Along with these hardships consider the amusements of this period, which were for the greater part conspicuous by their absence. Statutes concerning amusements were often more stringent than those concerning crime or vice. These were essentially military times, and tournaments, hunting, and hawking, which were enjoyed by the upper social classes, were considered too expensive and distracting for university students, and were consequently forbidden. "Mortification of the flesh" was the cry of those days, as even now among some religious fanatics. Even playing with a ball or bat was at times forbidden, along with other "insolent games." A statute of the sixteenth century speaks of tennis and fives as among "indecent games" whose introduction would create scandal in and against the college. Games of chance and playing for money were also forbidden; nevertheless, they were more or less practised. Even chess enjoyed a bad reputation among the mediæval moralists, and was characterized by a certain bishop of Winchester as a "noxious, inordinate, and unhonest game." Dancing was rather a favorite amusement, but was repressed as far as possible, since the celebrated William of Wykeham found it necessary to prohibit dancing and jumping in the chapel. Apparently, then, in those days a good student amused himself little, if at all, and had to find his relaxation in the frequent interruptions caused by church holidays. At St. Andrew's, in Scotland, however, two days' holiday was allowed at carnival time expressly for cock-fighting. On the evenings of festival days entertainments were occasionally provided by strolling players, jesters, or mountebanks, who were largely patronized by students.
Altogether, it is not strange that students in those days fell into dissolute habits, many having to be expelled or punished. We can even understand how some of them actually turned highwaymen and waylaid their more peaceful brothers as they approached the universities with money for the ensuing season. In the archives of the University of Leipzig there are standard forms of proclamation against even such boyish follies as pea-shooting, destruction of trees and crops, throwing water out of the window upon passers-by, shouting at night, wearing of disguises, interfering with a hangman in the execution of his duty, or attending exhibitions of wrestling, boxing, and the like.
Evidently, then, university life had its exceedingly wild side. One needs only to recall the history of the famous Latin Quarter in Paris to be convinced of this. This was the students' quarter in the old city of Paris as extended by Philip Augustus across the river. Paris then was surrounded by a cordon of monasteries, whose abbots exercised jurisdiction over their surrounding districts. Just to the west of the student quarter stood the great Abbey of St. Germain. Between the monks of this monastery and the students there were frequent conflicts, and it is recorded that in 1278, for instance, a pitched battle occurred between the monks, under their provost, on one side, and the unarmed and defenceless boys and masters, on the other, during which many were badly wounded, and some mortally. The matter was finally carried to court, and the monks were required to perform certain penances and to pay certain fines. Their brutality, however, was not effectually suppressed. In 1304 the Provost of Paris hanged and gibbetted a student, and was punished therefor by the king; while the subsequent history of Paris is one of constant conflict between students and the clerical orders. On the other hand, the clerical tonsure in which the Parisian scholar clothed himself enabled him to indulge in all kinds of crime, without fear of that summary execution which would have been his fate had he been merely an ordinary beggar.
Bibulousness was another striking characteristic of mediæval university life. In those days they knew not tea nor coffee nor tobacco, but spirituous liquors in some form were far from unknown to them. No important event of life could be transacted without its drinking accompaniment. At all exercises, public or private, wine was freely provided, and many of the feasts and festivals which began with mass were concluded with a drunken orgie.
You have observed that so far I have made frequent mention of clerical matters. In truth, in northern Europe the Church included practically all the learned professions, including the civil servants of the government, the physicians, architects, secular lawyers, diplomatists, and secretaries, who were all ecclesiastics. It is true that in order to be a "clerk" it was not really necessary to take even minor orders, but it was so easy for a king or bishop to reward his physician, his lawyer, or his secretary by a monastic office rather than by a large salary, that the average student, at least in the larger places, looked to holy orders as his eventual destination. How much of insincerity and hypocrisy there were among those reverend gentlemen thus constituted you may imagine better than I can picture. The Reformation, as well as the increasing corruption of the monastic orders, brought about changes which were not rapid, but which became almost complete, and led finally to the partial restoration of the ancient dignity of the early Church.
Without pursuing this part of the subject further, it may be imagined what a general alteration and reformation in all branches of study, as well as in the general intellectual life of the people, the founding of the universities accomplished. For the greater part designed for the confirmation of the faith, they often brought about a reaction against it. Like the other integral portions of the university, the medical departments of nearly all the mediæval institutions came into existence through voluntary associations of physicians and would-be teachers. For a long time medicine was included under the general head of philosophy, whose standard-bearers were Aristotle and the Arabians. At Tübingen, in 1481, the medical student's days were divided about as follows: In the morning he studied Galen's Ars Medici, and in the afternoon Avicenna on Fever. During the second year, in the forenoon he studied Avicenna's Anatomy and Physiology, and in the afternoon the ninth book of Rhazes on Local Pathology. The forenoons of his third year were spent with the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, and in the afternoon he studied Galen. If any text-book on surgery at all were used it was usually that of Avicenna. Some time was also given to the writings of some of the other Arabian physicians. At that time any man who had studied medicine for three years and attained the age of twenty-one might assume the rôle of teacher if he saw fit, being compelled only, at first, to lecture upon the preparatory branches. He was at that time called a baccalaureus. After three years' further study he became a magister or doctor, although for the latter title a still further course of study was usually prescribed. The courses of medical instruction were quite stereotyped in form, and were carefully watched over by the Church. Nevertheless, it came about that the study of medicine once more was taken up by thinkers, although, unfortunately, not logical thinkers, whereas previously it had been almost entirely confined within the ranks of the clerics or clergy. The most celebrated of all these mediæval philosophers in science and medicine was Albert von Bollstaedt, usually known as Albertus Magnus, who died in 1280. His works which remain to us fill twenty-one quarto volumes, in which he discussed both anatomical and physiological questions. It is exceedingly illustrative of the foolishly speculative vein in which many of these discussions were carried on, that they seriously discussed such questions as whether the removal of the rib from Adam's side, out of which Eve was formed, really caused Adam severe pain, and whether at the judgment day that loss of rib would be compensated by the insertion of another. Those were the days, also, when it was seriously discussed whether Adam or Eve ever had a navel. In spite of such follies, however, Albertus Magnus left an impression upon scholarship in science, in a general way, which long outlasted him.
These were the days when the students organized themselves into so-called "nations," whence arose that conspicuous features of German university life of today of so-called students' Corps. These nations—each composed, for the main part, of men of one nationality—had their own meeting-places, their own property, etc. One of the principal means of instruction in those days was disputations, or, as we would say, debates, held between students, often of different nations, in which they were expected to prove their knowledge and mental alertness. When it is recalled that universities were larger—i. e., better attended—in those days than now, it will be seen to what an extent these nations were developed. Oxford, in 1340, is said to have had no less than 14,000 students; Paris about the same time had 12,000; and Bologna had some 10,000 students, the majority of whom were studying law.
The title of doctor came into vogue about the twelfth century. At first it was confined to teachers proper, and was bestowed upon the learned—i. e., those who had almost solely studied internal medicine, and who were required to take an oath to maintain the methods which had been taught them. For the title of doctor certain fees were paid, partly in money and partly in merchandise. The so-called presents consisted of gloves, clothes, hats, caps, etc. At Salernum it cost about $60 to graduate in this way, while at Paris the cost was sometimes as high as $1,000, and this at a time when money had much more purchasing value than it has to-day. It was then, as now, a peculiar feature of the English universities that but little systematic instruction in medical science was given. Just as the majority of English students at present study in London rather than at one of the great universities, so in those days did they go to Paris or Montpellier.
This will be perhaps as good a place as any to emphasize the fact that the clergy, having so long monopolized all learning and teaching, and having, at the same time, an abhorrence for the shedding of blood, which indeed had been prohibited by many papal bulls and royal edicts, permitted the practice of the operative part of medicine—i. e., surgery—to fall into the hands of the most illiterate and incompetent men. Inasmuch as the Church prohibited the wearing of beards, and as many of the religious orders also shaved their heads, there were attached to every monastery and to every religious order a number of barbers, whose duty was to take care of the clergy in these respects. Thus into their hands was gradually committed the performance of any minor operation which involved the letting of blood, and from this, as a beginning, it came about that no really educated man concerned himself with the operations of surgery, but left them entirely to the illiterate servants of the Church. This is really the reason that the barbers for many centuries did nearly all the surgery, and why, at the same time, surgery fell into such general and wide-spread disrepute. From this it was only revived about one hundred years ago. Did time permit, this would be a most appropriate place to digress from the subject of this paper and rehearse to you the various stages in the evolution of the surgeon from the barber; but time does not permit it, and it constitutes a chapter in history by itself, which must be relegated to some other occasion. (See p. 296).
It was about the beginning of the fifteenth century that the better class of physicians began to belong to the laity, and were called "physici" in contrast to the "clerici." Later they were known as "doctores." Until the fourteenth century most of them studied in Italian or French universities, the Germans even being compelled to go to these foreign institutions. In Paris they were required to take an oath that they would not join the surgeons. This regulation was founded as much upon spite and envy as upon any other motive. Many of the clerical physicians belonged to the lower class, and were so ignorant that even the Church itself was forced to declare many of their successes miracles. Although monks and the clergy in general had been frequently forbidden to practice medicine, the decrees to this effect were quite generally disregarded, except in the matter of surgical operations. In the ranks of the higher clergy it must be said that well-educated physicians were occasionally found. There is, for instance, the record of a certain bishop of Basel, who was deputed to seek from Pope Clement V. an archbishopric for another person, but finding the Pope seriously ill, cured him, and received for himself in return the electorate of Mayence, which was perhaps one of the largest honorariums ever given to a physician.