Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William" / Volume 10, Slice 1

by Various

The earliest university examinations of which a description is available are those in civil and in canon law held at Bologna at a period subsequent to 1219. The student was admitted without examination as bachelor after from four to six years’ study, and after from six to eight years’ study became qualified as a candidate for the doctorate. He might obtain the doctorate in both branches of law in ten years (Rashdall i. 221-222).

The doctoral examination at Bologna in the 13th-14th centuries consisted of two parts—a private examination which was the real test, and a public one of a ceremonial character (conventus). The candidate first took an “oath that he had complied with all the statutable conditions, that he would give no more than the statutable fees or entertainments to the rector himself, the doctor or his fellow-students, and that he would obey the rector.” He was then presented to the archdeacon of Bologna by one or more doctors, who were required to have satisfied themselves of his fitness by private examination. On the morning of the examination, after attending mass, he was assigned by one of the doctors of the assembled college two passages (puncta) in the civil or canon law, which he retired to his house to study, possibly with the assistance of the presenting doctor. Later in the day he gave a lecture on, or exposition of, the prepared passages, and was examined on them by two of the doctors appointed by the college. Other doctors might then put supplementary questions on law arising out of the passages, or might suggest objections to his answers. The vote of the doctors present was taken by ballot, and the fate of the candidate was determined by the majority. The successful candidate, who received the title of licentiate, was, on payment of a heavy fee and other expenses, permitted to proceed to the conventus or final public examination. This consisted in the delivery of a speech and the defence of a thesis on some point of law, selected by the candidate, against opponents selected from among the students. The successful candidate received from the archdeacon the formal “licence to teach” by the authority of the pope in the name of the Trinity, and was invested with the insignia of office. At Bologna, though not at Paris, the “permission to teach” soon became fictitious, only a small number of doctors being allowed to exercise the right of teaching in that university (Rashdall).

In the faculty of arts of Paris, towards the end of the 13th century, the system was already more complicated than at Bologna. The baccalaureate, licentiateship, and mastership formed three distinct degrees. For admission to the baccalaureate a preliminary test or “Responsions” was first required, at which the candidate had to dispute in grammar or logic with a master. The examiners then inspected the certificates (schedulae) of residence and of having attended lectures in the prescribed subjects, and examined him in the contents of his books. The successful candidate was admitted to maintain a thesis against an opponent, a process called “determination” (see Rashdall i. 443 et seq.), and as bachelor was then permitted to give “cursory” lectures. After five or six years from the date of beginning his studies (matriculation) and being twenty years of age (these conditions varied at different periods), a bachelor was permitted to present himself for the examination for the licentiateship, which was divided into two parts. The first part was conducted in private by the chancellor and four examiners (temptatores in cameris), and included an inquiry into the candidate’s residence, attendance at lectures, and performance of exercises, as well as examination in prescribed books; those candidates adjudged worthy were admitted to the more important examination before the faculty, and the names of successful candidates were sent to the chancellor in batches of eight or more at a time, arranged in order of merit. (The order of merit at the examination for the licentiateship existed in Paris till quite recently.) Each successful candidate was then required to maintain a thesis chosen by himself (quodlibetica) in St Julian’s church, and was finally submitted to a purely formal public examination (collatio) at either the episcopal palace or the abbey of Ste Geneviève, before receiving from the chancellor, in the name of the Trinity, the licence to incept or begin to teach in the faculty of arts. After some six months more the licentiate took part “in a peculiarly solemn disputation known as his ‘Vespers,’” then gave his formal inaugural lecture or disputation before the faculty, and was received into the faculty as master. This last process was called “inception.”

In discussing the value of medieval examinations of the kind described, Paulsen (The German Universities (1906), p. 25) asserts that they were well adapted to increase a student’s alertness, his power of comprehending new ideas, and his ability quickly and surely to assimilate them to his own, and that “they did more to enable [students] to grasp a subject than the mute and solitary reviewing and cramming of our modern examinations can possibly do.” At their best they fulfilled precisely the technical purpose for which they were intended; they fully tested the capacity of the candidate to teach the subjects which he was required to teach in accordance with the methods which he was required to use. The limitations of the test were the limitations of the educational and philosophic ideals of the time, in which a dogmatic basis was presupposed to all knowledge and criticism was limited to the superstructure. At their worst, even with venal examiners (and additional fees were often offered as a bribe), Rashdall regards these examinations (at the end of the 13th century) as probably “less of a farce than the pass examinations of Oxford and Cambridge almost within the memory of persons now living.” It is, however, to be pointed out that the standard in Paris and elsewhere at a later date became scandalously low in some cases. In some universities the sons of nobles were regularly excused certain examinations. At Cambridge in 1774 Fellow Commoners were examined with such precipitation to fulfil the formal requirements of the statutes that the ceremony was termed “huddling for a degree” (Jebb, Remarks upon the Present Mode of Education in the University of Cambridge, 4th ed., 1774, p. 32). The last privileges of this kind were abolished at Cambridge by a grace passed on the 20th of March 1884.

In the medieval examinations described above we find most of the elements of our present examinations: certificates of previous study and good conduct, preparation of set-books, questioning on subjects not specially prepared, division of examinations into various parts, classification in order of merit, payment of fees, the presentation of a dissertation, and the defence and publication of a thesis (a term of which the meaning has now become extended).

The requirement to write answers to questions written or dictated, to satisfy a practical test (other than in teaching), and a clinical test in medicine, appear to be of later date.[1] The medieval candidate for the doctorate in medicine, although required to have attended practice before presenting himself, discussed as his thesis a purely theoretical question, often semi-theological in character, of which as an extreme example may be quoted “whether Adam had a navel.”

The competitive system was developed considerably at Louvain, and in the 15th century the candidates for the mastership of arts were divided into three classes (rigorosi, honour-men; transibiles, pass-men; gratiosi, charity-passes), while a fourth, which was not published, contained the names of those who failed. In the 17th century the first class comprised the names of twelve, and the second, of twenty-four, candidates, who were divided on the report of their teachers into classes before the examination, and finally arranged in order of merit by the examiners (Vernulaeus, quoted by Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, 1852; p. 647; Rashdall, loc. cit. ii. 262). At the Cambridge tripos (as described by Jebb in 1774, Remarks, &c. , pp. 20-31) the first twenty-four candidates were also selected by a preliminary test; they were then divided further into “wranglers” (the disputants, par excellence) and Senior Optimes, the next twelve on the list being called the Junior Optimes. These names have in the mathematics tripos survived the procedure. (The name Tripos is derived from the three-legged stool on which “an old bachilour,” selected for the purpose, sat during his disputation with the senior bachelor of the year, who was required to propound two questions to him.)

The subjects in which the medieval universities examined were (i.) those of the trivium and quadrivium in the faculty of arts; (ii.) theology; (iii.) medicine; and (iv.) civil and canon law. The number of subjects in which examinations are held has since grown immensely. We can only sketch in outline the transformations of certain typical university systems of examinations.

At Oxford there is no record of a process of formal examination on books similar to that of Paris (Rashdall, ii. 442 et seq.), disputations being apparently the only test applied in its early history. Examinations were definitely introduced for the B.A. and M.A. degrees by Laud in 1636-1638 (Brodrick, History of Oxford, p. 114), but the standard prescribed was so much beyond the actual requirements of later times that it may be doubted if it was enforced. The studies fell in the 18th century into an “abject state,” from which they were first raised by a statute passed in 1800 (Report of Oxford University Commission of 1850-1852, p. 60 et seq.), under which distinctions were first allotted to the ablest candidates for the bachelor’s degree. Further changes were made in 1807 and 1825; and in 1830 a distinction was made between honours examinations of a more difficult character, at which successful candidates were divided into four classes, and pass examinations of an easier character. By the statutes of 1849 and 1858 an intermediate “Moderations” examination was instituted between the preliminary examination called “Responsions” and the final examination. Since 1850, although fresh subjects of examination have been introduced, no considerable change of system has been made.