CHAP. IV. interference, though simply a discharge of his official duty, at once marked him out for calumnies and invectives like those which at this period were the ordinary defensive weapons of the religious orders. It was notorious that he regarded the Mendicants with no friendly feelings, and the Fratres Observantiæ accordingly now began to denounce him as a foe to the Christian faith and a subverter of all religion. Their outcries and misrepresentations were so far successful that the good-natured Niccoli Niccolo was induced to address to Poggio a few words in their behalf. But the antagonist of Filelfo and Valla was quite equal to the occasion, and in his reply to the Florentine Mæcenas he gladly availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded him of exposing and censuring the habitual practice of the whole order. 'He was far,' he said, 'from denying that the friars had substantial reasons for grumbling, for they had been driven from a delightful region, the vineyards of which, producing a drink that Jove himself might envy, attracted visitors from far and But surely such spots were not for those who professed a life of austerity and poverty! Plato, who had known nought of Christianity, had selected an unhealthy place for his academy, in order that the mind might be strengthened by the weakness of the body and the virtuous inclinations have free scope. But these men, although professing to take Christ as their example, chose out pleasant and delightful residences, and these moreover not in retired spots but in the midst of populous neighbourhoods, where everything allured to sensual rather than to intellectual delights'.' near. 1 'Si qui ex eis fratribus queruntur se privari patria amoenissima, meo judicio haud injuria id agunt. Illud enim nostrum nectar, Jovis potus, multos allicit non solum peregrinos, sed et cives. Plato, vir minime Christianus, elegit Academiæ locum insalubrem, quo magis infirmo corpore animus esset firmior, et bonæ menti vacaret. At isti, qui se Christum sequi simulant, loca eligunt amoena, voluptuosa, omni referta jucunditate, non in solitudine, sed in summa hominum frequentia, non ut menti vacent, sed corpori.' Traversarii With Epistola (ed. Mehus, Florentiæ,1759). val theory that on which sisted. It is certainly somewhat surprising to find a man of CHAP. IV. Poggio's intelligence implicitly asserting that the unhealthi- The medianess of a locality recommended it as a place of education for undoubtedly youth; but the fact affords, decisive evidence that such was Poggio inthe theory then generally recognised. The mens sana was not to be sought in corpore sano. The modern theory of education requires the simultaneous developement of the physical and mental powers, or rather teaches us to look upon them as only modes of the same force,—a force purely physical in its origin. In those days they were looked upon as antagonistic; the mind, it was held, was strengthened by the weakening of the body. Occasionally indeed men of more than ordinary discernment advocated a sounder view. Sounder We find Grosseteste, he who could cheerily suggest to a melan- only by a choly brother an occasional cup of wine as a remedy for over depression, objecting on sanitary grounds to low and marshy districts'; and Walter Burley, if we may trust Dr. Plot's account, seriously believed that philosophers from Greece had selected Oxford as the scene of their labours on account of the healthiness of the situation. But views like these were certainly the exception, and the prevailing theory was that on which Poggio so unmercifully insisted. Unreasonable τὴν ̓Ακαδημίαν καταλαβεῖν ἐξεπίτηδες, ἵνα τὴν ἄγαν ευπάθειαν τοῦ σώματος, οἷον ἀμπέλου τὴν εἰς τὰ περιττὰ φορὰν, TEрIKÓTTOL. The writings of St. Basil were much studied at this time in connexion with the controversy between the eastern and western Churches. 1 Ipse dixit ei quod loca super aquam non sunt sana, nisi fuerint in sublimi sita.' Eccleston, in Monumenta Franciscana, p. 66. 2 I think it very considerable what remains upon record in Magdalen College library, in an antient manuscript of Walter Burley's, fellow of Merton (tutor to the famous King Edward and deservedly stiled doctor profundus), who upon the problem complexio rara quare sanior, has these words concerning the healthy condition of Oxford and its selection by students for the seat of the muses:-"A healthy city must be open to the north and east, and mountainous to the south and east; 3 The first distinct expression of a views held few. The theory not without truth. CHAP. IV. moreover as that theory now appears, it will be found, like many other abandoned crotchets of medievalism, to contain a germ of truth. The highest state of physical well-being an element of is rarely the most favorable to severe mental application; and many a college tutor in the present day could probably bear testimony, that the high tension of the nervous system produced by athletic training often materially interferes with the ability of the student to devote himself to the sedentary labours of an Honour course. The university originally only a grammar school. The Magister Glomeria, Having pursued, as far as seems necessary for our present purpose, our inquiry into the causes which may be supposed to have determined the localisation of the university, we may now proceed to examine the character of the student life of these early times. If then we accept the theory already put forward of the commencement of the university, it necessarily follows that we shall be prepared also to accept a very modest estimate of the culture that originally prevailed. We shall postulate neither Greek philosophers nor royal patrons, but readily admit that the instruction given could only have been that of the ordinary grammar school of a later period. The Latin language, or grammar' as it was designated, formed the basis of the whole course: Priscian, Terence, and Boethius, were the authors commonly read'. There were probably some dozen or more separate schools, each presided over by a master of grammar, while the Magister Glomeria represented the supreme authority. It is in connexion with this officer, whose character and functions so long baffled the researches of the antiquarians, that we have an explanation of those relations to Ely, as a tradition of the earliest times, which formed the precedent for that ecclesiastical interference which was terminated by the Barnwell Process. The existence of such a functionary and of the before the attack of Poggio on the lately in his Historical Sketches, as an illustration of medieval notions with respect to the best sites for universities. 1 Terence however par excellence; the grammar school, at a later period, seems to have been also known under the designation of the school of Te rence. grammar schools, prior to the university, enables us to un- CHAP. IV. derstand how, in the time of Hugh Balsham, an exertion of the episcopal authority, like that which has already come under our notice, became necessary in order to guard against collision between the representatives of the old and the new orders of things,-between the established rights of the Master of Glomery and rights like those which, by one of our most ancient statutes, were vested in the regent masters in the exercise of their authority over those students enrolled on their books. If we picture to ourselves some few hundred students, of all ages from early youth to complete manhood, mostly of very slender means, looking forward to the monastic or the clerical life as their future avocation, lodging among the townsfolk, and receiving such accommodation as inexperienced poverty might be likely to obtain at the hands of practised extortioners, resorting for instruction to one large building, the grammar schools, or sometimes congregated in the porches of their respective masters' houses, and there receiving such instruction in Latin as a reading from Terence, Boethius, or Orosius, eked out by the more elementary rules from Priscian or Donatus, would represent, we shall probably have grasped the main features. of a Cambridge course at the period when Irnerius began to lecture at Bologna, Vacarius at Oxford, and when Peter Lombard compiled the Sentences. study pur student of Meagre as such a 'course' may appear, there is every Course of reason for believing that it formed, for centuries, nearly the sued by the sole acquirement of the great majority of our university stu- grammar. dents. The complete trivium, followed by the yet more formidable quadrivium, was far beyond both the ambition and the resources of the ordinary scholar. His aim was simply to qualify himself for holy orders, to become Sir Smith or Sir Brown', as distinguished from a mere 'hedge-priest,' and to obtain a licence to teach the Latin tongue. For this the degree of master of grammar was sufficient, and the qualifications for that degree were slight:-to have studied the larger Priscian in the original, to have responded in three 1 Sir, the English for Magister; while Dominus was contracted into Dan; e.g. Dan Chaucer. CHAP. IV. public disputations on grammar, to have given thirteen lectures on Priscian's Book of Constructions, and to have obtained from three masters of arts certificates of his 'learning, ability, knowledge, and moral character,' satisfied the requirements of the authorities'. His licence obtained, he might either be appointed by one of the colleges to teach in the grammar school frequently attached to the early foundations; or he might become principal of a hostel and receive pupils in grammar on his own account; or he might, as a secular clergyman, be presented to a living or the mastership of a grammar school at a distance from the university. Introduction of the arts course at Cambridge. With the latter part of the twelfth century the studies of the trivium and quadrivium, or in other words the discipline of an arts faculty, were probably introduced at Cambridge. This developement from a simple school of grammar into a studium generale was not marked, it is true, by the same éclat that waited on the corresponding movements at Bologna, Paris, or even Oxford, but it is not necessary to infer from thence that Cambridge was much inferior either in numbers or organization. The early reputation of those seats of learning survives almost solely in connexion with a few great names, and the absence of any teacher of eminence like Irnerius, Abelard, or Vacarius, at our own university, is a sufficient explanation of the fact that no accounts of her culture in the twelfth century have reached us. On the other hand, the influx of large numbers from the university of Paris, which we have already noted as taking place about the year 1229, can only be accounted for by supposing that the reputation of the university was by that time fairly Intercourse established. Of the frequent intercourse between Paris and Paris and the the English universities in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and versities.! during part of the fifteenth century, we have already spoken. between English uni This intercourse, it is to be observed, is to be traced not merely in the direction assumed by the mental activity of Oxford and Cambridge at different junctures, but also in the more definite evidence afforded by their respective statute books. It was natural that when a Cambridge or Oxford 1 Statute 117. De Incepturis in Grammatica. Documents, 1 374. |