A Master of Arts degree could be awarded after three more years of study and teaching. A Doctorate degrees in theology required ten more years of study. A Doctorate in civil or canon law required eight more years. A man with a degree in canon law who wanted to practice in a certain bishop's court had to first satisfy this bishop of his competence. The guilds gave rise to the Inns of Court in London. They used the Register of Writs, the case law of the Year Books, and disputation to teach their students.
For a doctorate in medicine from Oxford or Cambridge, five more years plus two years of practice were required. Surgery was not taught because it was considered manual labor. Humans were thought to be influenced by four humors: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. Urinalysis and pulse beat were used for diagnosis. Epilepsy and apoplexy were understood as spasms inside the head. It was known what substances served as laxatives and diuretics. Teeth were extracted, eye cataracts were removed with a silver needle, and skin from the arm was grafted onto a mutilated face.
Englishmen who had collected books on philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and history and literature books from the continent gave their collections to the universities, which started their libraries. Marco Polo's discoveries on his journey to China were known.
The requirements of elementary and higher studies were adjusted in 1393 and began the public school system. William of Wykeham's school, St. Mary College of Winchester in Oxford was the prototype. The curriculum was civil law, canon law, medicine, astronomy with astronomical instruments that were made, theology, and the arts. The arts textbooks were still grammar, logic, Donatus, and Aristotle. Many laymen were literate, for instance country gentry, merchants, and craftsmen. Laymen instead of clerics were now appointed to the great offices of state.
Parliament was composed of representatives from 100 boroughs and 37 shires. Merchants were entering Parliament and paid much of the taxes. Some were created Earls and appointed as ministers to the King. Edward III did not summon anyone to his council who did not have the confidence of the magnates [barons, earls, bishops, and abbots]. Under him, the commons took a leading part in the granting of taxes and the presentation of petitions.
At the 1376 Parliament, ("the Good Parliament") the Commons, which formerly had only consented to taxes, took political action by complaining that the King's councilors had grown rich by war profiteering at the cost of impoverishing the nation and the people were too poor to endure any more taxation for the war and held a hearing on malfeasance of two ministers. The Parliament found the charges proved and dismissed them from office. This established the constitutional means for impeachment and removal of ministers. The commons demanded that its members be elected by shire citizens rather than appointed by the sheriff. Actions of this Parliament were undone a few months later.
King Richard II exiled Henry of Lancaster, forbade his inheritance, and took his property. This made all propertied men anxious. The "Merciless Parliament" of 1388 swept out King Richard II's friends. Parliament threw Richard II into prison and elected Lancaster to be King Henry IV. This action established clearly that royal decrees were subordinate to parliamentary statutes. The House of Commons became very powerful.
So the roles of Parliament and the King's council are starting to differentiate into legislative and executive, respectively. The legislative function is law- making and the executive is regulation-making that refines and effectuates the laws of Parliament. But the legislative, executive and judicial authorities have not as yet become so completely separated that they cannot on occasion work together.
There was a standard form of direct taxation voted by Parliament, which was normally 1/10 of the value of all moveables in towns and royal domains and 1/15 in the country.
>From 1150 to 1400, resistance was an ordinary remedy for political disagreements. If a popular leader raised his standard in a popular cause, an irregular army could be assembled in a day. (There was no regular army, since England was protected by the sea from invasion.) So misgovernment by a King would be quickly restrained. Society recovered quickly from conflict and civil war because the national wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. In a week after armed resistance, the agricultural worker was driving his team. There was little furniture, stock of shops, manufactured goods, or machinery that could be destroyed.