A large proportion of the care of statute-makers was devoted to the prohibition of amusements. The statutes of Peterhouse forbade dogs or falcons, "for if one can have them in the House, all will want them, and so there will arise a constant howling" to disturb the studious. Dice and chess, being forbidden games to clerks, were also prohibited, and the scholars of Peterhouse were forbidden to frequent taverns, to engage in trade, to mix with actors, or to attend theatrical performances. These enactments are repeated in later College statutes, with such additions as the legislator's knowledge of human nature dictated and with occasional explanations of some interest in themselves. The keeping of dogs is often described as "taking the children's bread and giving it to dogs," and the Founder of Queen's College, Oxford, ordered that no animals were to be kept under the Fellows' rooms, since purity of air is essential for study. William of Wykeham expressly forbade chess, which he classed with games (p. 064) leading to the loss of money or estate, but King Henry VI., who made large use of the statutes of New College, omitted the mention of chess from his King's College statutes, while he added to Wykeham's denunciation of ferrets and hawks, an index expurgatorius of animals which included monkeys, bears, wolves, and stage, and he expressly forbade nets for hunting or fishing. The principle on which modern Deans of colleges have sometimes decided that "gramophones are dogs" and therefore to be excluded from College, can be traced in numerous regulations against musical instruments, which disturb the peace essential to learning. That the medieval student felt the temptations of "ragging" in much the same way as his modern successors, appears from many threats directed against those who throw stones and other missiles to the danger of the buildings. Wykeham thought it necessary to forbid the throwing of stones in Chapel, to the danger of the windows and reredos, and for the safety of the reredos he prohibited dancing or jumping in the Hall, which is contiguous to the Chapel. Games in the Hall were also forbidden for the comfort of the chaplains who lived in the rooms underneath. King Henry VI. forbade dancing or jumping, or other dangerous and improper games in the Chapel, cloister, stalls, and Hall of King's College.

Other disciplinary regulations common to all colleges deal with (p. 065) carrying arms, unpunctuality, talking during the reading in Hall or disturbing the Chapel services, bringing strangers into College, sleeping out of College, absence without leave, negligence and idleness, scurrilous or offensive language, spilling water in upper rooms to the detriment of the inhabitants of the lower rooms, and failure to attend the regular "scrutinies" or the stated general meetings for College business. At these scrutinies, any serious charges against members of the Society were considered, and it is in keeping with some of the judicial ideas of the time that some statutes forbid the accused person to have a copy of the indictment against him. For contumacy, for grave moral offences, for crimes of violence, and for heresy, the penalty was expulsion. Less serious offences were punished by subtraction of "commons," i.e. deprivation of allowances for a day or a week (or longer), or by pecuniary fines. When College founders provided clothes as well as board and lodging for their scholars, the forfeiture of a robe took its place among the penalties with which offenders were threatened. The "poor boys" who sang in Chapel and waited on the Fellows were whipped like boys elsewhere, who were being taught grammar, but the birch was unknown as a punishment for undergraduates till late in the middle ages. The introduction (p. 066) of corporal punishment into college life in England may be traced by a comparison of William of Wykeham's statutes with those of Henry VI. The King's College statute "De correctionibus faciendis circa delicta leviora" is largely a transcript of a New College statute, with the same title, and both contemplate subtraction of commons as the regular penalty. But the King's College statute contains an additional clause, to the effect that scholars and younger Fellows may be punished with stripes. In the statutes of Magdalen, dated some seventeen years later, William of Waynflete returned to the New College form of the statute, but he provided that his demys (i.e. scholars who received half the commons of a Fellow) should be subject to the penalty of whipping in the Grammar School. The statutes of Christ's College prescribe a fine of a farthing for unpunctuality on the part of the scholars, studying in the Faculty of Arts, and heavier fines for absence, and it is added that if the offender be not an adult, a whipping is to be substituted for the pecuniary penalty. At Brasenose, where the Fellows were all of the standing of at least a Bachelor of Arts, the undergraduate scholars were subjected to an unusually strict discipline, and offenders were to be punished either by fines or by the rod, the Principal deciding the appropriate punishment in each case. For unpunctuality, for negligence and idleness, for playing, (p. 067) laughing, talking, making a noise or speaking English in, a lecture-room, for insulting fellow-students, or for disobedience to his pastors and masters, the Brasenose undergraduate was to be promptly flogged. Among the crimes for which the birch is ordered we find "making odious comparisons," a phrase which throws some light on the conversational subjects of sixteenth-century undergraduates. The kind of comparison is indicated in the statute; remarks about the country, the family, the manners, the studies, and the ability, or the person, of a fellow-student must be avoided. Similarly, at Jesus College, Cambridge, it is forbidden to compare country to country, race to race, or science to science, and William of Wykeham and other founders had to make similar injunctions. The medieval student was distinctly quarrelsome, and such records as the famous Merton "scrutiny" of 1339, and investigations by College Visitors, show that the seniors set the undergraduates a bad example. The statutes of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, provide for two new penalties. An offending undergraduate might be sentenced to feed by himself, at a small table in the middle of the Hall, and in aggravated cases to the monastic penalty of bread and water. An alternative penalty was detention in the library at the most inconvenient time ("per horam (p. 068) vel horas cum minime vellet"), and the performance of an imposition to be shown up in due course. The rough and ready penalty of the birch is, however, frequently mentioned in the statutes of Corpus and of other sixteenth-century Colleges. Cardinal Wolsey thought it proper that an undergraduate should be whipped until he had completed his twentieth year. At Trinity, Cambridge (where offenders were sociably flogged before the assembled College on Friday evenings) the age was eighteen. Dr Caius restricted the rod to scholars who were not adult. "We call those adults," he says, "who have completed their eighteenth year. For before that age, both in ancient times and in our own memory, youth was not accustomed to wear braccas, being content with tibialia reaching to the knees." The stern disciplinarian might find an excuse for prolonging the whipping age in the Founder's wish that, "years alone should not make an adult, but along with years, gravity of deportment and good character." As late as the foundation of Pembroke College at Oxford (1624) whipping is the penalty contemplated for undergraduates under eighteen. But when we come to the statutes which were drawn up in 1698 with a view to the foundation of Worcester College, not only is there no mention of the birch, but even pecuniary penalties are deprecated for minor offences, for which impositions (p. 069) and gating are suggested.

Minor penalties were enforced by the Head of a college, the Vice-Head, the Deans, and, in sixteenth-century colleges, by the tutors. By later college statutes, these officers received for their personal use a portion of the fines they inflicted, and appeals were sometimes permitted from an officer to the Head, and even to the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor of the University. The oath taken by scholars frequently bound them to reveal to the authorities, any breach of the statutes, and there are indications that members of the College were encouraged to report each other's misdeeds. Thus the Master of Christ's is to fine anyone whom he hears speaking one complete sentence in English, or anyone whom he may know to have been guilty of this offence, except in sleeping-rooms or at times when permission had been given.

Oxford and Cambridge Colleges were, as we have seen, endowed homes for the education of secular clerks. All of them, on entrance, had to have the tonsure, and provision was often made for the cutting of their hair and beard. At Christ's College, there was a regular College barber "qui ... caput et barbam radet ac tondebit hebdomadis singulis." They wore ordinary clerical dress, and undue expenditure on clothes and ornaments was strictly prohibited, e.g. the Fellows of (p. 070) Peterhouse were forbidden to wear rings on their fingers "ad inanem gloriam et jactantiam." The early founders did not insist upon Holy Orders for the Heads or Fellows of their colleges, though many of them would naturally proceed to the priesthood, but in later college statutes all the Fellows were ultimately to proceed, at stated times, to Holy Orders and to the priesthood, though dispensations for delay might be granted, and students of Medicine were sometimes excused from the priesthood. When they became priests they were, like other priests, to celebrate mass regularly in the Chapel, but were not to receive payment for celebrations outside the College. As mere tonsured undergraduates, they were not, at first, subject to regulations for daily attendance at divine service; but later founders were stricter in this, as in other matters. Bishop Bateman, who, in the middle of the fourteenth century, legislated for the infant Gonville College, ordered that every Fellow should hear one mass daily and say certain prayers, and in his own foundation of Trinity Hall, he repeated the injunction. The prescribed prayers included petitions for the Founder, or for the repose of his soul; every Fellow of Trinity Hall was to say, immediately upon rising in the morning and before going to bed at night, the prayer "Rege quaesumus Domine," during the Bishop's lifetime, and after his death, "Deus qui inter Apostolicos Sacerdotes," and (p. 071) to say the psalm "De profundis clamavi" and a "Kurie eleeson" for the repose of the soul of the Founder's father and mother, his predecessors in the see of Norwich, and after his death for his own soul. The ten priests, who served the Chapel at New College, said masses for the Founder and his benefactors, but every Fellow was to attend mass every day and to say prayers in his own room, morning and evening, including "Rege, quaesumus, Domine, Willielmum Pontificem Fundatorem nostrum" or, after his death, "Deus qui inter Apostolicos sacredotes famulum tuum Fundatorem nostrum pontificali dignitate"; and every day, both after High Mass in Chapel, and after dinner and supper in Hall, the psalm "De profundis" was said. Penalties were prescribed for negligence, and as time went on, a whipping was inflicted for absence from Chapel, e.g. at Christ's College, and at Balliol, for which new statutes were drawn up in 1507.

Residence in College was continuous throughout the year, even during the University vacation, which lasted from early in July to the beginning of October. Leave of absence might be granted at any time in the year, on reasonable grounds, but was to be given generally in vacations. General rules were laid down for behaviour in keeping with the clerical profession during absence, and students on leave were (p. 072) forbidden to frequent taverns or otherwise transgress the rules which were binding upon them in the University. Occasionally we find some relaxation in these strict regulations, as when the Founder of Corpus Christi at Oxford allows "moderate hunting or hawking" when one of his scholars is on holiday away from Oxford. The same indulgent Founder, after the usual prohibition of games in College, allows a game of ball in the garden for the sake of healthy exercise. ("Non prohibemus tamen lusum pilae ad murum, tabulata, aut tegulas, in horto, causa solum modo exercendi corporis et sanitatis.") Associations with home life were maintained by vacation visits, but the influx of "people" to the University was, of course, unknown. The ancient statutes of Peterhouse permit a woman (even if she be not a relation) to talk with a Fellow in the Hall, preferably in the presence of another Fellow, or at least, a servant; but the legislator had grave fears of the results of such "confabulationes," and the precedent he set was not followed. A Fellow or scholar is frequently permitted by College statutes to entertain his father, brother, nephew, or a friend, obtaining first the consent of the Head of the College, and paying privately for the entertainment, but no such guest might sleep in College, and the permission is carefully restricted to the male sex. Women were, as (p. 073) a rule, not allowed within a College gate; if it was impossible to find a man to wash clothes, a laundress might be employed, but she must be old and of unprepossessing appearance. A scholar or Fellow of a college had not, however, committed himself irrevocably to a celibate life, for marriage is included among the "causas rationabiles et honestas" which vacated a fellowship. It was possible, though probably infrequent, for a Fellow who had not proceeded to Holy Orders to leave the College "uxore ducta," giving up his emolument, his clerical dress, and the tonsure. Even if a Fellow enjoyed the Founder's provision for the long period of his course in Arts and Theology, and proceeded in due time to Holy Orders, it was not contemplated that he should remain a Fellow till his death.

"... he had geten him yet no benefyce, Ne was so worldly for to have offyce,"

says Chaucer, indicating the natural end of a scholar's career. He might betake himself to some "obsequium," and rise high in the service of the king, or of some great baron or bishop, and become, like one of Wykeham's first New College scholars, Henry Chichele, an archbishop and a College founder himself. Should no such great career open up for him, he can, at the least, succeed to one of the livings which the founders of English colleges purchased for this purpose. His "obsequium" would naturally lead to his ceasing to reside, and so vacate his (p. 074) fellowship, and his acceptance of a benefice over a certain value brought about the same result. Some such event was expected to happen to every Fellow; unless he happened to be elected to the Headship, it was not intended that he should grow old in the College, and at Queen's College, Oxford, the arbitrary or unreasonable refusal of a benefice vacated a Fellowship. The object of the College Founder was, that there should never be wanting a succession of men qualified to serve God in Church and State, and to Chaucer's unworldly clerk, if he was a member of a College, there would come, in due course, the country living and goodbye to the University. But statutes were not always strictly observed and the idle life-Fellow, who survived to be the scandal of early Victorian days, was not unknown in the end of the Middle Ages.

One of the causes of vacating a fellowship throws some light upon the class of men who became members of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The opening sentences of founders' statutes usually contain some such phrase as "collegium pauperum et indigentium scholarium"; but later sections of the statutes contemplate the possibility of their succeeding to property—"patrimonium, haereditatem, feudumve saeculare, vel pensionem annuam"—and if such property exceeded the annual value of a hundred shillings, a Fellowship was ipso facto vacated. The (p. 075) "pauperes et indigentes" expressions must not be construed too literally; the Founder was establishing a claim to the merits of him that considereth the poor, and the language he used was part of the ordinary formulas of the time, and ought not to be interpreted more strictly than the ordinary phrases of legal and Diplomatic documents or than the conventional terms of courtesy, which begin and conclude a modern letter. That an English College Founder wished to give help where help was required, is undeniable, but help was required by others than the poorest. The advancement of the study of theology was near the heart of every medieval founder, and the study of theology demanded the surrender of the best years of a man's life, and the extension of the period of education long after he might be expected to be earning his own living. A curriculum in the University which covered at least sixteen years, and might be followed by nothing more remunerative than the cure of Chaucer's poor priest, required some substantial inducement if it was to attract the best men. Canon Law, Civil Law and Medicine, if they offered more opportunity of attaining a competency, required also a very long period of apprenticeship in the University. There were many youths in the Middle Ages (as there are to-day) neither "pauperes" nor "indigentes" in the strict (p. 076) sense of the word, but too poor to be able to afford sixteen years of study in the University. The length of the medieval curriculum produced some of the necessities which colleges were established to meet.

That the founders were not thinking of the poorest classes of the community, is evident from many provisions of their statutes. They frequently provided only board and lodging, and left their beneficiaries to find elsewhere the other necessities of life; they appointed penalties (such as the subtraction of commons for a month) which would have meant starvation to the penniless; they contemplated entertainments and journeys, and in the case of a New College Doctor, even the maintenance of a private servant, at the personal expense of their scholars and Fellows; they prohibited the expenditure of money on extravagant dress and amusements. William of Wykeham made allowances for the expense of proceeding to degrees in the University when one of his Fellows had no private means and no friends to assist him ("propter paupertatem, inopiam, et penuriam, carentiamque amicorum"); but the sum to be thus administered was strictly limited and the recipient had to prove his poverty, and to swear to the truth of his statement. The very frequent insistence upon provisions for a Founder's kin, suggests that the society, to which he wished a (p. 077) large number of his relations to belong, was of higher social standing than an almshouse; and the liberal allowances for the food of the Fellows, as contrasted with the sums allotted to servants and choristers, show that life in College was intended to be easy and comfortable. The fact that menial work was to be done by servants and that Fellows were to be waited on at table by the "poor boys" is a further indication of the dignity of the Society. At New College, it was the special duty of one servant to carry to the schools, the books of the Fellows and scholars. The possession of considerable means by a medieval Fellow, is illustrated by two wills, printed in "Munimenta Academica." Henry Scayfe, Fellow of Queen's College, left in 1449, seven pounds to his father, smaller sums to a large number of friends, including sixpence to every scholar of the College, and also disposed by will of sheep, cattle and horses. In 1457, John Seggefyld, Fellow of Lincoln College, bequeathed to his brother tenements in Kingston by Hull, which had been left him by his father, twelve pence to each of his colleagues, and thirteen shillings and four pence to his executor. Whether the possessions of these men ought to have led to the resignation of their Fellowships, is a question which may have interested their colleagues at the time; to us the facts are important, as illustrating the private means of members of a (p. 078) society of "poor and indigent" scholars, and as indicating the class from which such scholars were drawn.

College regulations in other countries add considerably to our knowledge of medieval student-life. In Paris, where the system had its humble beginning in the hire of a room for eighteen poor scholars, by a benevolent Englishman returning from a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1180, the college ideal progressed slowly and never reached its highest development. Even when most of the students of Paris came to live in colleges, the college was not the real unit of university life, nor was a Parisian college a self-governing community like Merton or Peterhouse. The division of the University of Paris into Nations affected its social life, and the Faculties were separated at Paris in a manner unknown in England. A college at Paris was organised in accordance with Faculty divisions, an arrangement so little in harmony with the ideas of English founders, that William of Wykeham provided that Canonists and Civilists, should be mixed in chambers with students of other Faculties "ad nutriendam et conservandam majorem dilectionem, amicitiam et charitatem inter eosdem." As colleges at Paris were frequently confined to natives of a particular district, they tended to become sub-divisions of the Nations. The (p. 079) disadvantages of restricting membership of a college to a diocese or locality, were seen and avoided by the founder of the College of Sorbonne, in the middle of the thirteenth century, and the founder of the sixteenth century College of Mans protested against the custom, by instructing his executors to open his foundation to men, from every nation and province, insisting that association with companions of different languages and customs, would make the scholars "civiliores, eloquentiores, et doctiores," and that the friendships thus formed would enable them to render better service to the State. The tenure of his bursa or emolument, by a member of a Paris college, was so precarious that he could not count upon proceeding to a higher Faculty in his own college, and the existence of an outside body of governors and of Patrons or Visitors, who had the power of filling up vacancies further checked the growth of corporate feeling and college patriotism. The large powers entrusted to an external authority made the position of the Head of a college at Paris, much less important than at Oxford or Cambridge.

The differences between English and Parisian colleges may best be realised by a reference to the statutes of some early Paris founders. About 1268, Guillaume de Saone, Treasurer of Rouen, founded at Paris, the "Treasurer's College" for natives of his own diocese. It was (p. 080) founded for poor clerks, twelve of whom were to be scholars in Theology, and twelve in Arts. They were to be selected by the archdeacons of the Cathedral of Rouen, who then resided at Grand-Caux and Petit-Caux, from natives of these places, or, failing them, from the Diocese of Rouen. The scholars were to have rooms and a weekly allowance, not for the whole year, but for forty-five weeks from the feast of St Dionysius; no provision was made for the seven weeks of the vacation, except for two theologians, who were to take charge of the house at Paris. The revenues were collected and distributed by the Prior of the Hospital of St Mary Magdalen at Rouen, and the Archbishop of Rouen was Rector and Patron. The students in Arts never formed part of the foundation, for the Treasurer almost immediately restricted his community to Theologians, and their tenure of the endowment was strictly limited to two years after obtaining their licence. "For we do not wish to grant them anything more, because our intention is only to induce them to proceed to the degree of master in theology." They were furnished with books, which they were forbidden to lend, and they were placed under the immediate superintendence of the senior Bursar or Foundationer, whose duty it was to call them together once a week, and inquire into their conduct and their progress in their (p. 081) studies. Some general rules were laid down by the Founder, and offenders against them were to be expelled at these meetings. They were permitted to receive a peaceful commoner, who paid for his chamber and was a student of Theology. The interest of the Treasurer of Rouen in Theology is characteristic, and the great College of the Sorbonne, founded about the same time, was also restricted to theologians. The College of Navarre, founded in 1304, provided for twenty students of grammar, twenty in logic and philosophy (Arts) and twenty in Theology, each Faculty forming a sub-college, with a separate hall. A doctor in grammar was to superintend both the studies and the morals of the grammarians and to receive double their weekly allowance of four shillings, and similarly, a master of Arts was to supervise the Artists and receive double their weekly allowance of six shillings. The "Dean and University of the masters of the scholars of the theological Faculty at Paris" were to choose a secular clerk to be Rector of the College, and to govern it in conjunction with the body that appointed him. The masters of the Faculty of Theology, or their representatives, were to visit the College annually, to inquire into the financial and domestic arrangements, and into the behaviour of the Rector, masters, and scholars, and to punish as they deemed necessary. Membership of the College was restricted to the kingdom of France. (p. 082) Similarly, the College du Plessis, founded in 1322, by Geoffrey du Plessis, Notary Apostolic, and Secretary of Philip the Long, was restricted to Frenchmen, with preference to certain northern dioceses. Its forty scholars were in separate societies, with a Grand Master who had to be a master or, at least, a bachelor in Theology. The affairs of the College, as far as concerned the election, discipline and the deprivation of its members, were to be administered by two bishops and an abbot, in conjunction with the Master and with the Chancellor of the Cathedral of Paris, or, in the absence of the great dignitaries, by the Master and the Chancellor. But the financial administration was entrusted to a provisor or procurator, who undertook the collection and distribution of the revenues.

The details of college statutes at Paris, bear a general resemblance to the regulations of Oxford and Cambridge founders, and discipline became more stringent as time went on. Attendance at Chapel (the only meeting-place of students in different Faculties in the same College) came to be strictly required. Punctuality at meals was frequently insisted upon, under pain of receiving nothing but bread. Silence was enjoined at meal times and the Bible was read. Latin was, from the first, the only lawful medium of conversation. All the members of (p. 083) a college, had to be within the gates when the curfew bell rang. Bearing arms or wearing unusual clothes was forbidden, and singing, shouting and games were denounced as interfering with the studies of others, although the Parisian legislators were more sympathetic with regard to games, than their English contemporaries. Even the Founder of the Cistercian College of St Bernard, contemplated that permission might be obtained for games, though not before dinner or after the bell rang for vespers. A sixteenth-century code of statutes for the College of Tours, while recording the complaints of the neighbours about the noise made by the scholars playing ball ("de insolentiis, exclamationibus et ludis palmariis dictorum scolarium, qui ludunt ... pilis durissimis") permitted the game under less noisy conditions ("pilis seu scophis mollibus et manu, ac cum silentio et absque clamoribus tumultuosis"). The use of dice was, as a rule, absolutely prohibited, but the statutes of the College of Cornouaille permitted it under certain conditions. It might be played to amuse a sick fellow on feast days, or without the plea of sickness, on the vigils of Christmas, and of three Holy Days. But the stakes must be small and paid in kind, not in money ("pro aliquo comestibili vel potabili").

Penalties for minor offences were much the same as in England—forfeiture of commons for varying periods, pecuniary fines, and in the (p. 084) sixteenth century, whipping. In the College of Le Mans, bursars who were not graduates were to be whipped for a first offence in a school, and for a second offence in the Hall ("prout mos est in universitate Parisiensi"). The obligation of reporting each other's faults, of which there are indications in English statutes, was almost universal at Paris, where all were bound to reveal offences "sub secreto" to the authorities. The penalty of "sconcing," still inflicted at Oxford, for offences against undergraduate etiquette, finds a place in the Parisian statutes among serious punishments. We find it in the Statutes of Cornouaille for minor offences; if a man carries wine out of the College illicitly, he is to pay for double the quantity to be drunk by the members who were present at the time; if anyone walks through the confines or chambers in pattens ("cum calepodiis, id est cum patinis") he is to be mulcted in a pint of wine. If a stranger is introduced without leave ("ad mensam communitatis ad comedendum vel videndum secretum mensae"), the penalty is a quart of good wine for the fellows present in Hall. For unseemly noise, especially at meals, and at time of prayers, the ordinary penalty is a quart of ordinary wine ("vini mediocris"). For speaking in the vernacular, there is a fine of "the price of a pint of wine," but, as the usual direction about drinking it, is omitted, this was probably not a sconce; at (p. 085) the Cistercian College, the penalty for this offence was a sconce. So far, the offences for which a sconce is prescribed, might in most cases, be paralleled in more recent times in an English college, but the statutes of Cornouaille also make sconcing the penalty for striking a servant, unless the injury was severe, in which case, more serious punishments were imposed. The whole sentence is an illustration of the lack of control over outbursts of bad temper, which is characteristic of medieval life. All the scholars are to be careful not to strike the servants in anger or with ill-will, or to injure them; he who inflicts a slight injury is to be fined a quart of wine; if the injury be more severe, the master is to deprive him of his burse for one day or more, at his own discretion and that of a majority of the scholars: if there is a large effusion of blood or a serious injury, the provisor (the Bishop of Paris or his Vicar General) is to be informed, and to deprive the offender of his burse, or even punish him otherwise. At the Sorbonne, an assault on a servant was to be followed by the drinking of a quart of specially good wine by the Fellows, at the culprit's expense; for talking too loud in Hall, the sconce was two quarts (presumably of ordinary wine). Dr Rashdall quotes from the MS. Register of the Sorbonne, actual instances of the infliction of sconces: "A Doctor of Divinity is sconced a quart of wine for (p. 086) picking a pear off a tree in the College garden, or again, for forgetting to shut the Chapel door, or for taking his meals in the kitchen. Clerks are sconced a pint for 'very inordinately' knocking 'at the door during dinner ...' for 'confabulating' in the court late at night, and refusing to go to their chambers when ordered.... The head cook is sconced for 'badly preparing the meat for supper,' or for not putting salt in the soup." Among the examples given by Dr Rashdall from this source are a sconce of two shillings for drunkenness and a sconce in wine inflicted upon the head cook for being found "cum una meretrice." An offence so serious in a bursar, is by many college statutes to be followed by expulsion, and Dr Rashdall quotes an instance of this penalty: but Parisian College Founders, were less severe in dealing with moral offences than English Founders. At the monastic College of Marmoutier, it was only on the second offence that bringing into College ("mulierem suspectam et inhonestam") led to expulsion, and at the College of Cornouaille, the penalty for a first offence was loss of commons or bursa for fifteen days, and for a second offence a month's deprivation; but even at Cornouaille actual incontinence was to be punished by expulsion.

A late code of statutes of the fourteenth-century College of (p. 087) Dainville, give us a picture of a student's day. The hour of rising was five o'clock, except on Sundays and Feast days when an hour's grace was allowed. Chapel service began at 5.30, prayers, meditation, and a New Testament lesson being followed by the mass of the College at six. All students resident in the College had to be present. The reception of commoners, an early instance of which we noted in the College of the Treasurer, had developed to such an extent, that all Colleges had, in addition to their bursars or foundations, a large number of "foranei scholares," who paid their own expenses but were subject to College discipline, and received a large part of their education in College. After mass, the day's work began; attendance at the Schools and the performance of exercises for their master in College. Dinner was about twelve o'clock, when either a bursar or an external student read, "first Holy Scripture, then a book appointed by the master, then a passage from a martyrology." After dinner, an hour was allowed for recreation—walking within the precincts of the College, or conversation—and then everyone went to his own chamber. Supper was at seven, with reading as at dinner, and the interval until 8.30 was again free for "deambulatio vel collocutio." At 8.30 the gates of the College were closed, and evening Chapel began. Rules against remaining in Hall after supper occur in Parisian as well (p. 088) as in English statutes, and we find prohibitions against carrying off wood to private rooms. The general arrangement of Parisian college chambers, probably resembled those of Oxford, or Cambridge, and we find references to "studies." The statutes of the monastic college of Clugny order that "because the mind is rendered prudent by sitting down and keeping quiet, the said students at the proper and wonted hours for study shall be, and sit, alone in their cells and at their studies." Parisian statutes are stricter than English statutes in insisting upon frequent inspections of students' chambers, and a sixteenth-century code for a Parisian college orders the officials to see their pupils every night before bed time, and to make sure, before they themselves retire for the night, that the students are asleep and not wandering about the quadrangles.

Strict supervision is found in colleges in other French universities, even in those which belong to the student type. It was, of course, especially strict in monastic colleges, which carried their own customs to the University; in the College of Notre Dame de Pitie, at Avignon, the master of the novices lived in a room adjoining their dormitory, and had a window, through which he might watch their proceedings. Supervision was sometimes connected with precautions against fire, e.g. at the College of Saint Ruf, at Montpellier, (p. 089) an officer was appointed every week to go round all chambers and rooms at night, and to warn anyone who had a candle or a fire in a dangerous position, near his bed or his study. He was to carry a pail of water with him to be ready for emergencies. A somewhat similar precaution was taken in the Collegium Maius at Leipsic, where water was kept in pails beside the dormitories, and leather pails, some centuries old, are still to be seen at Oxford. As a rule, the dormitories seem to have contained a separate bed for each occupant, but in the College of St Nicholas de Pelegry at Cahors, students in arts (who entered about the age of fourteen) were to sleep two in a bed. Insistence on the use of Latin is almost universal; the scholars of the College de Foix at Toulouse are warned that only ploughmen, swineherds and other rustics, use their mother tongues. Silence and the reading of the Bible at meals was usual, and students are sometimes told to make their needs known, if possible, by signs. Fines for lateness at meals are common, and there are injunctions against rushing into Hall with violence and greed: no one is to go near the kitchen to seize any food, and those who enter Hall first, are to wait till the rest arrive, and all are to sit down in the proper order. Prohibitions against dogs are infrequent in the French statutes; at the College des Douze Medecins at Montpellier, one watchdog was allowed to live in College. Women (p. 090) were often forbidden to enter a college, "quia mulier caput est peccati, arma dyaboli, expulsio paradysi, et corruptio legis antiquae." The College of Saint Ruf at Montpellier, in the statutes of which this formula occurs, did, however, allow women to stand in the Chapel at mass, provided that they did not enter the choir. The monastic institution of Our Lady of Pity at Avignon, went so far as to have a matron for the young boys, an old woman, entitled "Mater Novitiorum Collegiatorum." At the College of Breuil at Angers, a woman might visit the College by day if the Principal was satisfied that no scandal could arise. Penalties for going about the town in masked bands and singing or dancing, occur in many statutes, but processions in honour of saints and choruses to celebrate the taking of degrees, are sometimes permitted. Blasphemy and bad language greatly troubled the French statute-makers, and there are many provisions against blaspheming the Blessed Virgin. At the College of Breuil at Angers, a fine of twopence, was imposed for speaking or singing "verba inhonesta tam alte," especially in public places of the College; in Germany, the Collegium Minus at Leipsic provides also against writing "impudentia dicta" on the walls of the College. The usual penalties for minor offences are fines and subtraction of commons: references to (p. 091) flogging are rare, though it is found in both French and German colleges. More serious crimes were visited with suspension and expulsion. At the College of Pelegry, at Cahors, to enter the college by a window or otherwise after the great gate was closed, involved rustication for two months for the first offence, six months for the second offence, and expulsion for a third. At the College de Verdale, at Toulouse, expulsion was the penalty for a list of crimes which includes theft, entering the college by stealth, breaking into the cellar, bringing in a meretrix, witch-craft, alchemy, invoking demons or sacrificing to them, forgery, and contracting "carnale vel spirituale matrimonium."

We may close our survey of the Medieval College, with a glimpse of a French college in the fourteenth century. We have the record of a visitation of the Benedictine foundation of St Benedict, at Montpellier, partly a monastery and partly a college. The Prior is strictly questioned about the conduct of the students. He gives a good character to most of them: but the little flock contained some black sheep. Peter is somewhat light-headed ("aliquantulum est levis capitis") but not incorrigible; he has been guilty of employing "verba injuriosa et provocativa," but the Prior has corrected him, and he has taken the correction patiently. Bertrand's life is "aliquantulum (p. 092) dissoluta," and he has made a conspiracy to beat (and, as some think, to kill) Dominus Savaricus, who had beaten him along with the rest, when he did not know his lessons. (Bertrand says he is eighteen and looks like twenty-one, but this is a monastic college and the beating is monastic discipline.) The Prior further reports that Bertrand is quarrelsome; he has had to make him change his bed and his chamber, because the others could not stand him; he is idle and often says openly, that he would rather be a "claustralis" than a student. Breso is simple and easily led, and was one of Bertrand's conspirators. William is "pessimae conversationis" and incorrigible, scandalous in word and deed, idle and given to wandering about the town. Correction is vain in his case. After the Prior has reported, the students are examined viva voce upon the portions of the decretals, which they are studying, and the results of the examination bear out generally the Prior's views. Bertrand, Breso and William, are found to know nothing, and to have wasted their time. The others acquit themselves well, and the examiners are merciful to a boy who is nervous in viva voce, but of whose studies Dominus Savaricus, who has recovered from the attack made upon him, gives a good account. Monks, and especially novices, were human, and the experience of St Benedict's at Montpellier was probably similar to that of secular colleges in (p. 093) France and elsewhere. Even in democratic Bologna, it was found necessary in the Spanish College (from the MS. statutes of which, Dr Rashdall quotes) to establish a discipline which included a penalty of five days in the stocks and a meal of bread and water, eaten sitting on the floor of the Hall, for an assault upon a brother student; if blood was shed, the penalty was double. The statutes of the Spanish College were severe for the fourteenth century, and they penalise absence from lecture, unpunctuality, nocturnal wanderings and so forth, as strictly as any English founder.



CHAPTER V (p. 094)

UNIVERSITY DISCIPLINE

The growing tradition of strict college discipline ultimately led to disciplinary statutes in the universities. From very early times, universities had, of course, made regulations about the curriculum, and the border-line between a scholar's studies and his manners and morals, could not be absolutely fixed. At Paris, indeed, it is not until the fifteenth century that we find any detailed code of disciplinary statutes; but fourteenth-century regulations about dress were partly aimed at checking misdeeds of students disguised as laymen, and in 1391 the English Nation prohibited an undue number of "potationes et convivia," in celebration of the "jocund advent" of a freshman or on other occasions. It was not till the middle of the fifteenth century that the University of Paris, awoke to the realisation of its own shortcomings in manners and morals; Cardinal William de Estoutville was commissioned by Nicholas V. to reform it, and internal reform, the necessity of which had been recognised for some years, began about the same time with an edict of the Faculty of Arts ordering a general improvement, and especially forbidding the (p. 095) celebration of feasts "cum mimis seu instrumentis altis." Estoutville's ordinances are largely concerned with the curriculum, he was at least as anxious to reform the masters as the pupils, and his exhortations are frequently in general or scriptural terms. The points of undergraduate discipline on which he lays stress are feasting, dressing improperly or wearing the clothes of laymen, quarrelling, and games and dances "dissolutas et inhonestas." Four masters or doctors are to inspect annually the colleges and pedagogies, in which the students live, and are to see that proper discipline is maintained. From time to time, similar regulations were made by the Faculty of Arts, e.g. in 1469, it is ordered that no student is to wear the habit of a fool, except for a farce or a morality (amusements permitted at this period). Any one carrying arms or wearing fools' dress is to be beaten in public and in his own hall. These last regulations are doubtless connected with town and gown riots, for which the Feast of Fools afforded a tempting opportunity.

The absence of disciplinary regulations in the records of the University of Paris, is largely to be explained by the fact that criminal charges against Parisian scholars were tried in the Bishop's Court, and civil actions in the Court of the Provost of Paris. At Oxford, where the whole jurisdiction belonged to the Chancellor of (p. 096) the University, disciplinary statutes are much more numerous. We find, from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards, a series of edicts against scholars who break the peace or carry arms, who enter citizens' houses to commit violence, who practise the art of sword and buckler, or who are guilty of gross immorality. A statute of 1250 forbids scholars to celebrate their national feast days disguised with masks or garlands, and one of 1313 restricts the carrying of arms to students who are entering on, or returning from, long journeys. Offenders who refuse to go to prison, or who escape from it, are to be expelled. As early as the middle of the thirteenth century, it was the duty of the proctors and of the principals of halls, to investigate into, and to report the misdeeds of scholars who broke the rules of the University or lived evil lives. A list of fines drawn up in 1432 (a period when in the opinion of the University a pecuniary penalty was more dreaded than anything else) prescribes fines of twelve pence for threatening violence, two shillings for wearing arms, four shillings for a violent shove with the shoulders or a blow with the fist, six shillings and eight pence for a blow with a stone or stick, ten shillings for a blow with a sword, a knife, a dagger or any similar "bellicose weapon," twenty shillings for carrying bows and arrows with evil intent, thirty shillings for collecting an (p. 097) assembly to break the peace, hinder the execution of justice, or make an attack upon anyone, and forty shillings for resisting the execution of justice or wandering about by night. In every case damages have also to be paid to any injured person. The device of overaweing a court (familiar in Scottish history) is prohibited by a regulation that no one shall appear before the Chancellor with more than two companions.

The records of the Chancellor's Court furnish us with instances of the enforcement of these regulations. In 1434, a scholar is found wearing a dagger and is sentenced to be "inbocardatus,"[1] i.e. imprisoned in the Tower of the North Gate of the city, and another offender, in 1442, suffers a day's imprisonment, pays his fine of two shillings, and forfeits his arms. In the same year, John Hordene, a scholar of Peckwater Inn, is fined six shillings and eightpence for breaking the head of Thomas Walker, manciple of Pauline Hall, and Thomas Walker is fined the like sum for drawing his sword on Hordene and for gambling. In 1433, two scholars, guilty of attacking Master Thomas Rygby in Bagley Wood and stealing twelve shillings and sevenpence from him, fail to appear, and are expelled from the University, their goods (estimated to be worth about thirteen shillings) being (p. 098) confiscated. In 1457, four scholars are caught entering with weapons into a warren or park to hunt deer and rabbits; they are released on taking an oath that, while they are students of the University, they will not trespass again, in closed parks or warrens. In 1452, a scholar of Haburdaysh Hall is imprisoned for using threatening language to a tailor, and is fined twelvepence and imprisoned; the tailor insults the prisoner and is fined six shillings and eightpence. We have quoted instances of undergraduate offences, but the evil-doers are by no means invariably young students, e.g. in 1457 the Vicar of St Giles has to take an oath to keep the peace, his club is forfeited, and he is fined two shillings; and in the same year the Master of St John's Hospital, who has been convicted of divers enormous offences, is expelled the University for breaking prison.

[Footnote 1: The prison was called "Bocardo" because, like the mood known as "Bocardo" in the syllogism, it was difficult to get out of.]

The increased stringency of disciplinary regulations at Oxford in the end of the medieval period is best illustrated by the statutes which, in the fifteenth century, the University enforced upon members of the unendowed Halls. Students who were not members of a College lived, for the most part, in one of the numerous Halls which, up to the Reformation, were so important a feature of the University. A code of these statutes, printed for the first time by Dr Rashdall, shows that the liberty of the earlier medieval undergraduate had largely (p. 099) disappeared, and that the life of a resident in a Hall, in the end of the fifteenth century, was almost as much governed by statute and regulation as if he were the partaker of a founder's bounty. He must hear mass and say matins and vespers every day, under pain of a fine of a penny, and attend certain services on feast days. His table manners are no longer regulated by the customs and etiquette of his fellows, but by the rules of the University. His lapses from good morals are no longer to be visited with penalties imposed by his own society; if he gambles or practises with sword and buckler, he is to pay fourpence; if he sins with his tongue, or shouts or makes melody when others wish to study or sleep, or brings to table an unsheathed knife, or speaks English, or goes into the town or the fields unaccompanied by a fellow-student, he is fined a farthing; if he comes in after 8 P.M. in winter or 9 P.M. in summer, he contracts a gate bill of a penny; if he sleeps out, or puts up a friend for the night, without leave of his Principal, the fine is fourpence; if he sleeps with another student in the Hall but not in his own bed, he pays a penny; if he brings a stranger to a meal or a lecture or any other "actum communem" in the Hall, he is fined twopence; if he is pugnacious and offensive and makes odious comparisons, he is to pay sixpence; if he attacks a fellow-member or a servant, the University has (p. 100) appointed penalties varying with the severity of the assault, and for a second offence he must be expelled. He has to obey his Principal much as members of a College obey their Head, and, in lieu of the pecuniary penalties, the Principal may flog him publicly on Saturday nights, even though his own master may certify that he has already corrected him, or declare his willingness to correct him, for his breaches of the statutes. The private master or tutor was, as Dr Rashdall suggests, probably a luxury of the rich boy, to whom his wealth might thus bring its own penalty.

It is startling to the modern mind to find University statutes and disciplinary regulations forbidding not only extravagant and unbecoming dress, but sometimes also the wearing of distinctive academic costume by undergraduates, for distinctive academic costume was the privilege of a graduate. The scholar wore ordinary clerical dress, unless the Founder of a College prescribed a special livery. The master had a cappa or cope, such as a Cambridge Vice-Chancellor wears on Degree Days, with a border and hood of minever, such as Oxford proctors still wear, and a biretta or square cap. In 1489, the insolence of many Oxford scholars had grown to such a pitch that they were not afraid to wear hoods in the fashion of masters, whereas bachelors, to their own damnation and the ruin of the University, (p. 101) were so regardless of their oaths as to wear hoods not lined throughout with fur. Penalties were prescribed for both kinds of offenders; but though the Oxford undergraduate never succeeded in annexing the hood, he gradually acquired the biretta, which his successor of to-day is occasionally fined for not wearing. The modern gown or toga is explained by Dr Rashdall as derived from the robe or cassock which a medieval Master of Arts wore under his cappa.

The disciplinary regulations of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Oxford may be paralleled from other universities. At Louvain there was a kind of proctorial walk undertaken by the University official known as the Promotor. On receiving three or four hours' notice from the Rector, the Promotor, with a staff of servants, perambulated the streets at night, and he and his "bulldogs" received a fine from anyone whom they apprehended. Offending students caught in flagrante delicto he conducted to the University prison, and others he reported to the Rector. "Notabiles personae" might be incarcerated in a monastery incorporated with the University. Arms found upon anyone were forfeited. The Promotor was also the University gaoler, and was responsible for the safe custody of prisoners, and he might place in fetters dangerous prisoners or men accused of serious crimes. (p. 102) Interviews with captives had to take place in his presence; male visitors had to give up their knives or other weapons before being admitted, and female visitors had to leave their cloaks behind them. Students were forbidden to walk in the streets at night after the bell of St Michael's Church had been rung at nine o'clock in winter, and ten o'clock in summer, unless they were accompanied by a doctor or a "gravis persona" and were bearing a torch or lantern. The list of offences at Louvain are much the same as elsewhere, but an eighteenth-century code of statutes specially prohibits bathing and skating. The laws against borrowing and lending were unusually strict, and no student under twenty-five years was allowed to sell books without the consent of his regent, the penalty for a sixteenth-century student in Arts being a public flogging in his own college.

At Leipsic, the University was generally responsible for the discipline, sometimes even when the offences had been committed in the colleges; and a record of the proceedings of the Rector's Court from 1524 to 1588, which was published by Friedrich Zarncke, the learned historian of Leipsic, gives us a large variety of incidents of University life in sixteenth-century Germany. Leipsic possessed a University prison, and we find, in 1524, two students, Philippus (p. 103) Josman and Erasmus Empedophillus, who had quarrelled, and insulted each other, sentenced to perform, in the prison, impositions for the Rector. Six or eight days' imprisonment is a frequent penalty for a drunken row. A college official brings to the Rector's Court in 1545 one of his pupils, John Ditz, who had lost much money by gambling. Ditz and one of his friends, Caspar Winckler, who had won six florins and some books from him, have already been flogged by their preceptors; they are now sentenced to imprisonment, but as the weather is very cold, they are to be released after one day's detention, and sent back to their preceptors to be flogged again. Their companions are sentenced to return any money, books or garments which they had won in gambling games. A student of the name of Valentine Muff complains to the Rector that his pedagogue has beaten and reproved him undeservedly: after an inquiry he is condemned to the rods "once and again." For throwing stones at windows a student is fined one florin in addition to the cost of replacing them. For grave moral offences fines of three florins are imposed, and the penalty is not infrequently reduced. A month's imprisonment is the alternative of the fine of three florins, but if the weather is cold, the culprit, who has been guilty of gross immorality, is let off with two florins. A drunken youth who meets some girls in the evening and tries to (p. 104) compel them to enter his college, is sentenced to five days' imprisonment, but is released on the intercession of the girls and many others. An attack on a servant with a knife is punished by forfeiture of the knife and a fine of half a florin, and a penalty of a florin (divided among the four victims) is inflicted for entering a house with arms and wounding the fingers of some of its inhabitants. A ruffian of noble birth, who had been guilty of gross immorality and of violence, declines to appear in the Rector's Court, and is duly sentenced to expulsion. But his father promises to satisfy the University and the injured party, and seven nobles write asking that he should be pardoned, and a compromise is made, by which he appears in court and pays a fine. For the University offence of having as an attendant a boy who is not enrolled, Valentine Leo is fined three florins, which were paid. "But since he appeared to be good and learned, and produced an excellent specimen of his singular erudition, and wrote learned verses and other compositions to the Rector and his assessors, by which he begged pardon and modestly purged his offence, and especially as a doctor, whose sons he taught, and others interceded for him, he easily procured that the florins, should be returned to the doctor who had paid them for him."

The leniency of the punishments for grave moral offences, as (p. 105) contrasted with the strict insistence upon the lesser matters of the law, cannot fail to impress modern readers, but this is not a characteristic peculiar to Leipsic. Fines, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whippings were frequently inflicted in all universities for violent attacks upon the person. Dr Rashdall quotes a case at Ingolstadt where a student who had killed another in a drunken bout was let off with the confiscation of his goods, and the penalty of expulsion was remitted; and the eighteenth-century history of Corpus Christi College at Oxford supplies more recent instances of punishments which could scarcely be said to fit the crime.

The statutes of the French universities outside Paris and of the three medieval Scottish universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen) supply many illustrations of the regulations we have noted elsewhere, but contain little that is unusual. St Andrews, which allowed hawking, forbade the dangerous game of football. The Faculty of Arts at Glasgow in 1532 issued an edict which has a curious resemblance to the Eton custom of "shirking." Reverence and filial fear were so important, said the masters, that no student was to meet the Rector, the Dean, or one of the Regents openly in the streets, by day or by night; immediately he was observed he must slink away and escape as best (p. 106) he could, and he must not be found again in the streets without special leave. The penalty was a public flogging. Similarly, even a lawful game must not be played in the presence of a regent. Flogging was a recognised penalty in all the Scottish universities; it found its way into the system at St Andrews and Glasgow, and was introduced at once at Aberdeen. The early statutes of Aberdeen University (King's College) unfortunately exist only in the form in which they were edited in the seventeenth century. They include a rhymed series of rules for behaviour at table, which, though post-medieval in date, give us some clue to the table manners of the medieval students:—

Majorem ne praevenia- } Locum assignatum tenea- } Mensae assignatae accumba- } Manibus mundis nudis eda- } Aperientes caput faciem ne obtega- } Vultus hilares habea- } Rite in convictu comeda- } Sal cultello capia- } Salinum ne dejicia- } Manubrium haud aciem porriga- } tis Tribus cibos digitis prehenda- } Cultro priusquam dente tera- } . . . . . } Ossa in orbem depona- } Vel pavimentum jacia- } Modeste omnia facia- } Ossa si in convivas jacia- } Nedum si illos vulnera- } Ne queramini si vapula- } . . . . . } Post haustum labia deterga- } (p. 107) Modicum, sed crebro biba- } . . . . . } Os ante haustum evacua- } Ungues sordidulos fugia- } tis . . . . . } Ructantes terga reflecta- } Ne scalpatis cavea- } . . . . . } Edere mementote ut viva- } Non vivere ut comed- }

The Economist's accounts at Aberdeen have been preserved for part of the year 1579, and show that the food of a Scottish student, just after the medieval period, consisted of white bread, oat bread, beef, mutton, butter, small fish, partans (crabs), eggs, a bill of fare certainly above the food of the lower classes in Scotland at the time. The drinks mentioned are best ale, second ale, and beer. His victuals interested the medieval student; the conversation of two German students, as pictured in a "students' guide" to Heidelberg (cf. p. 116), is largely occupied with food. "The veal is soft and bad: the calf cannot have seen its mother three times: no one in my country would eat such stuff: the drink is bitter." The little book shows us the two students walking in the meadows, and when they reach the Neckar, one dissuades the other from bathing (a dangerous enterprise forbidden in the statutes of some universities, including Louvain (p. 108) and Glasgow). They quarrel about a book, and nearly come to blows; one complains that the other reported him to the master for sleeping in lecture. Both speak of the "lupi," the spies who reported students using the vernacular or visiting the kitchen. The "wolves" were part of the administrative machinery of a German University; a statute of Leipsic in 1507 orders that, according to ancient custom, "lupi" or "signatores" be appointed to note the names of any student who talked German ("vulgarisantes") that they might be fined in due course, the money being spent on feasts. One of the two Heidelberg students complains of having been given a "signum" or bad mark "pro sermone vulgariter prolato," and the other has been caught in the kitchen. They discuss their teachers; one of them complains of a lecture because "nimis alta gravisque materia est." The little book gives, in some ways, a remarkable picture of German student life, with its interests and its temptations; but it raises more problems than it solves, and affords a fresh illustration of the difficulty of attempting to recreate the life of the past.



CHAPTER VI (p. 109)

THE JOCUND ADVENT

The medieval student began his academic career with an initiation ceremony which varied in different countries and at different dates, but which, so far as we know, always involved feasting and generally implied considerable personal discomfort. The designation, "bejaunus" or bajan, which signifies yellow-beak ("bec jaune"), seems to have been given almost everywhere to the freshman, and the custom of receiving the fledgeling into the academic society was, towards the close of the Middle Ages, no mere tradition of student etiquette, but an acknowledged and admitted academic rite. The tradition, which dates from very early times, and which has so many parallels outside University history, was so strong that the authorities seem to have deemed it wisest to accept it and to be content with trying to limit the expense and the "ragging" which it entailed.

We have no detailed knowledge of the initiation of the Parisian student, but a statute made by the University in 1342 proves that the two elements of bullying the new-comer and feasting at his expense were both involved in it. It relates that quarrels frequently (p. 110) arise through the custom of seizing the goods of simple scholars on the occasion of their "bejaunia," and compelling them to expend on feasting the money on which they intended to live. Insults, blows, and other dangers are the general results of the system, and the University orders that no one shall exact money or anything else from bajans except the "socii" with whom they live, and they may take only a free-will offering. Bajans are to reveal, under heavy penalties, the names of any who molest them by word or blow, threatening them or offering them insults. Offenders are to be handed over to the Provost of Paris to be punished, but not "ad penam sanguinis."

A fifteenth-century code of statutes of the Cistercian College at Paris (generally much less stern than one would expect in a house of that severe Order) refers to the traditions that had grown up in the College about the initiation of a bajan, and to the "insolentias et enormitates multas" which accompanied their observance. The whole of the ceremonies of initiation are therefore forbidden—"omnes receptiones noviter venientium, quos voluntaria opinione Bejanos nuncupare solent, cum suis consequentiis, necnon bajulationes, fibrationes ... tam in capitulo, in dormitorio, in parvis scholis, in jardinis, quam ubiubi, et tam de die quam de nocte." With these evil customs is to go the very name of the Abbas Bejanorum, and all (p. 111) "vasa, munimenta, et instrumenta" used for these ceremonies are to be given up. New-comers in future are to be entrusted to the care of discreet seniors, who will instruct them in the honourable customs of the College, report their shortcomings in church, in walks, and in games, supervise their expenditure, and prevent their being overcharged "pro jocundo adventu" or in other ways. So strong was the tradition of the "jocund advent" that it thus finds a place even in a reformer's constitution, and we find references to it elsewhere in the statutes of Parisian colleges. An undated early code, drawn up for the Treasurer's College, orders the members to fulfil honestly their jocund advent in accordance with the advice of their fellow students. At Cornouaille, the new-comer is instructed to pay for his jocund advent neither too meanly nor with burdensome extravagance, but in accordance with his rank and his means. At the College of Dainville the expense of the bajan-hood is limited to a quart of good wine ("ultra unum sextarium vini non mediocris suis sociis pro novo sub ingressu seu bejanno non solvat"). At the College of Cambray, a bursar is to pay twenty shillings for utensils, and to provide a pint of good wine for the fellows then present in hall. Dr Rashdall quotes from the Register of the Sorbonne an instance in which the Abbot of the Bajans was fined eight shillings (to be expended in wine) because he had (p. 112) not fulfilled his duties in regard to the cleansing of the bajans by an aspersion of water on Innocents' Day. The bajans were not only washed, but carried in procession upon asses.

The statutes of the universities of Southern France, and especially of Avignon and Aix, give us some further information, and we possess a record of the proceedings at Avignon of the Court of the Abbot of the Bajans, referred to in the passage we have quoted from the regulations of the Cistercian College at Paris. Similar prohibitions occur in other College statutes.

At Avignon, the Confraternity of St Sebastian existed largely for the purgation of bajans and the control of the abuses which had grown up in connection with the jocund advent. One of its statutes, dated about 1450, orders that no novice, commonly called a bajan, shall be admitted to the purgation of his sins or take the honourable name of student until he has paid the sum of six grossi as entrance money to the Confraternity. There is also an annual subscription of three grossi, and the payment of these sums is to be enforced by the seizure of books, unless the defaulter can prove that he is unable to pay his entrance fee or subscription, as the case may be. The Prior and Councillors of the Fraternity have power to grant a dispensation on the ground of poverty. After providing his feast, and taking an (p. 113) oath, the bajan is to be admitted "jocose et benigne," is to lose his base name, and after a year is to bear the honourable title of student. Noblemen and beneficed clergy are to pay double. The bajan is implored to comply with these regulations "corde hilarissimo," and his "socii" are adjured to remember that they should not seek their own things but the things of Christ, and should therefore not spend on feasts anything over six grossi paid by a bajan, but devote it to the honour of God and St Sebastian. The Court of the Abbot of the Bajans, at the College of Annecy, in the same University, throws a little more light on the actual ceremony of purgation. The bajans are summoned into the Abbot's Court, where each of them receives, pro forma, a blow from a ferule. They all stand in the Court, with uncovered heads and by themselves ("Mundus ab immundo venit separandus"); under the penalty of two blows they are required to keep silence ("quia vox funesta in judiciis audiri non debet.") The bajan who has patiently and honestly served his time and is about to be purged, is given, in parody of an Inception in the University, a passage in the Institutes to expound, and his fellow-bajans, under pain of two blows, have to dispute with him. If he obtains licence, the two last-purged bajans bring water "pro lavatione et purgatione." The other rules of the Abbot's Court deal with the duties to be (p. 114) performed by the youngest freshman in Chapel (and at table if servants are lacking), and order bajans to give place to seniors and not to go near the fire in hall when seniors are present. No one, either senior or freshman, is to apply the term "Domine" to a bajan, and no freshman is to call a senior man a bajan. The Court met twice a week, and it could impose penalties upon senior men as well as bajans, but corporal punishment is threatened only against the "infectos et fetidissimos bejannos."

At Aix, a fifteenth-century code of statutes orders every bajan to pay fees to the University, and to give a feast to the Rector, the Treasurer, and the Promotor. The Rector is to bring one scholar with him, and the Promotor two, to help "ad purgandum bejaunum," and the bajan is to invite a bedel and others. Dispensations on the ground of poverty could be obtained from the Rector, and two or three freshmen might make their purgation together, "cum infinitas est vitanda," even an infinity of feasts is to be avoided. The Promotor gives the first blow with a frying-pan, and the scholars who help in the purgation are limited to two or three blows each, since an infinity of blows is also to be avoided. The Rector may remit a portion of the penalty at the request of noble or honourable ladies who happen to be present, (p. 115) for it is useless to invite ladies if no remission is to be obtained. If the bajan is proud or troublesome, the pleas of the ladies whom he has invited will not avail; he must have his three blows from each of his purgators, without any mercy. If a freshman failed to make his purgation within a month, it was to take place "in studio sub libro super anum"; the choice between a book and a frying-pan as a weapon of castigation is characteristic of the solemn fooling of the jocund advent. The seizure of goods and of books, mentioned in some of the statutes we have quoted, is frequently forbidden. At Orleans the statutes prohibit leading the bajan "ut ovis ad occisionem" to a tavern to be forced to spend his money, and denounce the custom as provocative of "ebrietates, turpiloquia, lascivias, pernoctationes" and other evils. They also forbid the practice of compelling him to celebrate the jocund advent by seizing books, one or more, or by exacting anything from him. There are numerous other references in French statutes, some of which denounce the bejaunia as sufficiently expensive to deter men from coming to the University, but details are disappointingly few.

The initiation of the bajan attained its highest development in the German universities, where we find the French conception of the bajan, as afflicted with mortal sin and requiring purification, combined (p. 116) with the characteristic German conception of him as a wild animal who has to be tamed. His reformation was accomplished by the use of planes, augers, saws, pincers and other instruments suitable for removing horns, tusks and claws from a dangerous animal, and the Deposition, or "modus deponendi cornua iis qui in numerum studiosorum co-optari volunt," became a recognised University ceremony. The statutes attempt to check it, e.g. at Vienna the bajan is not to be oppressed with undue exactions or otherwise molested or insulted, and at Leipsic the insults are not to take the form of blows, stones, or water. At Prague, "those who lay down (deponent) their rustic manners and ignorance are to be treated more mildly and moderately than in recent years (1544), and their lips or other parts of their bodies are not to be defiled with filth or putrid and impure substances which produce sickness." But the Prague statute contemplates a Deposition ceremony in which the freshman is assumed to be a goat with horns to be removed. A black-letter handbook or manual for German students, consisting of dialogues or conversational Latin (much on the principle of tourists' conversational dictionaries), opens with a description of the preparations for a Deposition. The book, which has been reprinted in Zarncke's Die Deutschen Universitaeten im Mittelalter, is (p. 117) (from internal evidence) a picture of life at Heidelberg, but it is written in general terms.

The new-comer seeks out a master that he may be entered on the roll of the University and be absolved from his bajan-ship. "Are your parents rich?" is one of the master's first questions, and he is told that they are moderately prosperous mechanics who are prepared to do the best for their son. The master takes him to the Rector to be admitted, and then asks him, "Where do you intend to have your 'deposition' as a bajan?" The boy leaves all arrangements in the master's hands, reminding him of his poverty, and it is agreed to invite three masters, two bachelors, and some friends of the master to the ceremony. With a warning that he must not be afraid if strangers come and insult him, for it is all part of the tradition of a bajan's advent, the master goes to make arrangements for the feast. Two youths, Camillus and Bartoldus, then arrive, and pretend to be greatly disturbed by a foul smell, so strong that it almost drives them from the room. Camillus prepares to go, but Bartoldus insists upon an investigation of the cause. Camillus then sees a monster of terrible aspect, with huge horns and teeth, a nose curved like the beak of an owl, wild eyes and threatening lips. "Let us flee," he says, "lest it attack us." Bartoldus then guesses that it is a bajan, a creature (p. 118) which Camillus has never seen, but of whose ferocity he has heard. The bold Bartoldus then addresses the bajan. "Domine Joannes," he says, "whence do you come? Certainly you are a compatriot of mine, give me your hand." Joannes stretches out his hand, but is met with the indignant question, "Do you come to attack me with your nails? Why do you sit down, wild ass? Do you not see that masters are present, venerable men, in whose presence it becomes you to stand?" Joannes stands, and is further insulted. His tormentors then affect to be sorry for him and make touching references to his mother's feelings ("Quid, si mater sciret, quae unice eum amat?"), but relapse into abuse (O beane, O asine, O foetide hirce, O olens capra, O bufo, O cifra, O figura nihili, O tu omnino nihil). "What are we to do with him?" says Camillus, and Bartoldus suggests the possibility of his reformation and admission into their society. But they must have a doctor. Camillus is famous and learned in the science of medicine, and can remove his horns, file down his teeth, cure his blindness, and shave his long and horrible beard. While he goes for the necessary instruments, Bartoldus tells the victim to cheer up, for he is about to be cured from every evil of mind and body, and to be admitted to the privileges of the University. Camillus returns with ointment, (p. 119) and they proceed to some horseplay which Joannes resists (Compesce eius impetus et ut equum intractatum ipsum illum constringe). Tusks and teeth having been removed, the victim is supposed to be dying, and is made to confess to Bartoldus a list of crimes. His penance is to entertain his masters "largissima coena," not forgetting the doctor who has just healed him, and the confessor who has just heard his confession, for they also must be entertained "pingui refectione." But this confessor can only define the penance, he cannot give absolution, a right which belongs to the masters. Joannes is then taken to his master for the Deposition proper. Dr Rashdall describes the scene, from a rare sixteenth-century tract, which contains an illustration of a Deposition, and a defence of it by Luther, who justified his taking part in one of these ceremonies by giving it a moral and symbolical meaning. The bajan lies upon a table, undergoing the planing of his tusks, "while a saw lies upon the ground, suggestive of the actual de-horning of the beast. The work itself and later apologies for the institution mention among the instruments of torture a comb and scissors for cutting the victim's hair, an auriscalpium for his ears, a knife for cutting his nails; while the ceremony further appears to include the adornment of the youth's chin with a beard by means of burned cork or other pigment, and the administration, (p. 120) internal or external, of salt and wine."

In the English universities we have no trace of the "jocund advent" during the medieval period, but it is impossible to doubt that this kind of horseplay existed at Oxford and Cambridge. The statutes of New College refer to "that most vile and horrid sport of shaving beards"; it was "wont to be practised on the night preceding the Inception of a Master of Arts," but the freshmen may have been the victims, as they were in similar ceremonies at the Feast of Fools in France. Antony a Wood, writing of his own undergraduate days in the middle of the seventeenth century, tells that charcoal fires were made in the Hall at Merton on Holy Days, from All Saints' Eve to Candlemas, and that

"at all these fires every night, which began to be made a little after five of the clock, the senior undergraduates would bring into the hall the juniors or freshmen between that time and six of the clock, there make them sit downe on a forme in the middle of the hall, joyning to the declaiming desk; which done, every one in order was to speake some pretty apothegme, or make a jest or bull, or speake some eloquent nonsense, to make the company laugh. But if any of the freshmen came off dull, or not cleverly, some of the forward or pragmatised seniors would "tuck" them, that is, set the nail of their thumb to their chin, just (p. 121) under the lower lipp, and by the help of their other fingers under the chin, they would give him a mark, which sometimes would produce blood."

On Shrove Tuesday, 1648, Merton freshmen entertained the other undergraduates to a brass pot "full of cawdel." Wood, who was a freshman, describes how

"every freshman according to seniority, was to pluck off his gowne and band and if possible to make himself look like a scoundrell. This done, they conducted each other to the high table, and there made to stand on a forme placed thereon; from whence they were to speak their speech with an audible voice to the company; which if well done, the person that spoke it was to have a cup of cawdle and no salted drink; if indifferently, some cawdle and some salted drink; but if dull, nothing was given to him but salted drink or salt put in college beere, with tucks to boot. Afterwards when they were to be admitted into the fraternity, the senior cook was to administer to them an oath over an old shoe, part of which runs thus: 'Item tu jurabis quod penniless bench (a seat at Carfax) non visitabis' &c. The rest is forgotten, and none there are now remembers it. After which spoken with gravity, the Freshman kist the shoe, put on his gown and band and took his place among the seniors."

"This," says Wood, "was the way and custom that had been used in (p. 122) the college, time out of mind, to initiate the freshmen; but between that time and the restoration of K. Ch. 2 it was disused, and now such a thing is absolutely forgotten." His whole description, and especially the parody of the master's oath not to visit Stamford, goes to show that he was right in attributing the ceremonies to remote antiquity, and there are indications that the initiation of freshmen was practised elsewhere in Oxford. Hearne speaks of similar customs at Balliol and at Brasenose, and an eighteenth-century editor of Wood asserts, that "striking traces" of the practice "may be found in many societies in this place, and in some a very near resemblance of it has been kept up till within these few years." Our quotation from Wood may therefore serve to illustrate the treatment of the medieval freshman at Oxford. We possess no details of the jocund advent at Cambridge, but in the medieval Scottish universities, where the name of bajan still survives, there were relics of it within recent times. At St Andrews, a feast of raisins was the last survival of the bajan's "standing treat," and attacks made by "Semis" (second year men) upon a bajan class emerging from a lecture-room were an enlivening feature of student life at Aberdeen up to the end of the nineteenth century. The weapons in use were notebooks, and the belabouring of Aberdeen (p. 123) bajans with these instruments may be historically connected with the chastisement which we have found in some of the medieval initiation ceremonies. It would be fanciful to connect the gown-tearing, which was also a feature of these attacks, with the assaults upon the Rector's robe at Bologna.



CHAPTER VII (p. 124)

TOWN AND GOWN

The violence which marked medieval life as a whole was not likely to be absent in towns where numbers of young clerks were members of a corporation at variance with the authorities of the city. University records are full of injuries done to masters and students by the townsfolk, and of privileges and immunities obtained from Pope or King or Bishop at the expense of the burgesses. When a new University was founded, it was sometimes taken for granted that these conflicts must arise, and that the townsmen were certain to be in the wrong. Thus, when Duke Rudolf IV. founded the University of Vienna in 1365, he provided beforehand for such contingencies by ordaining that an attack on a student leading to the loss of a limb or other member of the body was to be punished by the removal of the same member from the body of the assailant, and that for a lesser injury the offender's hand was to be wounded ("debet manus pugione transfigi"). The criminal might redeem his person by a fine of a hundred silver marks for a serious injury and of forty marks for slighter damages, the victim to (p. 125) receive half of the fine. Assailants of students were not to have benefit of sanctuary. Oxford history abounds in town and gown riots, the most famous of which is the battle of St Scholastica's Day (10th February) 1354. The riot originated in a tavern quarrel; some clerks disapproved of the wine at an inn near Carfax, and (in Antony Wood's words) "the vintner giving them stubborn and saucy language, they threw the wine and vessel at his head." His friends urged the inn-keeper "not to put up with the abuse," and rang the bell of St Martin's Church. A mob at once assembled, armed with bows and arrows and other weapons; they attacked every scholar who passed, and even fired at the Chancellor when he attempted to allay the tumult. The justly indignant Chancellor retorted by ringing St Mary's bell and a mob of students assembled, also armed (in spite of many statutes to the contrary). A battle royal raged till nightfall, at which time the fray ceased, no one scholar or townsman being killed or mortally wounded or maimed. If the matter had ended then, little would have been heard of the story, but next day the townsmen stationed eighty armed men in St Giles's Church, who sallied out upon "certain scholars walking after dinner in Beaumont killed one of them, and wounded others." A second battle followed, in which the citizens, aided by some countrymen, defeated the scholars, and ravaged their halls, (p. 126) slaying and wounding. Night interrupted their operations, but on the following day, "with hideous noises and clamours they came and invaded the scholars' houses ... and those that resisted them and stood upon their defence (particularly some chaplains) they killed or else in a grievous sort wounded.... The crowns of some chaplains, that is, all the skin so far as the tonsure went, these diabolical imps flayed off in scorn of their clergy."

The injured University was fully avenged. The King granted it jurisdiction over the city, and, especially, control of the market, and the Bishop of Lincoln placed the townsmen under an interdict which was removed only on condition that the Mayor and Bailiffs, for the time being, and "threescore of the chiefest Burghers, should personally appear" every St Scholastica's Day in St. Mary's Church, to attend a mass for the souls of the slain. The tradition that they were to wear halters or silken cords has no authority, but they were each "to offer at the altar one penny, of which oblation forty pence should be distributed to forty poor scholars of the University." The custom, with some modifications, survived the Reformation, and it was not till the nineteenth century that the Mayor of Oxford ceased to have cause to regret the battle of St Scholastica's Day.

The accounts of St Scholastica's Day and of most other riots which (p. 127) have come down to us are written from the standpoint of the scholars, but the records of the city of Oxford give less detailed but not less credible instances of assaults by members of the University. On the eve of St John Baptist's Day in 1306, for example, the tailors of Oxford were celebrating Midsummer "cum Cytharis Viellis et aliis diversis instrumentis." After midnight, they went out "de shoppis suis" and danced and sang in the streets. A clerk, irritated by the noise, attacked them with a drawn sword, wounded one of them, and was himself mortally wounded in the skirmish. Of twenty-nine coroners' inquests which have been preserved for the period 1297-1322, thirteen are murders committed by scholars. Attacks on townsmen were not mere undergraduate follies, but were countenanced and even led by officials of the University, e.g. on a March night in 1526 one of the proctors "sate uppon a blocke in the streete afore the shoppe of one Robert Jermyns, a barber, havinge a pole axe in his hand, a black cloake on his backe, and a hatt on his head," and organised a riot in which many townsmen were "striken downe and sore beaten." Citizens' houses were attacked and "the saide Proctour and his company ... called for fire," threatening to burn the houses, and insulting the inmates with opprobrious names. When such an incident as this was possible, it (p. 128) was of little use for the University to issue regulations or even to punish less exalted sinners, and the town must have suffered much from the outrages of scholars and of the "chamber-dekens" or pretended scholars of the University, who were responsible for much of the mischief. At Paris things became so bad that the Parlement had to issue a series of police regulations to suppress the bands of scholars, or pretended scholars, who wandered about the streets at night, disguised and armed. They attacked passers-by, and if they were wounded in the affray, their medical friends, we are told, dressed their wounds, so that they eluded discovery in the morning. The history of every University town provides instances of street conflicts—the records of Orleans and Toulouse abound in them—but we must be content with a tale from Leipsic.

The pages of the "Acta Rectorum" at Leipsic are full of illustrations of the wilder side of student life, from which we extract the story of one unhappy year. The year 1545 opened very badly, says the "Rector's Chronicle," with three homicides. On Holy Innocents' Day, a bachelor was murdered by a skinner in a street riot, and the murderer, though he was seen by some respectable citizens, was allowed to escape. A student who killed a man on the night of the Sunday after the (p. 129) Epiphany was punished by the University in accordance with its statutes (i.e. by imprisonment for life in the bishop's prison). The third murder was that of a young bachelor who was walking outside the city, when two sons of rustics in the neighbourhood fell on him and killed him. Their names were known, but the city authorities refused to take action, and the populace, believing that they would not be punished, pursued the members of the University with continued insults and threats. After an unusually serious attack cum bombardis, (in which, "by the divine clemency," a young mechanic was wounded), the University, failing to obtain redress, appealed to Prince Maurice of Saxony, who promised to protect the University. A conference between the University and the city authorities took place, and edicts against carrying arms were published, but the skinners immediately indulged in another outrage. One of them, Hans von Buntzell on Whitsunday, attacked, with a drawn sword, the son of a doctor of medicine, "a youth (as all agree) most guiltless," and wounded him in the arm, and if another student had not unexpectedly appeared, "would without doubt have killed this excellent boy." The criminal was pursued to the house of a skinner called Meysen, where he took refuge. The city authorities, inspired by the Prince's intervention, offered to impose three (p. 130) alternative sentences, and the University was asked to say whether Hans von Buntzell should lose one of his hands, or be publicly whipped and banished for ten years, or should have a certain stigma ("quod esset manus amittendae signum") burned in his hand and be banished. The University replied that it was for the city to carry out the commands of the Prince, and declined to select the penalty. On the following Monday a scaffold was erected in the market-place, on which were placed rods and a knife for cutting off the hand, "which apparatus was thought by the skinners to be much too fierce and cruel, and a concourse began from all parts, composed not of skinners alone, but of mechanics of every kind, interceding with the Council for the criminal." The pleadings of the multitude gained the day, and all the preparations were removed from the market-place amid the murmurs of the students. After supper, three senior members of the skinners came to the Rector, begging for a commutation of the punishment, and offering to beat Hans themselves in presence of representatives of the University and the Town Council, with greater ferocity than the public executioner could do if he were to whip him three times in public. The Rector replied that he must consult the University, and the proposal was thrown out in Congregation. On the Saturday after the Feast of (p. 131) Trinity, the stigma was burned on the criminal's hand, and as a necessary consequence he was banished.

Town riots do not complete the tale of violence. There were struggles with Jews, and a Jewish row at Oxford in 1268 resulted in the erection of a cross, with the following inscription:—

Quis meus auctor erat? Judaei. Quomodo? Sumptu Quis jussit? Regnans. Quo procurante? Magistri. Cur? Cruce pro fracta ligni. Quo tempore? Festo Ascensus Domini. Quis est locus? Hic ubi sisto.