Page:A Catalogue of Graduates who have Proceeded to Degrees in the University of Dublin, vol. 2.djvu/23

 INTRODUCTION. xvii The ' guilda mercatoria ' was a corporate body, distinct from that in which the local government of the place was vested. It was one of a class of lay corporations erected for the better car- rying on of divers special purposes (to use the words of Black- stone) ; and in this class he ranks the general corporate bodies of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. ' TJniversitas,' as importing a corporate body, whether of accredited teachers and matriculated learners, or of either, con- stituted for the purposes of instruction in arts and faculties and for the advancement of learning, is surely as much entitled to have its import allowed in a Charter of the Sovereign, as the word ' guilda ' in the case of merchants or traders. And the more so, where the other provisions plainly indicate the inten- tion that the society or fraternity shall be perpetuated without disruption of its continuity, or interruption of its franchise. Cowell's work was published a few years after the date of the Charter of Queen Elizabeth, and about thirty years before the Charter of King Charles I. His explanation of ' Universitas ' may, therefore, be taken to be what had been and then was the accepted and applied sense of the word in England. It is but reasonable to suppose that it was used in this sense in these Charters. It plainly was so used in the title of the ' Eegulae,' and in the formula of supplication for a Degree. In addition to this, the recognition by the Crown and the Legislature to which the late Lord Chancellor Blackburne has referred seems to be sufficiently decisive. The next position which I proceed to notice is as to the true import of that part of the Charter of Queen Elizabeth that re- lates to the privileges of the stitdiosi. Dr. Todd, in his ' Intro- duction ' to the Book of Graduates, says that the real meaning of this part has been generally misunderstood, and that it seems to have been misunderstood even in the Charter of King Charles I. He contends that the sfudiosi were not only invested with the privilege of obtaining Degrees, on fulfilment of the condi- tions prescribed, but that the power was given to them, and not (as commonly supposed) to the Provost and majority of the