<h1>IV <br/> THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.</h1>
<p>For most people the surprise of finding that the subjects with which
the students were occupied at the universities of the Thirteenth
Century were very much the same as those which claim the attention of
modern students, will probably be somewhat mitigated by the thought
that after all there were only few in attendance at the universities,
and as a consequence only a small proportion of the population shared
in that illumination, which has become so universal in the spread of
opportunities for the higher education in these later times. While
such an impression is cherished by many even of those who think that
they know the history of education, and unfortunately are considered
<i>by others</i> to be authorities on the subject, it is the falsest
possible idea that could be conceived of this medieval time with which
we are concerned. We may say at once that it is a matter of
comparatively easy collation of statistics to show, that in proportion
to the population of the various countries, there were actually more
students taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire university
education in the Thirteenth Century, than there were at any time in
the Nineteenth Century, or even in the midst of this era of widespread
educational opportunities in the Twentieth Century.</p>
<p>Most people know the traditions which declare that there were between
twenty and thirty thousand students at the University of Paris toward
the end of the Thirteenth Century. At the same time there were said to
have been between fifteen and twenty thousand students at the
University of Bologna. Correspondingly large numbers have been
reported for the University of Oxford and many thousands were supposed
to be in attendance at the University of Cambridge. It is usually
considered, however, that these figures are gross exaggerations. It is
easy to assert this but rather difficult to prove. As a matter of fact
the nearer one comes to the actual times in the history of
education, the more definitely do writers speak of these large numbers
of students in attendance. For instance Gascoigne, who says that there
were thirty thousand students at the University of Oxford at the end
of the Thirteenth Century, lived himself within a hundred years of the
events of which he talks, and he even goes so far as to declare that
he saw the rolls of the University containing this many names. There
is no doubt at all about his evidence in the matter and there is no
mistake possible with regard to his figures. They were written out in
Latin, not expressed in Arabic or Roman numerals, the copying of which
might so easily give opportunities for error to creep in.</p>
<p>In spite of such evidence it is generally conceded that to accept
these large numbers would be almost surely a mistake. There were
without any doubt many thousands of students at the Thirteenth Century
universities. There were certainly more students at the University of
Paris in the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century than there were at
any time during the Nineteenth Century. This of itself is enough to
startle modern complacency out of most of its ridiculous
self-sufficiency. There can be scarcely a doubt that the University of
Bologna at the time of its largest attendance had more students than
any university of modern times, proud as we may be (and deservedly) of
our immense institutions of learning. With regard to the English
universities the presence of very large numbers is much more doubtful.
Making every allowance, however, there can be no hesitation in saying
that Oxford had during the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century a
larger number than ever afterwards within her walls and that
Cambridge, though never so numerous as her rival, had a like good
fortune. Professor Laurie of Edinburgh, a very conservative authority
and one not likely to concede too much to the Middle Ages in anything,
would allow, as we shall see, some ten thousand students to Oxford.
Others have claimed more than half that number for Cambridge as the
lowest possible estimate. Even if it be conceded, as has sometimes
been urged, that all those in service in the universities were also
counted as students, these numbers would not be reduced very
materially and it must not be forgotten that, in those days of
enthusiastic striving after education, young men were perfectly
willing to take up even the onerous duties of personal services to
others, in order to have the opportunity to be closely in touch with a
great educational institution and to receive even a moderate amount of
benefit from its educational system. In our own time there are many
students who are working their way through the universities, and in
the Thirteenth Century when the spirit of independence was much less
developed, and when any stigma that attached to personal service was
much less felt than it is at the present time, there were many more
examples of this earnest striving for intellectual development.</p>
<p>If we discuss the situation in English-speaking countries as regards
the comparative attendance at the universities in the Thirteenth
Century and in our own time, we shall be able to get a reasonably good
idea of what must be thought in this matter. The authorities are
neither difficult of consultation nor distant, and comparatively much
more is known about the population of England at this time than about
most of the continental countries. England was under a single ruler,
while the geographical divisions that we now know by the name of
France, Spain, Italy and Germany were the seats of several rulers at
least and sometimes of many, a circumstance which does not favor our
obtaining an adequate idea of the populations.</p>
<p>That but two universities provided all the opportunities for whatever
higher education there was in England at this time, would of itself
seem to stamp the era as backward in educational matters. A little
consideration of the comparative number of students with reference to
the population of the country who were thus given the opportunity for
higher education—and took advantage of it—at that time and the
present, will show the unreasonableness of such an opinion. It is not
so easy as might be imagined to determine just what was the population
even of England in the Thirteenth Century. During Elizabeth's reign
there were, according to the census, an estimate made about the time
of the great Armada, altogether some four millions of people. Froude,
accepts this estimate as representing very well the actual number of
the population. Certainly there were not more than five millions
at the end of the Sixteenth Century. Lingard, who for this purpose
must be considered as a thoroughly conservative authority, estimates
that there were not much more than two millions of people in England
at the end of the Twelfth Century. This is probably not an
underestimate. At the end of the Thirteenth Century there were not
many more than two millions and a half of people in the country. At
the very outside there were, let us say, three millions. Out of this
meagre population, ten thousand students were, on the most
conservative estimate, taking advantage of the opportunities for the
higher education that were provided for them at the universities.</p>
<p>At the present moment, though we pride ourselves on the numbers in
attendance at our universities, and though the world's population is
so much more numerous and the means of transportation so much more
easy, we have very few universities as large as these of the
Thirteenth Century. No American university at the present moment has
as large a number of students as had Oxford at the end of the
Thirteenth Century, and of course none of them compares at all with
Paris or Bologna in this respect. Even the European universities, as
we have suggested, fall behind their former glory from this
standpoint. In the attendance to the number of population the
comparison is even more startling for those who have not thought at
all of the Middle Ages as a time of wonderful educational facilities
and opportunities. In the greater City of New York as we begin the
Twentieth Century there are perhaps fifteen thousand students in
attendance at educational institutions which have university
privileges. I may say that this is a very liberal allowance. At
universities in the ordinary sense of the word there are not more than
ten thousand students and the remainder is added in order surely to
include all those who may be considered as doing undergraduate work in
colleges and schools of various kinds. Of these fifteen thousand at
least one-fourth come from outside of the greater city, and there are
some who think that even one-third would not be too large a number to
calculate as not being drawn directly from our own population.
Connecticut and New Jersey furnish large numbers of students and then,
besides, the post-graduate schools of the universities have very
large numbers in attendance even from distant states and foreign
countries.</p>
<p>It will be within the bounds of truth, then, to say, that there are
between ten and twelve thousand students, out of our population of
more than four millions in Greater New York taking advantage of the
opportunities for the higher education provided by our universities
and colleges. At the end of the Thirteenth Century in England there
were at least ten thousand students out of a population of not more
and very probably less than three millions, who were glad to avail
themselves of similar opportunities. This seems to be perfectly fair
comparison and we have tried to be as conservative as possible in
every way in order to bring out the truth in the matter.</p>
<p>It can scarcely fail to be a matter of supreme surprise to find that a
century so distant as the Thirteenth, should thus equal our own
vaunted Twentieth Century in the matter of opportunities for the
higher education afforded and taken advantage of. It has always been
presumed that the Middle Ages, while a little better than the Dark
Ages, were typical periods in which there was little, if any desire
for higher education and even fewer opportunities. It was thought that
there was constant repression of the desire for knowledge which
springs so eternally in the human heart and that the Church, or at
least the ecclesiastical authorities of the time, set themselves
firmly against widespread education, because it would set people to
thinking for themselves. As a matter of fact, however, every Cathedral
and every monastery became a center of educational influence, and even
the poorest, who showed special signs of talent, obtained the
opportunity to secure knowledge to the degree that they wished. It is
beyond doubt or cavil, that at no time in the world's history have so
many opportunities for the higher education been open to all classes
as during the Thirteenth Century.</p>
<p>In order to show how thoroughly conservative are the numbers in
attendance at the universities that I have taken, I shall quote two
good recent authorities, one of them Professor Laurie, the Professor
of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
Edinburgh, and the other Thomas Davidson, a well-known American
authority on educational subjects. Each of their works from which
I shall quote has been published or revised within the last few years.
Professor Laurie in "The Rise and Early Constitution of the University
with a Survey of the Medieval Education," which formed one of the
International Educational Series, edited by Commissioner Harris and
published by Appleton, said:</p>
<p class="cite">
"When one hears of the large number of students who attended the
earliest universities—ten thousand and even twenty thousand at
Bologna, an equal, and at one time a greater, number at Paris, and
thirty thousand at Oxford—one cannot help thinking that the numbers
have been exaggerated. There is certainly evidence that the Oxford
attendance was never so great as has been alleged (see Anstey's 'Mon
Acad.'); but when we consider that attendants, servitors, college
cooks, etc., were regarded as members of the university community,
and that the universities provided for a time the sole recognized
training grounds for those wishing to enter the ecclesiastical or
legal or teaching professions, I see no reason to doubt the
substantial accuracy of the tradition as to attendance—especially
when we remember that at Paris and Oxford a large number were mere
boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age."</p>
<p>As to the inclusion of servitors, we have already said that many,
probably, indeed, most of them, were actual students working their way
through the university in these enthusiastic days. Professor Laurie's
authority for the assertion that a large number of the students at
Paris and Oxford were mere boys, is a regulation known to have existed
at one of these universities requiring that students should not be
less than twelve years of age. Anyone who has studied medieval
university life, however, will have been impressed with the idea, that
the students were on the average older at the medieval universities
rather than younger than they are at the present time. The rough
hazing methods employed, almost equal to those of our own day! would
seem to indicate this. Besides, as Professor Laurie confesses in the
next paragraph, many of the students were actually much older than at
present. Our university courses are arranged for young men between 17
and 22, but that is, to fall back on Herbert Spencer, presumably
because the period of infancy is lengthening with the evolution
of the race. There are many who consider that at the present time
students are too long delayed in the opportunity to get at the
professional studies, and that it is partly the consequence of this
that the practical branches are so much more taken up under the
elective system. As we said in the chapter on Universities and
Preparatory Schools, in Italy and in other southern countries, it is
not a surprising thing to have a young man graduate at the age of 16
or 17 with his degree of A. B., after a thoroughly creditable
scholastic career. This means that he began his university work proper
under 13 years of age; so that we must judge the medieval universities
to some extent at least with this thought in mind.</p>
<p>Mr. Thomas Davidson in his "History of Education," [Footnote 7] in
the chapter on The Medieval University has a paragraph in which he
discusses the attendance, especially during the Thirteenth Century,
and admits that the numbers, while perhaps not so large as have been
reported, were very large in comparison to modern institutions of the
same kind, and frankly concedes that education rose during these
centuries which are often supposed to have been so unfavorable to
educational development, to an amazing height scarcely ever surpassed.
He says:</p>
<p class="footnote">
[Footnote 7: A History of Education, by Thomas Davidson, author of
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideas. New York: Scribners, 1900.]</p>
<p class="cite">
"The number of students reported as having attended some of the
universities in those early days almost passes belief; <i>e. g.</i>
Oxford is said to have had thirty thousand about the year 1300, and
half that number even as early as 1224. The numbers attending the
University of Paris were still greater. These numbers become less
surprising when we remember with what poor accommodations—a bare
room and an armful of straw—the students of those days were
content, and what numbers of them even a single teacher like Abelard
could, long before draw into lonely retreats. That in the Twelfth
and following centuries there was no lack of enthusiasm for study,
notwithstanding the troubled condition of the times, is very clear.
The instruction given at the universities, moreover, reacted upon
the lower schools, raising their standard and supplying them with
competent teachers. Thus, in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
centuries, education rose in many European states to a height which
it had not attained since the days of Seneca and Quintilian."</p>
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CHRIST DRIVING OUT MONEY CHANGERS (GIOTTO)</p>
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HEAD FROM ANNUNCIATION (GIOTTO)</p>
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BRIDE MARRIAGE AT CANA (GIOTTO)</p>
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SAINT'S HEAD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S VENICE)</p>
<p>A very serious objection that would seem to have so much weight as to
preclude all possibility of accepting as true the large numbers
mentioned, is the fact that it is very hard to understand how such an
immense number of students could have been supported in any town of
the Middle Ages. This objection has carried so much weight to some
minds as to make them give up the thought of large numbers at the
medieval universities. Professor Laurie has answered it very
effectively, however, and in his plausible explanation gives a number
of points which emphasize the intense ardor of these students of the
Middle Ages in their search for knowledge, and shows how ready they
were to bear serious trials and inconveniences, not to say absolute
sufferings and hardships, in order that they might have opportunities
for the higher education. The objection then redounds rather to the
glory of the medieval universities than lessens their prestige, either
as regards numbers or the enthusiasm of their students.</p>
<p class="cite">
"The chief objection to accepting the tradition (of large numbers at
the universities) lies in the difficulty of seeing how in those
days, so large a number of the young men of Europe could afford the
expense of residence away from their homes. This difficulty,
however, is partly removed when we know that many of the students
were well to do, that a considerable number were matured men,
already monks and canons, and that the endowments of Cathedral
schools also were frequently used to enable promising scholars to
attend foreign universities. Monasteries also regularly sent boys of
thirteen and fourteen to university seats. A papal instruction of
1335 required every Benedictine and Augustinian community to send
boys to the universities in the proportion of one in twenty of their
residents. Then, state authorities ordered free passages for all who
were wending their way through the country to and from the seat of
learning. In the houses of country priests—not to speak of the
monastery hospitals—traveling scholars were always accommodated
gratuitously, and even local subscriptions were frequently made to
help them on their way. Poor traveling scholars were, in fact,
a medieval institution, and it was considered no disgrace for a
student to beg and receive alms for his support."</p>
<p>After reading these authoritative opinions, it would be rather
difficult to understand the false impressions which have obtained so
commonly for the last three centuries with regard to education in the
Middle Ages, if we did not realize that history, especially for
English-speaking people, has for several centuries been written from a
very narrow standpoint and with a very definite purpose. About a
century ago the Comte de Maistre said in his Soirées de St.
Petersburg, that history for the three hundred years before his time
"had been a conspiracy against the truth." Curiously enough the
editors of the Cambridge Modern History in their first volume on the
Renaissance, re-echoed this sentiment of the French historical writer
and philosopher. They even use the very words "history has been a
conspiracy against the truth" and proclaim that if we are to get at
truth in this generation, we must go behind all the classical
historians, and look up contemporary documents and evidence and
authorities once more for ourselves. It is the maintenance of a
tradition that nothing good could possibly have come out of the
Nazareth of the times before the Reformation, that has led to this
serious misapprehension of the true position of those extremely
important centuries in modern education—the Thirteenth and the
Fourteenth.</p>
<p>To those who know even a little of what was accomplished in these
centuries, it is supremely amusing to read the childish treatment
accorded them and the trivial remarks that even accredited historians
of education make with regard to them. Occasionally, however, the
feeling of the reader who knows something of the subject is not one of
amusement, but far from it. There are times when one cannot help but
feel that it is not ignorance, but a deliberate purpose to minimize
the importance of these times in culture and education, that is at the
basis of some of the utterly mistaken remarks that are made. We shall
take occasion only to give one example of this, but that will afford
ample evidence of the intolerant spirit that characterizes the work of
some even of the supposedly most enlightened historians of education.
The quotation will be from Compayré's "History of Pedagogy" which
is, I understand, in use in nearly every Normal School in this country
and is among the books required in many Normal School examinations.</p>
<p>M. Compayré in an infamous paragraph which bears the title "The
Intellectual Feebleness of the Middle Age," furnishes an excellent
example of how utterly misunderstood, if not deliberately
misrepresented, has been the whole spirit and content and the real
progressiveness of education in this wonderful period. After some
belittling expressions as to the influence of Christianity on
education—expressions utterly unjustified by the facts—he has this
to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century, which is all the more
surprising because it is the only place where he calls any attention
to it. He says:</p>
<p class="cite">
"In 1291, of all the monks in the convent of St. Gall, there was not
one who could read and write. It was so difficult to find notaries
public, that acts had to be passed verbally. The barons took pride
in their ignorance. Even after the efforts of the Twelfth Century,
instruction remained a luxury for the common people; it was the
privilege of the ecclesiastics and even they did not carry it very
far. The Benedictines confess that the mathematics were studied only
for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter."</p>
<p>This whole paragraph of M. Compayré (the rest must be read to be
appreciated), whose history of education was considered to be of such
value that it was deemed worthy of translation by the President of a
State Normal School and that it has been adopted as a work of
reference, in some cases of required study, in many of the Normal
Schools throughout the country, is a most wonderful concoction of
ingredients, all of which are meant to dissolve every possible idea
that people might have of the existence of any tincture of education
during the Middle Ages. There is only one fact which deeply concerns
us because it refers to the Thirteenth Century. M. Compayré says that
in 1291 of all the monks of the Convent of Saint Gall there was not
one who could read and write. This single fact is meant to sum up the
education of the century for the reader. Especially it is meant to
show the student of pedagogy how deeply sunk in ignorance were the
monks and all the ecclesiastics of this period.</p>
<p>Before attempting to say anything further it may be as well to call
attention to the fact that in the original French edition the writer
did not say that there was not a single monk. He said, "There was but
one monk, who could read and write." Possibly it seemed to the
translator to make the story more complete to leave out this one poor
monk and perhaps one monk more or less, especially a medieval monk,
may not count for very much to modern students of education. There are
those of us, however, who consider it too bad to obliterate even a
single monk in this crude way and we ask that he shall be put back.
There <i>was one</i> who could read and write and carry on the affairs of
the monastery. Let us have him at least, by all means.</p>
<p>In the year 1291 when M. Compayré says that there was but a single
monk at the monastery of St. Gall who could read and write, he, a
professor himself at a French Normal School, must have known very well
that there were over twenty thousand students at the University of
Paris, almost as many at the University of Bologna, and over five
thousand, some authorities say many more than this (Professor Laurie
would admit more than ten thousand), at the University of Oxford,
though all Christian Europe at this time did not have a population of
more than 15,000,000 people. He must have known, too, or be hopelessly
ignorant in educational matters, that many of the students at these
universities belonged to the Franciscans and Dominicans, and that
indeed many of the greatest teachers at the universities were members
of these monastic orders. Of this he says nothing, however. All that
he says is "Education was the privilege of the ecclesiastics and they
did not carry it very far." This is one way of writing a history of
education. It is a very effective way of poisoning the wells of
information and securing the persistence of the tradition that there
was no education until after the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.</p>
<p>Meantime one can scarcely help but admire the ingenuity of deliberate
purpose that uses the condition of the monastery of St. Gall to
confirm his statement. St. Gall had been founded by Irish monks
probably about the beginning of the Eighth Century. It had been for at
least three centuries a center of education, civilization and culture,
as well as of religion, for the barbarians who had settled in the
Swiss country after the trans-migration of nations. The Irish had
originally obtained their culture from Christian Missionaries, and now
as Christian Missionaries they brought it back to Europe and
accomplished their work with wonderful effectiveness. St. Gall was for
centuries a lasting monument to their efforts. After the Tenth
Century, however, the monastery began to degenerate. It was almost
directly in the path of armies which so frequently went down to Italy
because of the German interest in the Italian peninsula and the claims
of the German emperor. After a time according to tradition, the
emperor insisted that certain of the veterans of his army should be
received and cared for in their old age at St. Gall. Gradually this
feature of the institution became more and more prominent until in the
Thirteenth Century it had become little more than a home for old
soldiers. In order to live on the benefices of the monastery these men
had to submit to ecclesiastical regulations and wear the habit. They
were, it is true, a sort of monk, that is, they were willing, for the
sake of the peace and ease which it brought, to accept the living thus
provided for them and obey to some degree at least the rules of the
monastery. It is not surprising that among these there should have
been only one who could read and write. The soldiers of the time
despised the men of letters and prided themselves on not being able to
write. That a historian of pedagogy, however, should take this one
fact in order to give students an idea of the depth of ignorance of
the Middle Ages, is an exhibition of some qualities in our modern
educated men, that one does not like to think of as compatible with
the capacity to read and write. It would indeed be better not to be
able to read and write than thus to read and write one's own
prejudices into history, and above all the history of education.</p>
<p>Compayré's discussion of the "Causes of the Ignorance" of the Middle
Ages in the next paragraph, is one of the most curious bits of special
pleading by a man who holds a brief for one side of the question, that
I think has ever been seen in what was to be considered serious
history. He first makes it clear how much opposed the Christian Church
was to education, then he admits that she did some things which cannot
be denied, but minimizes their significance. Then he concludes that it
was not the fault of the Church, but in this there is a precious
bit of damning by faint praise. It would be impossible for any
ordinary person who had only Compayré for authority to feel anything
after reading the paragraph, but that Christianity was a serious
detriment and surely not a help to the cause of progress in education.
I quote part of the paragraph:</p>
<p>"What were the permanent causes of that situation which lasted for ten
centuries? The Catholic Church has sometimes been held responsible for
this. Doubtless the Christian doctors did not always profess a very
warm sympathy for intellectual culture. Saint Augustine has said: It
is the ignorant who gain possession of heaven (indocti coelum
rapiunt.) Saint Gregory the Great, a Pope of the Sixth Century,
declared that he would blush to have the holy word conform to the
rules of grammar. Too many Christians, in a word, confounded ignorance
with holiness. Doubtless, towards the Seventh Century, the darkness
still hung thick over the Christian Church. Barbarians invaded the
Episcopate, and carried with them their rude manners. Doubtless, also,
during the feudal period the priest often became a soldier, and
remained ignorant. It would, however, be unjust to bring a
constructive charge against the Church of the Middle Age, and to
represent it as systematically hostile to instruction. Directly to the
contrary, it is the clergy who, in the midst of the general barbarism,
preserved some vestiges of the ancient culture. The only schools of
that period are the Episcopal and claustral schools, the first annexed
to the Bishops' palaces, the second to the monasteries. The religious
orders voluntarily associated manual labor with mental labor. As far
back as 530, St. Benedict founded the Convent of Monte Cassino, and
drew up statutes which made reading and intellectual labor a part of
the daily life of the monks." When this damning by faint praise is
taken in connection with the paragraph in which only a single monk at
the Monastery of St. Gall is declared to have been able to read and
write, the utterly false impression that is sure to result, can be
readily understood even by those who are not sympathetic students of
the Middle Ages. This is how our histories of education have been
written as a rule, and as a consequence the most precious period in
modern education, its great origin, has been ignored even by
professional scholars, to the great detriment not only of historical
knowledge but also of any proper appreciation of the evolution of
education.</p>
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Portraits<br/>
Bennozo Gozzoli</p>
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PETRARCA OMNIUM VIRTUTUM<br/>
MONARCA</p>
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GIOTTO, PICTOR EXIMIUS</p>
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DANTE THEOLOGUS NULLIUS<br/>
DOGMATIS EXPERS</p>
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<p>It will be said by those who do not appreciate the conditions that
existed in the Middle Ages, that these numbers at the universities
seeking the higher education, mean very little for the culture of the
people, since practically all of those in attendance at the
universities belonged to the clerical order. There is no doubt that
most students were clerics in the Thirteenth Century. This did not
mean, however, that they had taken major orders or had in any way
bound themselves irrevocably to continue in the clerical vocation. The
most surprising thing about the spread of culture and the desire for
the higher education during the Thirteenth Century, is that they
developed in spite of the fact that the rulers of the time were all
during the century, embroiled in war either with their neighbors or
with the nobility. Anyone who wanted to live a quiet, intellectual
life turned naturally to the clerical state, which enabled him to
escape military duties and gave him opportunities for study, as well
as protection from many exactions that might otherwise be levied upon
him. The church not only encouraged education, but supplied the
peaceful asylums in which it might be cultivated to the heart's
content of the student.</p>
<p>While this clerical state was a necessity during the whole time of
residence at the university, it was not necessarily maintained
afterward. Many of the clerics did not even have minor orders—orders
which it is well understood carry with them no absolute obligation of
continuing in the clerical state. Sextons and their assistants were
clerics. When the word canon originally came into use it meant nothing
more than that the man was entered on the rolls of a church and
received some form of wages therefrom. Students at the universities
were by ecclesiastical courtesy then, clerics (from which comes the
word clerk, one who can read and write) though not in orders, and it
was because of this that the university was able to maintain the
rights of students. It was well understood that after graduation men
might take up the secular life and indeed most of them did. In
succeeding chapters we shall see examples of this and discuss the
question further. Professors at the universities had to maintain
their clerical condition so that even professors of law and of
medicine were not allowed to marry. This law continued long beyond the
Thirteenth Century, however. Professors of medicine were the first to
be freed from the obligation of celibacy, but not until the middle of
the Fifteenth Century at Paris, while other professors were bound thus
for a full century later. Certain minor teaching positions at Oxford
are still under this law, which evidently has seemed to have some
advantage or it would not have been maintained.</p>
<p>It might perhaps be thought that only the wealthier class, the sons of
the nobility and of the wealthy merchants of the cities had
opportunities at the universities. As a matter of fact, however, the
vast majority of the students was drawn from the great middle class.
The nobility were nearly always too occupied with their pleasures and
their martial duties to have time for the higher education. The
tradition that a nobleman should be an educated gentleman had not yet
come in. Indeed many of the nobility during the Thirteenth Century
rather prided themselves on the fact that they not only had no higher
education, but that they did not know even how to read and write. When
we reflect, then, on the large numbers who went to the universities,
it adds to our surprise to realize that they were drawn from the
burgher class. It is evident that many of the sons even of the poor
were afforded opportunities in different ways at the universities of
the time.</p>
<p>Tradition shows that from the earliest time there were foundations on
which poor students could live, and various arrangements were made by
which, aside from these, they might make their living while continuing
their studies. Working one's way through the university was more
common in the Thirteenth Century than it is at the present day, though
we are proud of the large numbers who now succeed in the double task
of supporting and educating themselves, with excellent success in both
enterprises. There are many stories of poor students who found
themselves about to be obliged to give up their studies, encountering
patrons of various kinds who enabled them to go on with their
education.</p>
<p>There is a very pretty set of legends with regard to St. Edmund of
Canterbury in this matter. He bears this name because he was
afterward the sainted primate of England. For many years he taught at
the University of Oxford. The story is told of a clerical friend
sending him up a student to Oxford and asking that his bills be sent
to him. St. Edmund's answer was that he would not be robbed of an
opportunity of doing good like this, and he took upon himself the
burden of caring for the student. At the time there were many others
dependent on his bounty and his reputation was such that he was
enabled to help a great many through the benefactions of friends, who
found no higher pleasure in life than being able to come generously to
Edmund's assistance in his charities.</p>
<p>Those who know the difficulty of managing very large bodies of
students will wonder inevitably, how the medieval universities, with
their less formal and less complete organizations, succeeded in
maintaining discipline for all these thousands of students. Most
people will remember at once all the stories of roughness, of horse
play, of drinking and gaming or worse that they have heard of the
medieval students and will be apt to conclude that they are not to be
wondered at after all, since it must have been practically impossible
for the faculties of universities to keep order among such vast
numbers. As a matter of fact, however, the story of the origin and
maintenance of discipline in these universities is one of the most
interesting features of university life. The process of discipline
became in itself a very precious part of education, as it should be of
course in any well regulated institution of learning. The very fact,
moreover, that in spite of these large numbers and other factors that
we shall call attention to in a moment, comparatively so few
disgraceful stories of university life have come down to us, and the
other and still more important fact that the universities could be
kept so constantly at the attainment of their great purpose for such
numbers, is itself a magnificent tribute to those who succeeded in
doing it, and to the system which was gradually evolved, not by the
faculty alone but by teachers and students for university government.</p>
<p>With regard to the discipline of the medieval universities not much is
known and considerable of what has been written on this obscure
subject wears an unfavorable tinge, because it is unfortunately true
that "the good men do is oft interred with their bones" while the
evil has an immortality all its own. The student escapades of the
universities, the quarrels between town and gown, the stories of the
evils apparently inevitable, where many young men are congregated—the
hazing, the rough horse play, the carousing, the immoralities—have
all come down to us, while it is easy to miss the supreme significance
of the enthusiasm for learning that in these difficult times gathered
so many students together from distant parts of the world, when
traveling was so difficult and dangerous, and kept them at the
universities for long years in spite of the hardships and
inconveniences of the life. With regard to our modern universities the
same thing is true, and the outside world knows much more of the
escapades of the few, the little scandals of college life, that
scarcely make a ripple but are so easily exaggerated, and so
frequently repeated and lose nothing by repetition, the waste of time
in athletics, in gambling, in social things, than of the earnest work
and the successful intellectual progress and interests of the many.
This should be quite enough to make the modern university man very
slow to accept the supposed pictures of medieval student life, which
are founded mainly on the worse side of it. Goodness is proverbially
uninteresting, a happy people has no history and the ordinary life of
the university student needs a patient sympathetic chronicler; and
such the medieval universities have not found as yet. But they do not
need many allowances, if it will only be remembered under what
discouragements they labored and how much they accomplished.</p>
<p>The reputation of the medieval universities has suffered from this
very human tendency to be interested in what is evil and to neglect
the good. Even as it is, however, a good deal with regard to the
discipline of the universities in the early times is known and does
not lose in interest from the fact, that the main factor in it was a
committee of the students themselves working in conjunction with the
faculty, and thus anticipating what is most modern in the development
of the disciplinary regime of our up-to-date universities. At first
apparently, in the schools from which the universities originated
there was no thought of the necessity for discipline. The desire for
education was considered to be sufficient to keep men occupied in
such a way that further discipline would not be necessary. It can
readily be understood that the crowds that flocked to hear Abelard in
Paris, and who were sufficiently interested to follow him out to the
Desert of the Paraclete when he was no longer allowed to continue his
lectures in connection with the school at Paris, would have quite
enough of ruling from the internal forum of their supreme interest,
not to need any discipline in the external forum.</p>
<p>In the course of time, however, with the coming of even greater
numbers to the University of Paris, and especially when the attendance
ran up into many thousands, some form of school discipline became an
absolute necessity. This developed of itself and in a very practical
way. The masters seem to have had very little to do with it at the
beginning since they occupied themselves entirely with their teaching
and preparation for lectures. What was to become later one of the
principal instruments of discipline was at first scarcely more than a
social organization among the students. Those who came from different
countries were naturally attracted to one another, and were more ready
to help each other. When students first came they were welcomed by
their compatriots who took care to keep them from being imposed upon,
enabled them to secure suitable quarters and introduced them to
university customs generally, so that they might be able to take
advantage, as soon as possible, of the educational opportunities.</p>
<p>The friendships thus fostered gradually grew into formal
organizations, the so-called "nations." These began to take form just
before the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. They made it their
duty to find lodgings for their student compatriots, and evidently
also to supply food on some cooperative plan for at least the poorer
students. Whenever students of a particular nationality were injured
in any way, their "nation" as a formal organization took up their
cause and maintained their rights, even to the extent of an appeal to
formal process of law before the magistrates, if necessary. The
nations were organized before the faculties in the universities were
formally recognized as independent divisions of the institution, and
they acted as intermediaries between the university head and the
students, making themselves responsible for discipline to no slight
degree. At the beginning of the Thirteenth Century in Paris all
the students belonged to one or other of four nations, the Picard, the
Norman, the French, which embraced Italians, Spaniards, Greeks and
Orientals, and the English which embraced the English, Irish, Germans,
Poles (heterogeneous collection we would consider it in these modern
days) and in addition all other students from the North of Europe.</p>
<p>Professor Laurie, of the University of Edinburgh, in his Rise and
Early Constitution of Universities in the International Educational
Series [Footnote 8] says:</p>
<p class="footnote">
[Footnote 8: The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, with a
survey of Medieval Education, by S. S. Laurie, LL.D., Professor of
the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
Edinburgh. New York, D. Appleton & Company, 1901.]</p>
<p class="cite">
"The subdivisions of the nations were determined by the localities
from which the students and masters came. Each subdivision elected its
own dean and kept its own matriculation-book and money-chest. The
whole "nation" was represented, it is true, by the elected
procurators; but the deans of the subdivisions were regarded as
important officials, and were frequently, if not always, assessors of
the procurators. The procurators, four in number, were elected, not by
the students as in Bologna and Padua, but by the students and masters.
Each nation with its procurator and deans was an independent body,
passing its own statutes and rules, and exercising supervision over
the lodging-houses of the students. They had each a seal as
distinguished from the university seal, and each procurator stood to
his "nation" in the same relation as the Rector did to the whole
university. The Rector, again, was elected by the procurators, who sat
as his assessors, and together they constituted the governing body;
but this for purposes of discipline, protection and defense of
privileges chiefly, the <i>consortium magistrorum</i> regulating the
schools. But so independent were the nations that the question whether
each had power to make statutes that overrode those of the
<i>universitas</i>, was still a question so late as the beginning of the
Seventeenth Century."</p>
<p>It is typical of the times that the governing system should thus have
grown up of itself and from amongst the students, rather than that it
should have been organized by the teachers and imposed upon the
university. The nations represented the rise of that democratic
spirit, which was to make itself felt in the claims for the
recognition of rights for all the people in most of the countries
during the Thirteenth Century, and undoubtedly the character of the
government of the student body at the universities fostered this
spirit and is therefore to a noteworthy degree, responsible for the
advances in the direction of liberty which are chronicled during this
great century. This was a form of unconscious education but none the
less significant for that, and eminently practical in its results. At
this time in Europe there was no place where the members of the
community who flocked in largest numbers to the universities, the sons
of the middle classes, could have any opportunities to share in
government or learn the precious lessons of such participation, except
at the universities. There gradually came an effort on the part of the
faculties to lessen many of the rights of the nations of the
universities, but the very struggle to maintain these on the part of
the student body, was of itself a precious training against the
usurpation of privileges that was to be of great service later in the
larger arena of national politics, and the effects of which can be
noted in every country in Europe, nowhere more than in England, where
the development of law and liberty was to give rise to a supreme
heritage of democratic jurisprudence for the English speaking peoples
of all succeeding generations.</p>
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