For two years he is a probationary “scholar”; after that he becomes a full member or “Fellow” of the College. It may be noticed that the New College statutes are the earliest in which the term “Socius,” originally applied to the students who live in the same house or hall, begins to be used in a technical way to distinguish the full member of the society (“verus et perpetuus socius”) from the mere probationer or chaplain or chorister: it is not till a still later date that the term “scholar” is confined to a Foundation-student who is not a Fellow.
At the end of the two years, the Fellow, though still an undergraduate, takes his share in the government of the house on such occasions as the election of a Warden. The ordinary administration, however, is in the hands of a certain number of Seniors (varying in different cases). The discipline was mainly in the hands of the Sub-Warden and the five deans—two Artists, a Canonist, a Civilian, and a Theologian—who presided over the disputations of their respective Faculties. But every one was compelled to act as a check upon every one else by means of the three yearly “chapters” or “scrutinies,” at which every Fellow was invited and required to reveal anything which he might have observed amiss in the conduct of his brethren since the last “Chapter.” Thus, the discipline of the mediæval Colleges, or at least that which their founders desired to introduce, was modelled on that of the monastery.
The lectures which our undergraduate had to attend before his B.A. degree were as follows[152]:—
In College: (1) In Grammar, the Barbarismus of Donatus; (2) in Arithmetic, the Computus, i. e. the method of finding Easter, with the Tractatus de Sphaera of Joannes de Sacrobosco; (3) in Logic, the Isagoge of Porphyry, and Aristotle’s Sophistici Elenchi.
In the Public Schools: The whole Organon of Aristotle, the Sex Principia of Gilbert de la Poirée, and the logical writings of Boethius (except Topics, Book IV.).
Thus during the first four years of his course our undergraduate was occupied mainly with Logic, at first in College, afterwards at the more formal lectures of the Regents in the public schools of the University. This programme would represent a very dry and severe course of study to the modern Honour-man, while it would be simply appalling to the modern Pass-man. The latter will, however, learn with relief that in Oxford (unlike other mediæval Universities) it would appear doubtful whether there was any actual examination for the B.A. degree. Then as now, indeed, the student had to “respond de quaestione”; but in the course of his fourth year he would be admitted, as a matter of course, “to lecture upon a book of Aristotle.”
After this he was commonly styled a Bachelor, though he did not become one in strictness till he had gone through a disputation called “Determination.” This ordeal had to be passed to the satisfaction of the other Bachelors. How glad would be the modern examinee to throw himself upon the mercy of his fellows! Before being admitted to determine, the student had indeed to appear before the examiners of Determinants, but it is not certain that these examiners did more than satisfy themselves by the oaths and certificates of the candidates that they had heard the required books: and it is quite clear that when once Determination was passed, no further examination stood between him and the M.A. degree.
The mediæval student was not, however, supposed to have completed his education when he had become a Bachelor. To the four years of residence required for a B.A., three more must be added for the Mastership. During this time he attended lectures in “the Seven Arts” and “the three Philosophies.” In the Arts his text-books were[153]:—In Grammar, Priscian; in Rhetoric, Aristotle or Boethius[154]; in Logic, Aristotle; in Arithmetic, Boethius; in Music, Boethius; in Geometry, Euclid; and in Astronomy, Ptolemy. Most of the Arts were however very quickly and perfunctorily disposed of. His real work as a Bachelor lay with the three philosophies, studied exclusively in the Latin translation of Aristotle, the following being the “necessary books”:—In Natural Philosophy, the Physics, or De Anima, or some other of the Physical treatises; in Moral Philosophy, the Ethics; and in Metaphysical Philosophy, the Metaphysics.
Time would fail me to tell of the various disputations in which our student had to figure at various stages of his career; but disputations, though to the nervous student their terrors must have exceeded those of modern viva, had this advantage, that there was no “plucking” or “ploughing” in the question. A candidate who had done very badly might fail to get the required number of Masters to testify to his competency when he applied for the degree; and very incapable students, if poor and humbly-born, were probably choked off in this way. It is certain that a large number never took even the B.A. degree. But there is no record of anybody having been formally refused a degree in Arts. And yet the Master’s degree in the Middle Ages was in reality what it still is in theory—a license to teach. For a year after admission to his degree, the new M.A. was necessario regens, and was obliged to give “ordinary lectures” in the public schools. After that he was free to enter upon the study of one of the higher Faculties.
Those who took Theology spent the rest of their academical career in the study of the Bible and “the Sentences” of Peter the Lombard—much more of the Sentences than of the Bible. It took eleven years’ study to become a D.D.; naturally most got livings and “went down” before that.