The degrees which Oxford and Cambridge conferred in Grammar did not involve residence or entitle the recipients to a vote in Convocation; but the conferment was accompanied by ceremonies which were almost parodies of the solemn proceedings of graduation or inception in a recognised Faculty, a birch taking the place of a book as a symbol of the power and authority entrusted to the graduand. A sixteenth-century Esquire Bedel of Cambridge left, for the benefit of his successors, details of the form for the "enteryng of a Master in Gramer." The "Father" of the Faculty of Grammar (at Cambridge the mysterious individual known as the "Master of Glomery") brought his "sons" to St Mary's Church for eight o'clock mass. "When mass is done, fyrst shall begynne the acte in Gramer. The Father shall have hys sete made before the Stage for Physyke (one of the platforms erected in the church for doctors of the different faculties, etc.) and shall sytte alofte under the stage for Physyke. The Proctour shall say, Incipiatis. When the Father hath argyude as shall plese the Proctour, the Bedeyll in Arte shall bring the Master of Gramer to the Vyce-chancelar, delyveryng hym a Palmer wyth a Rodde, whych the Vyce-chancelar shall gyve to the seyde Master in Gramer, and so create hym Master. Then shall the Bedell purvay for every master in Gramer a shrewde Boy, whom the master in Gramer shall bete openlye in the Scolys, and the master in Gramer shall give the Boy a Grote for Hys Labour, and another Grote to hym that provydeth the Rode and the Palmer &c. de singulis. And thus endythe the Acte in that Facultye." We know of the existence of similar ceremonies at Oxford. "Had the ambition to take these degrees in Grammar been widely diffused," says Dr Rashdall, "the demand for whipping boys might have pressed rather hardly upon the youth of Oxford; but very few of them are mentioned in the University Register."
The basis of the medieval curriculum in Arts is to be found in the Seven Liberal Arts of the Dark Ages, divided into the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic) and the Quadrivium (Music, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy). The Quadrivium was of comparatively little importance; Geometry and Music received small attention; and Arithmetic, and Astronomy were at first chiefly useful for finding the date of Easter; but the introduction of mathematical learning from Arabian sources in the thirteenth century greatly increased the scope of Geometry and Arithmetic, and added the study of Algebra.
The Grammar taught in the universities assumed a knowledge of such a text-book as that of Alexander de Villa Dei, and consisted of an analysis of the systems of popular grammarians, based on the section De barbarismo in the Ars Grammatica of Ælius Donatus, a fourth-century grammarian, whose work became universally used throughout Europe. Latin poets were read in the grammar schools, and served for grammatical and philological expositions in the universities, and the study of Rhetoric depended largely on the treatises of Cicero. The "Dialectic" of the Trivium was the real interest of the medieval student among the ancient seven subjects, but the curriculum in Arts came to include also the three Philosophies, Physical, Moral, and Metaphysical. The arms of the University of Oxford consist of a book with seven clasps surrounded by three crowns, the clasps representing the seven Liberal Arts and the crowns the three Philosophies. The universities were schools of philosophy, mental and physical, and the attention of students in Arts was chiefly directed to the logic, metaphysics, physics, and ethics of Aristotle. Up to the twelfth century, Aristotle was known only through the translations into Latin of the sections of the Organon, entitled De Interpretatione and Categoriae, and through the logical works of Boethius. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the range of medieval studies was greatly enlarged by the introduction of other works of Aristotle from translations partly from the Arabic and partly direct from the Greek. The conservatism of the University of Paris at first forbade the study of the new Aristotle, but it soon became universal in the medieval universities. In addition to the works of Aristotle, as they were known in the Middle Ages, medieval students read such books as Porphyry's Isagoge, or Introduction to Aristotle; the criticism of Aristotle's Categories, by Gilbert de la Porrée, known as the Sex Principia; the Summulae Logicales, a semi-grammatical, semi-logical treatise by Petrus Hispanus (Pope John XXI.); the Parva Logicalia of Marsilius of Inghen; the Labyrinthus and Grecismus of Eberhard; the Scriptural commentaries of Nicolaus de Lyra; the Tractatus de Sphaera, an astronomical work by a thirteenth-century Scotsman, John Holywood (Joannes de Sacro Bosco); and they also studied Priscian, Donatus, Boethius, Euclid, and Ptolemy. In 1431 the Nova Rhetorica of Cicero, the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and the works of Virgil were prescribed at Oxford as alternatives to the fourth book of the Topica of Boethius. By the end of the century Humanism had found a place in the universities, and sixteenth-century colleges at Oxford and Cambridge provided for the study of the literatures of Greece and Rome. In Scotland the medieval teaching of Aristotle reigned supreme in all its three universities until the appointment of Andrew Melville as Principal at Glasgow in 1574, and in 1580 he had some difficulty in persuading the masters at St Andrews to "peruse Aristotle in his ain language."
Lectures were either "ordinary" or "cursory," a distinction which, as Dr Rashdall has shown, corresponded to the "ordinary" and "extra-ordinary" lectures at Bologna. The ordinary lectures were the statutable exercises appointed by the Faculty, and delivered by its properly accredited teachers in the hours of the morning, which were sacred to the prelections of the masters. Cursory lectures were delivered in the afternoon, frequently by bachelors; but as College teaching became more important than the lectures given in the Schools, the distinction gradually disappeared. Ordinary lectures were delivered "solemniter" and involved a slow and methodical analysis of the book. The statutes of Vienna prescribe that no master shall read more than one chapter of the text "ante quaestionem vel etiam quaestione expedita." Various references in College and University statutes show that the cursory lecture was not regarded as the full equivalent of an ordinary lecture. At Oxford, attendance on a lecture on the books or any book of the Metaphysics, or on the Physics, or the Ethics, was not to count for a degree, except in the case of a book largely dealing with the opinions of the ancients. The third and fourth books of the Metaphysics were excepted from the rule, "they being usually read cursorily, that the ordinary reading of the other books might proceed more rapidly." The cursory lecture was clearly beloved of the pupil, for Oxford grammar masters are reproved for lecturing "cursorie" instead of "ordinarie" for the sake of gain; and at Vienna, the tariff for cursory lectures is double that for ordinary lectures. At Paris the books of Aristotle de Dialectica were to be read "ordinarie et non ad cursum," and students of medicine had to read certain books "semel ordinarie, bis cursorie." The statutes of Heidelberg contrast "cursorie" with "extense." In the Faculty of Canon Law there was an additional distinction, the ordinary lecture being generally restricted to the Decretum; at Oxford, the book of Decretals is to be read at the morning hours at which the doctors of law are wont to deliver ordinary lectures, and at Vienna the doctors are forbidden to read anything but the Decretals in the morning at ordinary lectures. The instructions given to the Vienna doctors of law illustrate the thoroughness of the medieval lecture in all faculties. They are first to state the case carefully, then to read the text, then to restate the case, then to remark on "notabilia," and then to discuss questions arising out of the subject, and finally, to deal with the Glosses. So, at Oxford, the Masters in Arts are to read the books on logic and the philosophies "rite," with the necessary and adequate exposition of the text, and with questions and arguments pertinent to the subject-matter.
A problem, still unsolved, about the methods of lecturing disturbed the minds of the Parisian masters. Were they to dictate lectures or to speak so fast that their pupils could not commit their words to writing? From the standpoint of teachers who delivered frequent lectures, all of the same type, and on a few set books, it was probably desirable that there should not be opportunities of possessing such copies of a professor's lectures as used to circulate, not many years ago, in Scottish and in German universities. In 1229 the Faculty of Arts at Paris made a statute on the methods of lecturing. It explains that there are two ways of reading books in the liberal arts. The masters of philosophy may deliver their expositions from their chairs so rapidly that, although the minds of their audience may grasp their meaning, their hands cannot write it down. This, they say, was the custom in other faculties. The other way is to speak so slowly that their hearers can take down what they say. On mature reflection, the Faculty has decided that the former is the better way, and henceforth in any lecture, ordinary or cursory, or in any disputation or other manner of teaching, the master is to speak as in delivering a speech, and as if no one were writing in his presence. A lecturer who breaks the new rule is to be suspended for a year, and if the students showed their dislike to it, by shouting, hissing, groaning, or throwing stones, they were to be sent down for a year. More than two hundred years later, in 1452, the statute was rescinded by Cardinal Estoutville, but it was probably never operative. Estoutville permitted either method of lecturing, and contented himself with forbidding lecturers to use questions and lectures which were not of their own composition, or to deliver their lectures (however good) to be read by one of their scholars as a deputy. He instructs the masters to lecture regularly according to the statutes and to explain the text of Aristotle, "de puncto in punctum," and, holding that fear and reverence are the life-blood of scholastic discipline, he repeats an injunction which we find in 1336, that the students in Arts are to sit not on benches or raised seats, but on the floor, "ut occasio superbiae a juvenibus secludatur." The name of the street in which lectures were given, Vicus Stramineus, is said to have been derived from the straw on which the students sat. The question whether lectures should be committed to writing or not, troubled the masters of other universities besides Paris, and the statutes of the College de Verdale at Toulouse accept, in 1337, the view taken at Paris a hundred years earlier. Since study is a vehement application of the mind, and requires the whole man, the scholars are forbidden to fatigue themselves with too many lectures—not more than two or three a day—and in lecture they are not to take down the lecturer's words, nor, trusting in writings of this kind, to blunt their "proprium intellectum." In the Schools, they must not use "incausta" or pencils except for correcting a book, etc. And what they have been able to retain in their memory they must meditate on without delay.
The insistence on meditation was a useful educational method, but as teaching became more organised, the student was not left without guidance in his meditations. The help which he received outside lectures was given in Repetitions or Resumptions. The procedure at Repetitions may be illustrated from the statutes of the College of Dainville at Paris: "We ordain that all bursars in grammar and philosophy speak the Latin tongue, and that those who hear the same book ordinarily and cursorily shall attend one and the same master (namely, one whom the master [of the College] assigns to them), and after the lecture they shall return home and meet in one place to repeat the lecture. One after another shall repeat the whole lecture, so that each of them may know it well, and the less advanced shall be bound daily to repeat the lectures to the more proficient." A later code of the same College provides that "All who study humane letters shall, on every day of the schools read in the morning a composition, that is a speech in Latin, Greek or the vernacular, to their master, being prepared to expound the writer or historian who is being read in daily lecture in their schools. At the end of the week, that is on Friday or Saturday, they shall show up to their master a résumé of all the lectures they have learned that week, and every day before they go to the schools they shall be bound to make repetitions to one of the philosophers or of the theologians whom the [College] master shall choose; for this work." At Louvain, the time between 5 a.m. and the first lecture (about seven) was spent in studying the lesson that the students might better understand the lecture; after hearing it, they returned to their own rooms to revise it and commit it to memory. After dinner, their books were placed on a table, and all the scholars of one Faculty repeated their lesson and answered questions. A similar performance took place in the two hours before supper. After supper, the tutor treated them for half an hour to a "jocum honestum," and before sending them to bed gave them a light and pleasant disputation. The disputation was a preparation for the disputations which formed part of what we should now term the degree examinations. A thesis was propounded, attacked, and defended ("impugned and propugned") with the proper forms of syllogistic reasoning.
The teaching, both in lectures and in disputations, was originally University teaching, and the younger Masters of Arts, the "necessary regents," were bound to stay up for some years and lecture in the Schools. They were paid by their scholars, and the original meaning of the word "Collections," still in frequent use at Oxford, is traditionally supposed to be found in the payments made for lectures at the end of each term. Thus, at Oxford, a student paid threepence a term (one shilling a year) to his regent for lectures in Logic, and fourpence a term for lectures in Natural Philosophy. The system was not a satisfactory one, and alike in Paris, in Oxford, and in Cambridge, it succumbed to the growth of College teaching. The Head of a Parisian College, from the first, superintended the studies of the scholars, and, although this duty was not required of an Oxford or Cambridge Head, provision was gradually made in the statutes of English colleges for the instruction of the junior members by their seniors. The first important step in this direction was taken by William of Wykeham, who ordered special payment to be made by the College to Fellows who undertook the tuition of the younger Fellows. His example was followed in this, as in other matters, by subsequent founders both at Oxford and at Cambridge, and gradually University teaching was, in the Faculty of Arts, almost entirely superseded by College tuition. In other universities, lectures continued to be given by University officials.
The medieval undergraduates had a tendency to "rag" in lectures, a tradition which is almost unknown at Oxford and Cambridge, but which persisted till quite recent times in the Scottish universities. Prohibitions of noise and disturbance in lecture-rooms abound in all statutes. At Vienna, students in Arts are exhorted to behave like young ladies (more virginum) and to refrain from laughter, murmurs, and hisses, and from tearing down the schedules in which the masters give notice of their lectures. At Prague, also, the conduct of young ladies was held up as a model for the student at lecture, and, at Angers, students who hissed in contempt of a doctor were to be expelled.
The career of a student was divided into two parts by his "Determination," a ceremony which is the origin of the Bachelor's degree. At Paris, where, at all events in the earlier period of its history, examinations were real, the "Determination" was preceded by "Responsions," and no candidate was admitted to determine until he had satisfied a Regent Master in the Schools, in public, "de Questione respondens." The determination itself was a public disputation, after which the determiner might wear the bachelor's "cappa" and lecture on the Organon. He continued his attendance on the lectures in the Schools up to the time of his "Inception" as a master. The Inception was preceded by an examination for licence and by a disputation known as the Quodlibetica, at which the subject was chosen by the candidate. The bachelor who was successful in obtaining the Chancellor's licence proceeded to the ceremony of Inception, and received his master's biretta.
The stringency of examinations varied in different universities and at different times. The proportion of successful candidates seems to have been everywhere very large, and in some universities rejection must have been almost unknown. We do find references to disappointed candidates, e.g. at Caen, where medical students who have been "ploughed" have to take an oath not to bring "malum vel damnum" upon the examiners. But even at Louvain, where the examination system was fully developed in the Middle Ages, and where there were class lists in the fifteenth century (the classes being distinguished as Rigorosi, Transibiles, and Gratiosi), failure was regarded as an exceptional event ("si autem, quod absit, aliqui inveniantur simpliciter gratiosi seu refutabiles, erunt de quarto ordine"). The regulations for examinations at Louvain prescribe that the examiners are not to ask disturbing questions ("animo turbandi aut confundendi promovendos") and forbid unfair treatment of pupils of particular masters and frivolous or useless questions; although at his Quodlibeticum, the bachelor might indulge in "jocosas questiones ad auditorii recreationem." The element of display implied in the last quotation was never absent from medieval examinations, and at Oxford, there seems to have been little besides this ceremonial element. A candidate had to prove that he had complied with the regulations about attendance at lectures, etc., and to obtain evidence of fitness from a number of masters. A bachelor had to dispute several times with a master, and these disputations, which were held at the Augustinian Convent, came to be known as "doing Austins." The medieval system, as it lingered at Oxford in the close of the eighteenth century, is thus described by Vicesimus Knox.