Life in the Medieval University | Page 6

the formation of a number of Universitates,
membership of which was decided by considerations of nationality. But
the conditions which had led to the formation of these Universitates
were also likely to produce some measure of unification, and the
law-students at Bologna soon ceased to have more than two great
guilds, distinguished on geographical principles as the Universitas
Citramontanorum and the Universitas Ultramontanorum. Each was
sub-divided into nations; the cis-Alpine (p. 015) University consisting
of Lombards, Tuscans, and Romans, and the trans-Alpine University of
a varying number, including a Spanish, a Gascon, a Provençal, a
Norman, and an English nation. The three cis-Alpine nations were, of
course, much more populous at Bologna than the dozen or more
trans-Alpine nations, and they were therefore sub-divided into sections
known as Consiliariae. The students of Arts and Medicine, who at first
possessed no organisation of their own and were under the control of
the great law-guilds, succeeded in the fourteenth century in establishing
a new Universitas within the Studium. The influence of Medicine
predominated, for the Arts course was, at Bologna, regarded as merely
a preparation for the study of Law and, especially, of Medicine; but this
third Universitas gave a definite status and definite rights to the
students of Arts. In the same century the two jurist universities came to
act together so constantly that they were, for practical purposes, united,
so that, by the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Studium Generale
of Bologna contained virtually two universities, one of Law, and the
other of Arts and Medicine, governed by freely-elected rectors. The
peculiar relations of Theology to the Studium and to the universities is
a topic which belongs to constitutional history, and not to our (p. 016)
special subject.

The universities of Bologna had to maintain a struggle with two other
organisations, the guilds of masters and the authorities of this city state.
They kept the first in subjection; they ultimately succumbed to the
second. A guild of masters, doctors, or professors had existed in the
Studium before the rise of the Universitates, and it survived with
limited, but clearly defined, powers. The words "Doctor," "Professor,"
and "Magister" or "Dominus" were at first used indifferently, and a
Master of Arts of a Scottish or a German University is still described
on his diploma as a Doctor of Philosophy. The term "Master" was little
used at Bologna, but it is convenient to employ "master" and "student"
as the general terms for teacher and taught. The masters were the
teachers of the Studium, and they protected their own interests by
forming a guild the members of which, and they alone, had the right to
teach. Graduation was originally admission into the guild of masters,
and the chief privilege attached to it was the right to teach. This
privilege ultimately became merely a theoretical right at Bologna,
where the teachers tended to become a close corporation of professors,
like the Senatus of a Scottish University.
The Guild or College of Masters who taught law in the Studium of
(p. 017) Bologna naturally resented the rise of the universities of
students. The doctors, they said, should elect the rectors, as they do at
Paris. The scholars follow no trade, they are merely the pupils of those
who do practise a profession, and they have no right to choose rulers
for themselves any more than the apprentices of the skinners. The
masters were citizens of Bologna, and it might be expected that the
State would assist them in their struggle with a body of foreign
apprentices; but the threat of migration turned the scales in favour of
the students. There were no buildings and no endowments to render a
migration difficult, and migration did from time to time take place. The
masters themselves were dependent upon fees for their livelihood; they
were, at Bologna, frequently laymen with no benefice to fall back upon,
and with wives and children to maintain. As time went on and the
teaching masters became a limited number of professors, they were
given salaries, at first by the student-universities themselves and
afterwards by the city, which feared to offend the student-universities.
They thus passed, to a large extent, under the control of the universities;

how far, we shall see as our story progresses. The city authorities tried
ineffectually to curb the universities and to prevent migrations, but the
students, with the support of the Papacy, succeeded in maintaining the
strength of their organisations, and (p. 018) when, in the middle of the
fourteenth century, secessions from Bologna came to an end, the
students had obtained the recognition and most of the privileges they
desired. In course of time the authority of the State increased at
Bologna and elsewhere, bodies of Reformatores Studii came to be
appointed by republics or tyrants in Italian university