The following degrees are now conferred: in arts, the bachelor and master (B.A., M.A.); in divinity, the bachelor and doctor (B.D., D.D.—formerly S.T.P., sacrae theologiae professor); in laws, bachelor, master and doctor (LL.B., LL.M., LL.D.[259]); in medicine, bachelor and doctor (M.B., M.D.); in music, bachelor, master, and doctor (Mus.B., Mus.M., Mus.D.); in surgery, bachelor and master (B.C., M.C.). Besides which a doctorate in science (Sc.D.), and a doctorate in letters (Litt.D.), are conferred on graduates in laws or in either of the last four faculties who have made some original contribution to the advancement of science or learning.[260]
The bachelor and exercises of the schools.
The title of bachelor originally marked the conclusion of a period of study; it was not a degree, and bestowed no faculty to teach. Here, as elsewhere, a bachelor was an apprentice or aspirant to another status or position; and he remained in statu pupillari as he still is in theory to-day.[261]
It is only in modern times that the conferring of a degree follows upon a set written examination. For six hundred years the aspiring bachelor and master obtained their status by public disputations in the schools. Public exercises, called “acts, opponencies and responsions,” were regularly held during the period of probation, and the student advanced to the degree of master by steps which recall the rites of initiation in the catechumenate. After his first year the “freshman” became a “junior sophister”[262] in one of the faculties, and began to attend the school disputations, without however taking part in them. In his fourth year, as senior sophister, he qualified to be “questionist,” and presented himself as such at the beginning of Lent with ceremonies which turned him into a bachelor; ceremonies in which the Cambridge bedell figures as a veritable deacon. The procession was formed on Ash Wednesday and introduced into the arts schools by the bedell, who exclaimed: “Nostra Mater, bona nova, bona nova!” and “the father” (the presiding college senior) having proceeded to his place, the bedell suggested to him the stages of the ceremony: Reverende pater, licebit tibi incipere, etc. After this day the new bachelor was no longer a questionist but a “determiner” who determined in place of responding to the propositions raised in the schools. This status continued through Lent, and hence the incepting bachelor was described as stans in quadragesima.[263]