Life in the Medieval University | Page 5

Pope or Emperor, the jus ubique docendi, was
generally accepted throughout Europe, we find the occurrence of the
more familiar term, "Universitas," which we are now in a position to
understand.
A Universitas was an association in the world of learning which
corresponded to a Guild in the world of commerce, a union among men
living in a Studium and possessing some common interests to protect
and advance. Originally, a Universitas could exist in a less (p. 011)
important school than a Studium Generale, but with exceptional
instances of this kind we are not concerned. By the time which we have
chosen for the central point of our survey, the importance of these
guilds or Universitates had so greatly increased that the word
"Universitas" was coming to be equivalent to "Studium Generale." In
the fifteenth century, Dr Rashdall tells us, the two terms were
synonymous. The Universitas Studii, the guild of the School, became,
technically and officially, the Studium Generale itself, and Studia
Generalia were distinguished by the kind of Universitates or guilds
which they possessed. It is usual to speak of Bologna and Paris as the
two great archetypal universities, and this description does not depend
upon mere priority of date or upon the impetus given to thought and
interest in Europe by their teachers or their methods. Bologna and Paris
were two Studia Generalia with two different and irreconcilable types
of Universitas. The Universitates of the Studium of Bologna were
guilds of students; the Universitas of the Studium of Paris was a guild
of masters. The great seats of learning in Medieval Europe were either
universities of students or universities of masters, imitations of Bologna
or of Paris, or modifications of one or the other or of both. It would be
impossible to draw up a list and divide medieval (p. 012) universities
into compartments. Nothing is more difficult to classify than the
constitutions of living societies; a constitution which one man might
regard as a modification of the constitution of Bologna would be in the
opinion of another more correctly described as a modification of the
constitution of Paris, and a development in the constitution of a
University might be held to have altered its fundamental position and to
transfer it from one class to another.

Where students legislated for themselves, their rules were neither
numerous nor detailed. Our information about life in the
student-universities is, therefore, comparatively small, and it is with the
universities of masters that we shall be chiefly concerned. It is,
however, essential to understand the powers acquired by the
student-guilds at Bologna, the institutions of which were reproduced by
most of the Italian universities, by those of Spain and Portugal, and,
much less accurately, by the smaller universities of France.
CHAPTER II
(p. 013)
LIFE IN THE STUDENT-UNIVERSITIES
The Universitates or guilds which were formed in the Studium
Generale of Bologna were associations of foreign students. The lack of
political unity in the Italian peninsula was one of the circumstances that
led to the peculiar and characteristic constitution evolved by the Italian
universities. A famous Studium in an Italian city state must of necessity
attract a large proportion of foreign students. These foreign students
had neither civil nor political rights; they were men "out of their own
law," for whom the government under which they lived made small and
uncertain provision. Their strength lay in their numbers, and in the
effect which their presence produced upon the prosperity and the
reputation of the town. They early recognised the necessity of union if
full use was to be made of the offensive and defensive weapons they
possessed. The men who came to study law at Bologna were not
schoolboys; some of them were beneficed ecclesiastics, others were
lawyers, and most of them were possessed of adequate means of living.
The provisions of Roman Law favoured the creation of such protective
guilds; the privileges and immunities of the clergy (p. 014) afforded an
analogy for the claim of foreign students to possess laws of their own;
and the threat of the secession of a large community was likely to
render a city state amenable to argument. The growth of guilds or
communities held together by common interests and safeguarded by
solemn oaths is one of the features of European history of the twelfth

and thirteenth centuries, and the students of Bologna took no unusual or
extra-ordinary step when they formed their Universitates.
The distinction of students into "Nations," which is still preserved in
some of the Scottish universities, is derived from this guild-forming
movement at Bologna at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the
thirteenth century. No citizen of Bologna was permitted to be a member
of a guild, the protection of which he did not require. The tendency at
first was towards