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
The increased stringency of disciplinary regulations at Oxford in the
end of the medieval period is best illustrated by the statutes which,
in the fifteenth century, the University enforced upon members of the
unendowed Halls. Students who were not members of a College lived, for
the most part, in one of the numerous Halls which, up to the
Reformation, were so important a feature of the University. A code of
these statutes, printed for the first time by Dr Rashdall, shows that
the liberty of the earlier medieval undergraduate had largely (p. 099)
disappeared, and that the life of a resident in a Hall, in the end of
the fifteenth century, was almost as much governed by statute and
regulation as if he were the partaker of a founder's bounty. He must
hear mass and say matins and vespers every day, under pain of a fine
of a penny, and attend certain services on feast days. His table
manners are no longer regulated by the customs and etiquette of his
fellows, but by the rules of the University. His lapses from good
morals are no longer to be visited with penalties imposed by his own
society; if he gambles or practises with sword and buckler, he is to
pay fourpence; if he sins with his tongue, or shouts or makes melody
when others wish to study or sleep, or brings to table an unsheathed
knife, or speaks English, or goes into the town or the fields
unaccompanied by a fellow-student, he is fined a farthing; if he comes
in after 8 P.M. in winter or 9 P.M. in summer, he contracts a gate
bill of a penny; if he sleeps out, or puts up a friend for the night,
without leave of his Principal, the fine is fourpence; if he sleeps
with another student in the Hall but not in his own bed, he pays a
penny; if he brings a stranger to a meal or a lecture or any other
"actum communem" in the Hall, he is fined twopence; if he is pugnacious
and offensive and makes odious comparisons, he is to pay sixpence;
if he attacks a fellow-member or a servant, the University has (p. 100)
appointed penalties varying with the severity of the assault, and for
a second offence he must be expelled. He has to obey his Principal
much as members of a College obey their Head, and, in lieu of the
pecuniary penalties, the Principal may flog him publicly on Saturday
nights, even though his own master may certify that he has already
corrected him, or declare his willingness to correct him, for his
breaches of the statutes. The private master or tutor was, as Dr
Rashdall suggests, probably a luxury of the rich boy, to whom his
wealth might thus bring its own penalty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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