HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*

 

 

CHAPTER XI.

 

UNIVERSITIES AND CATHEDRALS.

 

 § 88. Schools.

 

Literature: John of Salisbury: Metalogicus, Migne, 199. 823–946.—Guibert of Nogent: De vita sua, I. 4–7; Migne, 153. 843–850.—A. H. L. Heeren: Gesch. d. class. Lit. im MlA., 2 vols. Götting., 1822.—S. R. Maitland: The Dark Ages, Essays on the State of Rel. and Lit., 800–1200 a.d., Lond., 1845, 5th ed. 1890.—H. Heppe: D. Schulwesen d. MlA., etc., Marb., 1860.—Schaarschmidt: J. Saresberiensis (John of Salisbury), Leip., 1862.—Léon Maître: Les écoles épiscopales el monastiques de l’occident, 768–1180 a.d., Paris, 1866.—E. Michaud: G. de Champeaux et les écoles de Paris au 12e siècle, Paris, 1867.—J. B. Mullinger: The Schools of Chas. the Great, Lond., 1877; Hist. of the Univ. of Cambr. to 1535, Cambr., 1873.—*R. L. Poole: The School of Chartres, being chap. IV of his Illustr. of the Hist. of Med. Thought.—*F. A. Specht: Gesch. d. Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland von d. ältesten Zeiten bis zur Mitte des 13ten Jahrh., Stuttg., 1885.—*A. and G. Schmid: Gesch. d. Erziehung bis auf unsere Zeit, pp. 94–333, Stuttg., 1892.—Miss Drane: Christ. Schools and Scholars, Lond., 2d ed. 1881. —*J. E. Sandys: A Hist. of Class. Scholarship from 600 b.c. to the end of the M. A., Cambr., 1903.—Mirbt: Publizistik im Zeitalter Greg. VII., pp. 104 sqq.—Rashdall: Universities, vol. I.

 

Education and the advance of true religion are inseparable. The history of literary culture in this period is marked by the remarkable awakening which started in Western Europe in the latter part of the eleventh century and the rise of the universities in the twelfth century. The latter was one of the most important events in the progress of the intellectual development of the race. The renaissance of the eleventh century showed itself in a notable revival of interest in schools, in the appearance of eminent teachers, in a renewed study of the classics, and in an enlarged sweep of the human mind.

The municipal schools of the Roman Empire were swept away by the barbarian invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries, and few vestiges of them were left. The weight of opinion in the Church had been hostile to Pagan learning from the time of Tertullian and Jerome and culminated in Justinian’s act, closing the university of Athens. But it is doubtful whether the old Roman schools would have withstood the shock from the assaults of Goth, Vandal, and Hun, even had Church teachers been friendly to classical literature.

The schools of the earlier Middle Ages were associated with the convents and cathedrals, and it was not till the thirteenth century that the municipal school appeared again, and then it was in the far North, in Germany, and the Lowlands. The first name in the history of the new education is Cassian who founded the convent school of St. Victor, Marseilles, 404. But it was to Benedict of Nursia that Western Europe owed the permanent impulse to maintain schools. The Benedictine Rule made education an adjunct of religion, provided for the training of children by members of the order, and for the transcription of manuscripts. To the Benedictines, especially to the Cistercians, are our libraries indebted for the preservation of the works of classical and patristic writers.

The wise policy of Charlemagne in establishing the Palace school, a sort of normal school for the German Empire, and in issuing his Capitularies bearing on education, and the policy of Alfred in England, gave a fresh impulse to learning by the patronage of royalty. Alcuin at the court of Charlemagne, Asser in England, and John Scotus Erigena at the court of Charles the Bold, were some of the more eminent teachers. It is possible the education was not confined to clerics, for convents had two kinds of schools, the one, the interior, for oblates intended for the monastery, and the exterior school which seems to have had a more general character. The cathedral schools had for their primary, if not for their sole purpose, the training of youth for cathedral positions—canonici puri. The main, if not the exclusive, purpose of education was to prepare men for the priesthood and the convent.1168  In the eleventh century all the convents and cathedrals in Germany had schools,1169 — Corvey on the Weser and Hildesheim being noted; and, in Italy, the schools of Milan and Parma were well known.

But in that century the centre of education shifted to France. The schools at Bec, Rheims, Orleans, Laon, and Paris had no rivals and their fame attracted students, even monks, priests, and bishops, from England and Germany.1170 The fame of Rheims, where Gerbert, afterwards Sylvester II., d. 1003, had won the title of "restorer of studies," gave way to the greater fame of Bec, under Lanfranc and Anselm. Students were drawn from afar and, in the judgment of the glowing panegyrist, Ordericus Vitalis, Athens, in its most flourishing period, would have honored Lanfranc in every branch of learning.1171 These two priors were followed by a succession of teachers whom Ordericus calls "careful pilots and skilful charioteers." Seldom has so splendid a compliment been paid a teacher by a man risen to eminence as was paid by Alexander II. to Lanfranc,1172  on Lanfranc’s visit to Rome, after he was made archbishop of Canterbury. Rising to welcome him with open arms, the pope remarked to the bystanders that he received Lanfranc as his teacher, at whose feet he had sat, rather than as archbishop. Guibert of Nogent, who died about 1120, is authority for the statement that teachers were very rare in France in his early years, but, at the time when he was writing, every considerable town in France had a teacher.1173 That mothers were anxious to have their sons educated is evident from the example of Guibert’s statement concerning his own mother.

As in the earlier period of the Middle Ages, so in this middle period, the idea of universal education was not thought of. Nor was there anything such as we call belles lettres and general literature.1174  All literature had an immediate bearing on religious subjects.1175  Such men as Walter Map and John of Salisbury, who approach nearest our modern idea of men of letters, were clerics. The founders of convents, like Herlouin, founder of Bec, were often men who could neither read nor write. Ordericus says that during the reigns of six dukes, before Lanfranc went to Bec, scarce a single Norman devoted himself to studies. Duke William of Aquitaine, d. 1030, however, was educated from childhood and was said to have spent his nights in reading till sleep overcame him, and to have had a collection of books.1176

The most brilliant teachers of this era were Anselm of Laon, William of Champeaux, Bernard of Chartres, William of Conches, and, above all, Abaelard. They all belonged to France. In their cases, the school followed the teacher and students went not so much to a locality as to an educator. More and more, however, the interest centred in Paris, which had a number of schools,—the Cathedral school, St. Genevieve, St. Victor, St. Denis.1177  Our knowledge of these men is derived chiefly from Abaelard and John of Salisbury. John studied in France for twelve years, 1137–1149, and sat under them all. His descriptions of the studies of the age, and the methods and rivalries of teachers, are given in the Metalogicus.

William of Champeaux, d. 1121, the pupil of Anselm of Laon, won fame at the Cathedral school of Paris, but lost his position by clash with the brilliant abilities of Abaelard. He retired to St. Victor and spent the last eight years of his life in the administration of the see of Chalons. He was an extreme realist.

The teaching of Anselm of Laon and his brother Ralph drew students from as far south as Milan and from Bremen in the North. The brothers were called by John of Salisbury the "splendid luminaries of Gaul,"1178 and "doctor of doctors" was an accepted appellation of Anselm. This teacher, d. 1117, perhaps the pupil of Anselm of Bec, had Abaelard among his hearers and won his contumely. But John of Salisbury’s praise, and not Abaelard’s contempt, must determine our judgment of the man. His glossa interlinearis, a periphrastic commentary on the Vulgate, was held in high esteem for several centuries.1179

Bernard of Chartres, about 1140, was celebrated by John of Salisbury as the "most overflowing spring of letters in Gaul in recent times" and, the most perfect Platonist of our age."1180  He acknowledged his indebtedness to the ancient writers in these words, "We are as dwarfs mounted on the shoulders of giants, so that we are able to see more and further than they; but this is not on account of any keenness of sight on our part or height of our bodies, but because we are lifted up upon those giant forms. Our age enjoys the gifts of preceding ages, and we know more, not because we excel in talent, but because we use the products of others who have gone before."1181

William of Conches, d. 1152 (?), got his name from the Norman hamlet in which he was born. Like his teacher, Bernard of Chartres, he laid stress upon a thorough acquaintance with grammar as the foundation of all learning, and John of Salisbury seems to have written the Metalogicus to vindicate the claims his teachers made for the fundamental importance of this study as opposed to dialectics. But he was advocating a losing cause. Scholasticism was crushing out the fresh sprouts of humanism.1182  William of Conches took liberties with received opinions and denied that Eve was literally created from Adam’s rib. The root of his teachings Poole finds in William’s own words, "through knowledge of the creature we attain to the knowledge of the Creator."1183

The studies continued, at least theoretically, to follow the scheme of the old trivium, including grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; and the quadrivium, including arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. These branches had a wider scope than we associate with some of the titles. Grammar, for example, with Bernard of Chartres, included much more than technical rules and the fundamental distinctions of words. It took in the tropes and figures of speech, analyzed the author’s body of thought, and brought out the allusions to nature, science, and ethical questions. The teaching extended far beyond the teaching of the Capitularies of Charlemagne. Nevertheless, all these studies were the vestibule of theology and valuable only as an introduction to it. Jacob of Vitry, d. 1244, comparing the seven liberal arts with theology,1184 said, "Logic is good for it teaches us to distinguish truth from falsehood, grammar is good for it teaches how to speak and write correctly; rhetoric is good for it teaches how to speak elegantly and to persuade. Good too are geometry which teaches us how to measure the earth, arithmetic or the art of computing which enables us to estimate the brevity of our days, music which reminds us of the sweet chant of the blessed, astronomy which leads us to consider the heavenly bodies shining resplendently before God. But far better is theology which alone can be called a liberal art, since it alone delivers the human soul from its woes."

Innocent III., through the canons of the Fourth Lateran, ordered all cathedrals to have teachers of grammar and lectors in theology, and offered the rewards of high office only to those who pursued hard study with the sweat of the brow.1185  He had in mind only candidates of theology.

The text-books in use for centuries were still popular, such as Cassiodorus, the Isagoge of Porphyry, Aristotle on the Categories; and his De interpretatione, Boethius on Music and the Consolations of Philosophy, Martianus Capella and the grammars of Priscian and Donatus.1186  A new movement, however, was distinctly perceptible, and nothing is more sure proof of it than the open use of the classics by some of the leading educators in their lectures and their use in the writings of the time.

The condemnation, passed by Jerome on the ancient classics, was adopted by Cassian and handed down to the later generations. The obscurantists had the field with little or few exceptions for centuries. It is not to Alcuin’s credit that, in his latter years, he turned away from Virgil as a collection of "lying fables" and, in a letter to a novice, advised him not to assoil his mind with that poet’s rank luxuriance.1187  It was argued by Leo, in his reply to Arnulf of Orleans, 991, that the Apostle Peter was not acquainted with such writers as Plato, Virgil, and Terence, or any of the pseudo-philosophers, and God had from the beginning not chosen orators and philosophers but ignorant and rustic men as His agents.1188  Peter the Venerable raised his voice against them. But such warnings1189 were not sufficient to induce all men to hold themselves aloof from the fascinations of the Latin writers.

Gerbert taught Virgil, Statius, Terence, Juvenal, Persius, Horace, and Lucan.1190  From these he passed on to the department of philosophy. Peter Damiani compared the study of the poets and philosophers to the spoiling of the Egyptians. They served to sharpen the understanding; the study of the writers of the Church to build a tabernacle to God. Anselm of Bee recommended the study of Virgil and other classics, counselling the exclusion of such treatises as contained suggestions of evil.1191  John of Salisbury’s teachers were zealous in reading such writings. John, who in the small compass of the Metalogicus quotes no less than seven classical poets, Statius, Martian, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Catullus, and Persius, and some of these a number of times, says that if you search in Virgil and Lucan, you will be sure to find the essence of philosophy, no matter what philosophy you may profess.1192  He complained of the old school who compared the student of the classic poets and historians to the slow-going ass, and laughed at him as duller than a stone.1193  Abaelard gave to Virgil the esteem due a prophet. Peter of Blois, d. 1204, the English archdeacon, quotes Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Curtius, Tacitus, Suetonius, Seneca (Letters), and other writers. Grosseteste was familiar with Ovid, Seneca, Horace, and other classics. But the time for the full Renaissance had not yet come. In the earliest statutes of the University of Paris the classics were excluded from the curriculum of studies. The subtle processes of the Schoolmen, although they did not altogether ignore the classic compositions, could construct the great theological systems without their aid, though they drew largely and confidently upon Aristotle.

The Discipline of the schools was severe. A good flogging was considered a wholesome means of educational advancement. It drove out the evil spirits of intellectual dulness and heaviness. Degere sub virga, to pass under the rod, was another expression for getting an education. At a later date, the ceremony of inducting a schoolmaster included the presentation of a rod and required him, at least in England, to show his prowess by flogging a boy publicly.1194  If the case of Guibert of Nogent was a typical one, then the process of getting an education was indeed a painful piece of physical experience.

Guibert’s account of his experiences is the most elaborate description we have of mediaeval school life, and one of the most interesting pieces of schoolboys’ experience in literature.1195  The child, early sent to school by his widowed mother, was unmercifully beaten with fist and rod by his teacher, a man who had learned grammar in his advanced years. Though the teacher was an indifferent grammarian, Guibert testifies to the vigor of his moral purpose and the wholesome moral impression he made upon his pupils. The whipping came every day. But the child’s ardor for learning did not grow cold. On returning to his home one evening and loosening his shirt, his mother saw the welts and bruises on his shoulders, for he had been beaten black and blue that day;1196 she suggested, in indignation and pity, that her boy give up preparation for the priesthood, and offered to give him the equipment for the career of a knight. But Guibert, greatly excited, resented any such suggestion.

At Cluny the pupils slept near the masters, and if they were obliged to get up at night, it was not till they had the permission of a master. If they committed any offence in singing the Psalms or other songs, in going to bed, or in any other way, they were punished in their shirts, by the prior or other master, with switches prepared beforehand.1197

 But there were not wanting teachers who protested against this method. Anselm urged the way of affection and confidence and urged that a skilful artificer never fashioned his image out of gold plate by blows alone. With wise and gentle hand he pressed it into shape. Ceaseless beating only brutalizes. To an abbot who said "day and night we do not cease to chastise the children confided to our care and yet they grow worse and worse," Anselm replied: "Indeed!  And when they are grown up, what will they become?  Stupid dolts. A fine education that, which makes brutes of men!... If you were to plant a tree in your garden and were to enclose it on all sides, so that it could not extend its branches, what would you find when, at the end of several years, you set it free from its bounds?  A tree whose branches were bent and scraggy, and would it not be your fault for having so unreasonably confined it?"1198

The principle ruled that an education was free to all whose circumstances did not enable them to pay for it. Others paid their way. Fulbert of Chartres took a fee from the rapidly increasing number of students, regarding philosophy as worth what was paid for it. But this practice was regarded as exceptional and met with opposition.1199  The words of Alcuin, "If you desire to study, you will have what you seek without money," were inscribed on the convent of St. Peter at Salzburg.1200  It was the boast that the care given to the humblest scholar at Cluny was as diligent as the care given to children in the palace.1201

 

 § 89. Books and Libraries.

 

Literature: E. Edwards: Libraries and Founders of Libraries, Lond., 1865.—T. Gottlieb: Mittetalt. Bibliotheken, Leip., 1890.—F. A. Gasquet: Notes on Med. Libraries, Lond., 1891.—E. M. Thompson: Hd. book of Gr. and Lat. Palaeography, Lond., 1893. Contains excellent facsimiles of med. MSS., etc.—J. W. CLARK: Libraries in the Med. and Renaiss. Periods, Cambr., 1894.—G. R. Putnam: Books and their Makers, 476–1709, 2 vols. N. Y., 1896 sq. See his elaborate list of books on monastic education, libraries, etc., I. xviii. sqq.—Mirbt: Publizistik in Zeitalter Greg. VII., pp. 96 sqq. and 119 sqq.—*Maitland: The Dark Ages.—*W. Wattenbach: D. Schriftwesen in Mittelalter, 3d ed., Leip., 1896.—Art. Bibliothek in Wetzer-Welte, II. 783 sqq. Transl. and Reprints of Univ. of Pa. II. 3.

 

Books and schools go together and both are essential to progress of thought in the Church. The mediaeval catalogue of the convent of Muri asserts strongly the close union of the intellectual and religious life. It becomes us, so it ran, always to copy, adorn, improve, and annotate books, because the life of the spiritual man is nothing without books.1202

Happy was the convent that possessed a few volumes.1203  The convent and the cathedral were almost the sole receptacles for books. Here they were most safe from the vandalism of invaders and the ravages of fire, so frequent in the Middle Ages; and here they were accessible to the constituency which could read. It was a current saying, first traced to Gottfried, canon of St. Barbe-en-Auge, that a convent without a library is like a fortress without arms.1204  During the early Middle Ages, there were small collections of books at York, Fulda, Monte Cassino, and other monasteries. They were greatly prized, and ecclesiastics made journeys to get them, as did Biscop, abbot of Wearmouth, who made five trips to Italy for that purpose. During the two centuries and more after Gregory VII., the use and the number of books increased; but it remained for the zeal of Petrarch in the fourteenth century to open a new era in the history of libraries. The period of the Renaissance which followed witnessed an unexampled avidity for old manuscripts which the transition of scholars from Constantinople made it possible to satisfy.

To the convents of Western Europe, letters and religion owe a lasting debt, not only for the preservation of books, but for their multiplication. The monks of St. Benedict have the first place as the founders of libraries and guardians of patristic and classical literature. Their Rules required them to do a certain amount of reading each day, and at the beginning of Lent each received a book from the cloistral collection and was expected to read it "straight through." This direction shines as a light down through the history of the monastic institutions, though many a convent probably possessed no books and some of them had little appreciation of their value.

A collection of several hundred books was relatively as large a library as a collection of hundreds of thousands of volumes would be now. Fleury, in the twelfth century, had 238 volumes, St. Riquier 258.1205  The destruction of the English monastery of Croyland in the eleventh century involved the loss of "300 original and more than 400 smaller volumes." The conventual buildings were destroyed in the night by fire. The interesting letter of the abbot Ingulph, relating the calamity, speaks of beautiful manuscripts, illuminated with pictures and adorned with crosses of gold. The good abbot, after describing the loss of the chapel, infirmary, and other parts of the buildings, went on to say "our cellar and the very casks, full of beer, were also burnt up."1206

Catalogues are preserved from this period. Edwards gives a list of thirty-three mediaeval catalogues of English libraries.1207  The catalogue of Prüfening in Salzburg, 1158, prepared by, "one who was a born librarian,"1208 arranged the volumes in three classes: copies of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and modern writers. The books, most frequently found, were the Bible, or parts of it, the liturgical books,—Augustine, Gregory the Great, Jerome, and Ambrose,—and among the writers of the Carlovingian age, Bede and Alcuin. The catalogue of Corbie, Picardy, dating from the twelfth century, gives 39 copies of Augustine, 16 of Jerome, 13 of Bede, 15 of Boethius, and 5 of Cicero, as well as copies of Terence, Livy, Pliny, and Seneca.1209  Of later mediaeval writers, the works of Anselm, Bernard, Hugo, and Abaelard are found most often, but many collections were without a single recent writer. The otherwise rich collection of St. Michelsberg, in Bamberg, had only a single recent work, the Meditations of Anselm. The Prüfening library had a copy each, of Anselm, Hugo, Abaelard, the Lombard and Gratian. Classical authors were common. The library at Durham had copies of Cicero, Terence, Virgil, Horace, Claudian, Statius, Sallust, Suetonius, Quintilian and other Latin authors.1210  Sometimes the classics were catalogued by themselves as at Neumünster.

Gifts of books were regarded as worthy benefactions. Peter, bishop of Paris, before starting out for the Holy Land, gave 300 works over to the care of the convent of St. Victor.1211  Grosseteste willed his collection to the Oxford Franciscans.1212  Gerbert, afterwards Sylvester II., says that the liberality of friends enabled him to buy a number of books in Rome, Italy, and Flanders.1213  The admiring chronicler treats it as a claim to fame, that Theodoric secured, for his abbey of St. Evroult, the books of the Old and New Testaments and an entire set of Gregory the Great. Others followed his good example and secured the works of Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, and other Fathers.1214  Peter the Venerable declared that at Cluny books, notably the works of Augustine, were held more precious than gold.1215

Libraries were sometimes given with the stipulation that the books should be loaned out. This was the case with Jacob of Carnarius who, in 1234, gave his library to the Dominicans of Vercelli on this condition. In 1270, Stephen, at one time archdeacon of Canterbury, donated his books to Notre Dame, Paris, on condition of their being loaned to poor theological students, and Peter of Joigny, 1297, bequeathed his collection directly to poor students.1216  In the following century Petrarch left his books to St. Marks, Venice, and Boccaccio willed his possessions of this kind to the Augustinian friars of Florence.

Manuscripts were sometimes offered at the altar or at the shrines of saints as offerings for the healing of the giver’s soul,—pro remedio animae suae.1217 On the other hand, in cases of emergency, books were put in pawn or sold. William of Longchamps, bishop of Ely, 1190, pawned 13 copies of the Gospels for the redemption of Richard I.1218 The abbot Diemo of Lorsch, 1139, needing money to pay for military equipments, sold three books ornamented with gold and precious stones.1219 Here and there, a tax was levied for the benefit of a library, as in the case of Evesham, 1215, and the synod of Lyons the same year adopted a like expedient.1220 Prince Borwin of Rostock, in 1240, gave the monastery of Dargun a hide of land, the proceeds of which were to be used for the needs of the library.1221

Of all books, copies of the Scriptures were held in highest esteem. They were often bound in covers, inlaid with gold and silver, and sometimes ornamented with precious stones and richly illuminated. Paul, abbot of St. Albans, placed in the abbey-library eight Psalters and two Gospels highly ornamented with gold and gems, as well as a copy of the Collects, a copy of the Epistles, and 28 other books. In 1295, the dean of St. Paul’s found in the cathedral 12 copies of the Gospels adorned with jewels, and a thirteenth copy kept in a case with relics.1222

Books were kept first in armaria or horizontal presses and the librarian was called armarius. About the fourteenth century shelves were introduced along the cloistral walls.1223  As early as the thirteenth century books were fastened by chains to protect them from being stolen by eager readers.1224  The statutes of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1350, required that certain books remain continually in the library, chained to their places, for the use of the fellows. This custom was still in vogue in England in the sixteenth century, when copies of the English Bible were kept chained to the reading desks in the churches. The old Benedictine rule was still enforced for the distribution of books. Lanfranc’s statutes for the English Benedictines, 1070, required the return of the books by the monks the first Sunday in Lent. They were then to be laid out on the floor and distributed for the ensuing year, one book to each monk. Any one failing to read his book was obliged to fall on his face and confess his neglect.1225  The loan of books was not uncommon. Bernard borrowed and lent as did Peter the Venerable.1226  The Cistercians provided for such loans to outside parties and the synod of Paris, 1212, insisted that convents should not recede from this good practice which it pronounced a work of mercy.

The book-room, or scriptorium, was part of a complete conventual building. It served as a place of writing and of transcribing manuscripts. Sometimes a monk had his own little book-room, called scriptoriolum, or kept books in his cell. Nicholas, Bernard’s secretary, described his little room as next to the infirmary and "filled with choice and divine books."1227  Peter of Celle, successor to John of Salisbury in the see of Chartres, spoke of his scriptoriolum as filled with books, where he could be free from the vanity and vexations of the world. The place had been assigned to him, he said, for reading, writing, meditating, praying, and adoring the Lord.1228

Abbots themselves joined to their other labors the work of the copyist. So it was with Theodoric of St. Evroult, 1050–1057, a skilful scribe who, according to Ordericus Vitalis,1229 left "splendid monuments of his calligraphic skill," in copies of the Collects, Graduale, and Antiphonary which were deposited in the convent collection. Theodoric also secured the services of others to copy commentaries and the heptateuch.1230  Convents were concerned to secure expert transcribers. Copying was made a special feature of St. Albans by the abbot Paul, 1077–1093. He secured money for a scriptorium and brought scribes from a distance. In the latter part of the eleventh century, Hirschau in Southern Germany was noted for this kind of activity, through its abbot William, who saw that twelve good copyists were trained for his house. These men made many copies and William is said to have presented books to every convent he reformed. The scribe, Othlo of Emmeram, of the same century, has left us a list of the books he gave away.1231

Diligence as a copyist sometimes stood monks in good stead when they came to face the realities of the future world. Of such an one, Ordericus makes mention.1232  This monk had copied with his own hand a bulky volume of Scripture, but he was a man of many moral offences. When the evil spirits laid claim to his soul, the angels produced the holy volume which the monk had transcribed. Every letter was counted and balanced against a sin. At last, it was found the letters had a majority of one. The devils tried to scrape up another sin, but in vain, and the Lord permitted the fortunate monk to return to the body and do proper penance.

Copying was sometimes prescribed as a punishment for cloistral offences and the Carthusian rules withheld wine from the monk who was able to copy and would not ply his art. It seems at times to have been a most confining and wearisome task. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, had some of this feeling when he appended to a transcription of Jerome’s commentary on Daniel the following words and claimed the prayers of the reader: —

 

Dum scripsit friguit, et quod cum lumine solis

Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis.

 

"When he wrote he froze, and what he could not complete by the light of day, he finished by the light of the night."1233

The price of books continued to be high till the invention of the printing-press. A count of Anjou paid for a copy of the homilies of Haimo of Halberstadt 200 sheep and a large quantity of provisions. In 1274, a finely written Bible sold for 50 marks, about $l70, when labor cost a shilling a day. Maitland computed that it would take a monk ten months to transcribe the Bible and that the labor would be worth to-day £60 or £70.1234  The prices, however, were often greatly reduced, and Richard of Bury, in his Philobiblion, says that he purchased from the convent of St. Albans 32 volumes for £50.

The copyists, like the builders of the cathedrals, usually concealed their names. It was a custom with them to close their task by appending some pious or, at times, some witty sentiment. A line, frequently appended, ran, finito libro, sit laus et gloria Christo.  "The book is finished. Praise and honor be to Christ." The joy authors often feel at the completion of their writings was felt by a scribe when he wrote, libro completo, saltat scriptor pede leto.  "Now the book is done, the scribe dances with glad foot." Another piously expressed his feelings when he wrote, dentur pro penna scriptori caelica regna.  "May the heavenly reward be given to the scribe for his work with the quill."1235

The pleasures of converse with books in the quiet of a library are thus attractively set forth by a mediaeval theologian, left alone in the convent when the other monks had gone off for recreation: —

 

"Our house is empty save only myself and the rats and mice who nibble in solitary hunger. There is no voice in the hall, no footstep on the stairs .... I sit here with no company but books, dipping into dainty honeycombs of literature. All minds in the world’s literature are concentrated in a library. This is the pinnacle of the temple from which we may see all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. I keep Egypt and the Holy Land in the closet next to the window. On the side of them are Athens and the empire of Rome. Never was such an army mustered as I have here. No general ever had such soldiers as I have. No kingdom ever had half such illustrious subjects as mine or subjects half as well disciplined. I can put my haughtiest subjects up or down as it pleases me .... I call Plato and he answers "here,"—a noble and sturdy soldier; "Aristotle," "here,"—a host in himself. Demosthenes, Pliny, Cicero, Tacitus, Caesar. "Here," they answer, and they smile at me in their immortality of youth. Modest all, they never speak unless spoken to. Bountiful all, they never refuse to answer. And they are all at peace together .... All the world is around me, all that ever stirred human hearts or fired the imagination is harmlessly here. My library cases are the avenues of time. Ages have wrought, generations grown, and all their blossoms are cast down here. It is the garden of immortal fruits without dog or dragon."

 

 § 90. The Universities.

 

Literature: Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. by H. Denifle, O. P. and A. Chatelain, adjunct librarian of the Sorbonne, 4 vols. Paris, 1889–1897. This magnificent work gives the documents bearing on the origin, organization, customs, and rules of the University of Paris from 1200–1452; and forms one of the most valuable recent contributions to the study of the Middle Ages.—Auctarium Chartularii Univ. Paris., ed. by Denifle and Chatelain, 2 vols. Paris, 1893–1897. It gives the documents bearing on the Hist. of the English "nation" in Paris from 1393–1466.—Denifle: Urkunden zur Gesch. der mittelalt. Universitäten, in Archiv für Lit.- und Kirchengesch., V. 167 sqq., 1889.—Engl. trans. of the charter of Fred. Barbarossa, 1158; the Privilege of Philip Augustus, 1200; the charter of Frederick II. founding the Univ. of Naples; the Regulations of Robert de Courçon, 1215, etc., are given in the Trans. and Reprints of the Dep. of Hist., Univ. of Penn. — C. E. Bulaeus (Du Boulay): Hist. univ. Paris., etc., a Carolo Magno ad nostra tempora (1600), 6 vols. Paris, 1665–1678. A splendid work, but wrong in its description of the origin of the university and some matters of its organization.—F. C. von Savigny, Prof. in Berlin, d. 1861: Gesch. des röm. Rechts im M. A., Heidel., 2d ed., 1834, vol. III.—J. H. Newman: Office and Work of Universities, London, 1856, vol. III of his Hist. Sketches. An exaggerated estimate of medieval culture. I. Döllinger: D. Universitäten sonst und jetzt, in his Akad. Vorträge, Nordl., 1889.—*Denifle: D. Entstehung d. Universitäten d. Mittelalters bis 1400, Berlin, 1885, pp. 814. Marks an epoch in the treatment of the subject; is full of learning and original research, but repetitious and contentious. Denifle intended to write three more volumes.—*S. S. Laurie: The Rise and Constit. of Universities, etc., Camb., 1892.—G. Compayré: Abelard and Origin and Early Hist. of Universities, N. Y., 1898.—*H. Rashdall: The Universities of Europe in the M. A., 2 vols., Oxford, 1895. —P. SCHAFF: The Univ. Past, Present and Future, in Lit. and Poetry, pp. 256–278.

 

The university appears in Europe as an established institution in the twelfth century. It quickly became the restless centre of intellectual and literary life, the workshop of learning and scientific progress. Democratic in its constitution, it received men from every rank and sent them forth with new ideas and equipped to be the leaders of their age.

Origin. — The universities were a product of the mediaeval mind, to which nothing in the ancient world, in any adequate way, corresponded. They grew up on the soil of the cathedral and conventual studies, but there was no organic continuity between them and the earlier schools. They were of independent growth, coming into being in response to a demand, awakened by the changed circumstances of life and the revival of thought in Europe. No clatter and noise announced their coming, but they were developed gradually from imperfect beginnings into thoroughly organized literary corporations.

Nor were the universities the immediate creation of the Church. Church authority did not bring them into being as it did the Crusades. All that can be said is that the men who wrought at their foundations and the lower superstructures were ecclesiastics and that popes were wise enough early to become their patrons and, as in the case of Paris, to take the reins of their general administration into their own hands. The time had come for a specialization of studies in the departments of human knowledge, the arts, law, medicine, and theology, which last, according to Jacob of Vitry, "alone can be called a liberal art, since it alone delivers the human soul from its woes."

The universities owed their rise to the enthusiasm of single teachers1236 whose dialectic skill and magnetism attracted students wherever they happened to be. Bologna through Irnerius and other teachers, and Paris through a group of men, of whom Abaelard was the most prominent figure, were the centres where the university idea had its earliest and most substantial realization. These teachers satisfied and created a demand for specialization in education.

Due credit must not be withheld from the guilds whose organization furnished a pattern for the university, especially in the case of Bologna. The university was the literary guild, representing a like-minded community of intellectual interests and workers. It is also possible that some credit must be given to Arabic influences, as in the case of the school of medicine at Salerno.

The first universities arose in Italy, the earliest of all being Salerno and Bologna. These were followed by Paris and other French universities. England came next, and then Spain. Prague was the first to embody the idea in Central Europe. The distinctively German universities do not date beyond the second half of the fourteenth century, Vienna, 1365, Erfurt, 1379, Heidelberg, 1385, Cologne, 1388. The three Scotch universities, St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, were established in the fifteenth century. That century also witnessed the birth of the far northern Universities of Copenhagen and Upsala. By the end of the fifteenth century there were nearly eighty of these academic institutions. Some of these passed out of existence and some never attained to more than a local celebrity.

Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Padua, Oxford, Cambridge, and other universities owed their existence to no papal or royal charter. Toulouse, 1229 and Rome, 1244 were the first to be founded by papal bulls. The University of Naples was founded by the emperor, Frederick II., 1224. The Spanish Universities of Palencia, 1212, Salamanca, 1230, and Seville, 1254, were established by the kings of Castile. Prague, 1347, was founded by a double charter from the pope and Charles IV. Some universities had their origin in disaffection prevailing in universities already established: Padua started in a defection of students from Bologna; Cambridge, in 1209, in a defection of students from Oxford, and Leipzig, in 1409, grew out of the dissatisfaction of the German "nation" with its treatment at Prague. Heidelberg is the earliest institution of papal creation which went over to the Reformation.1237

Organization. — A university originally signified not a body of studies or a place where studies were prosecuted, but an aggregation of teachers and students—universitas magistrorum et scholarium. The term "university" was used of any group of persons and was a common expression for "Your body" or "all of you"—universitas vestra.1238 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was frequently applied to guilds. The literary guild, or university, denoted the group of persons carrying on studies. The equivalent in the Middle Ages for the term "university," as we use it, was studium and studium generale, "study" or, "general study." Thus the University of Bologna was called studium Bononie or Bononiense,—as it is still called studio Bolognese in Italy, Paris, studium Parisiense, Oxford, studium Oxoniense. The addition "general" had reference to students, not to a variety of branches of knowledge, and denoted that the studium was open to students from every quarter.1239  By the fifteenth century the term "university" had come to have its present meaning. The designation of a seat of learning as alma or alma mater dates from the thirteenth century.

A full university requires at least four faculties, the arts—now known at the German universities as the faculty of philosophy,—law, medicine, and theology. This idea was not embodied in the earliest foundations and some of the universities remained incomplete during their entire existence. Salerno was a medical school. Bologna was for more than a century only a school of law. Salamanca, the most venerable of existing Spanish educational institutions, did not have a faculty of theology till the end of the fourteenth century.1240  Paris, which began as a seat of theological culture, had no formal provision for the study of civil law till the seventeenth century, although civil law was taught there before 1219.1241  Nearly one half of the universities did not include theology in the list of studies. The Italian universities were, almost without an exception, at first confined to the study of jurisprudence and medicine. The reason for this may have been a purpose not to come into collision with the episcopal and conventual schools, which existed for the training of priests. The faculty of the arts, the lowest of the faculties, included the seven studies covered by the trivium and quadrivium, but was at a later period expanded so as to include metaphysical, linguistic, historic, and other studies not covered by the study of law, medicine, and theology. Theology was known as the highest and master study. Alexander IV., writing to Paris, 1256, said that theology ruled over the other studies like a mistress, and they followed her as servants.1242

The university had its own government, endowments, and privileges. These privileges, or bills of rights, were of great value, giving the body of teachers and students protection from the usual police surveillance exercised by municipalities and included their exemption from taxation, from military service except in cases of exigency, and from the usual modes of trial before the municipal authorities. Suits brought against members of the University of Paris were tried before the bishop of Paris. In Bologna, such suits were tried before the professor of the accused student or the bishop. By the privilege of Philip Augustus, 1200, the chattels of students at Paris were exempt from seizure by the civil officer. The university was a state within the state, a free republic of letters.1243  The master and students formed, as it were, a separate class. When they felt that their rights were abused, they resorted to what was called cessation, cessatio, a suspension of the functions of the university or even removal to some other locality. In 1229 the University of Paris suspended for two years on account of the delay of Queen Blanche to give redress for the violent death of two students during the carnival. Many professors left Paris till not a single one of fame remained. The bishop of Paris launched excommunications against the chief offenders; but the university was victorious and the king made apology for the injuries inflicted and the pope revoked the ecclesiastical censures. Gregory IX., 1231, confirmed this privilege of suspending lectures.1244  This feature survives in the German universities which cling to Lehrfreiheit, the professor’s liberty to teach, as conscience dictates, without fear of interference from the state.

The Model Universities.—In the administration of their affairs the universities followed Bologna and Paris as models. In Bologna the students were in control, in Paris the masters in conjunction with the students. As for their relation to the pope and the authority of the Church, Bologna was always free, antipapal and anticlerical, as compared with her younger sister in France. The democratic principle had large recognition. The first element to be noticed is the part played by the different faculties. In Paris the faculties were fully organized by the middle of the thirteenth century. In 1281, the university as a body promised to defend each of its faculties.1245  Long before that time each faculty passed upon its own degrees, regulated its own lectures, and performed other special acts.

The second element was the part which the so-called nations had in the administration. In Bologna there were four nations, the Italians, English,1246 Provençals, and Germans. The students of Paris were likewise divided into four groups, representing France, Picardy (including the Netherlands), Normandy, and England, the last giving place, in 1430, to Germany. The distinctive organization at Paris goes back to the early years of the thirteenth century.1247  At first floating colonies brought together by national and linguistic affinities, the nations were developed into corporate organizations, each with a code of its own. They were in turn divided into provinces. An elective official, known as the rector, stood at the head of the whole corporation. At Bologna he was called, as early as 1194, "rector of the associations," rector societatum. He directed the affairs of the university in conjunction with a board of counsellors representing the provinces.

The first record calling the head of the University of Paris rector1248 occurs in a bull of Alexander IV., 1259, but the office, no doubt, existed long before. He was chosen by the proctors or presidents of the four nations. The rector had to be a master of arts and might be a layman, but must be a celibate. He performed on great occasions, and wore a striking costume. He was responsible to the body whose agent he was. The Paris rector was addressed as "your amplitude," vestra amplitudo.

At Paris there was also a chancellor, and he was the older officer. He stood at the head of the chapter of Notre Dame and was called interchangeably chancellor of the cathedral and chancellor of Paris. To him belonged the prerogative of giving the license to teach and confer degrees. His authority was recognized, time and again, by the popes, and also restricted by papal decree, so that what he lost the rector gained.1249  In Bologna, by the decree of Honorius III., 1219, the archdeacon of the diocese conferred the degrees.1250

Degrees.—By 1264, at latest, each faculty at Paris had its own dean1251 and exercised the right to grant the license to teach in its own department. Such license,—jus docendi, or legendi,—when conferred by Bologna or Paris, carried with it the right to teach everywhere,—jus ubique docendi. Gregory IX., 1233, and other popes conferred the same prerogative upon the masters of Toulouse and other universities but it seems doubtful whether their degrees were respected. Even a degree from Oxford did not carry the right of lecturing at Paris without a reëxamination. When Alexander IV. granted to the masters of Salamanca the right of teaching everywhere, Bologna and Paris were expressly excepted.1252

The question of mediaeval degrees offers much difficulty. There seem to have been three stages: bachelor, or baccalaureus, licentiate, and doctor or master. They corresponded to the three grades in the guilds: apprentice, assistant, and master. The bachelors were received after examination and did subordinate lecturing. The degree was not merely a testimonial of work done, but a certificate entitling the holder to ply the trade of reading or teaching. The titles, master, magister, doctor, dominus, and professor, scholasticus, were synonymous. "Doctor" was the usual title at Bologna, and "master" at Paris, but gradually "doctor" came to be used chiefly of the graduates in canon law at Paris, and "master" of graduates in theology.1253  In his charter of 1224, Frederick spoke of the "doctors and masters in each faculty," no doubt using the words as synonyms. The test for the degrees was called the "determination," determinance, the main part of which was the presentation of a thesis and its defence against all comers.

Eight years was fixed by Robert de Courcon, 1215, as the period of preparation for the theological doctorate, but in the beginning of the fourteenth century it was extended to fourteen years. In the department of jurisprudence a course of eight years,—in medicine a course of six years,—was required.

Teachers and Studies.—The teaching was done at first in convents and in private quarters. In 1253 there were twelve professors of theology in Paris, nine of them teaching in convents and belonging to the orders. University buildings were of slow growth, and the phenomenon presented by such great universities as Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and the University of Chicago, starting out fully equipped with large endowments and buildings, was unknown in the Middle Ages. Professors and students had to make their own way and at first no provision was made by king or municipality for salaries. The professor lived by lecture fees and the gifts of rich students. Later, endowments were provided, and cities provided funds for the payment of salaries.1254  Colleges were at first bursaries, or hostels, where students lived together, gratuitous provision being made for their support.1255  The earliest endowment of this kind, which still exists, is the college of the Sorbonne at Paris, founded by Robert of Sorbon, 1257, for sixteen secular students, four from each nation. The term "secular" was used in distinction from conventual. Another famous college was the college of Navarre on St. Genevieve, founded by the queen of Philip the Fair, Jeanne of Navarre, 1304. Rashdall, I. 478–517, gives a list of more than sixty colleges, or bursaries, founded in Paris before 1500. From being places of residence for needy students, the colleges came to include masters, as at Oxford and Cambridge. At Bologna the college system was never developed to the same extent as at Paris and in England.

With rare exceptions, the teachers in all the faculties were ecclesiastics, or, if laymen, unmarried. John XXII., in 1331, granted a dispensation to a married man to teach medicine in Paris, but it was an exception. Not till 1452 was the requirement of celibacy modified for the faculty of medicine in Paris, and till 1479 for Heidelberg; and not till a later date were the legal professors of Paris and Bologna exempted from this restriction. The Reformation at once effected a change in the universities under Protestant influence.1256

The lectures were given in Latin and students as well as masters were required to use Latin in conversation. Learning of any kind was regarded as too sacred a thing to be conveyed in the vulgar dialects of Europe.1257  The studies at the University of Paris were authoritatively prescribed by the papal legate, Robert de Courcon, 1215.1258  Gregory IX., 1231, also took part in stating what the text-books should be. The classics had no place. Certain works of Aristotle were forbidden, as were also, at a later date, the writings of Amauri of Bena, David of Dinant, and other supposed or real heretics. Gregory IX. warned the divinity students against affecting philosophy, and to be satisfied with becoming "theodocts."1259

Attendance and Discipline.—The attendance at the mediaeval universities has been a matter of much dispute. Some of the figures seem to be incredibly large.1260  No matriculation books exist for the earliest periods, and not till the end of the fourteenth century do we have actual records of the number of graduations in Paris. Odefridus, a writer of the thirteenth century, gives the number of students at Bologna two generations before, as 10,000. Paris was reported to have had 25,000 students, and Oxford as many as 30,000,1261 or at one time, to follow Wyclif, 60,000. Speaking of his own times Wyclif, however, gives the more reasonable figure, 3000. In his days of unobscured fame, Abaelard lectured to 3000 hearers, and this figure does not seem to be exaggerated when we consider the great attraction of his personality. In any estimate, it must be remembered that the student body included boys and also men well up in years. Rashdall makes 1500 to 3000 the maximum number for Oxford.1262

There was no such thing as university discipline in the thirteenth century, as we understand discipline. The testimonies are unanimous that the students led a wild life.1263  Many of them were mere boys, studying in the department of arts. There were no dormitories, and the means of communication then at hand did not make it possible for parents to exercise the checks upon absent sons such as they may exercise to-day. Felix Platter, d. 1614, states in his autobiography that, as late as the middle of the sixteenth century, it required twenty days to make the journey from Basel to the school of Montpellier. At Paris students were excused from the payment of fees on account of the long distances from which they had come, the journeys often requiring several months and involving perils from robbers.1264  Complaint was made in Paris, 1218, of scholars who broke into houses, carrying off girls and women; and in 1269 a public proclamation denounced gangs of students who broke into houses, ravished women, and committed robberies and "many other enormities hateful to God."1265  In Paris the inns—tabernae — were numerous. English students were noted for their drinking, and "to drink like an Englishman and to sing like a Norman" became proverbial.1266  The duel was a common way of settling disputes, and Gregory IX., 1231, forbade students going through the streets carrying arms.1267

The rescript given by Frederick Barbarossa to Bologna, 1158, presented a picture of students as those "who exile themselves through love of learning and wear themselves out in poverty." The facts do not support any rosy picture of social equality, such as we would expect in an ideal democracy. The number who were drawn to the universities from love of adventure and novelty must have been large. The nobleman had his special quarters and his servants, while the poor student begged his bread. It was the custom of the chancellor of Oxford to issue licenses for the needy to beg.1268  At Bologna the rich occupied the first seats.1269  Robert of Courçon commended the gift of garments and other articles to needy scholars.

The mediaeval universities were the centres of the ideals and hopes of the younger generation. There, the seeds were sown of the ecclesiastical and intellectual movements of after times and of the revolutions which the conservative groups pronounced scientific novelties and doctrinal heresies.

A mediaeval writer pronounced the three chief forces for the maintenance of the Catholic faith to be the priesthood, the empire, and the university. This was not always the case. From Paris went forth some of the severest attacks on the theory of papal absolutism, and from there, a century later, the reformers, Gerson and D’Ailly, proceeded. Hussitism was begotten at Prague. Wyclif’s teachings made Oxford a seat of heresy. Wittenberg, the last of the mediaeval universities to open its doors, protected and followed Luther. Basel, Pius II.’s creation, Heidelberg, Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, and other universities became the bulwarks of the new ideas. On the other hand, the Sorbonne, Louvaine, and Cologne ordered Luther’s works burnt. As an agent of culture and the onward progress of mankind, the Middle Ages made no contribution to modern times comparable in usefulness to the university.

 

 § 91. The University of Bologna.

 

Literature: Muratori: Antiqq. Ital., III. 884 sqq. Important documents bearing on the state of learning in Italy. —Acta nationis Germanicae univ. Bononiensis, ed. E. Friedländer et C. Malagola, Berl., 1887.—Carlo Malagola: Statuti delta università e dei collegi dello studio Bolognese, p. 524, Bologna, 1888.—Denifle: D. Statutem d. Juristen Univ. Bologna, 1317–1347, in Archiv. für Lit. -und Kirchengesch., III. 196–409 1887. Superseded by Malagola.—Giacomo Cassani (Prof. of Canon Law, Bologna): Dell’ antico Studio di Bologna a sua origine, Bologna, 1888.—H. Fitting: Die Anfänge der Rechtsschule zu Bologna, Berl., 1888.—Savigny (see above) gives a full account with special reference to the study of Roman law, but must be supplemented and corrected by Denifle: Universitäten, etc.—For publications called forth by the eighth centenary, 1888, see P. Schaff: Lit. and Poetry, p. 278. For full Lit., see Rashdall, I. 89–91.

 

Bologna is the most venerable of European universities. Salerno, which preceded it in time, became sufficiently famous as a medical school to call forth from Petrarch the praise of being the fountain-head of medicine,—fons medicinae,—but its career was limited to two centuries.1270  The origin of Salerno is lost in obscurity. There seems to be no sufficient evidence to show that the school owed its origin to the convent of Monte Cassino which was eighty miles away. It was the outgrowth of the awakened interest in medicine in Southern Italy in which Greek and Arabic influences had a part.

In 1888, Bologna celebrated its eight hundredth anniversary and continues to be one of the most flourishing schools of Southern Europe. As early as the thirteenth century, the tradition was current that Theodosius II., in 433, had granted to it a charter. But its beginnings go no further back than the latter part of the eleventh or the earlier years of the twelfth century. At that period Irnerius, d. about 1130, was teaching the code of Justinian1271 and a little later the Camaldulensian monk, Gratian, taught canon law in the convent of St. Felix. These two masters of jurisprudence, civil and ecclesiastical, are looked upon as the fathers of the university.

Bologna became the chief school for the study of both laws in Europe. The schools of arts added 1221, of medicine 1260, and theology 1360—by a bull of Innocent VI.—never obtained the importance of the school of law.

On a visit to the city in 1155 Frederick Barbarossa granted the university recognition and in 1158, on the field of Roncaglia, gave it its first charter.1272  This is the oldest piece of university legislation. Thenceforth Bologna was a second and better Berytus, the nurse of jurisprudence, legum nutrix, and adopted the proud device, Bononia docet—"Bologna teaches." To papal patronage she owed little or nothing, and in this respect as in others her history did not run parallel with the University of Paris.1273  Students flocked to her by hundreds and thousands from all parts of Western Europe.

The student body, which was in control, was at first divided into four "universities" or guilds. The statutes of the German "nation" have been preserved and declare as its object fraternal charity, mutual association, the care of the sick and support of the needy, the conduct of funerals, the termination of quarrels, and the proper escort of students about to take the examination for the degree of doctor.1274  By the fourteenth century, the four "universities" had given place to the two groups called the Ultramontanes and the Cismontanes, each of which was subdivided into smaller groups presided over by counsellors, conciliarii.

The rectors of the faculties were elected for two years and were required to be secular clerics, unmarried, and wearing the clerical habit. The ceremonies of installation included the placing of a hood on their heads. The two rectors of the two jurist "universities" gave place to a single rector after the middle of the fourteenth century.

The professors took oaths to the student bodies, to follow their codes. If they wished to be absent from their duties, they were obliged to get leave of absence from the rectors. They were required to begin and close their lectures promptly at the ringing of the bell under penalty of a fine and were forbidden to skip any part of the text-books or postpone the answer to questions to the end of the lecture hour. Another rule required them to cover a certain amount of ground in a given period.1275  The professors were kept in awe by the threat which the student body held over them of migrating when there was cause for dissatisfaction. This sort of boycott was exercised a number of times as when Bolognese students decamped and departed to Vicenza 1204, Padua 1222, and for the last time to Siena 1321.

The professors, at first, were dependent upon fees and at times stopped their lectures because of the failure of the students to pay up. The jurist, Odefridus of Bologna, announced on one occasion that he would not lecture in the afternoons of the ensuing term because, "the scholars want to profit but not to pay." Professorial appointments were at first in the hands of the student body but afterwards became the prerogative of the municipality. This change was due in part to the obligation undertaken by the city government to pay fixed salaries.1276  Strange to say, about the middle of the thirteenth century, the professorships at Bologna became largely hereditary.

A noticeable, though not exceptional, feature of Bologna was the admission of learned women to its teaching chairs. Novella d’Andrea, 1312–1366, the daughter of the celebrated jurist Giovanni d’Andrea, lectured on philosophy and law, but behind a curtain, lest her face should attract the attention of the students from their studies. Among other female professors have been Laura Bassi, d. 1778, doctor and professor of philosophy and mathematics; Chlotilda Tambroni, who expounded the Greek classics, 1794–1817; and Giuseppina Cattani, who, until a few years ago, lectured on pathology. In Salerno, also, women practised medicine and lectured, as did Trotula, about 1059, who wrote on the diseases of women. In Paris, as we have been reminded by Denifle, the daughters of one Mangold taught theology in the latter part of the eleventh century.1277

On the other hand, due care was taken to protect the students of Bologna against the wiles of women. The statutes of its college, founded by Cardinal Albornoz, 1367, for Spanish students, forbade them dancing because "the devil easily tempts men to evil through this amusement," and also forbade women to "enter the premises because a woman was the head of sin, the right hand of the devil, and the cause of the expulsion from paradise."1278

A graduate of civil law was required at Bologna to have studied seven years, and of canon law six years. To become a doctor of both laws, utriusque juris, a term of ten years was prescribed. In 1292, Nicholas IV. formally granted the Bolognese doctors the right to lecture everywhere, a right they had exercised before. The promotion to the doctorate was accompanied with much pageantry an involved the candidate in large outlay for gifts and banquets.1279

The class rooms in canon and civil jurisprudence at Bologna became synonymous with traditional opinions. There was no encouragement of originality. With the interpretation of the text-books, which had been handed down, the work of the professor was at an end. This conservatism Dante may have had in mind when he made the complaint that in Bologna only the Decretals were studied. And Roger Bacon exclaimed that "the study of jurisprudence has for forty years destroyed the study of wisdom [that is philosophy, the sciences, and theology], yes, the church itself and all departments."1280  When the Renaissance came, it did not start with Bologna or any of the other Italian universities but in the courts of princes and popes and especially in the city of Florence. The universities produced no Savonarola and encouraged no religious or doctrinal reform.

 

Note. – An account of the brilliant celebration of the eighth centenary of Bologna, 1888, is given by Philip Schaff: The University, etc., in Lit. and Poetry, pp. 265–278. On that occasion Dr. Schaff represented the University of New York. The exercises were honored by the presence of Humbert and the queen of Italy. The ill-fated Frederick III. of Germany sent from his sick-room a letter of congratulation, as in some sense the heir of Frederick Barbarossa. The clergy were conspicuous by their absence from the celebration, although among the visitors was Father Gavazzi, the ex-Barnabite friar, who in 1848 fired the hearts of his fellow-citizens, the Bolognese, for the cause of Italian liberty and unity and afterwards became the eloquent advocate of a new evangelical movement for his native land, abroad as well as at home. A contrast was presented at the five hundredth anniversary of the University of Heidelberg, 1886, which Dr. Schaff also attended, and which was inaugurated by a solemn religious service and sermon.

 

 § 92. The University of Paris.

 

Literature: The works of Bulaeus, Denifle, Rashdall, etc., as given in § 90. Vol. I. of the Chartularium gives the official documents bearing on the history of the Univ. from 1200–1286 with an Introd. by Denifle.—Crevier: Hist. de l’Univ. de Paris, 7 vols. Paris, 1761, based on Bulaeus.—P. Feret: La Faculté de Theol. de Paris et ses docteurs les plus celèbres au moyen âge, 5 vols. Paris, 1894 sqq.—A. Luchaire: L’univ. de Paris sous Phil. Auguste, Paris, 1899.—C. Gross: The Polit. Infl. of the Univ. of Paris in the M. A., in Am. Hist. Rev., 1901, pp. 440–446.—H. Felder: Gesch. der wissenschaftl. Studien im Franziskanerorden bis c. 1250, Freib., 1904.—F. X. Seppelt: D. Kampf d. Bettelorden an d. Univ. zu Paris in d. Mitte d. 13ten Jahrh., Breslau, 1905.—Rashdall: Universities, I. 270–557, and the table of Lit. there given.

 

The lustre of the University of Paris filled all Western Europe as early as the first years of the thirteenth century. It continued to be the chief seat of theological and general learning till the Reformation. In 1231 Gregory IX. called Paris "the parent of the sciences, another Kerieth Sepher, a city of letters, in which, as in a factory of wisdom, the precious stones and gold of wisdom are wrought and polished for the Church of Christ."1281  In the same strain Alexander IV., 1256, eulogized the university1282 as "that most excellent state of letters, a famous city of the arts, a notable school of erudition, the highest factory of wisdom,—officina sapientiae — and the most efficient gymnasium of study. There, a clear spring of the sciences breaks forth at which the peoples of all nations drink." Three hundred years later, in 1518, Luther, in his protest to Cajetan, expressed his willingness to have his case go before the University of Paris to which he referred, "as the parent of studies and from antiquity ever the most Christian University and that in which theology has been particularly cultivated."

The old tradition, which traced the origin of the university back to Charlemagne, the pride of the French has been slow to abandon. Du Boulay devoted an entire volume to its assumed history before the year 1000. Not even was Abaelard its founder. The most that can be said is, that that brilliant teacher prepared the way for the new institution,1283 whose beginnings belong to the period 1150–1170.

From its earliest era of development, the university received the recognition of royalty and the favor of popes who were quick to discern its future importance. In the year 1200 Philip Augustus, king of France, conferred upon it a valuable privilege, granting the students and teaching body independent rights over against the municipal government. Among its venerable documents are communications from Innocent III., his legate, Robert of Courçon, Honorius III. and Gregory IX., 1231. From that time on, the archives abound in papal letters and communications addressed to the pope by the university authorities.

In Paris, as has already been said, the masters were the controlling body. The first use of the expression "university of masters and scholars" occurs in 1221.1284  The earliest example of statutes is found in a bull of Innocent III., written about 1209.1285  Later, Innocent recognized the corporate rights of the body when he permitted it to have a representative at Rome and ordered an expelled master to be readmitted. The statutes of Robert of Courçon, 1215, prescribed text-books and other regulations. A university seal was used as early as 1221.1286  Disputes between the university and the chancellor of the cathedral and other church authorities of Paris date back as far as 1213.

There has been much difference of opinion as to what was the original norm of the organization of the university. Denifle, the leading modern authority, insists against Du Boulay that it was the four faculties and not the "nations," and he finds the faculties developed in the earliest years of the thirteenth century.1287  Some association of masters existed as early as 1170, about which time, John of Celle, abbot of St. Albans, 1195–1214, was admitted into its membership.1288  In 1207, Innocent III. spoke of the "body of masters," and in 1213 he recognized the right of the masters to insist upon the conferring of the license to teach upon the candidates whom they presented. The chancellor was left no option in the matter.1289  In the middle of the thirteenth century, his authority was still more curtailed by the withdrawal of some of the masters to the hill of St. Genevieve on the western bank of the Seine. The abbot of St. Genevieve, who began to be styled, "Chancellor of St. Genevieve" in 1255, assumed the right to confer licensures or degrees and the right was recognized by papal decree.1290

The four nations seem to have been developed out of the demand for discipline among the students of cognate regions and for mutual protection against the civil authorities. It is quite possible the example set in Bologna had some influence in Paris.

The bull of Gregory IX., 1231, parens scientiarum, called by Denifle the "magna charta of the university," recognized and sealed its liberties. It was called forth by the suspension of lectures which had lasted two years. The trouble originated in a brawl in an inn, which developed into a fight between gown and town. The police of the city, with the assent of Queen Blanche, interfered, and killed several of the students. The professors ordered a "cessation" and, when they found that justice was not done, adjourned the university for six years. Some of them emigrated to England and were employed at Oxford and Cambridge.1291  Others settled down at other schools in France. The trouble was brought to an end by Gregory IX., who ratified the right of the masters to secede, and called upon Blanche to punish the offending officials, forbade the chancellor to have any prisons, and the bishop from imposing mulcts or imprisoning students.

It is possible that the office of rector goes back as far as 1200, when an official was called "the head of the Paris scholars."1292  As early as 1245 the title appears distinctly and the rector is distinguished from the proctors.1293  At a later time it was the proper custom, in communicating with the university, to address the "rector and the masters." The question of precedence as between the rector and other high dignitaries, such as the bishop and chancellor of Paris, was one which led to much dispute and elbowing. Du Boulay, himself an ex-rector, takes pride in giving instances of the rector’s outranking archbishops, cardinals, papal nuncios, peers of France, and other lesser noteworthies at public functions.1294

The faculties came to be presided over by deans, the nations by proctors. In the management of the general affairs of the university, the vote was taken by faculties.

The liberties, which the university enjoyed in its earlier history, were greatly curtailed by Louis XI. and by his successors in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The university was treated to sharp rebukes for attempting to interfere with matters that did not belong to it. The right of cessation was withdrawn and the free election of the rectors denied.1295  The police of the city were invested with larger jurisdiction, and the sovereign’s will was made a controlling element.

The fame of the University of Paris came from its schools of arts and theology. The college of the Sorbonne, originally a bursary for poor students of theology, afterwards gave its name to the theological department. It was founded by Robert of Sorbon, the chaplain of St. Louis, the king himself giving part of the site for its building. In the course of time, its halls came to be used for disputations, and the decisions of the faculty obtained a European reputation. Theological students of twenty-five years of age, who had studied six years, and passed an examination, were eligible for licensure as bachelors. For the first three years they read on the Bible and then on the Sentences of the Lombard. These readers were distinguished as Biblici and Sententiarii.  The age limit for the doctorate was thirty-five.

One of the most interesting chapters in the history of the university is the struggle over the admission of the mendicant friars in the middle of the thirteenth century. The papacy secured victory for the friars. And the unwilling university was obliged to recognize them as a part of its teaching force.

The struggle broke out first at the time of the "cessation," 1229, when, as it would seem, the Dominicans secretly favored the side of the civil magistrates against the university authorities, and poisoned the court against them. The Dominicans were established in Paris, 1217 and the Franciscans, 1220, and both orders, furnished with letters of commendation by Honorius III., were at first well received, so the masters themselves declared in a document dated 1254.1296  But they soon began to show arrogance and to demand the right to degrees for their students without promising submission to the statutes of the university. One of the first two Dominican masters to teach at the university was the Englishman, John of Giles. After preaching on poverty in St. Jacques, John descended from the pulpit and put on the Dominican robes.

At the "cessation" of 1251 the two Dominicans and one Franciscan, who were recognized as masters by the university, refused to join with the other authorities, and, after the settlement of the difficulty, the two Dominicans were refused readmittance. A statute was passed forbidding admission to the fellowship, consortium, of the university for those who refused to take the oath to obey its rules. The friars refused to obey the statute and secured from Alexander IV. an order requiring the university to receive them, and setting aside all sentences passed against them.1297

The friction continued, and the seculars sought to break the influence of the Franciscans by pointing out the heresies of Joachim of Flore. The friars retorted by attacking William of St. Amour whose work, The Perils of the Last Times, was a vigorous onslaught upon mendicancy as contrary to Apostolic teaching. William’s book, which called out refutations from Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, was burnt, and refusing to recant, the author was suspended from teaching and banished from France.1298  The friars were hooted on the streets and beaten. By 1257 tranquillity was restored, as we are assured by Alexander IV. Thus the papacy made repayment to the university for its readiness from of old to accept its guidance by depriving the institution of its liberties.1299

From the middle of the fourteenth century, the University of Paris played no mean part in the political affairs of France. More than once she spoke before the court and before the peers of the realm, and more than once was she rebuked for her unsolicited zeal.1300  French kings themselves styled her "the daughter of the king." She was actively zealous in the persecution of Joan of Arc.1301

As a factor in the religious history of Europe, the university figured most prominently during the Western schism—1378–1418. She suggested the three ways of healing the rupture and, to accomplish this result, sent her agents through Western Europe to confer with the kings and other powers. Under the guidance of her chancellors, Gerson and D’Ailly, the discussions of the Reformatory councils of Pisa and Constance were directed, which brought the papal schism to an end. The voting by nations at Constance was her triumph.

As for disputes on distinctly doctrinal questions, the university antagonized John XXII. and his heresy, denying the beatific vision at death. In 1497 she exacted from all candidates for degrees an oath accepting the dogma of the immaculate conception. When the Protestant Reformation came, she decided against that movement and ordered the books of Luther burnt.

 

 § 93. Oxford and Cambridge.

 

Literature: Anthony Wood (1632–1695): Hist. et Antiquitates Univ. Oxoniensis, 2 vols. Oxford, 1674. A trans. from MS. by Wase and Peers, under the supervision of Dr. Fell from Wood’s English MS. Wood was dissatisfied with the translation and rewrote his work, which was published a hundred years after his death with a continuation by John Gutsch: The Hist. and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the Univ. of Oxf., 2 vols. Oxford, 1786–1790. Also: The Hist. and Antiquities of Oxf., now first published in English from the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, 2 vols. Oxford, 1792–1796. By the same: Athenae Oxonienses, 2 vols. London, 1691–1692, 3d ed., by Ph. Bliss, 1813–1820, 4 vols. The last work is biographical, and gives an account of the Oxonian writers and bishops from 1500–1690.

Oxford Historical Society’s Publications, 45 vols. Contents: University Register, 1449–1463, 1505–1671, ed. by W. C. Boase, 5 vols.; Hearne’s Collectanea, 1705–1719, 6 vols.; Early History of Oxford (727–1100); Memorials of Merton College, etc.—V. A. HUBER: D. Engl. Universitäten, 2 vols. Cassel, 1839. Engl. trans. by F. W. Newman, a brother of the cardinal, 3 vols. London, 1848.—C. Jeafferson: Annals of Oxford, 2 vols. 2d ed. London, 1871.—H. C. M. Lyte: Hist. of the Univ. of Oxf. from the Earliest Times to 1530, Oxford, 1886.—H. C. Brodrick: Hist. of the Univ. of Oxf., London, 1887.—Rashdall: Universities, II. 319–542.—Jessopp: The Coming of the Friars, pp. 262–302.—Thomas Fuller: Hist. of the Univ. of Cambr. ed. by Pritchard and Wright, Cambridge, 1840.—C. H. Cooper: Annals of Cambr., 4 vols. 1842–1852; Memorials of Cambr., 3 vols. 1884.—Mullinger: Hist. of the Univ. of Cambr. from the earliest times to the accession of Charles I., 2 vols. Cambridge, 1873–1883; Hist. of the Univ. of Cambr., London, 1887, an abridgment of the preceding work. For extensive Lit., see Rashdall, II. 319 sqq., 543 sq.

 

Next to Paris in age and importance, as a school of philosophy and theology, is the University of Oxford, whose foundation tradition falsely traces to King Alfred. The first historical notice of Oxenford, or Oxford, occurs in 912. Three religious institutions were founded in the town, from any one of which or all of which the school may have had its inception: the priory of St. Frideswyde, Osseney abbey, and the church of the canons regular of St. George’s in the Castle. The usually accepted view connects it with the first. But it is possible the university had its real beginning in a migration from Paris in 1167. This view is based upon a statement of John of Salisbury, that France had expelled her alien scholars and an order of Henry II. forbidding clerks to go to the Continent or to return from it without a license from the justiciar.1302  Before that time, however, there was teaching in Oxford.

The first of the teachers, Thibaut d’Estampes, Theobaldus Stampensis, moved from St. Stephen’s abbey, Caen, and taught in Oxford between 1117 and 1121. He had a school of from sixty to a hundred pupils, and called himself an Oxford master, magister oxenfordiae. He was ridiculed by a monk as a "petty clerk" tantillus clericellus, one of those "wandering chaplains, with pointed beards, curled hair, and effeminate dress, who are ashamed of the proper ecclesiastical habit and the tonsure," and was also accused of being "occupied with secular literature."

The University of Cambridge, which first appears clearly in 1209,1303 did not gain a position of much rank till the fifteenth century and can show no eminent teacher before that time. The first papal recognition dates from the bull of Gregory IX., 1233, which mentions a chancellor.1304

During the Reformation period, Cambridge occupied a position of note and influence equal to Oxford. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, martyred by Henry VIII. and one of the freest patrons of learning, was instrumental in the foundation of two colleges, Christs, 1505, and St. John, 1511. Among its teachers were Erasmus, and later Bucer and Fagius, the Continental Reformers. Tyndale, the translator of the first printed English New Testament, and Thomas Bilney, both of them martyrs, were its scholars. So were the three martyrs, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, though they were burnt at Oxford. During the Elizabethan period, the university was a stronghold of Puritanism with Cartwright and Travers occupying chairs. Cudworth and the Neo-Platonists flourished there. And in recent years its chairs have been filled by such representatives of the historical and exegetical schools as Bishop Lightfoot, Westcott, his successor at Durham, Ellicott, bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and John Anthony Hort.

Oxford and Cambridge differ from the Continental universities in giving prominence to undergraduate studies and in the system of colleges and halls, and also in the closer vital relations they sustain to the Church.

In 1149 the Italian, Vacarius, introduced the study of civil law in Oxford, if we are to follow the doubtful testimony of Gervaise of Canterbury, though it is more probable that he delivered his lectures in the household of the archbishop of Canterbury, Theobald.1305  He wrote, it is said, a digest of laws "sufficient for deciding all legal problems which are wont to be discussed in the schools."

One of the very earliest notices of Oxford as a seat of study is found in a description by Giraldus Cambrensis, the Welsh traveller and historian. About the year 1185 he visited the town and read "before the faculties, doctors, and students" his work on the Topography of Ireland.1306  The school was evidently of some importance to attract such a man. Walter Map, archdeacon of Oxford, is called by Giraldus "an Oxford master." The first degree known to have been conferred was given to Edmund Rich, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. From Geraldus it is evident that the masters were grouped in faculties. As early as 1209 and in consequence of the hanging of three students by the mayor, there was a migration of masters and students, said to have been three thousand in number, from which the University of Cambridge had its beginning.1307

The University of Oxford was less bound by ecclesiastical authority than Paris. An unsuccessful attempt was made by the bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese it was located, to assert supervisory authority. The bull of Innocent IV., issued 1254, was the nearest approach to a papal charter and confirmed the university in its "immunities and ancient customs." In 1201 a chancellor is mentioned for the first time. From the beginning this official seems to have been elected by the university. He originally held his office for a term of two years. At the present time the chancellor is an honorary dignitary who does not pretend to reside in Oxford.

In 1395, the university was exempted by papal bull from all control of bishops or legati nati.  This decree was revoked in 1411 in consequence of the disturbances with Wyclif and his followers, but, in 1490, Sixtus IV. again renewed the exemption from ecclesiastical authority.

The university was constantly having conflicts with the town and its authorities. The most notable one occurred in 1354. As usual, it originated in a tavern brawl, the keeper of the place being supported not only by his fellow-townsmen but by thousands from the neighboring country.1308  The chancellor fled. The friars brought out the host and placed it between the combatants, but it was crushed to the earth and a scholar put to death while he was clinging to the friar who held it. Much blood was shed. The townsmen, bent upon paying off old scores, broke into twenty college inns and halls and pillaged them. Even the sanctity of the churches was not respected, and the scholars were hunted down who sought shelter in them. The students left the city. The chancellor appealed the case to the king, and through his authority and the spiritual authority of the bishop the town corporation was forced to make reparation. The place was put under interdict for a year. Officials were punished and restitution of goods to the students was made. The interdict was withdrawn only on condition that the mayor, bailiffs, and sixty burghers should appear in St. Mary’s church on the anniversary of the breaking out of the riot, St. Scholastica’s day, and do penance for the slaughtered students, each burgher laying down a penny on the high altar, the sum to be divided equally between poor students and the curate. It was not till 1825, that the university agreed to forego the spectacle of this annual penance which had been kept up for nearly five centuries. Not for several years did the university assume its former aspect.1309  Among the students themselves peace did not always reign. The Irish contingent was banished, 1413, by act of parliament for turbulence.1310

The arrival of the Dominicans and Franciscans, as has been said in other places, was an event of very great interest at Oxford, but they never attained to the independent power they reached in Paris. They were followed by the Carmelites, the Augustinians, and other orders.

The next important event was the controversy over Wyclif and the doctrines and persons of the Lollards, which filled the years of the last quarter of the fourteenth century and beyond.

At the English universities the college system received a permanent development. Endowments, established by the liberality of bishops, kings, and other personalities, furnished the nucleus for corporations and halls consisting of masters and students, each with a more or less distinct life of it sown. These college bodies and their buildings continue to impart to Oxford and Cambridge a mediaeval aspect and to recall on every hand the venerable memories of past centuries. Twenty-one of these colleges and five halls remain in Oxford. The oldest are University College founded by a bequest of William of Durham at his death, 1249; Merton, 1264; Balliol founded by the father of the Scotch king, 1266; Exeter, 1314; Oriel, 1324; Queen’s College, 1340; the famous New College, 1379, founded by William of Wykenham, bishop of Winchester; All Souls, 1438; Magdalen, 1448, where Wolsey was fellow. Among the illustrious men who taught at Oxford, in the earlier periods, were Edmund Rich, Roger Bacon, Grosseteste, Adam Marsh, Duns Scotus, Ockam, Bradwardine, Richard of Armagh, Wyclif.

As a centre of theological training, Oxford has been closely identified with some of the most important movements in the religious history of England. There Wyclif preached his doctrine and practical reforms. There the Humanists, Grocyn, Colet, and Linacre taught. The school was an important religious centre in the time of the Reformation, in the Commonwealth period, and the period of the Restoration. Within its precincts the Wesleys and Whitefield studied and the Methodist movement had its birth, and there, in the first half of the last century, Pusey, Keble, and Newman exerted the spell of their influence, and the Tractarian movement was started and fostered. Since the year 1854 Oxford and Cambridge have been open to Dissenters. All religious tests were abolished 187l. In 1885 the spiritual descendants of the Puritans, the Independents, established Mansfield College, in Oxford, for the training of ministers.

 

Note.—List of Mediaeval Universities.1311

 

Before 1100, Salerno.

 

1100–1200.—Bologna, 1150?; Paris, 1160?; Oxford, 1170?; Reggio and Modena.

 

1200–1300.—Vicenza, 1204; Cambridge, 1209; Palencia, Spain, 1212, by Alfonzo VIII. of Castile, abandoned; Arezzo, 1215; Padua, 1222; Naples, 1224; Vercelli, 1228; Toulouse, 1229, by Gregory IX.; Salamanca, 1230, by Ferdinand III. of Castile and confirmed by Alexander IV., 1254; Curia Romana, 1244, by Pope Innocent IV.; Piacenza, Italy, 1248; Seville, 1254, by Alfonso X. of Castile; Montpellier, 1289, by Nicolas IV.; Alcala, 1293, by Sancho of Aragon, transferred 1837 to Madrid; Pamiers, France, 1295, by Boniface VIII.

 

1300–1400.—Lerida, 1300, by James II. of Aragon and Sicily; Rome, 1303, by Boniface VIII.; Angers, 1305; Orleans, 1306, by Philip the Fair and Clement V.; Perugia, 1308, by Clement V.; Lisbon, 1309, by King Diniz, transferred to Coimbra; Dublin, 1312, chartered by Clement V. but not organized; Treviso, 1318; Cahors, 1332, by John XXII.; Grenoble, 1339, by Benedict XII.; Verona, 1339, by Benedict XII.; Pisa, 1343, by Clement VI.; Valladolid, 1346, by Clement VI.; Prague, 1347, by Clement VI. and Charles IV.; Perpignan, 1349, by Peter IV. of Aragon, confirmed by Clement VII., 1379; Florence, 1349, by Charles IV.; Siena, 1357, by Charles IV.; Huesca, 1359; Pavia, 1361, by Charles IV. and by Boniface VIII., 1389; Vienna, 1365, by Rudolf IV. and Urban V.; Orange, 1365; Cracow, 1364, by Casimir III. of Poland and Urban V.; Fünfkirchen, Hungary, 1365, by Urban V.; Orvieto, 1377; Erfurt, 1379, by Clement VII.; Cologne, 1385, Urban VI.; Heidelberg, 1386, by the Elector Ruprecht of the Palatinate and Urban VI.; Lucca, 1387; Ferrara, 1391; Fermo, 1398.

 

1400–1500.—Würzburg, 1402; Turin, 1405; Aix, in Provence, 1409; Leipzig, 1409; St. Andrews, 1411; Rostock, 1419; Dôle, 1423; Louvain, Belgium, 1425; Poictiers, 1431; Caen, 1437; Catana, Sicily, 1444; Barcelona, 1450; Valence, France, 1452; Glasgow, 1453; Greifswald, 1455; Freiburg im Breisgau, 1455; Basel, 1459; Nantes, 1460; Pressburg, 1465; Ingolstadt, 1472; Saragossa, 1474; Copenhagen, 1475; Mainz, 1476; Upsala, 1477; Tübingen, 1477; Parma, 1482; Besançon, 1485; Aberdeen, 1494; Wittenberg, 1502, by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony.

 

 § 94. The Cathedrals.

 

Literature: J. Fergusson: Hist. of Architecture in All Countries, 2 vols. 1865–1867, and since.—Sir G. G. Scott: The Rise and Devel. of Med. Arch., London, 1879.—Viollet-Le Duc: Lectures on Arch., Engl. trans., 2 vols. London, 1877.—T. R. Smith: Arch. Gothic and Renaissance, N. Y., 1880.—B. Ferree: Christ. Thought in Arch., in Papers of Am. Soc. of Ch. Hist., 1892, pp. 113–140.—F. X. Kraus: Gesch. der christl. Kunst, 2 vols. Freib., 1896–1900.—F. Bond: Engl. cathedrals, London, 1899.—R. STURGIS: Dict. of Arch. and Building, 3 vols. N. Y., 1901 sq.—Art. Kirchenbau by Hauck, in Herzog, X. 774–793. P. Lacroix: The Arts of the Middle Ages, Engl. trans., London.—Ruskin: Stones of Venice, Seven Lamps of Arch., and other writings. This enthusiastic admirer of architecture, especially the Gothic, judged art from the higher standpoint of morality and religion.

 

The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were the expression of religious praise and devotion and entirely the product of the Church. No other element entered into their construction. They were hymns in stone, and next to the universities are the most imposing and beneficent contribution the mediaeval period made to later generations. The soldiery of the Crusades failed in its attempt at conquest. The builders at home wrought out structures which have fed the piety and excited the admiration of all ages since. They were not due to the papacy but to the devotion of cities, nobles, and people.

It was a marked progress from the triclinia, or rooms in private houses, and crypts, in which the early Christians worshipped, to the cathedral of St. Sophia, at the completion of which Justinian is said to have exclaimed, "O Solomon, I have excelled thee."  And what a change it was from the huts and rude temples of worship of Central and Northern Europe to the splendid structures dedicated to Christian worship,—the worship which Augustine of Canterbury, and Boniface, and St. Ansgar had introduced among the barbarous Northern tribes!

It is also characteristic that the great mediaeval structures were not palaces or buildings devoted to commerce, although the Gothic palace of the doges, in Venice, and the town halls of Brussels, Louvaine, and other cities of Belgium and Holland are extensive and imposing. They were buildings devoted to religion, whether cathedral or conventual structures. They were often, as in France, placed on an elevation or in the centre of the city, and around them the dwellings clustered as if for protection.

The great cathedrals became a daily sermon, bearing testimony to the presence of God and the resurrection of Christ. They served the people as a Bible whose essential teachings they beheld with the eye. Through the spectacle of their walls and soaring spires, their thoughts were uplifted to spiritual things. Their ample spaces, filled or dimly lit with the sunlight piercing through stained-glass windows, reminded them of the glory of the life beyond, which makes itself known through varied revelations to the lonely and mysterious existence of the earth. The strong foundations and massive columns and buttresses typified the stability of God’s throne, and that He hath made all things through the word of His power.

Their construction occupied years and, in cases, centuries were necessary to complete them. Who can estimate the prayers and pious devotion which the laying of the first stones called forth, and which continued to be poured out till the last layer of stones was laid on the towers or fitted into the finial?  Their sculpture and stained-glass windows, frescoes, and paintings presented scenes from Scripture and the history of the Church. There, kings and queens, warriors, and the men whom the age pronounced godly were laid away in sepulture, a custom continued after the modern period had begun, as in the case of Luther and Melanchthon, whose ashes rest in the Castle Church of Wittenberg. In spite of frequent fires consuming parts of the great churches or the entire buildings, they were restored or reconstructed, often several times, as in the case of the cathedrals of Chartres, Canterbury, and Norwich. Central towers collapsed, as in the case of Winchester, Peterborough, Lincoln, and other English cathedrals, but they were rebuilt. In the erection of these churches princes and people joined, and to further this object they gave their contributions of material and labor. The women of Ulm gave up all their ornaments to advance the work upon the cathedral of that city, and to the construction of the cathedral in Cologne Germans in all lands contributed.

The eleventh century is the beginning of one of the most notable periods of architecture in the world’s history, lasting for nearly three centuries. It has a distinct character of its own and in its service high talent was consecrated. The monks may be said to have led the way by their zeal to erect strong, ample, and beautiful cloistral establishments. These called forth in France the ambition of the bishops to surpass them. Two styles of architecture are usually distinguished in this period, the Romanesque, called in England also the Norman, and the Gothic. Writers on architecture make a number of subdivisions and some have included all the architecture of the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries under the title Gothic, or Christian Pointed. During these centuries Europe, from the South to far Northern Scotland and Sweden, was dotted with imposing structures which on the one hand vied with St. Sophia of Constantinople, and on the other have been imitated but not equalled since.

In Rome as late as the thirteenth century, when Honorius III. began the construction of San Lorenzo, the old basilica style continued to rule. The Romanesque style started from Northern Italy and, in the beginning of the eleventh century, crossed the Alps, where it had its most glorious triumphs. In Italy, the cathedral of Pisa represents the blending of the old and the new, the cruciform shape and the dome. In Germany, the cathedrals of Spires, Worms, and Mainz belong to this period, and in England its earlier cathedrals, or portions of them, like Winchester, begun about 1070, Worcester about 1084, Peterborough about 1120, Norwich about 1096, Ely about 1083, Durham about 1099.

For the fundamental ground plan of the basilica was substituted the form of the cross. The size of the choir was increased and the choir was elevated. It was the age of the priesthood, and sacerdotalism was represented in the enlargement of the altar, in increased and rich stalls for the clergy, and spaces at the rear of the altar. These features also belong to the preceding period, but now receive greater emphasis. The large end of the cross, or nave, especially in the English cathedrals, was greatly extended so that the altar and its furniture were seen from afar, for the chief doors were in that end, which faced the west. In England, the transepts, or arms of the cross, became long and spacious. The tower became a prominent feature, and buttresses were added to the walls. In Italy, the tower took the shape of a campanile, which was built in addition to the dome, and was sometimes a separate building and never an essential part of it. The vaulted and groined roof took the place of the flat roof.

The Gothic style, so called in Italy from its reputed barbaric features, found altogether its highest development in the North, and started in Northern France. It is the grandest style of church architecture ever wrought out. It was shown in the height of the church walls and in spires struggling to reach to the very throne of God itself. The vault of the cathedral of Amiens is 147 feet above the floor, of Beauvais 157 feet, of Cologne 155 feet. This style developed the pointed arch, perpendicular lines, the lancet window. It had some of the features of the Lombardy poplars, soaring, stern, solemn. In its strong, ramparted buttresses, its towers, and its massive columns, it represented the hardihood and strength of the northern forest. Its pointed roofs were adapted to receive the storms of snow common to the North. Its flying buttresses and elaborate carvings within, and its splendid entrances, especially in the French cathedrals, typified the richness of Christian promise and hope.

The Gothic style started in France in the thirteenth century. Notable examples are found in Rheims, begun 1211, Amiens, Laon, and in Notre Dame, Paris, begun in 1163. The arches are less pointed than in England and the portals are on a much grander scale and more highly ornamented. At Notre Dame we have one of the finest specimens of flying buttresses. In its case and most cases of French Gothic there are towers. The cathedrals of Paris, Amiens, and Rheims have unfinished towers. The Sainte Chapelle in Paris is a splendid piece of pure Gothic.

In Germany, fine examples of Gothic are found in the church at Marburg dedicated to St. Elizabeth, in Nürnberg, Bamberg, Freiburg, Strassburg, and other cities. The cathedral of Cologne is said to be the most perfect specimen of Gothic in existence. Its choir was begun in 1248, Konrad of Hochsteden laying the corner-stone in the presence of the newly elected emperor, William of Holland, and many princes. The choir was dedicated in 1322. By 1437 one of the towers was finished up to one-third of its present height. At the time of the Reformation the roof was covered with boards. In the nineteenth century the original plans were discovered and the completion of the edifice, including the two spires, was made a national undertaking. The work was finished in 1880.

England is rich in memorials of mediaeval architecture which began with the arrival of the Normans. The nation’s life is interwoven with them, and Westminster Abbey is perhaps the most august place of sepulture in the world. In addition to the cathedrals already mentioned, Lincoln, Canterbury, York, Salisbury, and other great churches were begun in this period. Addition after addition was made till the noble churches of England got their final shape. The tower is one of the prominent features of the English cathedral, Lichfield being probably the most important with spires. The finest outside impression is made by Salisbury and Lincoln minsters. Many of these cathedrals were built by Benedictine monks, such as Canterbury, Durham, Ely, and Norwich, and by the canons regular of St. Augustine, as Carlisle and Bristol. Lincoln, Chichester, Salisbury, York, St. David’s, and others were served by secular priests.

The architects of Scotland seem to have come from England and to have built after English models. The noblest of her mediaeval churches are Glasgow, St. Andrews, Dumblane, and Elgin, and among her convents, Kelso, Dryburgh, Holyrood, and Melrose.

In Spain, great minsters at Toledo, Burgos, and other cities were built in Gothic style in the thirteenth century, and Seville, which offers the largest floor surface of all the Christian churches, and is also of the same type, was begun in 1401 and completed 1520.

In Italy, Gothic was never fully at home. The cathedrals of Milan, Florence, and Siena are regarded as its finer specimens. Siena was begun in 1243. The minster of Milan was not begun till 1385. It is the largest Christian church after Seville and St. Peter’s. Its west façade is out of accord with the rest of the structure, which is pure Gothic. It is built of white marble and soars up to the clouds in hundreds of spires. Within full sight of the Milan cathedral are the Alps, crowned with snow and elevated far above the din of human traffic and voices; and in comparison with those mightier cathedrals of God, the creations of man seem small even as man himself seems small in comparison with his Maker.