Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/246

382 at night, when the gates were shut, and at five in the morning, and assisted in all examinations for degrees in the faculties of arts. For many years the office had no salary, and the fees paid by the students were very small. All that held the office, two only excepted, kept it but for a short time; and often one, who was not a member of the faculty, was called to the office; which renders it probable that there was no competition in those days, either for the office itself, or for the patronage of it; but, on the contrary, some difficulty was experienced in finding persons qualified to fill it, or who were willing to take it. James II., the year after its foundation, granted a royal charter in favour of the university, by which the rectors, the deans of the faculties, the procurators of the four nations, the masters, regents, and scholars, with the beadles, writers, stationers, and parchment makers, were exempted from all taxes, watchings, and wardings, weapon-schawings, &c.; but it had no property, either of lands, houses, or rents. The congregatio universitatis was always held at the cathedral. The doctors and masters met sometimes at the convent of the Dominicans, or predicatores, as they were called, where all the lectures we find mentioned in theology, canon and civil law, were read. There was a university purse, into which perquisites, paid on being incorporated at examinations and promotions to degrees, were put From this purse, after it had accumulated for some years, cups of ceremony were furnished; but to defray the expense of a silver rod or mace, to be borne before the rector on solemn occasions, it was necessary to tax all the incorporated members, on which occasion David Cadzow, the first rector, gave twenty nobles. The first property the college acquired was two or three chaplainaries bequeathed by some of its first members. The duty of the chaplain was to perform certain masses at a specified altar for the souls of the founder and his friends, for which he was paid a small annuity. These chaplainaries were commonly given to some of the regents of the college of arts, probably because they were the parent of the sacerdotal order in the university. This patronage, and this purse, so far as appears, were all the property the university ever possessed; nor does it appear that the faculties of theology, canon and civil law, ever had any property. The individuals had each livings through all parts of the nation, abbacies, priories, prebendaries, rectories, and vicarages, but the community had nothing. Its privileges were the sole inducement to bring rich ecclesiastics into a society in which they lived at ease free of all taxes, and subject to no authority but that of their own rector. The college of arts, however, which the public even then had the good sense to see was the most useful part of the whole, and particularly entitled to public favour, as being entrusted with the education of youth, soon came to have some property.

In the year 1469, only eight years after its foundation, James lord Hamilton bequeathed to Mr Duncan Burcb, principal regent of the college of arts, and his successors, regents, for the use of the said college, a tenement, with the pertinents lying on the north side of the church and convent of the Dominicans, together with four acres of land in the Dove-hill, with a request that the regents and students every day after dinner and after supper should stand up and pray for the souls of him lord James Hamilton, of Euphemia, his spouse, countess of Douglas, of his ancestors and successors, and of all from whom he Lad received any benefit for which he had not made a proper return. These four acres of land still form part of the college garden, and from this date the faculty of arts from time to time were enabled to devote somewhat to the repairing, and even to make additions to the buildings of the college, furnishing rooms for the regents and students, with things necessary for the kitchen and