we find, in 1524, two students, PhilippusJosman and Erasmus Empedophillus, who had quarrelled, and insulted each other, sentenced to perform, in the prison, impositions for the Rector. Six or eight days' imprisonment is a frequent penalty for a drunken row. A college official brings to the Rector's Court in 1545 one of his pupils, John Ditz, who had lost much money by gambling. Ditz and one of his friends, Caspar Winckler, who had won six florins and some books from him, have already been flogged by their preceptors; they are now sentenced to imprisonment, but as the weather is very cold, they are to be released after one day's detention, and sent back to their preceptors to be flogged again. Their companions are sentenced to return any money, books or garments which they had won in gambling games. A student of the name of Valentine Muff complains to the Rector that his pedagogue has beaten and reproved him undeservedly: after an inquiry he is condemned to the rods "once and again." For throwing stones at windows a student is fined one florin in addition to the cost of replacing them. For grave moral offences fines of three florins are imposed, and the penalty is not infrequently reduced. A month's imprisonment is the alternative of the fine of three florins, but if the weather is cold, the culprit, who has been guilty of gross immorality, is let off with two florins. A drunkenyouth who meets some girls in the evening and tries to compel them to enter his college, is sentenced to five days' imprisonment, but is released on the intercession of the girls and many others. An attack on a servant with a knife is punished by forfeiture of the knife and a fine of half a florin, and a penalty of a florin (divided among the four victims) is inflicted for entering a house with arms and wounding the fingers of some of its inhabitants. A ruffian of noble birth, who had been guilty of gross immorality and of violence, declines to appear in the Rector's Court, and is duly sentenced to expulsion. But his father promises to satisfy the University and the injured party, and seven nobles write asking that he should be pardoned, and a compromise is made, by which he appears in court and pays a fine. For the University offence of having as an attendant a boy who is not enrolled, Valentine Leo is fined three florins, which were paid. "But since he appeared to be good and learned, and produced an excellent specimen of his singular erudition, and wrote learned verses and other compositions to the Rector and his assessors, by which he begged pardon and modestly purged his offence, and especially as a doctor, whose sons he taught, and others interceded for him, he easily procured that the florins, should be returned to the doctor who had paid them for him."