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claims have already been made, and who is generally conceded to have been the first master of note who taught at Paris, for the school conducted by him was very certainly connected with a monastery, whereas "the first cradle of the University of Paris" was rather in the non-monastic school conducted by the distinguished William of Champeaux, earliest important promoter of the scholastic philosophy, as before remarked, and who contributed so much to rescue Paris from the humiliating rôle of playing second in the great field of the highest culture to such lesser towns as Tours, Chartres, and Rheims.

In an important sense this Cathedral school was waiting to be made, or rather to be adopted, as the nucleus of a great university. It is not known that he had in view even the outline of such an institution-so grand in scale and purpose or that anybody else had; but there was the germ, and there at length it fulfilled its high mission.

(4) Also men for the several departments.-There also, as in few other places in the world at that time, were the men for the different departments of a great institution--not ready, of course, in the sense of to-day, but in the sense of that day; men as familiar as any of their time with what belonged to the general departments of letters, science, and philosophy; men who perhaps were foremost in the department of medicine, then crude enough in the absence of such modern discoveries as have made it a science; men up to the average, at least, in the department of jurisprudence, if not rivals of the masters who had already made Bologna the world center in law, and men whose eminence in theology had determined the Holy Father to make Paris a universal center for instruction in theology. And if not already at Paris in sufficient numbers to meet every demand, there was no place, as already observed, to which men equal to the high service could more easily be drawn. It is hardly too much to say the learned world was waiting to be called.

II.—WHEN THE UNIVERSITY BEGAN.

The University of Paris began without formal action and developed so quietly as well as gradually at first that it is quite out of the question to name any particular date. What may be assumed as the beginning was not far, however, from the turning point between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Soon after the important work of Champeaux, as master of the cathedral school, and of Abelard, as apostle-general, masters multiplied, until there was one at least for school service in connection with about every church in Paris, and there is evidence that as early as the latter half of the twelfth century there was such informal association of masters for mutual advantage and such ingathering of students as would have constituted a university in effect had they been brought into cooperation at a common center. Even without such evidence it is safe to say that the closing years of the twelfth century saw the birth of the University of Paris.

In my judgment, after the most careful consideration of all the evidence within reach, including that offered by those who have written most recently and most fully, there was before the end of the twelfth century neither an organized society or guild of masters, nor any formal association of students, like the "nations" at that time formed at Bologna, and which there shaped the destinies of her university. By "formal" I do not mean provided with written statutes after the fashion of modern times, but simply an association, society, guild or what not, held together most informally by common consent after the manner of mediæval times; and it does not appear that prior to 1200 there was so much of an association, whether of masters or of students, as this. The

authorities, both ecclesiastical and civil, were blindly reaching toward a university through statutes and decrees in favor of teachers and students as being classes of citizens that should have protection and furtherance.

There is evidence, however, that during the latter half of the twelfth century there had been such extraordinary development of the cathedral school that the university working forces concentrated themselves at that center more and more; so that, before formal and definite action of any sort, there was there, as nowhere else in Paris, the actual beginning of university work.

III. HOW THE UNIVERSITY BEGAN.

Unlike the University of Bologna, which, although brought about by a few learned men, chief of whom was Irnerius, took its first step in organization among the students whom they had drawn from many quarters, and which thus naturally took the form of a student university, this one at Paris was begun as a union or society of teachers and was practically a master university.

The more systematic beginning appears to have been made during the, first decade of the thirteenth century, and by the adoption of certain statutes, since lost, but which in substance prescribed the dress to be worn by masters, the observance of the accustomed order in lectures and disputations, and the attendance of masters upon the funerals of their fellow-members of the union. In explanation of the narrow range and exceeding simplicity of such statutes, it should be said that they were first regulations only, and such as were in common use in societies of many kinds-religious, benevolent, social, and industrial.

1. THE UNION OF MASTERS-INTERFERENCES.

There was also, at this time or thereabout, a recognition of the society, tantamount to its incorporation as a university, in the form of two bulls by Innocent III, himself once a master at Paris-the one sanctioning the restoration of an expelled master, and the other authorizing the society to name a syndic or proctor to represent it at the papal court. Independent of any authorization, the Roman law and common usage would have enabled them, as a social or religious guild only, to hold property and transact necessary business. Nevertheless the bulls were important on account of their putting the corporate rights of the society of masters beyond question; and it is not improbable that they were issued with special reference to repeated interference with their rights by the chancellor of the cathedral church, who appears to have been tyrannically disposed.

The conflicts with him had come of too great power on his part, coupled with an inclination to make frequent use of it. He could not only grant or refuse the licentia docendi, so absolutely necessary to a master's use of his powers and attainments, at his own will and pleasure, but also, in his capacity as ecclesiastical judge and head of the schools, strip a master of his license once duly conferred, or a student of his privileges as such. More yet; he could enforce his judgments by excommunication and even imprisonment; and with the concurrence of his bishop and chapter issue regulations for the government and discipline of masters and scholars in general. The masters appear to have had these two reserved rights, however: They could refuse to receive into their association, society, or union anyone so licensed who had not complied with its regulations and usages, and could require of a newcomer an oath of obedience to their society regulations when admitted, or "incepted," as the phrase was-i. e., received with certain prescribed formalities at his cost.

No doubt, by way of retaliation for unjust judgments and privileges rendered and conferred by the chancellor, the masters sometimes unjustly dealt with his licensed master ("licentiate "), as they could, if they liked, by refusing to argue with him, if he would not submit to their rules; they could also reject as applicant for admission to their guild, although a master, any student who dared to attend the lectures of a master whom they had deprived of membership.

In this connection there is an interesting fact illustrative of the common experience of mankind, that indulgence in liberal powers tends to an increased desire for power, viz, that, in a year or two after the Pope's formal recognition of the masters as an institution, the chancellor demanded of the masters an oath of obedience to himself. Naturally, the powers at Rome were appealed to and were prompt to correct the abuse, relieving such as had taken the oath already, and forbidding the exaction of such oaths in future. Nor this alone; the Pope's bull of 1212 required the gratuitous granting of licenses deserved, and that they . be accorded, not on the chancellor's sole judgment, as theretofore, but on the recommendation of a majority of the masters in any of the professional faculties, or by six selected masters in the Faculty of Arts, three of them to be named by the said faculty itself and three by the chancellor. Yet more, in the righting of wrongs sometimes nothing short of outrageous, there was to be no more imprisonment of scholars for slight offenses (even before conviction), with an appropriation of fines by the chancellor for his own benefit; no more punishment in the form of pecuniary penance, and no refusal to discharge from prison, notwithstanding the offer of sufficient bail.

II. THE CODE SUPPLIED BY COURÇON.

Moreover, in 1215 al! these provisions were embodied in a permanent code imposed by the Cardinal (Robert de Courçon), and the masters were even authorized, within certain limitations, to form statutes for themselves and to administer oaths of obedience to them. But even this extraordinary support of the association of masters failed in large part of practical results. The bishop and chancellor were bent on defeating the purposes of the masters and did not yield obedience to the head of the church, and the old wrongs were continued. Even the efforts of the university men were treated as great offenses and were punished accordingly. The framing and adoption of constitutions, “lawful or unlawful, good or bad," without the approval of the bishop, chapter, or chancellor was prohibited, and finally, under charge of conspiracies, the association was excommunicated en masse.

A bull of Honorius III, issued in 1219 in pursuance of the liberal and consistent course hitherto pursued by the powers at Rome, ordering the immediate abolishment of the chancellor's prison and forbidding the excommunication of the association without a special license, having been disregarded, another, covering the same and other grounds, was issued in 1222.

The ground of these long-continued conflicts lay in the recognition by the bishop and chancellor-by the canons generally, as well-of the important fact that the educational forces gathering at Paris and steadily strengthening themselves by the addition of new masters and students in all the departments, were destined to a degree of independence under a common head, and were also certain to free themselves in time from the ecclesiastical despotism which had been planned. But, on the other hand, Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX, being more farsighted, and hence realizing that the true way to maintain their influence in a proper degree was to deal liberally with the new organization, stood by it with justice and firmness in every emergency.

III.—ATTEMPTS AT ORGANIZATION-FACULTIES, OFFICERS.

It was about this time that the groupings of masters, according to the subjects taught by them (known as disciplinæ), came to be recognized and to be designated as faculties. As the association of masters doing the same sort of work, or laboring in the same special field, was natural, so was it natural, if not inevitable, that they should gradually assume a considerable degree of independence, from their own plans according to special needs, and frame regulations to insure their realization. Hence the term "facultas" in the sense of a separate "scientia," and in the compound sense of embracing a given field of study, the teachers devoted to instruction therein, and the scholars given to the acquiring of a knowledge of the subjects taught. According to Denifle, the earliest use of the term in this comprehensive sense was by Honorius III, in a missive of February, 1219, addressed to the students at Paris, wherein he lays it down as a rule that the student who has passed the proper examination and received his license might "libere in ea de qua licentiam obtinuit regere facultate." Again it was used by him in a missive on May 3, and in a bull on November 22, the same year. And in 1222 it was repeatedly used in this sense by the masters themselves as a body. Denifle also finds, however, that it was occasionally used afterwards to signify a union of the masters of a special “disciplina ” or department of science. He says:

The magistri of each of the separate disciplinæ from that earlier time (1215) began to construct separate statute regulations for themselves and to hold separate assemblies. In this they did but continue what they had begun. They instituted examinations binding upon the general membership; they established systems of promotion; they determined conditions under which promoted persons should be incorporated in the general membership; they determined how those already members should be excluded therefrom.

In 1225 for unknown reasons the university seal was broken by papal order. But later (in 1231) still another bull in the interest of the institution was issued by Gregory IX, a bull in which the faculties were dealt with separately and specially. Quite properly it has been styled the Magna Charta of the university.

And well it was that the powers at Rome took such action, for meanwhile (in 1229), under advice of the bishop and papal legate, Queen Blanche, acting through the provost of Paris, caused the death of several students on the false assumption of their complicity in a recent riot, and so enraged the university in general that there was a practical dissolution (known in history as the "General Dispersion") and a scattering of professors and students to other institutions, both French and foreign, as well as the founding by them of some new ones. By reason of appeals from the Pope, coupled with the punishment of the Bishop and Chancellor of Paris, chief offenders, by diminution of their powers, and with the most solemn promises that every possible satisfaction should be rendered by all parties concerned, a majority of those who had broken away returned and regular work was resumed at Paris.

Among other favorable acts in fulfillment of the Pope's assurances was the issue of a bull in 1237 forbidding unauthorized acts of excommunication, and in which, moreover, the terms "proctor” and “rector" are so used as to lead to an earlier understanding of their meaning, viz, that proctor" stood for the head of each of the "nations," and that the "rector" was the one common head over all. These meanings are placed beyond doubt, according to Denifle, by a resolution adopted by the faculty of arts in the year 1244, which subjects offenders against certain regulations to expulsion until "satisfaction shall have been made to the rector and proctors on behalf of the university, to the full and at their pleasure." This was in 1245 according to Rashdall, who further notes, as of

the same year, a statute of the whole university in which expulsion is made the penalty "after monition by the rector, or a servant sent by him, or in like manner by the proctors, or a messenger sent by them."

It remains to be said that in 1241, according to Laurie, the faculty of arts had a practical monopoly of the rectorship, since the choice of the incumbent preceptor was made by the common vote of all, and this particular faculty outnumbered all the rest-at least for a time sufficiently long to have the ruling practice become a law. For a considerable time the faculty of theology and the faculty of arts constituted the whole institution and in many things acted jointly; but with the creation of other faculties separateness of action became more and more common, and finally the general rule.

Again, it was not long after the organization of other faculties that a rule of noninterference of one with another in their domestic affairs was adopted-a rule well emphasized in 1259 by a missive from Alexander IX to the Bishop of Paris, requiring him to forbid the members of the faculty of arts from any such interference under penalty of excommunication. There seems to have been nothing like an arraignment of this faculty; indeed the missive disclaims any intent of that sort. It must be explained, therefore, on the ground that said faculty, being at once more numerous and embracing comparatively young men in larger proportions than others, as well as holding relations with the “nations" quite exclusively, would naturally be in greater need of warning. Besides which, the growth of the institution, the incoming of students in great numbers, and new signs of friction had seemed to require that new caution, and in terms not to be mistaken, should be given by the supreme authority.

This missive of Alexander IX is also interesting for the unmistakable evidence it furnishes of the complete separateness and independence of the several faculties as quasi corporate bodies, each of them supreme in its own particular sphere, while constituting an integral part of the university as a whole-the Universitas Magistrorum et Scholarium.

A further fact of importance in gaining a correct understanding of the status of the faculties is this, that up to the time we are now concerned with no faculty had a seal of its own. When, in 1255, the faculty of arts published its ordinance setting forth the studies to be embraced therein, it used the seals of each of the four nations; and when the university, as a corporate body, had occasion to make a transfer of property and found itself without a seal it commissioned the masters of the faculty of theology to use their private seals for the purpose. Here we have unmistakable proof that the several "nations" were distinct; that the faculties of arts and of theology were distinct and independent; that the nations did not constitute the university; and that there was a corporate totality correctly entitled “The University of Paris."

The other general officials deserving mention were the procurator, or syndicus; the bedels; the registrar, or scribe; the receiver, and the nuntius.

The procurator, or syndicus, was an advocate or common lawyer, who acted as legal assessor to the chief officer in the university-perhaps also to the heads of faculties and nations. He was later known as promotor universitatis; was, in fact, the chief permanent officer, uniting the functions of university counsel with some that pertained to the office of registrar.

The bedel in chief was the officer who, in special dress, and bearing aloft the ponderous mace which represented the authority of the university, preceded the rector on all public occasions and led the way. Besides him there were bedels of secondary and yet lower rank-those who sustained a like relation to the heads of faculties and to the proctors of the nations; and last of all those who served each of the masters, looking after their several lecture rooms,

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