An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

When, after some years of study, a student was examined by the professors, he was, if successful, admitted to the corporation of teachers and became a master himself. What we call a degree to-day was originally, in the mediæval universities, nothing more than the qualification to teach. But in the thirteenth century many began to desire the honorable title of master or doctor (which is only the Latin word for teacher) who did not care to become professors in our sense of the word.[174]

Simple methods of instruction.

The students in the mediæval universities were of all ages, from thirteen to forty, and even older. There were no university buildings, and in Paris the lectures were given in the Latin quarter, in Straw Street, so called from the straw strewn on the floors of the hired rooms where the lecturer explained the text-book, with the students squatting on the floor before him. There were no laboratories, for there was no experimentation. All that was required was a copy of the text-book,—Gratian's Decretum, the Sentences, a treatise of Aristotle, or a medical book. This the lecturer explained sentence by sentence, and the students listened and sometimes took notes.

The universities could move freely from one town to another.

The fact that the masters and students were not bound to any particular spot by buildings and apparatus left them free to wander about. If they believed themselves ill-treated in one town they moved to another, greatly to the disgust of the tradespeople of the place which they deserted, who of course profited by the presence of the university. The universities of Oxford and of Leipsic, among others, were founded by professors and students who had deserted their former home.

Course of study.

The course in arts, which corresponded to our college course and led to the degree of Master of Arts, occupied six years at Paris. The studies were logic, various sciences,—physics, astronomy, etc.,—studied in Aristotle's treatises, and some philosophy and ethics. There was no history, no Greek. Latin had to be learned in order to carry on the work at all, but little attention was given to the Roman classics. The new modern languages were considered entirely unworthy of the learned. It must of course be remembered that none of the books which we consider the great classics in English, French, Italian, or Spanish had as yet been written.

Aristotle's works become known in the West.

104. The most striking peculiarity of the instruction in the mediæval university was the supreme deference paid to Aristotle. Most of the courses of lectures were devoted to the explanation of some one of his numerous treatises,—his Physics, his Metaphysics, his various treatises on logic, his Ethics, his minor works upon the soul, heaven and earth, etc. Only his Logic had been known to Abelard, as all his other works had been forgotten. But early in the thirteenth century all his comprehensive contributions to science reached the West, either from Constantinople or through the Arabs who had brought them to Spain. The Latin translations were bad and obscure, and the lecturer had enough to do to give some meaning to them, to explain what the Arab philosophers had said of them, and, finally, to reconcile them to the teachings of Christianity.

Veneration for Aristotle.