Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 1: The Middle AgesLord, John
History
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 1: The Middle Ages
Lord, John
History
Some of these students came to study medicine, others law, but more
theology and philosophy. The headquarters of theology was the
Sorbonne, opened in 1253,--a college founded by Robert Sorbon,
chaplain of the king, whose aim was to bring together the students
and professors, heretofore scattered throughout the city. The
students of this college, which formed a part of the university,
under the rule of the chancellor of Notre Dame, it would seem were
more orderly and studious than the other students. They arose at
five, assisted at Mass at six, studied till ten,--the dinner hour;
from dinner till five they studied or attended lectures; then went
to supper,--the principal meal; after which they discussed problems
till nine or ten, when they went to bed. The students were divided
into hospites and socii, the latter of whom carried on the
administration. The lectures were given in a large hall, in the
middle of which was the chair of the master or doctor, while
immediately below him sat his assistant, the bachelor, who was
going through his training for a professorship. The chair of
theology was the most coveted honor of the university, and was
reached only by a long course of study and searching examinations,
to which no one could aspire but the most learned and gifted of the
doctors. The students sat around on benches, or on the straw.
There were no writing-desks. The teaching was oral, principally by
questions and answers. Neither the master nor the bachelor used a
book. No reading was allowed. The students rarely took notes or
wrote in short-hand; they listened to the lectures and wrote them
down afterwards, so far as their memory served them. The usual
text-book was the "Book of Sentences," by Peter Lombard. The
bachelor, after having previously studied ten years, was obliged to
go through a three years' drill, and then submit to a public
examination in presence of the whole university before he was
thought fit to teach. He could not then receive his master's badge
until he had successfully maintained a public disputation on some
thesis proposed; and even then he stood no chance of being elevated
to a professor's chair unless he had lectured for some time with
great eclat. Even Albertus Magnus, fresh with the laurels of
Cologne, was compelled to go through a three years' course as a
sub-teacher at Paris before he received his doctor's cap, and to
lecture for some years more as master before his transcendent
abilities were rewarded with a professorship. The dean of the
faculty of theology was chosen by the suffrages of the doctors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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