Life in the Medieval University

by Robert S. Rait

LIFE IN THE STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES

The Universitates or guilds which were formed in the Studium Generale of Bologna were associations of foreign students. The lack of political unity in the Italian peninsula was one of the circumstances that led to the peculiar and characteristic constitution evolved by the Italian universities. A famous Studium in an Italian city state must of necessity attract a large proportion of foreign students. These foreign students had neither civil nor political rights; they were men "out of their own law," for whom the government under which they lived made small and uncertain provision. Their strength lay in their numbers, and in the effect which their presence produced upon the prosperity and the reputation of the town. They early recognised the necessity of union if full use was to be made of the offensive and defensive weapons they possessed. The men who came to study law at Bologna were not schoolboys; some of them were beneficed ecclesiastics, others were lawyers, and most of them were possessed of adequate means of living. The provisions of Roman Law favoured the creation of such protective guilds; the privileges and immunities of the clergy afforded an analogy for the claim of foreign students to possess laws of their own; and the threat of the secession of a large community was likely to render a city state amenable to argument. The growth of guilds or communities held together by common interests and safeguarded by solemn oaths is one of the features of European history of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the students of Bologna took no unusual or extra-ordinary step when they formed their Universitates.

The distinction of students into "Nations," which is still preserved in some of the Scottish universities, is derived from this guild-forming movement at Bologna at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. No citizen of Bologna was permitted to be a member of a guild, the protection of which he did not require. The tendency at first was towards the formation of a number of Universitates, membership of which was decided by considerations of nationality. But the conditions which had led to the formation of these Universitates were also likely to produce some measure of unification, and the law-students at Bologna soon ceased to have more than two great guilds, distinguished on geographical principles as the Universitas Citramontanorum and the Universitas Ultramontanorum. Each was sub-divided into nations; the cis-Alpine University consisting of Lombards, Tuscans, and Romans, and the trans-Alpine University of a varying number, including a Spanish, a Gascon, a Provençal, a Norman, and an English nation. The three cis-Alpine nations were, of course, much more populous at Bologna than the dozen or more trans-Alpine nations, and they were therefore sub-divided into sections known as Consiliariae. The students of Arts and Medicine, who at first possessed no organisation of their own and were under the control of the great law-guilds, succeeded in the fourteenth century in establishing a new Universitas within the Studium. The influence of Medicine predominated, for the Arts course was, at Bologna, regarded as merely a preparation for the study of Law and, especially, of Medicine; but this third Universitas gave a definite status and definite rights to the students of Arts. In the same century the two jurist universities came to act together so constantly that they were, for practical purposes, united, so that, by the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Studium Generale of Bologna contained virtually two universities, one of Law, and the other of Arts and Medicine, governed by freely-elected rectors. The peculiar relations of Theology to the Studium and to the universities is a topic which belongs to constitutional history, and not to our special subject.

The universities of Bologna had to maintain a struggle with two other organisations, the guilds of masters and the authorities of this city state. They kept the first in subjection; they ultimately succumbed to the second. A guild of masters, doctors, or professors had existed in the Studium before the rise of the Universitates, and it survived with limited, but clearly defined, powers. The words "Doctor," "Professor," and "Magister" or "Dominus" were at first used indifferently, and a Master of Arts of a Scottish or a German University is still described on his diploma as a Doctor of Philosophy. The term "Master" was little used at Bologna, but it is convenient to employ "master" and "student" as the general terms for teacher and taught. The masters were the teachers of the Studium, and they protected their own interests by forming a guild the members of which, and they alone, had the right to teach. Graduation was originally admission into the guild of masters, and the chief privilege attached to it was the right to teach. This privilege ultimately became merely a theoretical right at Bologna, where the teachers tended to become a close corporation of professors, like the Senatus of a Scottish University.

The Guild or College of Masters who taught law in the Studium of Bologna naturally resented the rise of the universities of students. The doctors, they said, should elect the rectors, as they do at Paris. The scholars follow no trade, they are merely the pupils of those who do practise a profession, and they have no right to choose rulers for themselves any more than the apprentices of the skinners. The masters were citizens of Bologna, and it might be expected that the State would assist them in their struggle with a body of foreign apprentices; but the threat of migration turned the scales in favour of the students. There were no buildings and no endowments to render a migration difficult, and migration did from time to time take place. The masters themselves were dependent upon fees for their livelihood; they were, at Bologna, frequently laymen with no benefice to fall back upon, and with wives and children to maintain. As time went on and the teaching masters became a limited number of professors, they were given salaries, at first by the student-universities themselves and afterwards by the city, which feared to offend the student-universities. They thus passed, to a large extent, under the control of the universities; how far, we shall see as our story progresses. The city authorities tried ineffectually to curb the universities and to prevent migrations, but the students, with the support of the Papacy, succeeded in maintaining the strength of their organisations, and when, in the middle of the fourteenth century, secessions from Bologna came to an end, the students had obtained the recognition and most of the privileges they desired. In course of time the authority of the State increased at Bologna and elsewhere, bodies of Reformatores Studii came to be appointed by republics or tyrants in Italian university cities, and these boards gradually absorbed the government of the universities. The foundation of residential colleges, and the erection of buildings by the universities themselves, deprived the students of the possibility of reviving the long disused weapon of a migration, and when the power of the Papacy became supreme in Bologna, the freedom of its student-universities came to an end. This, however, belongs to a later age. We must now attempt to obtain some picture of the life of a medieval student at Bologna during the greatness of the Universitates.

We will choose an Englishman who arrives at Bologna early in the fifteenth century to study law. He finds himself at once a member of the English nation of the Trans-montane University; he pays his fee, takes the oath of obedience to the Rector, and his name is placed upon the "matricula" or roll of members of the University. He does not look about for a lodging-house, like a modern student in a Scottish University, but joins with some companions (socii) probably of his own nation, to take a house. If our new-comer had been a Spaniard, he might have been fortunate enough to find a place in the great Spanish College which had been founded in the latter half of the fourteenth century; as it is, he and his friends settle down almost as citizens of Bologna. The success of the universities in their attempt to form a citizenship outside the state had long ago resulted in the creation also of a semi-citizenship within the state. The laws of the city of Bologna allowed the students to be regarded as citizens so long as they were members of a University. Our young Englishman has, of course, no share in the government of the town, but he possesses all rights necessary for the protection of his person and property; he can make a legal will and bring an action against a citizen. The existence of these privileges, unusual and remarkable in a medieval state, may excite his curiosity about the method by which they were acquired, and he will probably be told strange and terrible tales of the bad old times when a foreign student was as helpless as any other foreigner in a strange town, and might be tortured by unfair and tyrannous judges. If he is historically minded, he will learn about the rise of the smaller guilds which are now amalgamated in his Universitas; how, like other guilds, they were benefit societies caring for the sick and the poor, burying the dead, and providing for common religious services and common feasts. He will be told (in language unfamiliar at Oxford) how the proctors or representatives of the guild were sent to cheer up the sick and, if necessary, to relieve their necessities, and to reconcile members who had quarrelled. The corporate payment for feasts included the cost of replacing broken windows, which (at all events among the German students at Bologna) seem to have been associated with occasions of rejoicing. The guild would pay for the release of one of its members who was in prison, but it would also insist upon the payment of the debts, even of those who had "gone down." It was essential that the credit of the guild with the citizens of Bologna should be maintained.

Many of these purposes were still served by the "nation" to which our Bologna freshman belonged: but the really important organisation was that of his Universitas. One of his first duties might happen to be connected with the election of a new Rector. The title of the office was common in Italy and was the equivalent of the Podesta, or chief magistrate, of an Italian town. The choice of a new Rector would probably be limited, for the honour was costly, and the share of the fines which the Rector received could not nearly meet his expenses. As his jurisdiction included clerks, it was necessary, by the Canon Law, that he should have the tonsure, and be, at all events technically, a clerk. He could not belong to any religious order, his obligations to which might conflict with his duty to the Universitas, and the expense of the office made it desirable that he should be a beneficed clergyman who was dispensed from residence in his benefice; he could enter upon his duties at the age of twenty-four, and he was not necessarily a priest or even a deacon. Our freshman played a small part in the election. As a member of the English nation, he would help to choose a Consiliarius, who had a vote in the election, and who became one of the Rector's permanent Council. The dignity of the Rector's position would be impressed upon our novice by his senior contemporaries, who could boast that, if a Cardinal came to Bologna, he must yield precedence to the Rector, and the lesson would be emphasised by a great feast on the occasion of the solemn installation and possibly by a tournament and a dance, certainly by some more magnificent banquet than that given by a Rector of the University of Arts and Medicine. After our student's day there grew up a strange ceremony of tearing the robe of the new Rector and selling back the pieces to him, and statutes had to be passed prohibiting the acceptance of money for the fragments, although if any student succeeded in capturing the robe without injuring it, he might claim its redemption. The state and hospitality which the office entailed led to its being made compulsory to accept the offer of it, but this arrangement failed to maintain the ancient prestige of the Rectorship which, after the decline of the Universitates themselves, had outlived its usefulness.

Magnificent as was the position of the Rector of a Universitas, our young Englishman would soon discover that his Rector was only a constitutional sovereign. He had to observe the statutes and to consult his Council upon important questions. He had no power to dispense with the penalties imposed by the regulations, and for any mismanagement of the pecuniary affairs of the Universitas he was personally liable, when at the end of his period of office he had to meet a Committee and to render an account of his stewardship. He could sentence offending students to money fines, but he must have the consent of his Council before expelling them or declaring them subject to the ecclesiastical and social penalties of the perjured man. He claimed to try cases brought by students against townsmen, and about the time of our scholar's arrival, the town had admitted that he might try students accused of criminal offences forbidden by the University statutes, and had agreed to carry out his sentences. Too free a use of the secular arm would naturally lead to unpopularity and trouble; the spectacle of a student being handed over to the gaolers of the Podesta or of the Bishop can never have been pleasant in the eyes of a Universitas. Changes in the statutes of the University could not be made by the Rector; every twenty years eight "Statutarii" were appointed to revise the code, and alterations made at other times required the consent of the Congregation, which consisted of all students except citizens of Bologna and a few poor scholars who did not subscribe to the funds of the Universitas. By the time of which we are speaking, the two jurist-universities at Bologna met together in one Congregation, and if a Congregation happens to be held during our Englishman's residence at Bologna, he will find himself bound under serious penalties to attend its session, where he will mix on equal, terms with members of the Cismontane University, listening to, or taking part in, the debates (conducted in Latin) and throwing his black or white bean into the ballot box when a vote is necessary.

Although the city of Bologna never admitted the jurisdiction of a Universitas over citizens of the town, there were some classes of citizens whose trade or profession made them virtually its subjects. Landlords, stationers, and masters or doctors were in a peculiar relation to the universities, which did not fail to use their advantage to the uttermost. If our English student and his socii had any dispute about the rent of their house, there was a compulsory system of arbitration; if he found an error in a MS. which he had hired or purchased from a Bologna bookseller he was bound to report it to a University Board whose duty it was to inspect MSS. offered for sale or hire, and the bookseller would be ordered to pay a fine; he was protected from extortionate prices by a system which allowed the bookseller a fixed profit on a second-hand book. MSS. were freely reproduced by the booksellers' clerks, and were neither scarce nor unduly expensive, although elaborately illuminated MSS. were naturally very valuable. The landlords and the booksellers were kept in proper submission by threats of interdictio or privatio. A citizen who offended the University was debarred from all intercourse with students, who were strictly forbidden to hire his house or his books; if a townsman brought a "calumnious accusation" against a student, and disobeyed a rectorial command to desist, he and his children, to the third generation, and all their goods, were to lie under an interdict, "sine spe restitutionis."

Interdictio, or discommuning, was also the great weapon which might be employed against the masters of the Studium. The degradation of the masters was a gradual process, and it was never complete. The privileges given by Frederick Barbarossa to Lombard scholars in the middle of the twelfth century included a right of jurisdiction over their pupils, and a Papal Bull of the end of the century speaks of masters and scholars meeting together in congregations. The organisation of the Universitas ultimately confined membership of congregation to students, and the powers of the Rector rendered the magisterial jurisdiction merely nominal. The loss of their privileges is attributed by Canon Rashdall to the attitude they adopted in the early struggles between the municipality and the student-guilds. The doctors, who were citizens of Bologna, allied themselves, he says, "with the City against the students in the selfish effort to exclude from the substantial privileges of the Doctorate all but their own fellow-citizens.... It was through identifying themselves with the City rather than with the scholars that the Doctors of Bologna sank into their strange and undignified servitude to their own pupils." They made a further mistake in quarrelling with the town—the earliest migrations were migrations of professors—and when, in the middle of the thirteenth century, a permanent modus vivendi was arrived at between the city and the universities, the rights of the doctors received no consideration. Other citizens of Bologna were forbidden to take an oath of obedience to the rectors, but the masters, who, in theory, possessed rights of jurisdiction over their pupils, were, in fact, compelled by the universities to take this oath. Even those of them who received salaries from the town were not exempted. A doctor who refused to take a vow of obedience to the representative of his pupils had no means of collecting his lecture-fees, which remained of some importance even after the introduction of salaries, and he was liable to further punishment at the will of the Rector. The ultimate penalty was deprivatio, and when this sentence was pronounced, not only were the lectures of the offending doctor boycotted, but all social intercourse with him was forbidden; students must avoid his company in private as well as decline his ministrations in the Studium. His restoration could only be accomplished by a vote of the whole University solemnly assembled in Congregation.