The universities being under the protection of the Church, it was natural that those who attended them should possess some of the privileges of clergymen. Students were not required to pay taxes or to serve in the army. They also enjoyed the right of trial in their own courts. This was an especially valuable privilege, for medieval students were constantly getting into trouble with the city authorities. The sober annals of many a university are relieved by tales of truly Homeric conflicts between Town and Gown. When the students were dissatisfied with their treatment in one place, it was always easy for them to go to another university. Sometimes masters and scholars made off in a body. Oxford appears to have owed its existence to a large migration of English students from Paris, Cambridge arose as the result of a migration from Oxford, and the German university of Leipzig sprang from that of Prague in Bohemia.
[Illustration: VIEW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD New College, despite its name, is one of the oldest of the Oxford collegiate foundations. It was established in 1379 A.D. by William of Wykeham. The illustration shows the chapel, the cloisters consecrated in 1400 A.D., and the detached tower, a tall, massive structure on the line of the city wall.]
COLLEGES
The members of a university usually lived in a number of colleges. These seem to have been at first little more than lodging-houses, where poor students were cared for at the expense of some benefactor. In time, however, as the colleges increased in wealth, through the gifts made to them, they became centers of instruction under the direction of masters. At Oxford and Cambridge, where the collegiate system has been retained to the present time, each college has its separate buildings and enjoys the privilege of self-government.
FACULTIES
The studies in a medieval university were grouped under the four faculties of arts, theology, law, and medicine. The first-named faculty taught the "seven liberal arts," that is, grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. They formed a legacy from old Roman education. Theology, law, and medicine then, as now, were professional studies, taken up after the completion of the Arts course. Owing to the constant movement of students from one university to another, each institution tended to specialize in one or more subjects. Thus, Paris came to be noted for theology, Montpellier, Padua, and Salerno for medicine, and Orléans, Bologna, and Salamanca for law.
[Illustration: TOWER OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD Magdalen (pronounced Maudlin) is perhaps the most beautiful college in Oxford. The bell tower stands on High Street, the principal thoroughfare of Oxford, and adjoins Magdalen Bridge, built across the Cherwell. Begun in 1492 A.D.; completed in 1505 A.D. From its summit a Latin hymn is sung every year on the morning of May Day. This graceful tower has been several times imitated in American collegiate structures.]
204. SCHOLASTICISM
THEOLOGICAL STUDY
Theology formed the chief subject of instruction in most medieval universities. Nearly all the celebrated scholars of the age were theologians. They sought to arrange the doctrines of the Church in systematic and reasonable form, in order to answer those great questions concerning the nature of God and of the soul which have always occupied the human mind. For this purpose it was necessary to call in the aid of philosophy. The union of theology and philosophy produced what is known as scholasticism. [23]