Page:A Catalogue of Graduates who have Proceeded to Degrees in the University of Dublin, vol. 2.djvu/11

 INTRODUCTION. v corporate. It gives power to the Provost and majority of the Fellows to make laws for the government of the College, and to adopt such of the laws that were established in either of the Universities of Cambridge or Oxford as thej should consider to be suitable to themselves. The latter part of the Charter confers on the stiidiosi of the College the privilege of obtaining Degrees of Bachelor, Master, and Doctor, " juxta tempus ido- neum," in all the arts and faculties. It gives power to the Provost and major part of the Fellows to prescribe the prelimi- nary acts and scholastic exercises ; to appoint " omnes personas pro hujusmodi rebus melius promovendis," whether Vice-Chan- cellor. Proctor, or Proctors, and to elect the Chancellor, except the first, who is named in the Charter as having been appointed by the Queen.* In interpreting this Charter it is proper to consider the circumstances under which it was granted, and which must be supposed to have been present to the mind of the Queen and her official advisers at the time of making the grant. Express reference is made to the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford ; and the clause in which power is given to elect the proper officers, for the purpose of having Degrees conferred, must be taken to mean such as there were in these Universities for the like purpose. Three of these officers are expressly named — the Chancellor, Vice- Chancellor, and Proctor or Proctors. A like reference is impliedly made as to the Degrees, and the "idoneum tempus" at which they were to be conferred— et sic de similibus. As to the meaning of " Universitas," there are two reli- able authorities. Dr. Cowell was the Eegius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Cambridge. He published "a work, that was printed at Cambridge, a.d. 1607, in which he gives the following explanation: " Universitie (Universitas) is, by the Civil Law, any body politic or corporation ; but, in our language, it is (at the least most ordinarily) taken for those
 * See further as to this part of the Charter, post, pp. xvii.-ixii.