The Chancellor
or Vice-Chancellor in procession is always preceded by two graduates,
of M.A. standing at least, who are styled Esquire Bedells. The maces
which these gentlemen carry on such occasions were given by George
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James I. The Duke was
elected Chancellor of the University by the narrow majority of five
votes. Another old custom, full of associations for Cambridge men,
is the ringing of Curfew at Great St. Mary's Church. The University
bell rings the Curfew nightly from nine of the clock till ten minutes
past the hour. The date of the month is also struck by one of the
same peal of bells. More curious, however, is the fact that the
service, or, more properly speaking, the "office" of Compline, is
commemorated at Trinity Hall by the ringing of a bell there nightly
at ten o'clock.
Many echoes of those "Disputations" which in mediæval times took the
place of examinations may be followed in the Cambridge of to-day.
The office of "Moderator" is with us still; Junior and Senior
"Sophisters" are those who are on the road to becoming
"Questionists"; and "Wranglers" are those who issue with honours from
the supposed contest. A person qualifying for a medical degree when
reading or submitting his finished "Thesis" is said to "Keep an Act"
(i.e. a Disputation) for that degree. The origin of the word Tripos
is not yet settled. Perhaps it derived itself from some sort of
stool. Anyhow, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the Tripos
had come to mean a sheet of paper upon one side of which were printed
the names of those who had attained Honours in the Mathematical
School, whilst upon the other was a copy of Latin Verses. Sheets of
this Tripos paper were thrown by the Moderators from the gallery of
the Senate House into the crowd assembled below. But until this same
century was some way advanced another set of verses, usually very
scurrilous in character, were recited by a sort of University
Buffoon, who came also to be called "The Tripos". Licensed revellers
were well-known institutions in both Universities throughout the
Middle Age; but it was not until this Tripos fellow had been the
subject of many scandals, protests, and warnings, that he was finally
abolished.
The history of the English Universities in the eighteenth century has
yet to be written; and though much material for such a history is
accessible to the humblest enquirer, it is not possible in so short
an essay as the present to do more than touch--and that very
lightly--upon the salient features of Cambridge life during this,
perhaps the most diverting period of the University's existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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