scholar. CHAP. IV. chant, journeying between London and Norwich, or the wellbeneficed ecclesiastic or prior of a great house on his way to some monastery in the fen country, would be accosted by some solitary youth with a more intelligent countenance and more educated accent than ordinary, and be plaintively solicited either in English or in Latin, as might best suit the case, for the love of Our Lady to assist a distressed votary of learning. In the course of time this easy method of replenishing an empty purse was found to have become far too popular among university students, and it was considered Restrictions necessary to enact that no scholar should beg in the highways imposed upon the practice. until the chancellor had satisfied himself of the merits of each individual case and granted a certificate for the purpose'. Dress of the It would appear from the phraseology of the statutes that a scholar always wore a distinctive dress, though it is uncertain in what this consisted'. It was probably both an unpretending and inexpensive article of attire, but however unpretending it is amusing to note that it was much more frequently Assumption falsely assumed than unlawfully laid aside. In like manner ambitious sophisters, disguised in bachelors' capes, would endeavour to gain credit for a perfected acquaintance with the mysteries of the trivium; while bachelors, in their turn, at both universities drew down upon themselves fulminations against the 'audacity' of those of their number who should dare to parade in masters' hoods. In other respects the dress of the undergraduate was left very much to his own discretion and resources, until what seemed excess of costliness and extravagance, even in the eyes of a generation that delighted in fantastic costume, called forth a prohibition like that of archbishop Stratford*. of dress by those not entitled to wear it. 1 Cooper, Annals, 1 245, 343. The following authorization occurs among the Chancellor's Acts at Oxford in the year 1461:-'Eodem die DionyFius Burnell et Johannes Brown, pauperes scholares de aula "Aristotelis," habuerunt literas testimoniales sub sigillo officii ad petendum eleëmosynam.' Anstey, Munimenta Academica, 11 684. • Mr Anstey is of opinion that 'no academical dress' was worn by those whom he terms 'undergraduates.' Introd. to Munimenta Academica, p. lxvi. But in statute 42 of our Statuta Antiqua it is expressly required that all qui speciem gerunt scholasticam shall really be scholars of the university. Documents, 1 332. 3 Munimenta Academica, 1 360; Documents, 1 402. 4 See p. 233. in grammar extent pre the arts course. of grammar couraged throughout Concession of of God's It is most probable that it was usual, in the fifteenth CHAP. IV. century, for arts students to have gained a certain acquaint- Instruction ance with Latin before entering the university; but it is to to some be remembered that instruction in such knowledge was not liminary to easily to be had away from the two great centres of learning. The ecclesiastical authorities throughout the country, especially after the appearance of Lollardism, regarded the exercise of the teacher's function with considerable jealousy. The creation of new grammar schools was systematically dis- Foundation couraged, and at the same time it was penal for parents to schools dissend their sons to a private teacher. At length in 1431 the country. permission was granted for the creation of five additional 1431 schools, but these afforded only partial relief, and the numbers at the cathedral and conventual schools throughout the country were still inconveniently large'. Accordingly in the Foundation year 1439 we find one William Byngham, rector of St. John HOUSE, 1439. Zachary in London, erecting a 'commodious mansion' called God's House, and placing it under the supervision of the authorities of Clare Hall, 'to the end that twenty-four youths, under the direction and government of a learned priest, may be there perpetually educated, and be from thence transmitted, in a constant succession, into different parts of England, to those places where grammar schools had fallen into a state of desolation". But whatever might be the Grammar freshman's attainments in grammar, it is probable that a cluded in the - certain amount of instruction in the subject was invariably given in the earlier times nothing more perhaps was taught than what we have already described as included in the course of study pursued by a candidate for the degree of master of grammar; but in the fifteenth century there were introduced larger readings from Terence, Virgil, or Ovid, and always in arts course. Logic. Summule. CHAP. IV. also some instruction in the rules of Latin versification'. The study of grammar was followed by that of logic: and in this branch the Summula was as much the universal text-book as the Sentences in that of theology. We have already noted its prescribed use in the universities of Prague and Leipsic ; Gerson complains that in his day it was thrust into the hands. of youthful students at Paris long before they could comprehend its meaning'; Reuchlin when he went as a student to Freiburg found it in general use there. Its use in our own university is sufficiently indicated by the occasional reference to the Parva Logicalia,-a portion of the work which treats of ambiguities attaching to the use of words with a varying connotation*; and if other proof were wanting that the Byzan 1 Mr Anstey's account of the study to. The existence of this faculty is livre de Priscien, le traité de Donat sur les figures grammaticales, l'Organon d'Aristote, les Topiques de Boèce, furent toujours au nombre des livres que les candidats devaient avoir entendus.' De l'Organisation, etc. p. 45. The Oxford statute, of the date 1267, requires that they should have heard the De Constructionibus Prisciani bis, Barbarismus Donati semel.' Munimenta Academica, p.34. The statute in our own Statuta Antiqua requires 'quod quilibet determinaturus audierit in scholis ordinarie, librum Terentii scilicet, per biennium, logicalia verum per annum, naturalia quoque seu metaphysicalia secundum quod suo tempore ea legi contigerit per annum.' Documents, 1 385. While therefore there were certainly many students of grammar who were not 'artists,' it seems to be equally clear that instruction in grammar always formed part of the artist's' course. 2 'Apud logicos Summulæ Petri Hispani traduntur ab initio novis pueris ad memoriter recolendum, et si non statim intelligant.' Opera, 1 21. 3 Geiger, Johann Reuchlin, p. 8. 4 The following passage gives the most satisfactory explanation of the origin of this treatise and its scope that I have been able to meet with:'Logica nova...docet principaliter de tota argumentatione et habet quatuor libros, etc.......Logica vetus agit de partibus argumentorum et habet duos libros apud Aristotelem (i.e. Cat. and De Interp.)...de proprietatibus vium. Perceptible the study, in tine weed-growth, as Prantl terms it, had reached the waters CHAP. IV. of the Cam, it is to be found in the scanty library of an unfortunate student in the year 1540, where along with the Pandects, the Gesta Romanorum, a Horace, and the Encomium Morice, the omnipresent Petrus Hispanus again appears, newly edited by Tartaretus'. In the lectures on logic the lecturer probably had most frequent recourse to the commentary of Duns Scotus. In his fourth year the scholar was required to attend lectures on some of the 'philosophical' writings of Rhetoric Aristotle, generally it would seem the Metaphysics or the Naturalia,-where Duns Scotus or Alexander Hales again The Quadrisupplied the office of interpreter. The fifth year was devoted to a course of arithmetic and music; the sixth, to geometry Mathematics. and perspective; the seventh, to astronomy. It would cer- advance in tainly be erroneous to suppose that under the last three the different subjects nothing more was comprised than was to be found in the treatises of Capella and Isidorus, or that no advance had been made since the days of Roger Bacon, when according to his account the student of geometry rarely succeeded in getting beyond the fifth proposition of Euclid. that in the university of Vienna, so early as 1389, the candidate for the degree of master was required to have read the Theory of the Planets (a treatise by the Italian mathematician, Campano of Novara), five books of Euclid, common perspective, a treatise on proportional parts, and another on the measurement of superficies'. It will be observed that most of these subjects are included in the statute of the university of Prague adopted by the newly founded univer autem terminorum, sc. suppositione, ampliatione, appellatione, restrictione, alienatione, Aristoteles speciales libros non edidit, sed alii autores utiles tractatus ediderunt ex his, quæ sparsim philosophus in suis libris posuerat, et ista sic edita dicuntur PARVA LOGICALIA eo quod a minoribus autoribus respectu Aristotelis sunt edita.' From Preface to Johannes de Werdea's Exercitata Parvorum Logicalium secundam Viam Modernorum. Reutlingen, 1487 (quoted by Prantl, rv 204). We find 1 Cooper, Annals 1 399. See also letter of More to Martinus Dorpius, Erasmi Epistolæ, ed. Leyden, pp. 1897 -9; and Vives, De Causis, Opera vi 148-56. More, in his Utopia, speaks of the inhabitants of that island as ignorant of all those rules of restrictions, amplifications, and suppositions verye wittelye inuented in the small Logicalles, whyche heare oure children in euery place do learne.' Transl. by Robinson, ed. Arber, p. 105. 2 Kollar, Statuta Universitatis Wiennensis, 1 237. universities. CHAP. IV. sity of Leipzic in 1409, which we have quoted in a preceding The Bachelor. Original meaning of the term. The chapter'. We have also evidence that at Paris, where such It will be observed that we have avoided, in the foregoing |