The whole body academic, numerous and complicated though it was, did not require any considerable amount of regulating and governing agents. By the simplicity of rule and government the middle ages characteristically differ from our own wonderful machineries which claim for every touch that is wanted the experienced hands of hundreds of officials, and even then they are oftentimes served badly enough. Self-government was the ruling idea in the middle ages, and consequently we see the universities directed in their complicated progress by a number of officials comparatively so small as to fill the modern observer with amazement. The university being divided into different bodies or corporations (the nations and faculties), it left the direction and management or these different institutions chiefly to themselves. At the head of the nations stood the proctors (procuratores), and the faculties were governed by their deans (decani). The range of their official rights and duties will be illustrated later on. The president of the different nations and of the four faculties was the rector. He was elected for the space of a year, or six months only, by the proctors or presidents of the nations, and in earlier times regularly out of the arts faculty; at a later period, and in the younger universities, out of one of the nations and one of the faculties alternately. The rector was not to be a married man—at Vienna no monk either; Prague required him to be a member of the clerical profession, imitating in this, as in almost everything else, the university of Paris, where even the professors were bound to celibacy (nullus uxoratus admittebatur ad regentiam). The rector was the head, the president (caput, principale) of the whole university. Oxford and Prague alone, where the supreme power was invested in the chancellor, form in this respect an exception, but only so far as names are concerned, for the Oxford chancellor was eo ipso rector of the university. The rector's high dignity found expression in the title of Magnificus, which, in the middle ages, was allowed to none but princes imperial and royal, and a suitable dress distinguished the highest official of the university whatever he appeared in public. It is surprising to learn what an important figure a university rector played on public occasions. At Paris, and later on at Vienna, the rector, when officiating in his avocation, preceded in rank even the bishops. The rector of the university of Louvain (Loewen) Was allowed a life guard of his own; and even Charles V., attending on one occasion the convention of the university, took his place after the rector. At Leyden, the stadtholder, when appearing in the name of the states-general, allowed the precedence to the rector of the university; and whenever the rector of Padua visited the republic of Venice he was received by the senate with the highest marks of honor. When at Vienna the court was prevented from attending at the procession on Corpus Christi, the rector of the university took the place of the sovereign immediately behind the sanctissimum. From the exalted station which a university rector occupied in society the fact is easily explained that dignitaries of the church, nobleman of the highest rank, and even princes of blood royal, did not slight the rectorial purple of the university. The rector wore, like the deans, a black gown, but on festive occasions he was dressed in a long robe of scarlet velvet. He acted as the president of the highest academic tribunal, and held his judicial sessions, assisted by the proctors, and if he so pleased he might invite the deans as well. In criminal cases occurring within the bounds of the university, he could inflict any, from the slightest to the severest penalties of the law. Hence, a sword and a sceptre, were carried before him when he traversed the streets or appeared on public occasions. He convened the meetings of the university corporations, and conventions held under any other authority (even that of the chancellor) had no legal power in carrying resolutions. What we have just stated concerning the rector holds good for the chancellor of Oxford. When Paris and other universities contrived to free themselves from the influence of their diocesan, Oxford never loosened the close ties which bound it to the church, and received without opposition its governing head from the bishop. But it must be borne in mind that the chancellor of the university had nothing whatever to do with the church of Lincoln, which had its own chancellor. Once appointed by the bishop, Oxford's chancellor entered upon all the functions, and the same independent position as the rector elsewhere. On the other hand, however, he represented the chancellor of the other continental universities, who formed the connecting links between the university and the church. During the middle ages the functions of the continental chancellor were restricted to the few cases of promotion at which be acted as the representative of the bishop, to give the sanction and blessing of the church to proceedings which were deemed as naturally belonging to her proper sphere of supervision and authority. Having so far finished our sketch of the different members of the Corpus Academicum, we may finally let them pass in review as they appeared at processions and other public occasions, according to rank and precedence. At the head of the train we see, of course, the rector followed by the dean, doctors and licentiates of theology, with whom went in equal rank the sons of dukes and counts, and the higher nobility generally. These were succeeded by the dean, doctors and licentiates of the law faculty, and the students belonging to the baronial order, and with the medical faculty proceeded the students of the lower nobility. The fourth division was formed by the dean and professors (magistri regentes) of the arts faculty and those bachelors of other faculties who were masters of arts, while the bachelors of arts followed, and the students closed the procession, they also being divided and following each other according to the succession of the faculties just described, where, ceteris paribus, seniority gave the precedence. As in all institutions of medieval society the division of ranks was strictly observed, and in case of need enforced in the most rigorous manner, a transgression in this respect being visited on any member with severe, sometimes the severest penalty, that is, expulsion from the university.
All the different degrees of individuals we have now examined were united in corporations, representing a union either according to local divisions in nations, or arranged with respect to scientific pursuits in faculties. Concerning the nations of the universities, former writers intricated [sic] themselves in great difficulties by recurring to hypotheses in which historical records did not bear them out. According to Bulseus and Huber the nations of the university represented the different tribes or nationalities which inhabited a country, and found a rallying point at the centre of science and education. Now, this assertion is in open contradiction to the character and nature of academic nations, as may become evident from the following data which we have to advance. The nations of the English universities were, and always continued to be, those of the Boreales or northerners, and the Australes or southerners. Among the Boreales were included the Scotch, and with the Australes figured the Irish and Welsh. If it had lain in the plan of those institutions to preserve and foster the difference of national extraction and to develop it to the highest degree or contrast, how could this end be obtained by a corporation of men which contained in itself the contradictory elements of Celtic and Saxon derivation, elements then more sharply defined and opposed to each other than now? Directing our attention to Paris, we find at an earlier epoch there also only two distinct nations, the French and the English, the former comprising Southern, and the latter Northern Europe. When these two nations were multiplied into four no regard whatever was paid to the different nationalities, for the divisions were the English, French, Picardian, and Norman. Why, we may ask, was the nation of the Normans to hold a separate position from that of the English, with whom they were one body from a political point of view, or from the French, whom they resembled closely enough in language and manners? When at the University of Vienna the Austrian nation comprised the Italians, and the Rhenish nation, besides Southern Germans, the Burgundians, French, and Spaniards, where is the principle of nationality preserved? Turning finally to the Italian universities, we meet with hardly any other distinction but that of Cisalpine and Transalpine. How wide the difference between the nationalities of these academic nations must have been we may leave it with our readers to conclude, when we state the fact that in the Transalpine nation we find Germans, Scandinavians, Frenchmen, Normans, Englishmen, and Spaniards. What then, will be the question naturally proposed, was the meaning, tendency, and character of academic nations? The middle ages, in defining and separating the members of the university into nations, did not intend to sharpen the national contrasts and differences, but, on the contrary, to soften them down, perhaps to destroy them altogether. Not natural natural extraction, but the geographical situation it was which proffered the criterion for such division. If it were otherwise, they would have applied to these divisions not the term of Nationes (that is, ubi natus), but that of Gentes. Its chief support our view will derive from the fact that in the middle ages the distinction of rank and avocations far outweighed that of nationalities in our acceptation of the term. Just as chivalrous knighthood represented, without respect to the different countries, an institution coalesced into one body or corporation, so likewise the school had its centres of unity, independent of nationalities. The chief criterion of nationalities, language, formed in the scholastic establishments a centre of unity, Latin being the medium of conversation and literature, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, and from Cracow to Lisbon. The division into nations consequently aimed at uniting the different tribes according to the different quarters of the globe whence they had come. Every university was looked upon as a geographical centre, and the different nationalities were grouped into nations, and designated by the names of those peoples which resided nearest to the central point, the university. It is true, the division recognized by the university did not object to secondary combinations among students of the same nationality if they wished to enter into a league with their countrymen, so that the Germans, for instance, who belonged to the English nation at Paris, and to the Transalpine nation of the Italian universities, might at any place form a separate corporation known as a province. These provinces, however, were not recognized by, or in any official relation to the proctors (procuratores). The name itself implies the nature of their office, that of being the representatives, the advocates, the attorneys of their respective nations. Not only graduates, but even students were eligible to the office, because doctrine or learning was not at all concerned where academic relationship offered the sole guide in the election. When the whole university was convened, each nation voted separately, and the majority out of the four votes (of the four nations) decided. Questions which concern the pecuniary contributions of all the members, or the external relations of the university and the like, were discussed and settled in the convention of the nations. The proctors, with the rector as their head, formed the court of academic jurisdiction, and they also elected the rector, who in early times was nothing but the supreme magistrate, the mayor, as it were, of the academic community.
The nations of which we have treated in the preceding paragraph formed the first and natural division of the Corpus Academicum into independent corporations, and may therefore outreach in antiquity the faculties. As soon, however, as the different branches of learning had fully grown into distinct sciences, it was merely in accordance with the corporate spirit of the times that the scholars of each respective science separated into independent bodies and assumed the form and constitution of corporations. The origin of these scientific corporations or faculties is, like that of the nations, and of the first universities themselves, shrouded in obscurity. The sciences represented in the different faculties may surely be traced back to the early centuries of mediaeval education, having their prototype in the Trivium and Quadrivium of the monastic schools; but without entering any further upon probabilities and conjectures about their origin, we proceed at once to a characterization of the faculties at the time of their full development, which is historically authenticated. In all universities the faculties represented the same quadripartite cyclus of sciences, that is, the Facultus Artium, Jurisprudentiae, Medicinae, and Theologiae. It was not requisite for a Studium Generale or university to comprise all the four faculties; on the contrary, we find at the early epoch of academic life hardly any university which professed the four branches of knowledge. Paris and Oxford, for instance, were originally confined to arts and theology, to which the schools of medicine and law were added at a later period, probably copied from the model schools of law and medicine in Italy. Turning to the peninsula of the Apennines we find there in the earlier times not a single university combining the theological with the other three faculties. Bologna did not gain the privilege of a theological faculty before the year 1362, when Pope Innocent VI. decreed that in the law university the faculty of theology should be established, and theological degrees conferred by the same. Till then it had been customary for Italians to betake themselves to Paris, for the sake of obtaining promotion in theology. Of other Italian universities, Padua received a theological faculty by Pope Urban V., upon the intercession of Francesco da Carrara, then, Signor of Padua. Pisa, when obtaining the confirmation of Pope Benedict XII., was allowed the "studium sacrae paginae;" but the right of promotion was a case altogether separately treated, and therefore expressly mentioned where it was bestowed, which, with regard to Pisa, did not take place. Ferrara also had a theological school exclusive of the right of promotion; but in the year 1391 it succeeded in gaining the privilege of promotion in theology, which, by the end of the fourteenth century, was more universally conceded. But even then we find famous schools, such as Piacenza, Pavia, Lucca, Naples, Perugia, and even that of Rome itself, not participating in the said prerogative. The university of Montpellier (like most of the French schools, Paris excepted) had no theological faculty; and Vienna, confirmed by Pope Urban in 1365, was not favored with a theological faculty previously to the year 1384. These exceptions were owing to various causes, partly of a local, partly of a higher and more important nature. The interests of neighboring universities, for instance, might threaten a collision (as in the case of Prague and Vienna), or the pursuits of theological studies could be amply provided for by monastic and cathedral schools. But the principal cause of this system appears to lie in quite a different circumstance. The method of Scholastic sophisms had, in spite of the opposing movements of the popes, gained day by day more ground in the theological department, a fact which made a strict supervision, and therefore a more limited scene for theological operations a real desideratum. The greatest caution was deemed necessary, owing to the fact that even at Paris, since the scholastic method had gained superiority, startling doctrines were advanced, divergent from the traditional teaching of the church, and sufficient to cause apprehension.
Admission to degrees depended first of all on the diligent attendance at lectures, which the candidate had to prove by testimonials, and secondly on a certain number of years which he had to devote to the special studies of his faculty. For the bachelorship of arts a study of two, for the magisterium a study of three years was required. In the faculty of law the bachelor had, previously to his promotion, to go through a course of three years, and after seven years of study the license would be granted; while the medical faculty imposed for the bachelorship two or three, for the license five or six years, differing in proportion to the candidate's previous studies in the faculty of arts. After six years of theological study the candidate could attain the bachelorship in theology, whereupon his faculty pointed out one or other chapter of Holy Scripture on which he had to lecture under the superintendence of a doctor. Having passed three years in these pursuits he might gain permission to read on "dogmatics" or doctrinal theology (libri sententiarii). Bachelors were, therefore, divided into baccalaurei biblici and baccalaurei sententiarii, and both designated as cursores. A bachelor who had begun the third book of the sentences became baccalaurens formatus, and after three years' further practice, that is, after eleven years of theological study, he presented himself for the license. The head of each faculty, the dean (decanus), was elected by the graduates out of his respective faculty, in some cases for six, in others for twelve months. The community of the university was represented in three different conventions: the consistory (consistorium), the congregation (congregatio universitatis), and the general assembly (plena concio). The first was originally the judicial tribunal, and though its functions became more varied at a later time, it continued to be the representative assembly of the academic nations. The congregation was a meeting of a more scientific, and, as it were, aristocratic character, including only the doctors and licentiates of the different faculties. It formed the court of appeal from the sentence of the respective faculties. The general assembly, comprising all the members of the university, was convened on but few occasions, and then only for the celebration of academic festivals, or for the publication of new statutes, or especially in cases when contributions were to be levied from all the members of the university. On the last-mentioned occasion only had the students or undergraduates the right of voting; in every other instance they were restricted to silence, or the more passive though uproarious mode of participation, by applauding or hissing the proposals and discussions of their elders and betters. Here, again, we have to point out a characteristic difference between the Cismontane and Transmontane universities. While the whole constitution of the universities on this side of the Alps, with their laws, statutes, etc., was dependent on the aristocratic body of the graduates, the universities of Italy, and chiefly that of Bologna, display a thoroughly democratic character. At Bologna the students were the gentlemen who, out of their number, elected the rectors. The Italian rector was, in fact, identical with our proctor, though his functions extended over a wider range. The aristocratic congregation of faculties is almost totally unknown in Italian universities, where the nations preserved their predominant position all through the middle ages. The professors were hardly more than the officials of the students, and in their service, though in the pay of the citizens. In the documents we never read of any legal transaction being performed by the faculties, but always by the rectors and the nations, or the rectors and the students, and even the papal bulls with respect to the Italian universities freely use the expression of a universitas magistrorum et scholarium. In short, the Italian universities were democracies, while the western, and chiefly the English universities present traits of a decidedly aristocratic character.
To complete the sketch of the organization of mediaeval universities we must add a few remarks concerning their position in society, and the relation in which they stood to civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The members of the body academic were subject to three distinct tribunals: internal discipline and jurisdiction belonged to the functions of the rector and proctors; violations of the common law which were committed outside the pale of the university, and required the apprehension of the delinquent, lay within the pale of the bishop's jurisdiction; and all cases falling under the head of atrocia were, for final decision, reserved to the law courts of the crown. The bounds of ecclesiastical jurisdiction being rather vague and undefined, collisions between the ecclesiastical and secular authorities would naturally arise. In order to provide for all emergencies the pope appointed conservatores, individuals who had no direct connection with the university, and could therefore the more effectually step forward as mediators when they considered its immunities and liberties endangered. The university of Oxford, for example, was placed under the guardianship of the episcopal sees of London and Salisbury, and the "ward," it would appear, contrived to get into so many scrapes that the charge of conservators was rendered anything but a sinecure. At one time we find them in a controversy with the crown, at another in a deadly feud with the city magistrates, and again occasionally exchanging not very friendly wishes with the bishop of Lincoln, the diocesan of Oxford. When they found their opponents refractory, they appealed to the pope, who at once despatched a legate to the scene of action, where, in nine cases out of ten, the controversy was decided in favor of the university, the darling child of the church. By the constitution of Pope Gregory IX., granted to Paris University in the year 1231, and soon extended to Oxford, the functions of the academic by the side of civil and ecclesiastic authorities were more clearly and satisfactorily defined. Most conspicuous in that constitution is a statute, according to which the chancellor of Paris as well as the municipal authorities had to take an oath to honor and maintain the privileges of the university. The relations between the academic authorities and the city magistrates, or, to use an academic phrase, between gown and town, remained at all times in an unsatisfactory state. In Italy the universities to a great extent owed their existence to the liberality of opulent citizens, who valued the institutions far too highly to disgust them by any infringement of their privileges. Should, however, the city of Bologna show difficulties in their path, the scholars, well aware of a friendly reception elsewhere, packed up their valuables, or pawned them in case of need, and emigrated to Padua. If the commune of Padua grew in any way obnoxious to the university, the rectors and students at once decided on an excursion to Vercelli. The good citizens of Vercelli received them with open arms, and in the fulness of their joy assigned five hundred of the best houses in the town for the accommodation of their guests, paid the professors decent salaries, and to make the gentlemen students comfortable to the utmost the city engaged two copyists to provide them with books at a trifling price fixed by the rector. If the Bolognese emigrants did not feel comfortable at Imola, there was its neighboring rival Siena, which allured the capricious sons of the Muses with prospects far too substantial to be slighted by the philosophical students. These gentlemen having pawned their books, their "omnia sua," the city of Siena paid six thousand florins to recover them, defrayed the expenses of the academic migration, settled on each of the professors three hundred gold florins, and—to crown these acts of generosity—allowed the students gratuitous lodgings for eighteen months. However much an Italian student might have relished an occasional brawl in the streets, there was hardly an opportunity given him to gratify his pugilistic tendencies, while in this country the street fights between students and citizens often assumed the most fearful proportions. The more English citizens fostered a feeling of independence, derived from increased wealth and social progress, the less were they inclined to expose themselves to the taunts, and their wives and daughters to the impudence, of some lascivious youth or other. The students, on the other hand, able with each successive campaign to point out a new privilege gained, a new advantage won over their antagonists, would naturally find an occasional fight tend to the promotion of the interests of the body academic, besides gratifying their private taste for a match, which in those days, and in this country especially, may well-nigh have attained the pitch of excellent performance. We do not think it necessary or desirable to enter into the details of these riots between town and gown which are very minutely narrated in Huber's history of the English Universities. From the position which they had gained in England, it will easily be understood that the universities could not keep aloof from the great political contests of the times, so that as far back as King John's reign the political parties had their representatives at the academic schools, where the two nations of Australes and Boreales fought many a miniature battle, certainly not always with a clear discernment as to the political principles which they pretended to uphold.
It is very curious to observe the manner of self-defence which those gigantic establishments adopted when they were pressed by the supreme powers of church or state. In the first instance, they had recourse to suspension of lectures and all other public functions, a step sufficiently coercive on most occasions to force even the crown into compliance with their wishes. Should, however, this remedy fail, they applied to still more impressive means, which consisted in dissolution of the university or its secession to another town. Even the most despotic monarch could not abide without apprehension the consequences of such a step, if resorted to by a powerful community such as Paris and Oxford, for it had received legal sanction in the constitution granted by Gregory IX., and its results were far too important to be easily forecast or estimated. We have already alluded to the frequent migrations of Italian universities, and need, therefore, only point out the impulse imparted to Oxford by the immigration in 1209 of a host of secessionist students and professors from Paris, the unmistakable influence on the development of Cambridge exercised by secessionist scholars of Oxford, and the rise of the university of Leipzig upon the immigration of several thousand German students who, with their professors, seceded from Prague, where Slavonic nationality and Hussite doctrines had gained the ascendency over Germans and Catholics.
The universities gradually emancipated themselves, rose higher and higher in the estimation of society, and thus became the sole leaders and guides of public opinion. Popes and emperors forwarded their decrees to the most famous universities in order to have them inserted in the codes of canon and civil law, discussed in the lectures of the professors, and thus commended to a favorable reception among the public. As the highest authorities of church and state, so did individual scholars appreciate the influence of Alma Mater. It was not uncommon for literary men to read their compositions before the assembled university, in order to receive its sanction and approval before publication. So did Giraldus, for example, recite his Topography of Ireland in the convention of the university of Oxford, and Bolandino his chronicle in the presence of the professors and scholars of Padua.
We cannot more fitly conclude our remarks on the social position of the mediaeval universities than by shortly narrating the occasion on which they displayed, for the last time in the middle ages, the immense power of their social position. The university of Paris, as it behoved the most ancient and eminent theological school, took the lead in the movements which were made in the case of the papal schism. Ever memorable will be the occasion when, on Epiphany, 1391, Gerson, the celebrated chancellor of the university of Paris, delivered his address on the subject before the king, the court, and a numerous and brilliant assembly. Owing to his exertions and the co-operation of the professors and members of the university, certain proposals were agreed upon which tended to restore peace and unity in the church. The king, for a time, was inclined to listen to these proposals, but being influenced again by the party of Clement VII., he ordered the chancellor to prevent the university from taking any further step in the matter. All petitions directed to the king for a revocation of the sentence proving futile, the university proceeded to apply means of coercion. All lectures, sermons, and public functions whatsoever were suspended until it should have gained a redress of its grievances.
In the year 1409 the Synod of Pisa was opened to take the long-desired steps against the schism. The universities were strongly represented by their delegates, not the least in importance among the venerable constituencies of the Occidental Church, the number of doctors falling little short of a thousand. Reformation of the church in its head and members, and a revision of its discipline and hierarchic organization, were loudly proclaimed by the representatives of the universities, foremost among all by Gerson, the chancellor of Paris, the most brilliant star in the splendid array of venerable doctors and prelates of the church.
Mediaeval universities were truly universal in their character, being united by one language, literature, and faith. With the sixteenth century nationalities were growing into overwhelming dimensions; national literature rose in defiant rivalry and joined revived antiquity in marked hostility against the scions of scholasticism; and, to give the final stroke, the unity of faith was crumbling; piecemeal under the reforming spirit of the age. The ties which had bound mediaeval universities to each other and to their common centre were sundered. Some became defunct; others led a precarious existence; all had a hard and troublesome time of it—a fact touchingly recorded in the annals of Vienna: "Ann. 1528: Propter ruinam universitatis nullus incorporatus est."