Readings in the History of Education Part 12

[Footnote Y: Summary. It was reported to Eugene at his Synod that in certain regions there were no teachers to instruct others in the liberal arts, and therefore he enjoined it upon all the bishops to establish teachers in suitable places to teach others daily in liberal doctrines.]

[Footnote Z: Daniel and his companions.]

[Footnote AA: These were called under other names, Balthasar, Sidrac, Misac, and Abednago. According to Hugo and Lau.]

[Footnote AB: as for example XX dist. ca. fina.]

[Footnote AC: Recourse is had at times from similars to similars.]

[Footnote AD: Virgil.]

[Footnote AE: Ovid.]

[Footnote 31: _Decretum Gratiani, Distinctio_ x.x.xVII. ed. Lyons, 1580.]

[Footnote 32: Denifle, I, 46.]

[Footnote 33: _Compendium Studii Theologiae;_ translated by J.S. Brewer in R. Bacon, _Opera Inedita,_ p. lvi.]

[Footnote 34: One sentence of no importance is omitted from the translation. The rest of the doc.u.ment is given below, p. 90. For a slightly different version see D.C. Munro, "Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History," Vol. II, Pt. III, p. 2.]

[Footnote 35: Roger de Hoveden, _Chronica_, ed. Stubbs, IV, 120, 121.]

[Footnote 36: _Chart. Univ. Paris._, Vol. II, No. 657.]

[Footnote 37: Quoted from D.C. Munro, _Translations and Reprints_, Vol.

II, Pt. III.]

[Footnote 38: _Chart. Univ. Paris._, II, No. 1044.]

[Footnote 39: Rashdall, I, p. 147.]

[Footnote 40: _Chart. Univ. Paris._, I, No. 142.]

[Footnote 41: _l.c._, II, No. 1044.]

[Footnote 42: Rashdall, I, p. 343.]

[Footnote 43: F. Zarncke, _Statutenbucher der Universitat Leipzig,_ p.

4.]

[Footnote 44: Fournier, _Statuts et Priv. des Univ. franc._, III, No.

1673.]

[Footnote 45: _Chart. Univ. Paris._, Vol. I, p. 59. Quoted from D.C.

Munro, _l.c._ p. 9.]

[Footnote 46: For the text of this charter in full, see D.C. Munro, _l.c._ p. 7.]

[Footnote 47: Matthew Paris, _Chronica Majora_, III, 166-169.]

[Footnote 48: _Chart. Univ. Paris._, I, p. 119.]

[Footnote 49: Kashdall, I, pp. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 50: _Chart. Univ. Paris._, II, No. 578.]

[Footnote 51: Doc.u.ments printed by Denifle, _Die Universitaten, _etc., pp. 801-803.]

[Footnote 52: Doc.u.ment printed by Rashdall, II, Pt. II, p. 746.]

[Footnote 53: Charter of Harvard College, 1650.]

[Footnote 54: Charter of Brown University, 1764.]

[Footnote 55: See Compayre, "Abelard," pp. 41-45, and 35-41.]

[Footnote 56: Fournier, _Statuts_, etc., III, No. 1644.]

IV

UNIVERSITY EXERCISES

The ways and means of teaching in mediaeval universities were few and simple in comparison with those of our own times. The task of the student was merely to become acquainted with a few books and to acquire some facility in debate. The university exercises were shaped to secure this result. They consisted in the Lecture, the Disputation or Debate, the Repet.i.tion, the Conference, the Quiz, and the Examination.

Of these the first two and the last were by far the most important; they are described in detail below. The Repet.i.tion, given in the afternoon or evening, was either a detailed discussion of some point which could not be treated in full in the "ordinary" lecture, or a simple re-reading of the lecture, sometimes accompanied by catechism of the students upon its substance. The Conference was an informal discussion between professor and students at the close of a lecture, or a discussion of some portion of the day's work by students alone. The Quiz was often held in the afternoon at the student's hall or college, by the master in residence there, as described on page 132.

(a) _The Lecture_

Lectures were of two kinds,--"ordinary," and "extraordinary" or "cursory." The former were given in the morning, by professors; the latter in the afternoon, either by professors or by students about to take a bachelor's degree.

The purpose of the lecture was to read and explain the text of the book or books of the course. The character of the lecture was largely determined by the fact that all text-books, practically to the year 1500, were in ma.n.u.script, and by the further fact that many students seem to have been unable or unwilling to purchase or hire copies. A large part of the lecturer's time was thus consumed in the purely mechanical process of reading aloud the standard text and comments. To these he might add his own explanations; but the simple ability to "read the book" intelligently was sufficient to qualify a properly licensed Master, or a Bachelor preparing to take the Master's degree, to lecture on a given subject. This accounts for the fact that youths of seventeen or eighteen might be found giving occasional lectures, and that regular courses were given by those not much over twenty-one.

The books thus read consisted of two parts,--the text, and the "glosses"

or comments. A glance at the selection on page 60 will reveal the nature of the latter: they were summaries, explanations, controversial notes, and cross-references, written by more or less learned scholars, in the margin of the text. In the course of generations the ma.s.s of glosses became so great as fairly to smother the original work. The selection just referred to is not especially prolific in glosses; cases may be found in which the text of a page occupies only three or four lines, the rest of the s.p.a.ce being completely filled with comments, and with explanations of the comments. Instances of books explained to death are not unknown in our own cla.s.s-rooms!

The effect of this acc.u.mulation of comments was to draw the attention of both teachers and students more and more away from the text. There is evidence that in some instances the text was almost wholly neglected in the attempt to master the glosses. University reforms at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century sometimes involved the exclusion of this ma.s.s of "frivolous and obscure" comment from the lectures, and a return to the study of the text itself. See the introduction to the plan of studies for Leipzig, p. 48.

The selection from the Canon Law (p. 59 ff.) gives a good idea of the substance of a dictated mediaeval lecture. Concerning the "original" and more or less off-hand lecture we have the amusing account of Giraldus Cambrensis (_c._ 1146-1220), in his "most flattering of all autobiographies." After recounting--in the third person--his studies at Paris in Civil and Canon Law, and Theology, he says:

He obtained so much favor in decretal cases, which were wont to be handled Sundays, that, on the day on which it had become known throughout the city that he would talk, there resulted such a concourse of almost all the doctors with their scholars, to hear his pleasing voice, that scarcely could the amplest house have held the auditors.

And with reason, for he so supported with rhetorical persuasiveness his original, wide-awake treatment of the Laws and Canons, and so embellished his points both with figures and flowers of speech and with pithy ideas, and so applied the sayings of philosophers and authors, which he inserted in fitting places with marvellous cleverness, that the more learned and erudite the congregation, the more eagerly and attentively did they apply ears and minds to listening and memorizing. Of a truth they were led on and besmeared with words so sweet that, hanging, as it were, in suspense on the lips of the speaker,--though the address was long and involved, of a sort that is wont to be tedious to many,--they found it impossible to be fatigued, or even sated, with hearing the man.