jected to the observance of such ecclesiastical ceremonies, and in the course of the sixteenth century they converted the proceedings into a sort of licensed buffoonery. The part played by the questionist became purely formal. A serious debate still sometimes took place between the father of the senior questionist and a regent master, who represented the university; but the discussion always began with an introductory speech by the bachelor, who came to be called Mr Tripos just as we speak of a judge as the bench or of a rower as an oar. Ultimately the tripos was allowed to say pretty much what he pleased, so long as it was not dull and was scandalous. The speeches he delivered or the verses he recited were generally preserved by the registrary, and were known as the tripos verses: originally they referred to the subjects of the disputations then propounded. The earliest copies now extant are those for 1575.

The university officials, to whom the personal criticisms in which the tripos indulged were by no means pleasing, repeatedly exhorted him to remember "while exercising his privilege of humour, to be modest withal." In 1740, says Mr Mullinger', "the authorities after condemning the excessive license of the tripos announced that the comitia at Lent would in future be conducted in the senate-house; and all members of the university, of whatever order or degree, were forbidden to assail or mock the disputants with scurrilous jokes or unseemly witticisms. About the year 1747-8, the moderators initiated the practice of printing the honour lists on the back of the sheets containing the tripos-verses, and after the year 1755 this became the invariable practice. By virtue of this

"the holy season of Lent." Bachelors detected in so acting were liable to immediate expulsion: but as a concession to juvenile weakness the sophister was allowed to give an entertainment in the previous term provided the expenditure did not exceed sixteen-pence. See vol. II. p. 453 of Munimenta academica, by Henry Anstey, in the Rolls Series, London, 1868.

1 Mullinger's Cambridge, pp. 175, 176.

purely arbitrary connection these lists themselves became known as the tripos; and eventually the examination itself, of which they represented the results, also became known by the same designation."

A somewhat similar position at the comitia majora (or congregation held on Commencement-day) to that of the tripos on Ash-Wednesday was filled by the prævaricator or varier, who was the junior M.A. regent of the previous year, or his proxy. But he never indulged in as much license as the "ould bachilor," and no determined effort to turn that ceremony into a farce was ever made.

The tripos and prævaricator ceased to recite their speeches about 1750, but the issue of the verses by the former has never been discontinued. At present these verses are published on the last day of the Michaelmas term, and consist of four odes, usually in Latin but occasionally in Greek, in which current events or topics of conversation in the university are treated satirically or seriously. They are written for the two proctors and two moderators by undergraduates or commencing bachelors, who are supposed each to receive a pair of white kid gloves in recognition of their labours. Since 1859 the two sets, corresponding to the two days of admission, have been printed together on the first three pages of a sheet of foolscap paper. On the fourth page the order of seniority of the honour men of the year is printed crosswise in columns, the sheet being folded into four parts, so that all the names can be read without opening the page to more than half its extent.

Thus gradually the word tripos changed its meaning "from a thing of wood to a man, from a man to a speech, from a speech to two sets of verses, from verses to a sheet of coarse foolscap paper, from a paper to a list of names, and from a list of names to a system of examination'."

1 Wordsworth, p. 21.

CHAPTER XI.

OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.1

SECTION 1. The mediaeval university.

SECTION 2. The university from 1525 to 1858.

My object in writing the foregoing pages was to trace the development of the study of mathematics at Cambridge from the foundation of the university to the year 1858. Some knowledge of the history, constitution, and organization of the university is however (in my opinion) essential to any who would understand the manner in which mathematics was introduced into the university curriculum and the way in which it developed. To a sketch of these subjects this chapter is accordingly devoted. I have made it somewhat fuller than is absolutely essential for my purpose, in the hope that I may enable the reader to realize the life of a student in former times.

1 The materials for this chapter are mainly taken from the University of Cambridge by J. Bass Mullinger, Cambridge, (vol. 1. to 1535), 1873, (vol. II. to 1625), 1884; the Annals of Cambridge by C. H. Cooper, 5 vols., Cambridge, 1842-1852; Observations on the statutes by George Peacock, London, 1841; the collection of Documents relating to the university and colleges of Cambridge, issued by the Royal Commissioners in 1852; and lastly the Scholae academicae by C. Wordsworth, Cambridge, 1877. For the corresponding references to Oxford I am mainly indebted to the Munimenta academica, by H. Anstey, Rolls Series, London, 1868, and to a History of Oxford to 1530, by H. C. M. Lyte, London, 1886. The works of Peacock, Mullinger and Lyte contain references to all the more important facts.

The history of the university is divisible into three tolerably distinct periods. The first commences with its foundation towards the close of the twelfth century, and terminates with the royal injunctions of 1535. This was followed by some thirty or forty years of confusion, but about the end of the sixteenth century the university assumed that form and character which continued with but few material changes to the middle of this century. Most of its members would, I think agree that a fresh departure in its development then began, the outcome of which cannot yet be predicted.

The mediaeval university.

Cambridge, like all the early mediæval universities, arose from a voluntary association of teachers who were exercising their profession in the same place. Of the exact details of its early history we know nothing; but the general outlines are as follows.

A university of the twelfth or thirteenth century usually began in connection with some monastic or cathedral school in the vicinity of which lecturers had settled. As soon as a few teachers and scholars had thus taken up their permanent residence in the neighbourhood they organized themselves (but in all cases quite distinct from the monastic schools) as a sort of trades union or guild, partly to protect themselves from the extortionate charges of tradesmen and landlords, partly because all men with a common pursuit were then accustomed to form such unions. Such an association was known as a universitas magistrorum et scholarium. A universitas scholarium, if successful in attracting students and acquiring permanency, always sought special legal privileges, such as the right of fixing the price of provisions and the power of trying legal actions in which their members were concerned. These privileges generally led to a recognition, explicit or implicit, of the guild by the crown as a studium generale, i.e. a body with power to grant degrees which conferred a right of teaching

anywhere within the kingdom. The university was frequently incorporated at or about the same time. It was still only a local corporation, but it entered on its third and final stage of development when it obtained recognition, explicit or implicit, from the pope (or emperor). This gave its degrees currency throughout christendom, and it thenceforward became a recognized member of a body of closely connected corporations. Such is the general outline of the history of a medieval university. In later times the title of university was confined to degree-granting bodies, and any other place of higher education was termed a studium generale.

The records and charters of the university of Cambridge were burnt in 1261, in 1322, and again in 1381. We must therefore refer to the analogy of other universities, and particularly of Paris (which was the typical medieval university, and was taken as a model by those who first organized Oxford and Cambridge), to obtain an idea of its early history, filling in the dates of the various steps in its development by means of allusions thereto in trustworthy authorities.

It seems almost certain that there was no university at Cambridge in 1112, when the canons of St Giles's moved from the church of that name to their new priory at Barnwell. It is also known that the university existed in its first stage, (i.e. as a self-constituted and self-governing community), in the year 1209, since several students from Oxford migrated in that year to the university of Cambridge. At some time before the latter date, and probably subsequent to 1112, one or more grammar-schools were opened in Cambridge, either under the care of the monks at Barnwell priory, or of the conventual church at Ely, or possibly of both authorities. The connection between these schools and the beginning of the university has always appeared to me to be a singularly interesting historical problem, though it has hitherto attracted but little attention.

Most critics consider that the university of Paris arose from the audiences that came together to hear William of Champeaux lecture on logic in 1109, or his pupil Abelard on