Whatever disgust both the place and the spectacle might inspire, it was matter suggestive of much thought to see in that fatal period, in a town so frequently and so cruelly visited by death, the hungry, sickly, scarce living multitude, merrily making death itself a matter of spectacle, attending with insatiable avidity to its moralising buffooneries, and enjoying them so heartily as to tread heedlessly upon the bones of their fathers, and on the gaping graves they were themselves about to fill.[p] THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS AND THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE [Sidenote: [1414-1424 A.D.]] A very different phase of life which demands at least a passing notice is that which clustered about the wonderful University of Paris.[a] As early as the thirteenth century, the university shone in all its glory. Born in the shadow of the cloister of the bishopric, and primarily confounded with the ancient cathedral college of the town, it had obtained, little by little, immunities and privileges by favour of which it had grown and had reached a point where it was dependent upon no one but the court of Rome. Among the popes who conferred the most important privileges may be cited Alexander III, Innocent III, and his successor Honorius III, all promoters of the progress of knowledge, all jealously seeking to retain for the church that superiority of studies and learning to which its power was bound. The University of Paris rose rapidly above the universities of Italy, the only ones with which it was then in serious rivalry. It became the most important ecclesiastical and scientific college of Europe, the school whence the high clergy of France was recruited, as well as that of a large part of Christianity. It belonged to the church by its creation, by its studies in which theology predominated, and by its object, which was to prepare the learned candidates for the obtention of livings. For all its rights it depended on the holy see, which subjected it to visits and regulations. Meanwhile it formed in the bosom of the church itself a vast corporation (_universitas_), governing itself by its own laws with an extended liberty.