Vienna -- St Scholastica's Day at Oxford -- Assaults by Members of the University -- Records of the "Acta Rectorum" at Leipsic -- Parisian Scholars and the Monks of St Germain.. 124 Chapter VIII--SUBJECTS OF STUDY, LECTURES, EXAMINATIONS Instruction given in Latin -- Preparation for the University --Grammar Masters -- French taught at Oxford -- The "Act" in Grammar --The Seven Liberal Arts and the Three Philosophies -- Text-books -- Ordinary and Cursory Lectures -- Methods of Lecturing -- Repetitions and Disputations -- University and College Teaching -- Examinations at Paris, Louvain, and Oxford -- The Determining Feast -- Walter Paston at Oxford... 133 APPENDIX..................................................... 157 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................. 159 INDEX........................................................ 163 LIFE IN THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY (p. 001) CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY "A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also, That unto logik hadde longe y-go As lene was his hors as is a rake, And he was not right fat, I undertake; But loked holwe, and therto soberly, Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy, For he had geten him yet no benefyce, Ne was so worldly for to have offyce. For him was lever have at his beddes heed Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophye, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye. But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre; But al that he might of his freendes hente, On bokes and on lerninge he it spente, And bisily gan for the soules preye Of hem that yaf him wherwith to scoleye, Of studie took he most cure and most hede, Noght o word spak he more than was nede, And that was seyd in forme and reverence And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence. Souninge in moral vertu was his speche. And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche." An account of life in the medieval University might well take the (p. 002) form of a commentary upon the classical description of a medieval English student. His dress, the character of his studies and the nature of his materials, the hardships and the natural ambitions of his scholar's life, his obligations to founders and benefactors, suggest learned expositions which might in judicious hands Extend from here to Mesopotamy, and will serve for a modest attempt to picture the environment of one of the Canterbury pilgrims.