The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature
LIFE IN THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C. 4
C. F. CLAY, Manager
New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
Toronto: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
Tokyo: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
All rights reserved
The Student's Progress
(From Gregor Reisch's Margarita philosophica, Edition of 1504,Strassburg)
First Edition, 1912
Reprinted 1918
With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on thetitle page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest knownCambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521
NOTE ON THE FRONTISPIECE
In this picture the schoolboy is seen arriving with his satchel andbeing presented with a hornbook by Nicostrata, the Latin museCarmentis, who changed the Greek alphabet into the Latin. She admitshim by the key of congruitas to the House of Wisdom ("Wisdom hathbuilded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars," Proverbsix. 1). In the lowest story he begins his course in Donatus under aBachelor of Arts armed with the birch; in the next he is promoted toPriscian. Then follow the other subjects of the Trivium and theQuadrivium each subject being represented by its chiefexponent—logic by Aristotle, arithmetic by Boethius, geometry byEuclid, etc. Ptolemy, the philosopher, who represents astronomy, isconfused with the kings of the same name. Pliny and Seneca representthe more advanced study of physical and of moral science respectively,and the edifice is crowned by Theology, the long and arduous coursefor which followed that of the Arts. Its representative in a medievaltreatise is naturally Peter Lombard.
NOTE
I wish to express my obligations to many recent writers on Universityhistory, and to the editors of University Statutes and other records,from which my illustrations of medieval student life have beenderived. I owe special gratitude to Dr Hastings Rashdall, Fellow ofNew College and Canon of Hereford, my indebtedness to whose greatwork, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, is apparentthroughout the following pages. Dr Rashdall has been good enough toread my proof-sheets, and to make valuable criticisms and suggestions,and the Master of Emmanuel has rendered me a similar service.
R. S. R.
23rd January 1912.
CONTENTS
Chaucer and the Medieval Student — The Great Period of University-Founding — The words "Universitas," "Collegium," "Studium Generale" — Bologna — Growth of Studia Generalia — Paris, Oxford, Cambridge — Definition of "Universitas"