'Natio Anglica.' These 'nations' elected the Consiliarii, whose functions were to elect the Rector, to assist him in the government of the University, both as legislative council and as executive, and to represent and protect the interests of the various nations.' And thus we get the full-grown constitution of a Universitas Juristarum '—the Artist Universities developed later but similar lines in a medieval Italian Studium

on

generale.'

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The Rector was elected for two years. The Electoral body was composed of ex-Rectors, the Consiliarii of the nations, and special delegates styled 'electionarii' or 'sapientes.' The voting was by ballot; and the Rector must be a secular clerk, unmarried, wearing the clerical habit, of five years' standing as a student of law, or two years as a teacher, and at least twenty-four years of age. Though the title of Rector Magnificus' does not come into use before the close of the 15th century, the Rector's position was in fact 'magnificent' from the very first. At Bologna he took precedence over all Bishops, except the Bishop of the diocese, and even over Cardinals. The Vexillifer of the Church and the Legate a latere alone had the pas. The expenses of the office were considerable; and the salary was confined to one half of the fines which the Rector exacted for infringement of the Statutes, and to fees on conferment of degrees. He was expected to maintain a certain amount of state; he was bound by statute to keep at least two servants in livery; the cost of installation ceremonies must have been heavy. The function took place in the Cathedral. The newly-elected Rector received the rectorial hood or capuccio, of miniver, at the hands of a Doctor; he was then conducted home by the whole University of Jurists, for whom he was bound to furnish a banquet or at least a wine.' This was followed by a tournament, at the Rector's charges; and the ceremony wound up with the vestium laceratio,' the rending of robes, when the Rector's clothes were torn off his back and he was expected to recover the fragments at a price. It is clear that the Rectors must have been persons of some private means; and we cannot be surprised that avoidance of the dignity was frequently sought, even by flight. In fact, the burdens of office led, in later years, to the

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appointment of Pro-rectors, who were not expected to maintain the traditional state.

To assist the Rector in the government of the University there was the body of the Consiliarii, his electors, themselves elected by the 'nations.' At Padua both Rector and Consiliarii acquired, or conferred on themselves, the right to affix their coat of arms on the walls of the atrium or of the Aula Magna in the University buildings. They did not exercise this privilege in many, even in most, cases; but the walls of the University offer a pleasant field of research to the student of heraldry. The remaining officers of the University were the Syndics, the Notary, the Massarii, and the Bedels. The Syndics were elected, like the Consiliarii, by the 'nations'; and it was their duty to review the actions of the outgoing Rector at the close of his term of office. If he had failed to exact fines imposed by the Statutes, those fines were considered as a personal debt due from the Rector to the University; and the Syndics were bound to exact them. If the Rector himself had contravened the Statutes to the injury of a student or of students' rights, he was liable to fine by the Syndics. The Massarii were the wardens of the University chest; and the Bedels were what our Bedels are, only that they kept the matriculation lists and delivered the diplomas conferring the Degrees.

It is much to be regretted that we possess so few records of medieval student-life, but undergraduates were no more in the habit of keeping diaries then than now, and if they had kept them they would, in all probability, have been lost. We have no mediæval Lauder of Fountainhall. But Prof. Favaro, Prof. Brugi, Dr Rashdall, and Father Denifle, by a careful study and analysis of University-Statutes, enable us to reconstruct the external life at least of a mediæval University in Italy. The college system can hardly be said to have existed, certainly not in the form which it assumed at Oxford and Cambridge. Where colleges are found, they are merely small hostels, erected by pious benefactors, for the support of poorer students. The only exception, perhaps, is the Spanish College at Bologna, which had college rules and a discipline of its

own; but in 1377 the Spanish College numbered only thirty scholars, a mere trifle among the ten thousand students of Bologna. The earliest College at Padua was the Collegium Tornacense, founded in 1363 for the support of six poor law students.

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But on the whole there was nothing corresponding to our collegiate life in an Italian University. If the students had any corporate life with its esprit-de-corps, rivalries, and jealousies, it centred round their 'University,' Jurist or Artist,' and perhaps still more round their nation.' The students as a rule lived in 'hospicia,' or lodging-houses; a group of them, known as 'socii,' would club together and hire a whole house, furnishing it, finding their own servants, and regulating their lives very much as they pleased. The rent they had to pay to the owner was fixed by University officials called 'Taxatores hospiciorum.' Only the poorer students took lodgings in the house of a citizen, ad cameram,' while young noblemen of wealth would sometimes hire a whole house or Palazzo for their own use, and live in considerable state, with a large train of servants and their tutors forming part of their 'family' or suite. Students who were not 'socii' in a hospicium,' nor boarders with a citizen family, hired rooms in certain licensed taverns. The Paduan town-authorities found it necessary to prevent students from occupying hostelries near the city-gates and to reserve for other travellers three inns in each quarter of the town where students could not be housed. No doubt life in a students' inn was anything but peaceful. Gambling, drinking, and brawling largely occupy the attention of the penal Statutes, and fines pro vitreis fractis' are frequently recorded. These hostelries took students at a fixed pension, covering the bare necessities of life; all luxuries had to be found by the students themselves. The pension fell due on All Saints' Day and on the Feast of the Purification. During the early history of Padua University the professors hired their own lecture-rooms and paid for them out of their fees. But under Venetian rule the professors became government stipendiaries and were relieved of this burden. University lecture-rooms tended to become concentrated in the 'contracta scholarum' or students' quarter.

Lectures were of two kinds : 'Ordinary,' delivered in the morning and dealing with the more essential of the legal text-books, the 'Digestum Vetus' and the Code; and 'Extraordinary,' delivered in the afternoon and handling the 'Inforciatum,' the 'Digestum novum,' the 'Tres libri,' and the Authentics.' As the Doctors, or Professors, were elected by the students during the fifteen days preceding the Feast of St Peter, and, in the early history of the Studium, before salaries were introduced, depended on fees, or collecta, arranged between them and their pupils, they were very much at the mercy of their classes; boycott,' acroases impeditæ,' or 'sedilia ejecta,' made the lecturer the slave of his pupils. The Doctors were subject to the Rector and to the Statutes of the Student University, and therefore to the will of the students. They were bound to the strictest punctuality at the opening and closing of the lecture, which was usually regulated by the bell of some neighbouring church. They were fined if they skipped a passage or evaded a difficulty; they were liable to 'privatio' or suspension from function and fees; and, to enforce all this, a commission with the truculent title of 'Doctorum Denunciatores' was appointed to watch their conduct.

The examination for the laurea,' the degree, was a double process. There was the private examination, which was the real test, and the public examination followed by conferment of the degree. On the morning of the private examination, the candidate, after hearing Mass, presented himself to the examining board of Doctors and was assigned two subjects, or 'puncta,' in Canon or Civil law, and retired to his house to study them, during which process he might be assisted by his tutor. Later in the day the examiners assembled at the Collegio Sacro, hard by the Cathedral, presided over by the Archdeacon, representing the Bishop, the real fountain-head of University honours, and, in effect, the Chancellor of the University. The candidate was presented to the Archdeacon by his tutor, his 'promoting' Doctor, and proceeded to deliver a lecture on his two 'puncta'; he was then examined upon them by two Doctors appointed for that purpose, and might be questioned by other Doctors present. At the conclusion of

the examination the Doctoral board voted by ballot, and the candidate was either 'ploughed' or passed by unanimity or by a majority. Later on, this distinction was marked; the diploma for a unanimous vote being engrossed on parchment, for a majority vote on paper.

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The candidate thus qualified to proceed to the public examination, or Conventus,' invited his friends, high officials, and the 'socii' of his 'hospicium' to attend the ceremony and subsequent banquet. The function took place once more at the Collegio Sacro, where he read a thesis and defended it against adverse criticism. He was then presented to the Archdeacon, who, in a complimentary speech, conferred the 'jus docendi'; and, in outward and visible sign thereof, he was seated in a 'cathedra,' or teaching-chair, a gold ring was placed on his finger, and the magisterial biretta on his head. After this the students of both Universities, Jurists and Artists, conducted the neo-laureate through the town in procession, headed by the three University pipers and the four trumpeters. The newly-created Doctor was expected to send gifts to the Doctors, Bedels, and other officialsrobes, caps, gloves, and confectionery to the Doctors, fees in money to the Bedels-and to give a banquet to his 'University' friends.

The migration from Bologna in 1222, which brought about the foundation of Padua University, admirably illustrates the position of the student Universities' in relation to the towns. In 1215, and again in 1220, the Commune of Bologna endeavoured to destroy the students' most powerful weapon-their ability to migrate en masse-by compelling the Universities to incorporate the Town-Statutes in the University-Statutes, to which all students swore obedience, and threatening confiscation of goods and banishment against the Rectors if they administered to any student the oath of solidarity in case a general migration were ordered by the Rectors of the University.

In 1222 such a migration took place. We do not know the numbers, but they were certainly large. Bologna was nearly empty for a time. The Pope had supported the students in their quarrel with the Commune, and the Emperor Frederick II was exerting all his authority in favour of his own newly-founded