Part 21

The process of taking the Licentiate and the Doctorate in Laws at Bologna, in vogue at the end of the thirteenth century and later, is described at great length in the Statutes of 1432. The examination consisted of two parts; the first private, the second public. The first led to a License, which was, however, a license merely to proceed to the public examination. The Statute concerning the private examination is summarized by Rashdall:

The private Examination was the real test of competence, the so-called public Examination being in practice a mere ceremony. Before admission to each of these tests the candidate was presented by the Consiliarius of his Nation to the Rector for permission to enter it, and swore that he had complied with all the statutable conditions, that he would give no more than the statutable fees or entertainments to the Rector himself, the Doctor or his fellow-students, and that he would obey the Rector. Within a period of eight days before the Examination the candidate was presented by "his own" Doctor or by some other Doctor or by two Doctors to the Archdeacon, the presenting Doctor being required to have satisfied himself by private examination of his presentee's fitness. Early on the morning of the examination, after attending a Mass of the Holy Ghost, the candidate appeared before the assembled College and was assigned by one of the Doctors present two passages (puncta) in the Civil or Canon Law as the case might be. He then retired to his house to study the passages, in doing which it would appear that he had the assistance of the presenting Doctor. Later in the day the Doctors were summoned to the Cathedral or some other public building by the Archdeacon, who presided over but took no active part in the ensuing examination. The candidate was then introduced to the Archdeacon and Doctors by the presenting Doctor or Promoter as he was styled. The Prior of the College then administered a number of oaths in which the candidate promised respect to that body and solemnly renounced all the rights of which the College had succeeded in robbing all Doctors not included in its ranks. The candidate then gave a lecture or exposition of the two prepared passages; after which he was examined upon them by two of the Doctors appointed by the College. Other Doctors might ask supplementary questions of Law (which they were required to swear that they had not previously communicated to the candidate) arising more indirectly out of the passages selected, or might suggest objections to the answers. With a tender regard for the feelings of their comrades at this "rigorous and tremendous Examination" (as they style it) the students by their Statutes required the Examiner to treat the examinee "as his own son." The Examination concluded, the votes of the Doctors present were taken by ballot and the candidate's fate determined by the majority, the decision being announced by the Archdeacon.

The successful candidate ordinarily proceeded within a short time to the public examination, which was held in the cathedral. At this examination he received both the formal license to teach and the Doctor's degree. Before the appointed day he went about inviting friends and public officials to the ceremony. Ostentation at this time was forbidden:

Those who are candidates for the Doctor's degree, when they give their invitations to the public examination, should go without trumpets or any instruments whatever; and the Beadle of the Arch-deacon of Bologna, with the Beadles of the Doctors under whom they are to have the public examination, should precede him on horseback. At that late day they [the candidates] shall not provide any feast, except among scholars from the same house or among those related to the candidate in the first, second, third, or even the fourth degree. Furthermore no one of the Rectors shall presume to ride with him on that day.

On the actual day of the examination, however, "the love of pageantry characteristic of the mediaeval and especially of the Italian mind was allowed the amplest gratification"; the candidate went to the cathedral, doubtless preceded by trumpeters, and escorted by a procession of his fellow-students. The statutes of the German Nation at Bologna describe as one object of that organization "the clustering about, attendance upon, and crowding around our Doctors-to-be, in season and out of season." Moreover, "the Scholars of our Nation shall individually accompany the one who is to be made Doctor, to the place where the insignia [of the degree] are usually bestowed, if he so wishes, or has so requested of the Proctor [of the Nation]. Also, they shall escort him with a large accompanying crowd from the aforesaid place to his own house, under penalty of one Bologna shilling."

The University statutes are to the same effect, but they prohibit horse-play, and the extravagance of tournaments. "Ultramontane" scholars are those from north, "Cismontane," those from south, of the Alps.

Moreover, the ultramontane scholars shall accompany the ultramontane candidate, and the cismontane, the cismontane, from their dwelling places to Saint Peter's when they go there to take the public examination, and at that time hay and straw shall not be placed [on the floor of] the church. Furthermore all the ultra-and cis-montanes shall be present at the public examination, and all shall afterwards accompany the new Doctor from the church to his house under penalty of ten Bologna shillings, which it shall be the duty of the Rector to exact within eight days. And no scholar at the public examination of any citizen or foreign scholar shall be dressed for a dance or a brawl or a tournament, nor shall he joust as a knight. If any one disobey, he shall incur the penalty of perjury and ten Bologna pounds, and if he does not pay this within ten days on the demand of any Rector he shall be deprived of the advantage and honor of our University. And we impose the penalty of perjury also upon the Rector of the student who is to take the public examination, and this penalty he shall incur from the very fact that he should by all means exact from the candidate an oath that on the day on which he rides about to give invitations for the public examination which he is to take, he will not bring about any jousting or brawling as some have done heretofore. And if the candidate, when required, is unwilling to take the oath, or if he takes the oath and breaks it, he [the Rector] shall utterly forbid the public examination and direct the Doctors not to hold their meeting and also stop the Beadle, so that he shall not dare to announce his programme through the schools, under an arbitrary penalty to be imposed.

The ceremony at the cathedral included, first, the formal test of the candidate. After making a speech he held a disputation, in which he defended a thesis taken from the Laws against opponents chosen from the body of students, "thus playing for the first time the part of a Doctor in a University disputation." He was then presented by the Promoter to the Archdeacon, who conferred the final License to teach Civil or Canon Law or both, according to the student's training. This was done by a formula probably similar to the following, which is taken from a book published in 1710:

Inasmuch as you have been presented to me for examination in both [Civil and Canon] Laws and for the customary approval, by the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent D.D. (naming the Promoters), golden Knights, Counts Palatine, Most Celebrated Doctors, and inasmuch as you have since undergone an arduous and rigorous examination, in which you bore yourself with so much learning and distinction that that body of Most Illustrious and Excellent Promoters without one dissenting voice,--I repeat, without one dissenting voice,--have judged you worthy of the laurel, therefore by the authority which I have as Archdeacon and senior Chancellor, I create, publish, and name you, N.N., Doctor in the aforesaid Faculties, giving to you every privilege of lecturing, of ascending the Master's chair, of writing glosses, of interpreting, of acting as Advocate, and of exercising also the functions of a Doctor here and everywhere throughout the world; furthermore, of enjoying all those privileges which those happy individuals, who have been so deserving in these fostering colleges, are accustomed to use and enjoy.

And I trust that all these things will forever result in the increase of your fame and the honor of our Colleges, to the praise and glory of Almighty God and of the ever blessed Virgin Mary.

"In pursuance of the license thus conferred, he was then invested by the Promoter with the insignia of the teaching office, [the chair, the book, the ring, the cap,] each, no doubt, with some appropriate formula. He was seated in the Magisterial chair or cathedra. He was handed the open book--one of the Law texts which it was his function to expound. A gold ring was placed upon his finger, either in token of his espousal to Science or in indication of the Doctor's claim to be the equal of Knights; and the Magisterial biretta placed upon his head: after which the Promotor left him with a paternal embrace, a kiss, and a benediction." Then followed the triumphal procession homeward through the town, "preceded by the three University pipers and the four University trumpeters."

(d) A Day's Work at Louvain in 1476

Documents which describe the day's work of a mediaeval student are not common. A Ducal ordinance for the University of Louvain in 1476 indicates the way in which the student was supposed to work at that institution.

The tutors shall see that the scholars rise in the morning at five o'clock, and that then before lectures each one reads by himself the laws which are to be read at the regular lecture, together with the glosses.... But after the regular lecture, having if they wish, quickly heard mass, the scholars shall come to their rooms and revise the lectures that have been given, by rehearsing and impressing on their memory whatever they have brought away from the lectures either orally or in writing. And next they shall come to lunch ...after lunch, each one having brought to the table his books, all the scholars of the Faculty together, in the presence of a tutor, shall review that regular lecture; and in this review the tutor shall follow a method which will enable him, by discreet questioning of every man, to gather whether each of them listened well to the lecture and remembered it, and which will recall the whole lecture by having its parts recited by individuals. And if watchful care is used in this one hour will suffice.

(e) Time-table of Lectures at Leipzig, 1519

There must have been some orderly arrangement of each day's lectures as the requirements for the various degrees became fixed; but I have not found an early document on the subject. The Statutes of Leipzig for 1519 give "an accurate arrangement of the lectures of the Faculty of Fine Arts, hour by hour, adapted to a variety of intellects and to diverse interests." They do not always specify the semester in which the book is to be read; in such cases the title is placed in the center of the column. The list includes practically all the books required for the degrees of A.B. and A.M. Unless otherwise specified, they are the works of Aristotle; but the versions are, as noted on page 48, new translations from the Greek. These translations are praised in no uncertain terms in the Statutes. The Metaphysic is presented in Latin by Bessarion "so cleverly and with so good faith that he will seem to differ not even a nail's breadth from the Greek copies and sentiments of Aristotle." The Ethics and the Economics are "cleverly and charmingly put into Latin by Argyropulos;" the Politics and the Magna Moralia are "finely translated by Georgius Valla, that well-known man of great learning," etc. Lectures, it will be noted, began early. The following tabular view is compiled from Zarncke, Statutenbücher der Universität Leipzig, pp. 39-42.

In addition to the "ordinary," or prescribed, books, "two books of Cicero's Letters will be read on festal days"; and "the Greek Grammar of Theodorus Gaza will be explained at the expense of the illustrious Prince George."

SUMMER | WINTER | SUMMER | WINTER | | | 6 A.M. | 1 P.M. | Metaphysics. |Metaphysics. |Posterior |Topics (4 Bks.) Introduction |On | Analytics. |Generation and (Porphyry). | Interpretation |Sense and | Destruction. Categories. |Logic (Aquinas). | Sensation. |Being and | |Memory and | Essence On Six Principles (Gilbert de la | Recollection. | (Aquinas). Porrée). |Sleep and Waking.| Physics (Digest of Aristotle by |Longevity and | Albertus Magnus). | Shortlivedness.| -----------------------------------| | 8 A.M. |Institutes of Oratory | (Quintilian). Physical Hearing (sic.) Physics? |---------------------------------- Reading and Disputation by | 2 P.M. candidates for A.B. and A.M. | Grammar (Priscian). |On the Soul (3 |On the Heavens -----------------------------------| Bks). | and the Earth. 11 A.M. |Common |On the Substance | Arithmetic, and| of the World Logic: Summulae (Petrus Hispanus). | On the Sphere | (Averroes). | | (Sacrobosco). |Common Rhetoric (Cicero |On the Orator | | Perspective, to Herennius). | (Cicero). | | i.e., Optics Physical |On the Vital | | (John of Auscultation | Principle | | Pisa). (Themistius). | (Themistius). |Theory of the Planets (Gerard of | | Cremona). | Ethics | Politics. | Economics. |Magna Moralia, i.e., | Ethics, abbreviated from | Aristotle and Eudemus. |---------------------------------- | 4 P.M. | |Theocritus. |Herodotus. |Virgil. |Aristotle, Problems.

FOOTNOTES:

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREES IN ARTS

In general, the candidate for the A.B. degree must have taken part as "respondent" or "opponent" (see p. 115) in a prescribed number of disputations, and must have "heard" the lectures on certain prescribed books before taking his examination for the degree. (This examination seems, in some cases, to have been little more than a certification by a committee of Masters that the student had fulfilled the foregoing requirements.) The candidate for the degree of A.M. must have completed further prescribed books and disputations, and must have "read," i.e., lectured upon, some book or books which he had previously "heard," before taking his examination for the License (to teach everywhere). No general statement can be given as to the required number of disputations; the practice differed at various times and places. The Statutes of Leipzig required during the fifteenth century six "ordinary" and six "extraordinary" responses from the prospective Bachelor. The prospective Master was required to declare that he had been present at thirty ordinary Bachelors' disputations, and had argued in each one "if he had been able to get the opportunity to argue." The candidate for the License at Paris, in 1366, must have attended disputations throughout one "grand Ordinary," and must have "responded" twice. At Oxford the youth must have taken part in disputations for a year as "general sophister," and must have "responded" at least once, before taking the A.B. or before "Determination," which was the equivalent of the A.B. Prospective masters must have responded at least twice.

The following lists of prescribed books give a good idea of mediaeval requirements (aside from disputations) for the degrees of A.B. and A.M., at various times and places. The reader will note at once the predominance of Aristotle, and the variations in requirements for the degrees. Many similar lists might be cited from the records of other universities; but they would give little additional information as regards the degrees in Arts.

1. List of Books Prescribed for the Degrees of A.B. and A.M. at Paris, 1254.

The following list from the Statutes of 1254 does not separate the books into the groups required for each degree, but indicates the total requirement for both.

{Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle { (Isagoge), Porphyry. (1) The "Old" Logic {Categories, and On Interpretation, { Aristotle. {Divisions, and Topics except Bk. IV, { Boethius.

{Prior and Posterior Analytics, Aristotle. (2) The "New" Logic {Sophistical Refutations, " {Topics, "

(3) Moral Philosophy: Ethics, 4 Bks., " {Physics, Aristotle. {On the Heavens and the Earth, " {Meteorics, " {On Animals, " {" the Soul, " (4) Natural Philosophy {" Generation, " {" Sense and Sensible Things, " {" Sleep and Waking, " {" Memory and Recollection, " {" Life and Death, " {" Plants, " (?)

(5) Metaphysics: Metaphysics, "