Life in the Medieval University | Page 8

senior contemporaries, who could
boast that, if a Cardinal came to Bologna, he must yield precedence to
the Rector, and the lesson would be emphasised by a great feast on the
occasion of the solemn installation and possibly by a tournament and a
dance, certainly by some more magnificent banquet than that given by
a Rector of the University of Arts and Medicine. After our student's day
there grew up a strange ceremony of tearing the robe of the new Rector
and selling back the pieces to him, and statutes had to be passed
prohibiting the acceptance of money for the fragments, although if any
student succeeded in capturing the robe without injuring it, he might
(p. 022) claim its redemption. The state and hospitality which the office
entailed led to its being made compulsory to accept the offer of it, but
this arrangement failed to maintain the ancient prestige of the
Rectorship which, after the decline of the Universitates themselves, had
outlived its usefulness.
Magnificent as was the position of the Rector of a Universitas, our
young Englishman would soon discover that his Rector was only a
constitutional sovereign. He had to observe the statutes and to consult
his Council upon important questions. He had no power to dispense
with the penalties imposed by the regulations, and for any
mismanagement of the pecuniary affairs of the Universitas he was
personally liable, when at the end of his period of office he had to meet
a Committee and to render an account of his stewardship. He could
sentence offending students to money fines, but he must have the
consent of his Council before expelling them or declaring them subject
to the ecclesiastical and social penalties of the perjured man. He
claimed to try cases brought by students against townsmen, and about
the time of our scholar's arrival, the town had admitted that he might try
students accused of criminal offences forbidden by the University
statutes, and had agreed to carry out his sentences. Too free a use of the
secular arm would naturally lead to unpopularity and trouble; (p. 023)
the spectacle of a student being handed over to the gaolers of the
Podesta or of the Bishop can never have been pleasant in the eyes of a

Universitas. Changes in the statutes of the University could not be
made by the Rector; every twenty years eight "Statutarii" were
appointed to revise the code, and alterations made at other times
required the consent of the Congregation, which consisted of all
students except citizens of Bologna and a few poor scholars who did
not subscribe to the funds of the Universitas. By the time of which we
are speaking, the two jurist-universities at Bologna met together in one
Congregation, and if a Congregation happens to be held during our
Englishman's residence at Bologna, he will find himself bound under
serious penalties to attend its session, where he will mix on equal,
terms with members of the Cismontane University, listening to, or
taking part in, the debates (conducted in Latin) and throwing his black
or white bean into the ballot box when a vote is necessary.
Although the city of Bologna never admitted the jurisdiction of a
Universitas over citizens of the town, there were some classes of
citizens whose trade or profession made them virtually its subjects.
Landlords, stationers, and masters or doctors were in a peculiar relation
to the universities, which did not fail to use their advantage to the
uttermost. If our English student and his socii (p. 024) had any dispute
about the rent of their house, there was a compulsory system of
arbitration; if he found an error in a MS. which he had hired or
purchased from a Bologna bookseller he was bound to report it to a
University Board whose duty it was to inspect MSS. offered for sale or
hire, and the bookseller would be ordered to pay a fine; he was
protected from extortionate prices by a system which allowed the
bookseller a fixed profit on a second-hand book. MSS. were freely
reproduced by the booksellers' clerks, and were neither scarce nor
unduly expensive, although elaborately illuminated MSS. were
naturally very valuable. The landlords and the booksellers were kept in
proper submission by threats of interdictio or privatio. A citizen who
offended the University was debarred from all intercourse with students,
who were strictly forbidden to hire his house or his books; if a
townsman brought a "calumnious accusation" against a student, and
disobeyed a rectorial command to desist, he and his children, to the
third generation, and all their goods, were to lie under an interdict,
"sine spe restitutionis."

Interdictio, or discommuning, was also the great weapon which might
be employed against the masters of the Studium. The degradation of the
masters was a