Life in the Medieval University | Page 9

gradual process, and it was never complete. The
privileges given by Frederick Barbarossa to Lombard scholars in
(p. 025) the middle of the twelfth century included a right of
jurisdiction over their pupils, and a Papal Bull of the end of the century
speaks of masters and scholars meeting together in congregations. The
organisation of the Universitas ultimately confined membership of
congregation to students, and the powers of the Rector rendered the
magisterial jurisdiction merely nominal. The loss of their privileges is
attributed by Canon Rashdall to the attitude they adopted in the early
struggles between the municipality and the student-guilds. The doctors,
who were citizens of Bologna, allied themselves, he says, "with the
City against the students in the selfish effort to exclude from the
substantial privileges of the Doctorate all but their own
fellow-citizens.... It was through identifying themselves with the City
rather than with the scholars that the Doctors of Bologna sank into their
strange and undignified servitude to their own pupils." They made a
further mistake in quarrelling with the town--the earliest migrations
were migrations of professors--and when, in the middle of the
thirteenth century, a permanent modus vivendi was arrived at between
the city and the universities, the rights of the doctors received no
consideration. Other citizens of Bologna were forbidden to take an oath
of obedience to the rectors, but the masters, who, in theory, possessed
rights of jurisdiction over their pupils, were, (p. 026) in fact, compelled
by the universities to take this oath. Even those of them who received
salaries from the town were not exempted. A doctor who refused to
take a vow of obedience to the representative of his pupils had no
means of collecting his lecture-fees, which remained of some
importance even after the introduction of salaries, and he was liable to
further punishment at the will of the Rector. The ultimate penalty was
deprivatio, and when this sentence was pronounced, not only were the
lectures of the offending doctor boycotted, but all social intercourse
with him was forbidden; students must avoid his company in private as
well as decline his ministrations in the Studium. His restoration could
only be accomplished by a vote of the whole University solemnly
assembled in Congregation.

The oath of obedience was not merely a constitutional weapon kept in
reserve for occasional serious disputes; it affected the daily life of the
Studium, and the masters were subject to numerous petty indignities,
which could not fail to impress our English student if he was familiar
with University life in his own country. He would see, with surprise, a
doctor's lecture interrupted by the arrival of a University Bedel, as the
debates of the House of Commons are interrupted by the arrival of
Black Rod, and his instructor would maintain a reverent silence while
the Rector's officer delivered some message from the (p. 027)
University, or informed the professor of some new regulation. If the
learned doctor "cut" a lecture, our student would find himself
compelled to inform the authorities of the University, and he would
hear of fines inflicted upon the doctors for absence, for lateness, for
attracting too small an audience, for omitting portions of a subject or
avoiding the elucidation of its difficulties, and for inattention while the
"precepta" or "mandata" of the Rector were being read in the schools.
He and his fellow-students might graciously grant their master a
holiday, but the permission had to be confirmed by the Rector; if a
lecture was prolonged a minute after the appointed time, the doctor
found himself addressing empty benches. The humiliation of the
master's position was increased by the fact that his pupils were always
acting as spies upon him, and they were themselves liable to penalties
for conniving at any infringement of the regulations on his part. At
Bologna, even the privilege of teaching was, to a slight extent, shared
by the doctors with their pupils. Lectures were divided into two classes,
ordinary and extra-ordinary; the ordinary lectures were the duty of the
doctors, but senior students (bachelors) were authorised by the Rector
to share with the doctors the duty of giving extra-ordinary lectures.
There were six chairs, endowed by the (p. 028) city, which were held
by students, and the occupant of one of these was entitled to deliver
ordinary lectures. Dr Rashdall finds the explanation of this anomaly in
an incident in the fourteenth century history of Bologna, when the
Tyrant of the City forbade the professors to teach. The student-chairs
were rather endowments for the Rectorship or for poor scholars than
serious rivals to the ordinary professorships, and the extra-ordinary
lectures delivered by students or bachelors may be regarded as a kind
of apprenticeship for future doctors.

There remained one department of the work of the Studium in which
our Bologna