Life in the Medieval UniversityRait, Robert S. (Robert Sangster)
History
Life in the Medieval University
Rait, Robert S. (Robert Sangster)
College students -- Europe -- History; Education, Medieval; Universities and colleges -- Europe -- History
sconces: "A Doctor of Divinity is sconced a quart of wine for (p. 086)
picking a pear off a tree in the College garden, or again, for
forgetting to shut the Chapel door, or for taking his meals in the
kitchen. Clerks are sconced a pint for 'very inordinately' knocking
'at the door during dinner ...' for 'confabulating' in the court late
at night, and refusing to go to their chambers when ordered.... The
head cook is sconced for 'badly preparing the meat for supper,' or for
not putting salt in the soup." Among the examples given by Dr Rashdall
from this source are a sconce of two shillings for drunkenness and a
sconce in wine inflicted upon the head cook for being found "cum una
meretrice." An offence so serious in a bursar, is by many college
statutes to be followed by expulsion, and Dr Rashdall quotes an
instance of this penalty: but Parisian College Founders, were less
severe in dealing with moral offences than English Founders. At the
monastic College of Marmoutier, it was only on the second offence that
bringing into College ("mulierem suspectam et inhonestam") led to
expulsion, and at the College of Cornouaille, the penalty for a first
offence was loss of commons or bursa for fifteen days, and for a
second offence a month's deprivation; but even at Cornouaille actual
incontinence was to be punished by expulsion.
A late code of statutes of the fourteenth-century College of (p. 087)
Dainville, give us a picture of a student's day. The hour of rising
was five o'clock, except on Sundays and Feast days when an hour's
grace was allowed. Chapel service began at 5.30, prayers, meditation,
and a New Testament lesson being followed by the mass of the College
at six. All students resident in the College had to be present. The
reception of commoners, an early instance of which we noted in the
College of the Treasurer, had developed to such an extent, that all
Colleges had, in addition to their bursars or foundations, a large
number of "foranei scholares," who paid their own expenses but were
subject to College discipline, and received a large part of their
education in College. After mass, the day's work began; attendance at
the Schools and the performance of exercises for their master in
College. Dinner was about twelve o'clock, when either a bursar or an
external student read, "first Holy Scripture, then a book appointed by
the master, then a passage from a martyrology." After dinner, an hour
was allowed for recreation--walking within the precincts of the
College, or conversation--and then everyone went to his own chamber.
Supper was at seven, with reading as at dinner, and the interval until
8.30 was again free for "deambulatio vel collocutio." At 8.30 the
gates of the College were closed, and evening Chapel began. Rules
against remaining in Hall after supper occur in Parisian as well (p. 088)
as in English statutes, and we find prohibitions against carrying off
wood to private rooms. The general arrangement of Parisian college
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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