Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/873

Rh island, who taught by virtue of the licence conferred by the chancellor of the cathedral. In the second decade of the 13th century, it is true, we find masters withdrawing themselves from his authority by repairing to the left bank of the Seine and placing themselves under the jurisdiction of the abbot of the monastery of Ste Genevieve; and in 1255 this dignitary is to be found appointing a chancellor whose duty it should be to confer "licentia docendi" on those candidates who were desirous of opening schools in that district. But it was around the bestowal of this licence by the chancellor of Notre Dame, on the Île de la Cité, that the university of Paris grew up. It is in this licence that the whole significance of the master of arts degree is contained; for what is technically known as admission to that degree was really nothing more nor less than receiving the chancellor's permission to "incept," and by "inception" was implied the master's formal entrance upon, and commencement of, the functions of a duly licensed teacher, and his recognition as such by his brothers in the profession. The previous stage of his academic career, that of bachelordom, had been one of apprenticeship for the mastership; and his emancipation from this state was symbolized by placing the magisterial cap (biretta) upon his head, a ceremony which, in imitation of the old Roman ceremony of manumission, was performed by his former instructor, "under whom" he was said to incept. He then gave a formal inaugural lecture, and, after this proof of magisterial capacity, was welcomed into the society of his professional brethren with set speeches, and took his seat in his master's chair.

This community of teachers of recognized fitness did not in itself suffice to constitute a university, but some time between the years 1150 and 1170, the period when the Sentences of Peter Lombard were given to the world, the university of Paris came formally into being. Its first written statutes were not, however, compiled until about the year 1208, and it was not until long after that date that it possessed a "rector." Its earliest recognition as a legal corporation belongs to about the year 1211, when a brief of Innocent III. empowered it to elect a proctor to be its representative at the papal court. By this permission it obtained the right to sue or to be sued in a court of justice as a corporate body.

This papal recognition was, however, very far from implying the episcopal recognition, and the earlier history of the new community exhibits it as in continual conflict alike with the chancellor, the bishop, and the cathedral chapter of Paris, by all of whom it was regarded as a centre of insubordination and doctrinal licence. Had it not been, indeed, for the papal aid, the university would probably not have survived the contest; but with that powerful assistance it came to be regarded as the great Trans-alpine centre of orthodox theological teaching. Successive pontiffs, down to the great schism of 1378, made it one of the foremost points of their policy to cultivate friendly and confidential relations with the authorities of the university of Paris, and systematically to discourage the formation of theological faculties at other centres. In 1231 Gregory IX., in the bull Parens Scientiarum, gave full recognition to the right of the several faculties to regulate and modify the constitution of the entire university, a formal sanction which, in Denifle's opinion, rendered the bull in question the Magna Charta of the university.

In comparing the relative antiquity of the universities of Paris and Bologna, it is difficult to give an unqualified decision. The university of masters at the former was probably slightly anterior to the university of students at the latter; but there is good reason for believing that Paris, in reducing its traditional customs to statutory form, largely availed itself of the precedents afforded by the already existing code of the Transalpine centre, while its rectorship, proctorships, and four "nations" are all clearly distinct adaptations of the corresponding divisions at Bologna. These nations, which included both professors The and scholars, were—(1) the French nation, composed, in "nations." addition to the native element, of Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks; (2) the Picard nation, representing the students from the north-east and from the Netherlands; (3) the Norman nation; (4) the English nation, comprising, besides students from the provinces under English rule, those from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Germany. These several nations first came into existence some time before the year 1219, and all belonged to the faculty of arts; but the fully developed university was divided into four faculties, three "superior," viz., those of theology, canon law, and medicine, and one "inferior," that of arts. The head of each faculty was the dean; the head of each nation was the proctor. The rector, who in the first instance was head of the faculty of arts, by whom he was elected, was eventually head of the whole university. Each of the nations and each of the superior faculties, while subject to the general authority which he represented, was, like a royal colony, in a great measure self-governed, and made statutes which were binding simply on its own members. Congregations of the faculty of arts were pre sided over by the rector, who discharged the same function when general congregations of the whole academic community were convened. In the former the votes on any question were taken by nations, in the latter by faculties and nations. Only "regents," that is, masters actually engaged in teaching, had any right to be present or to vote in congregations. Neither the entire university nor the separate faculties had thus, it will be seen, originally a common head, and it was not until the middle of the 14th century that the rector became the head of the collective university, by the incorporation under him, first, of the students of the canon law and of medicine (which took place about the end of the 13th century), and, secondly, of the theologians, which took place about half a century later.

Apart from the broad differences in their organization, Paris and the very conception of learning, it will be observed, was Bologna different at Bologna from what it was at Paris. In the former it was entirely professional, designed, that is to say, to prepare the student for a definite and practical career in after life; in the latter it was sought to provide a general mental training, and to attract the learner to studies which were speculative rather than practical. In the sequel, the less mercenary spirit in which Paris cultivated knowledge added immensely to her influence and reputation. The university became known as the great school where theology was studied in its most scientific spirit; and the decisions of its great doctors upon those abstruse questions which absorbed so much of the highest intellectual activity of the Middle Ages were regarded as almost final. The popes themselves, although averse from theological controversies, deemed it expedient to cultivate friendly relations with a centre of such importance for the purpose of securing their influence in a yet wider field, Down therefore to the time of the great schism (1378), they at once conciliated the university of Paris and consulted what they deemed to be the interests of the Roman see, by discouraging the creation of faculties of theology elsewhere. The apparent exceptions to this policy are easily explained: the four faculties of theology which they sanctioned in Italy Pisa (1343), Florence (1349), Bologna (1362), and Padua (1363) were designed to benefit the Italian monasteries, by saving the monks the expense and dangers of a long journey beyond the Alps; while that at