The oath of obedience was not merely a constitutional weapon kept in reserve for occasional serious disputes; it affected the daily life of the Studium, and the masters were subject to numerous petty indignities, which could not fail to impress our English student if he was familiar with University life in his own country. He would see, with surprise, a doctor's lecture interrupted by the arrival of a University Bedel, as the debates of the House of Commons are interrupted by the arrival of Black Rod, and his instructor would maintain a reverent silence while the Rector's officer delivered some message from the University, or informed the professor of some new regulation. If the learned doctor "cut" a lecture, our student would find himself compelled to inform the authorities of the University, and he would hear of fines inflicted upon the doctors for absence, for lateness, for attracting too small an audience, for omitting portions of a subject or avoiding the elucidation of its difficulties, and for inattention while the "precepta" or "mandata" of the Rector were being read in the schools. He and his fellow-students might graciously grant their master a holiday, but the permission had to be confirmed by the Rector; if a lecture was prolonged a minute after the appointed time, the doctor found himself addressing empty benches. The humiliation of the master's position was increased by the fact that his pupils were always acting as spies upon him, and they were themselves liable to penalties for conniving at any infringement of the regulations on his part. At Bologna, even the privilege of teaching was, to a slight extent, shared by the doctors with their pupils. Lectures were divided into two classes, ordinary and extra-ordinary; the ordinary lectures were the duty of the doctors, but senior students (bachelors) were authorised by the Rector to share with the doctors the duty of giving extra-ordinary lectures. There were six chairs, endowed by the city, which were held by students, and the occupant of one of these was entitled to deliver ordinary lectures. Dr Rashdall finds the explanation of this anomaly in an incident in the fourteenth century history of Bologna, when the Tyrant of the City forbade the professors to teach. The student-chairs were rather endowments for the Rectorship or for poor scholars than serious rivals to the ordinary professorships, and the extra-ordinary lectures delivered by students or bachelors may be regarded as a kind of apprenticeship for future doctors.
There remained one department of the work of the Studium in which our Bologna student would find his masters supreme. The sacred right of examining still belonged to the teachers, even though the essential purpose of the examination was changed. The doctors of Bologna had succeeded in preserving the right to teach as a privilege of Bolognese citizens and even of restricting it, to some extent, to certain families, and the foreign student could not hope to become a professor of his own studium. But the prestige of the University rendered Bolognese students ambitious of the doctorate, and the doctorate had come to mean more than a mere licence to teach. This licence, which had originally been conferred by the doctors themselves, required, after the issue of a Papal Bull in 1219, the consent of the Archdeacon of Bologna, and the Papal grant of the jus ubique docendi in 1292 increased at once the importance of the mastership and of the authority of the Archdeacon, who came to be described as the Chancellor and Head of the Studium. "Graduation," in Dr Rashdall's words, "ceased to imply the mere admission into a private Society of teachers, and bestowed a definite legal status in the eyes of Church and State alike.... The Universities passed from merely local into ecumenical organisations; the Doctorate became an order of intellectual nobility with as distinct and definite a place in the hierarchical system of medieval Christendom as the Priesthood or the Knighthood." The Archdeacon of Bologna, even when he was regarded as the Chancellor, did not wrest from the college of doctors the right to decide who should be deemed worthy of a title which Cardinals were pleased to possess. The licence which he required before admitting a student to the doctorate continued to be conferred by the Bologna doctors after due examination.
We will assume that our English student has now completed his course of study. He has duly attended the prescribed lectures—not less than three a week. He has gone in the early mornings, when the bell at St Peter's Church was ringing for mass, to spend some two hours listening to the "ordinary" lecture delivered by a doctor in his own house or in a hired room; his successors a generation or two later would find buildings erected by the University for the purpose. The rest of his morning and an hour or two in the afternoon have also, if he is an industrious student, been devoted to lectures, and he has not been neglectful of private study. He has enjoyed the numerous holidays afforded by the Feasts of the Church, and several vacations in the course of the year, including ten days at Christmas, a fortnight at Easter, and about six weeks in the autumn. After five years of study, if he is a civilian, and four if he is a canonist, the Rector has raised him to the dignity of a Bachelor by permitting him to give "extra-ordinary" lectures—and after two more years spent in this capacity he is ready to proceed to the doctorate. The Rector, having been satisfied by the English representative in his Council that the "doctorand" has performed the whole duty of the Bolognese student, gives him permission to enter for the first or Private Examination, and he again takes the oath of obedience to that dignitary. The doctor under whom he has studied vouches for his competence, and presents him first to the Archdeacon and some days afterwards to the College of Doctors, before whom he takes a solemn oath never to seek admittance into the Bolognese College of Doctors, or to teach, or attempt to perform any of the functions of a doctor, at Bologna. They then give him a passage for exposition and send him home. He is followed to his house by his own doctor who hears his exposition in private, and brings him back to the august presence of the College of Doctors and the Archdeacon. Here he treats his thesis and is examined upon it by two or more doctors, who are ordered by the University statutes not to treat any victim of this rigorous and tremendous examination otherwise than if he were their own son, and are threatened with grave penalties, including suspension for a year. The College then votes upon his case, each doctor saying openly and clearly, and without any qualification, "Approbo" or "Reprobo," and if the decision is favourable he is now a Licentiate and has to face only the expensive but not otherwise formidable ordeal of the second or Public Examination. As a newly appointed Scottish judge is, to this day, admitted to his office by trying cases, so the Bologna doctor was admitted to his new dignity by an exercise in lecturing. The idea is common to many medieval institutions, and it survived at Bologna, even though the licentiate had, at his private examination, renounced the right of teaching. Our Englishman and his socii go together to the Cathedral, where he states a thesis and defends it against the attacks of other licentiates. His own doctor, known in Bologna (and elsewhere) as the Promoter, presents him to the Chancellor, who confers upon him the jus ubique docendi. He is then seated in a master's chair, and the Promotor gives him an open book and a gold ring and (in the terminology of a modern Scottish University) "caps" him with the biretta. He is dismissed with a benediction and the kiss of peace, and is conducted through the town, in triumphal procession, by his friends, to whom he gives a feast.
The feast adds very considerably to the expenses of the doctorate, for which fees are, of course, exacted by the authorities of the University, the College of Doctors, and the Archdeacon. A considerable proportion of the disciplinary regulations, made by the student-universities, aimed at restricting the expenditure on feasting at the inception of a new doctor and on other occasions. When our young English Doctorand received the permission of his Rector to proceed to his degree, he was made to promise not to exceed the proper expenditure on fees and feasts, and he was expressly forbidden to organise a tournament. The spending of money on extravagant costume was also prohibited by the statutes of the University, which forbade a student to purchase, either directly or through an agent, any costume other than the ordinary black garment, or any outer covering other than the black cappa or gabard. Other disciplinary restrictions at Bologna dealt with quarrelling and gambling. The debates of Congregation were not to be liable to interruption by one student stabbing his opponent in Italian fashion, and no one was allowed to carry arms to a meeting of Congregation; if a student had reason to apprehend personal violence from another, the Rector could give him a dispensation from the necessity of attendance. Gaming and borrowing from unauthorised money-lenders were strictly forbidden; to enter a gaming-house, or to keep one, or to watch a game of dice was strictly forbidden. The University of Arts and Medicine granted a dispensation for three days at Christmas, and a Rector might use his own discretion in the matter. The penalties were fines, and for contumacy or grave offences, suspension or expulsion.
There are indications that the conduct of the doctors in these respects was not above suspicion; they were expressly prohibited from keeping gaming-houses; and the appointment of four merchants of the town, who alone were empowered to lend money to students, was a protection not only against ordinary usurers, but also against doctors who lent money to students in order to attract them to their lectures. That the ignominious position of the Bologna doctors had an evil effect upon their morals, is evident not only from this, but also from the existence of bribery, in connection with examinations for the doctorate, although corruption of this kind was not confined to the student-universities.
The regulations of the greatest of the residential colleges of Bologna, the College of Spain, naturally interfere much more with individual liberty than do the statutes of the student-universities, even though the government of the College was a democracy, based upon the democratic constitution of the University. We shall have an opportunity of referring to the discipline of the Spanish College when we deal with the College system in the northern universities, and meanwhile we pass to some illustrations of life in student-universities elsewhere than at Bologna.
At Padua we find a "Schools-peace" like the special peace of the highway or the market in medieval England; special penalties were prescribed for attacks on scholars in the Schools, or going to or returning from the Schools at the accustomed hours. The presence of the Rector also made a slight attack count as an "atrocious injury." The University threatened to interdict, for ten years, the ten houses nearest to the place where a scholar was killed; if he was wounded the period was four or six years. At Florence, where the Faculty of Medicine was very important, there is an interesting provision for the study of anatomy. An agreement was made with the town, by which the students of Medicine were to have two corpses every year, one male and one female. The bodies were to be those of malefactors, who gained, to some extent, by the arrangement, for the woman's penalty was to be changed from burning, and the man's from decapitation, to hanging. A pathetic clause provides that the criminals are not to be natives of Florence, but of captive race, with few friends or relations. If the number of medical students increased, they were to have two male bodies. At Florence, as almost everywhere, we find regulations against gambling, but an exception was made for the Kalends of May and the days immediately before and after, and no penalty could be inflicted for gambling in the house of the Rector. The records, of Florence afford an illustration of the checks upon the rectorial power, to which we have referred in speaking of the typical Student-University at Bologna. In 1433, a series of complaints were brought against a certain Hieronimus who had just completed his year of office as Rector, and a Syndicate, consisting of a Doctor of Decrees (who was also a scholar in civil law), a scholar in Canon Law, and a scholar in Medicine, was appointed to inquire into the conduct of the late Rector and of his two Camerarii. The accusations were both general and personal, and the Syndics, after deciding that Hieronimus must restore eight silver grossi of University money which he had appropriated, proceeded to hear the charges brought by individuals. A lecturer in the University complained that the Rector had unjustly and maliciously given a sentence against him and in favour of a Greek residing at Florence, and that he had unjustly declared him perjured; fifty gold florins were awarded as damages for this and some other injuries. A doctor of Arts and Medicine obtained a judgment for two florins for expenses incurred when the Rector was in his house. A student complained that he had been denounced as "infamis" in all the Schools for not paying his matriculation-fee, and that his name had been entered in the book called the "Speculum." The Syndics ordered the record of his punishment to be erased. The most interesting case is that of student of Civil Law, called Andreas Romuli de Lancisca. He averred that he had sold Hieronimus six measures of grain, to be paid for at the customary price. After four months' delay, the Rector paid seven pounds, and when asked to complete the payment, gave Andreas a book of medicine, "for which I got five florins." Some days later he demanded the return of the book, to which Andreas replied: "Date mihi residuum et libenter restituam librum." To this request the Rector, "in superbiam elevatus," answered, "Tu reddes librum et non solvam tibi." The quarrel continued, and one morning, when Andreas was in the Schools at a lecture, Hieronimus sent the servant of the Podesta, who seized him "ignominiose et vituperose" in the Schools and conducted him to the town prison like a common thief. For all these injuries Andreas craved redress and a sum of forty florins. The damages, he thought, should be high, not merely for his personal wrongs, but also for the insult to the scholar's dress which he wore, and, indeed, to the whole University. He was allowed twenty pounds in addition to the sum due for the grain. The Syndicate of 1433 must have been an extreme case; matters were complicated by the fact that the Rector's brother was "Executor Ordinamentorum Justitiæ Civitatis Florentiæ," and he was therefore suspected of playing into the hands of the city. But the knowledge that such an investigation was possible must have restrained the arbitrary tendencies of a Rector.
A reference to the imitation of the Bolognese constitution in Spain must close this portion of our survey. At Lerida, in the earliest code of statutes (about 1300), we find the doctors and master sworn to obey the Rector, who can fine them, though he must not expel them without the consent of the whole University. Any improper criticisms of the Rector ("verba injuriosa vel contumeliosa") by anyone, of whatsoever dignity, are to be punished by suspension until satisfaction is made, and so great is the glory of the office ("Rectoris officium tanta [excellentia] præfulget") that an ex-Rector is not bound to take the oath to his successor. The regulations affecting undergraduates are more detailed than at Bologna, and indicate a stricter discipline. After eight days' attendance at a doctor's lecture, a student must not forsake it to go to another doctor; no scholar is to go to the School on horseback unless for some urgent cause; scholars are not to give anything to actors or jesters or other "truffatores" (troubadours), nor to invite them to meals, except on the feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, or at the election of a Rector, or when doctors or masters are created. Even on these occasions only food may be given, although an ordinance of the second Rector allows doctors and masters to give them money. No students, except boys under fourteen, are to be allowed to play at ball in the city on St Nicholas' day or St Katherine's day, and none are to indulge in unbecoming amusements, or to walk about dressed up as Jews or Saracens—a rule which is also found in the statutes of the University of Perpignan. If scholars are found bearing arms by day in the students' quarter of the town, they are to forfeit their arms, and if they are found at night with either arms or musical instruments in the students' quarter, they are to forfeit arms or instruments. If they are found outside their own quarters, by night or by day, with arms or musical instruments, the town officials will deal with laymen, and the Bishop or the Rector with clerks. Laymen might be either students or doctors in Spain as in Italy; at Salamanca, a lecturer's marriage was included among the necessary causes which excused a temporary absence from his duties. In the universities of Southern France, the marriage of resident doctors and students was also contemplated, and the statutes of the University of Aix contain a table of charges payable as "charivari" by a rector, a doctor, a licentiate, a bachelor, a student, and a bedel. In each case the amount payable for marrying a widow was double the ordinary fee. If the bridegroom declined to pay, the "dominus promotor," accompanied by "dominis studentibus," was, by permission of the Rector, to go to his house armed with frying-pans, bassoons, and horns, and to make a great tumult, without, however, doing any injury to his neighbours. Continued recusancy was to be punished by placing filth outside the culprit's door on feast-days. In the University of Dôle, there was a married Rector in 1485, but this was by a special dispensation. There are traces of the existence of married undergraduates at Oxford in the fifteenth century, and, in the same century, marriage was permitted in the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, but the insistence upon celibacy in the northern universities is one of the characteristic differences between them and the universities of Southern Europe.