study in the theology B.D., was much smaller than the encouragement extended to CHAP. IV. these branches of learning might otherwise lead us to expect. As some counterbalance to the expenditure of time and money involved in these courses of study, the bachelors of divinity or of civil or canon law were permitted to lecture in their respective faculties, and these cursory lectures, besides being an immediate source of emolument, would also often enable a civilian or canonist to acquire a considerable reputation before he became fully qualified to practise. The requirements Course of for the degree of doctor of divinity in these times deserve to faculty of be contrasted with those until lately in force. It was necessary (1) that the candidate should have been a regent in arts, i.e. he must have acted as an instructor in the ordinary course of secular learning; (2) that he should have attended lectures for at least ten years in the university; (3) that he should have heard lectures on the Bible for two years; (4) that during his career he should have lectured cursorily on some book of the canonical scriptures for at least ten days in each term of the academical year; (5) that he should have lectured on the whole of the Sentences; (6) that he should, subsequently to his lectures, have preached publicly ad clerum, and also have responded and opposed in all the schools of his faculty'. It was properly the function of a doctor to deliver the ordinary lecture in this course, but the duty would appear to have often devolved upon the bachelors, and thus, though Bachelors of still pursuing their own course of study for the doctorial mitted to degree, they were known as biblici ordinarii or simply as ordinarie. biblici; those of them who delivered the cursory lectures were known as biblici cursores or simply cursores; and those who lectured on the Sentences were known as the Sententiarii. 1 Statute 124, De Incepturis in Theologia. Documents, 1 377. The following questions are among those which we find a doctor of divinity determining at Oxford in the year 1466: Si est purgatorium? Utrum ignis purgatorius est materialis? Utrum pœna inflicta in purgatorio sit pœna inflicta a Deo immediate vel per ministros? Si per ministros, an una anima aliam punit? vel per angelos, et tunc utrum per angelos bonos vel malos vel indifferentes?' theology per lecture CHAP. IV. Course of study in the civil law. Course of study in the law. The courses for the doctorial degree in civil and canon law were equally laborious. In the former it was not imfaculty of the perative that the candidate should have been a regent in arts, but failing this qualification he was required to have heard lectures on the civil law for ten instead of eight years; he must have heard the Digestum Vetus twice, the Digestum Novum and the Infortiatum once. He must also have lectured on the Infortiatum and on the Institutes, must himself be the possessor of the two Digests and be able to shew that he held in his custody, either borrowed or his own property, all the other text-books of the course'. In the course for the canon faculty of the law the candidate was required to have heard lectures on the civil law for three years and on the Decretals for another three years: he must have attended cursory lectures on the Bible for at least two years; must himself have lectured cursorie on one of four treatises and on some one book of the Decretals2. In both branches it was also obligatory that the candidate should have kept or have been ready to keep all the required oppositions and responsions. It is to be noted that, with the fourteenth century, the labours of the canonists had been seriously augmented by the appearance of the sixth book of the Decretals under the auspices of Boniface VIII, and by that of the Clementines; Lollard writers indeed are to be found asserting that the demands thus made upon the time of the canonist (demands which he dared not disregard, for the papal anathema hung over all those who should neglect their study) was one of the chief causes of that neglect of the scriptures which forms so marked a feature in the theology of this period. while, according to our own statutes, sum dixere veteres Sacræ Scripturæ tempus aliquod addictum. Ab eo vero docendi munere theologicum cursum suum ordiebantur nuperi Baccalarii cursores ; ac postea sententiarum Petri Lombardi libros quatuor interpretabantur. Hinc nata illa distinctio Baccalariorum apud majores, ut alii Biblici alii Sententiarii nuncuparentur.' I 657, 658. i Statute 120. Documents, 1 375-6. 2 Statute 122. Documents, 1 376-7. STUDIES OF THE CIVILIAN AND THE CANONIST. 365 In the subjoined statute will be found the requirements CHAP. IV. for the degree of doctor of medicine1. The faculty of medicine. cation its kind. Such then was the character of the highest forms of cul- The eduture aimed at in the Cambridge of those days; and whatever thorough of may be our estimate of its intrinsic value, it is evident that, if the statutory course was strictly observed, the doctors of those. days could have been no smatterers in their respective departments. The scarlet hood never graced the shoulders of one who was nothing more than a dexterous logician, nor was the honoured title of doctor ever conferred on one who had never discharged the function of a teacher. Throughout the whole course the maxim disce docendo was regularly enforced, and the duties of the lecture-room and the disputations in the schools enabled all to test their powers and weigh their chances of practical success long before the period of preparation had expired. But of the influence which such a curricu- Baneful lum exerted on the character of the theology of that age, it is theology of impossible to speak with favour. The example which Albertus and Aquinas had set, of reconciling philosophy and theology, had gradually expanded into a uniform and vicious. practice of subjecting all theology to the formulæ of the logician. Hence, as M. Thurot well observes, men thought themselves bound to explain everything. They preferred new and conjectural doctrines to those which were far more just but long established; they despised all that seemed 1 Item statuimus quod nullus admittatur ad incipiendum in medicina nisi prius in artibus rexerit, et ad minus per quinquennium hic vel alibi in universitate audierit medicinam, ita quod audierit semel libros medicinæ non commentatos, viz. librum Johannicii, librum Philareti de pulsibus, librum Theophili de urinis, et quemlibet librum Isaac, viz. librum urinarum Isaac, librum de dietis particularibus, librum febrium Isaac, librum Viatici. Item audiat semel antidotarium Nicholai: item audiat bis libros commentatos, viz. librum Tegni Galieni, librum prognosticorum, librum aphorismorum, librum de regimine acutorum: et quod legerit cursorie ad : minus unum librum de theorica et effects on the the time. CHAP. IV. obvious and clear, and valued only what called forth a considerable intellectual effort. The hearts of the learned were dried up in the study of the abstract and the uncertain; devoid themselves of all fervour and unction they understood not how to address themselves to the hearts of their auditors; the disputation left them careless of the homily.' College life. Asceticism again the dominant theory. Up to the close of the fifteenth century it is evident that college life represented the position of only a highly privileged minority: the hostels, which had superseded the lodginghouses, were, as we have already seen, far more numerous, though in their turn diminishing in number as the colleges multiplied. . As however the college life of those times offers the most direct points of comparison with modern experience, it may be worth while to give an outline of the probable career of a scholar of Peterhouse, Pembroke, Corpus, or Michaelhouse, in the days when the original statutes of each foundation still represented its existing discipline. And here again it becomes necessary to bear in mind that all-dominant conception which has already come so prominently before us. Asceticism, as it was then the professed rule of life with the monk, the friar, and the secular, was also the prevailing theory in the discipline of those, whom they taught and trained for their several professions. The man fasted, voluntarily bared his back to the scourge, kept long and painful vigils: the boy was starved, flogged, and sent to seek repose where he might find it if he were able. Even tender girlhood did not altogether escape the pains thus conscientiously inflicted. From the days of Heloise,-entrusted by her natural protector to Abélard, to be beaten into submission if refractory or negligent,-down to the days of Lady Jane Grey, mournfully plaintive over the nips, bobs, and other nameless petty tortures inflicted by her own parents,-a feminine wail often rises up along with the louder lamentation of the boy. But with the latter the severity of this Spartan discipline often approached a point where it became a struggle for very life. In justification of such treatment the teacher would appeal to instances, like those which occasionally come under our notice, of savage outbreaks on given by the Collège taigu. the part of the taught,-to John Scotus Erigena perishing CHAP. IV. beneath the stiluses of his own pupils, to the monastery of St. Gall fired by its own externes. How far such tragedies were the result of the very system that aimed at their repression we will not here stop to enquire. In one of his amusing Account dialogues, the Ichthyophagia, Erasmus has given a startling Erasmus of record of his own experiences at Paris. The Collège de Mon- de Montaigu, or Montacuto, in that university, was a well-known school for theologians, presided over by one Standin or Standouk, a man whom Erasmus describes as not wanting in good intentions but deficient in judgement, and who, having himself been reared in the stern school of poverty and privation, believed it to be the best discipline for all over whom he ruled. The scholars accordingly lived, even in the depth of winter, on a scanty dole of coarse bread, accompanied occasionally by rotten eggs, and wine, which from its resemblance to vinegar, caused the college to be popularly known by the name of Montaceto, but their ordinary drink was a draught from a well of putrid water. Meat they never tasted. They slept on the floors of damp chambers swarming with vermin and pestilent with the stench of adjacent cesspools. It was the professed aim of this régime to crush as far as possible the spirit of the individual'; unfortunately it often crushed out the life as well. Erasmus declares that many highspirited youths, of wealthy families and distinguished promise, sank beneath the treatment; others lost their sight, some became insane, some even lepers. He himself, rescued before it was too late by the generous hand of lord Mountjoy, brought away not merely pediculorum largissimam copiam, but a constitution impaired by all kinds of humours. Such is the description given by the foremost scholar of his age (in a volume that within a few years of its first ap 1.Sic aiunt dedisci ferociam; ferociam appellant indolem generosiorem, quam studio frangunt ut eos reddant habiles monasteriis.' Compare his very similar account of the treatment of a boy of which he was witness in a school in this country presided over by an eminent divine. De Pueris Instituendis,1 505. Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, 2102-2. With refer- |