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Title: The Oxford Degree Ceremony
Author: Joseph Wells
Release Date: February 26, 2010 [EBook #31408]
Language: English
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[Illustration]
The Oxford Degree
Ceremony
By
J. Wells
Fellow of Wadham College
Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
1906
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO
PREFACE
The object of this little book is to attempt to set forth the meaning of
our forms and ceremonies, and to show how much of University history is
involved in them. It naturally makes no pretensions to independent
research; I have simply tried to make popular the results arrived at in
Dr. Rashdall's great book on the _Universities of the Middle Ages_, and
in the Rev. Andrew Clark's invaluable _Register of the University of
Oxford_ (published by the Oxford Historical Society). My obligations to
these two books will be patent to all who know them; it has not,
however, seemed necessary to give definite references either to these or
to Anstey's _Munimenta Academica_ (Rolls Series), which also has been
constantly used.
I have tried as far as possible to introduce the language of the
statutes, whether past or present; the forms actually used in the degree
ceremony itself are given in Latin and translated; in other cases a
rendering has usually been given, but sometimes the original has been
retained, when the words were either technical or such as would be
easily understood by all.
The illustrations, with which the Clarendon Press has furnished the
book, are its most valuable part. Every Oxford man, who cares for the
history of his University, will be glad to have the reproduction of the
portrait of the fourteenth-century Chancellor and of the University
seal.
I have to thank Dr. Rashdall and the Rev. Andrew Clark for most kindly
reading through my chapters, and for several suggestions, and Professor
Oman for special help in the Appendix on 'The University Staves'.
J.W.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
THE DEGREE CEREMONY 1
CHAPTER II
THE MEANING OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY 19
CHAPTER III
THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY 34
CHAPTER IV
THE OFFICERS OF THE UNIVERSITY 50
CHAPTER V
UNIVERSITY DRESS 64
CHAPTER VI
THE PLACES OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY 79
APPENDIX I
THE PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 93
APPENDIX II
THE UNIVERSITY STAVES 94
INDEX 97
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE ORIGINAL SHELDONIAN _Frontispiece_
THE UNIVERSITY SEAL _To face p._1
(The seal dates from the fourteenth
century and is kept by the Proctors.)
THE CHANCELLOR RECEIVING A CHARTER FROM EDWARD III _To face p._19
(From the Chancellor's book, circ. 1375.)
MASTER AND SCHOLAR _To face p._34
(From the title-page of Burley's _Tractatus
de natura et forma_.)
THE BEDEL OF DIVINITY'S STAFF _To face p._50
PROCTOR AND SCHOLARS OF THE RESTORATION PERIOD _To face p._64
(From _Habitus Academicorum_, attributed
to D. Loggan, 1674.)
THE INTERIOR OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL _To face p._79
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE DEGREE CEREMONY
The streets of Oxford are seldom dull in term time, but a stranger who
chances to pass through them between the hours of nine and ten on the
morning of a degree day, will be struck and perhaps perplexed by their
unwonted animation. He will find the quads of the great block of
University buildings, which lie between the 'Broad' and the Radcliffe
Square, alive with all sorts and conditions of Oxford men, arrayed in
every variety of academic dress. Groups of undergraduates stand waiting,
some in the short commoner's gown, others in the more dignified gown of
the scholar, all wearing the dark coats and white ties usually
associated with the 'Schools' and examinations, but with their faces
free from the look of anxiety incident to those occasions. Here and
there are knots of Bachelors of Arts, in their ampler gowns with
fur-lined hoods, some only removed by a brief three years from their
undergraduate days, others who have evidently allowed a much longer
period to pass before returning to bring their academic career to its
full and complete end. From every college comes the Dean in his Master's
gown and hood, or if he be a Doctor, in the scarlet and grey of one of
the new Doctorates, in the dignified scarlet and black of Divinity, or
in the bold blending of scarlet and crimson which marks Medicine and
Law. College servants, with their arms full of gowns and hoods, will be
seen in the background, waiting to assist in the academic robing of
their former masters, and to pocket the 'tips' which time-honoured
custom prescribes.
Presently, when the hour of ten has struck, the procession of academic
dignity may be seen approaching across the Quad, the Vice-Chancellor
preceded by his staves as the symbol of authority, the Proctors in their
velvet sleeves and miniver hoods, and the Registrar (or Secretary) of
the University.
Already most of those concerned are waiting in the room where degrees
are to be given: others still lingering outside follow the
Vice-Chancellor and the Proctors, and the ceremony of conferring degrees
begins.
Should our imaginary spectator wish to see the ceremony, he will have no
difficulty in gaining admittance to the Sheldonian, even if he have
delayed outside till the proceedings have commenced; but if the degrees
are conferred in one of the smaller buildings, it is well to secure a
seat beforehand, which can be done through any Master of Arts. The
ceremony will well repay a visit, for it is picturesque, it should be
dignified, it is sometimes amusing. But it is more than this; in the
conferment of University Degrees are preserved formulae as old as the
University itself, and a ritual which, if understood, is full of meaning
as to the oldest University history. The formulae, it is true, are
veiled in the obscurity of a learned language, and the ritual is often a
mere survival, which at first sight may seem trivial and useless; but
those who care for Oxford will wish that every syllable and every form
that has come down to us from our ancient past should be retained and
understood. It is to explain what is said and what is done on these
occasions that this little book is written.
[Sidenote: Notice of Degree Ceremony.]
Degrees at Oxford are conferred on days appointed by the
Vice-Chancellor, of which notice is now given at the beginning of every
term, in the _University Gazette_; the old form of giving notice,
however, is still retained, in the tolling of the bell of St. Mary's for
the hour preceding the ceremony (9 to 10 a.m.)[1]. The assembly at
which degrees are conferred is the Ancient House of Congregation (p.
93). The old arrangement of the Laudian Statutes is still maintained, by
which the proceedings commence with the entrance of the Vice-Chancellor
and Proctors, while one of the Bedels 'proclaims in a quiet tone',
'Intretis in Congregationem, magistri, intretis.' The Vice-Chancellor,
when he has formally taken his seat, declares the 'cause of this
Congregation'. It will be noticed that both the Vice-Chancellor and the
two Proctors, as representing the elements of authority in the
University (as will be explained later), wear their caps all through the
ceremony.
[Sidenote: Other business beside Degree giving.]
Degree giving, however, is sometimes preceded and delayed by the
confirmation of the lists of examiners who have been 'duly nominated' by
the committees appointed for this purpose; it is of course natural that
the same body which gives the degree should appoint the examiners, on
whose verdicts the degree now mainly depends. A less reasonable cause of
delay is the fact that the 'Congregation' is sometimes preceded by a
'Convocation' for the dispatch of general business, as a rule (but not
always) of a formal character; the two bodies, Convocation and
Congregation, are usually made up of the same persons, and are the same
in all but name; the change from one to the other is marked by the
Vice-Chancellor's descending from his higher seat, with the words
'Dissolvimus hanc Convocationem; fiat Congregatio'.
[Sidenote: The Registrar's Declaration.]
The degree ceremony itself begins with the declaration on the part of
the Registrar that the candidates for the degrees have duly received
permissions (_gratiae_) from their Colleges to present themselves, and
that their names have been approved by him[2]; he has already certified
himself from the University Register that all necessary examinations
have been passed, and has been informed officially that all fees have
been paid. The names have been already posted outside the door of the
House; it is said that this is done to enable a tradesman to find out
when any of his young debtors is about to leave Oxford, so that he may
protest, if he wish, against the degree. The posting, however, is
natural for many reasons, and no such tradesman's protest has been
known for years; nor is it easy to see how it could be made by any one
not himself a member of the University.
[Sidenote: The College Grace.]
The form of the college 'grace' states that the candidate has performed
all the University requirements; that for the B.A. may be given as a
specimen:--
'I, _A.B._, Dean of the College _C.D._, bear witness that _E.F._ of
the College _C.D._, whom I know to have kept bed and board
continuously within the University for the whole period required by
the statutes for the degree of B.A., according as the statutes
require, since he has undergone a public examination and performed
all the other requirements of the statutes, except so far as he has
been dispensed, has received from his college the grace for the
degree of B.A. Under my pledged word to this University.
_A.B._, Dean of the College _C.D._'
The words as to residence, that 'bed and board have been kept
continuously' are derived immediately from the Laudian statute, but are
in fact much older: the other clauses have of course been changed.
[Sidenote: Order of Degrees.]
The various degrees are then taken in the following order:--
Doctor of Divinity.
Doctor of Civil Law or of Medicine.
Bachelor of Divinity.
Master of Surgery.
Bachelor of Civil Law or of Medicine (and of Surgery).
Doctor of Letters or of Science.[3]
Master of Arts.
Bachelor of Letters or of Science.
Bachelor of Arts.
Musical degrees.
It sometimes happens, however, that a candidate is taking two degrees at
once (i.e. B.A. and M.A.); this 'unusual distinction', as local
newspapers admiringly call it, is generally due to the unkindness of
examiners who have prolonged the ordinary B.A. course by repeated
'ploughs'. In these cases the lower degree is conferred out of order
before the higher.
The same forms are observed in granting all degrees; they are fourfold,
and are repeated for each separate degree or set of degrees. Here they
are only described once, while minor peculiarities in the granting of
each degree are noticed in their place; but it is important to remember
that the essentials recur in each admission; this explains the
apparently meaningless repetition of the same ceremonies. This
repetition was once a much more prominent feature; within living memory
it was necessary for each 'grace' to be taken separately, and the
Proctors 'walked' for each candidate. Degree ceremonies in those days
went on to an interminable length, although the number graduating was
only half what it is now.
[Sidenote: (1) The _Supplicat_.]
The first form is the appeal to the House for the degree. One of the
Proctors reads out the _supplicat_, i.e. the petition of the candidate
or candidates to be allowed to graduate; this is the duty of the Senior
Proctor in the case of the M.A.s, of the Junior Proctor in the case of
the B.A.s; for the higher degrees, e.g. the Doctorate, either Proctor
may 'supplicate'.
The form of the _supplicat_ is the same, with necessary variations, in
all cases; that for the M.A. may be given as a specimen:--
'Supplicat venerabili Congregationi Doctorum et Magistrorum regentium
_E.F._ Baccalaureus facultatis Artium e collegio _C._ qui complevit
omnia quae per statuta requiruntur, (nisi quatenus cum eo dispensatum
fuerit) ut haec sufficiant quo admittatur ad incipiendum in eadem
facultate.'
('_E.F._ of _C._ College, Bachelor of Arts, who has completed all the
requirements of the statutes (except so far as he has been excused),
asks of the venerable Congregation of Doctors and Regent Masters that
these things may suffice for his admission to incept in the same
faculty.')
This form is at least as old as the sixteenth century, and probably much
older; but in its original form it set forth more precisely what the
candidate had done for his degree (cf. cap. ii). After each _supplicat_
has been read by the Proctor, he with his colleague walks half-way down
the House; this is in theory a formal taking of the votes of the M.A.s
present. When the Proctors have returned to their seats, the one of them
who has read the _supplicat_, lifting his cap (his colleague imitating
him in this), declares 'the graces (or grace) to have been granted'
('Hae gratiae concessae sunt et sic pronuntiamus concessas'). The
Proctors' walk is the most curious feature of the degree ceremony; it
always excites surprise and sometimes laughter. It should, however, be
maintained with the utmost respect; for it is the clear and visible
assertion of the democratic character of the University; it implies that
every qualified M.A. has a right to be consulted as to the admission of
others to the position which he himself has attained.
But popular imagination has invented a meaning for it, which certainly
was not contemplated in its institution; it is currently believed that
the Proctors walk in order to give any Oxford tradesman the opportunity
of 'plucking' their gown and protesting against the degree of a
defaulting candidate. 'Verdant Green'[4] was told that this was the
origin of the ominous 'pluck', which for centuries was a word of terror
in Oxford; in the last half-century, it has been superseded by the more
familiar 'plough'. There is a tradition that such a protest has actually
been made within living memory and certainly it was threatened quite
recently; a well-known Oxford coach (now dead) informed the Proctors
that he intended in this way to prevent the degree of a pupil who had
passed his examinations, but had not paid his coach's fee. The
defaulter, in this case, failed to present himself for the degree, and
so the 'plucking' did not take place.
[Sidenote: (2) The Presentation.]
The second part of the ceremony is the presentation of the candidates to
the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors; this is done in the case of the higher
degrees, Divinity, Medicine, &c., by the Professor at the head of the
faculty[5], in the case of the M.A.s and B.A.s by the representative of
the college.
The candidates are placed on the right hand of the presenter, who with
'a proper bow' ('debita reverentia') to the Vice-Chancellor and the
Proctors, presents them with the form appropriate to the degree they are
seeking; that for the M.A. is as follows:--
'Insignissime Vice-Cancellarie, vosque egregii Procuratores,
praesento vobis hunc Baccalaureum in facultate Artium, ut admittatur
ad incipiendum in eadem facultate.'
('Most eminent Vice-Chancellor, and excellent Proctors, I present
this B.A. to you for admission to incept in the faculty of Arts.')
The old custom was that the presenter should grasp the hand of each
candidate and present him separately; some senior members of the
University still hold the hand of one of their candidates, though the
custom of separate presentation has been abolished; there was an
intermediate stage fifty years ago, when the number of those who could
be presented at once was limited to five; each of them held a finger or
a thumb of the presenter's right hand.
[Sidenote: (3) The Proctorial Charge.]
The third part of the ceremony is the charge which is delivered, usually
by the Junior Proctor, to the candidates for the degree. Each receives a
copy of the New Testament from the Bedel, on which to take his oath. The
charge to all candidates for a doctorate or for the M.A. is:--
'Vos dabitis fidem ad observandum statuta, privilegia, consuetudines
et libertates istius Universitatis. Item quod quum admissi fueritis
in domum Congregationis et in domum Convocationis, in iisdem bene et
fideliter, ad honorem et profectum Universitatis, vos geretis. Et
specialiter quod in negotiis quae ad gratias et gradus spectant non
impedietis dignos, nec indignos promovebitis. Item quod in
electionibus habendis unum tantum semel et non amplius in singulis
scrutiniis scribetis et nominabitis; et quod neminem nominabitis nisi
quem habilem et idoneum certo sciveritis vel firmiter credideritis.'
('You will swear to observe the statutes, privileges, customs and
liberties of your University. Also when you have been admitted to
Congregation and to Convocation, you will behave in them loyally and
faithfully to the honour and profit of the University. And especially
in matters concerning graces and degrees, you will not oppose those
who are fit or support the unfit. Also in elections you will write
down and nominate one only and no more at each vote; and you will
nominate no one but a man whom you know for certain or surely believe
to be fit and proper.')
To this the candidates answer 'Do fidem'.
The charge to candidates for the B.A. or other lower degrees is much
simpler:--
'Vos tenemini ad observandum omnia statuta, privilegia,
consuetudines, et libertates istius Universitatis, quatenus ad vos
spectent' (as far as they concern you).
This charge, which is of course the first part of the charge to M.A.s,
goes back to the very beginnings of University ceremonial; the latter
part of the charge to M.A.s is modern, and takes the place of the more
elaborate oaths of the Laudian and of still earlier statutes. By these a
candidate bound himself not to recognize any other place in England
except Cambridge as a 'university', and especially that he 'would not
give or listen to lectures in Stamford as in a university'.[6] There
was also a special direction that each candidate should within a
fortnight obtain the dress proper for his degree, in order that 'he
might be able by it to do honour to our mother the University, in
processions and in all other University business'. It is a great pity
that this latter part of the old statutes was ever omitted.
The candidates for a degree in Divinity, whether Bachelors or Doctors,
are charged by the Senior Proctor; the senior of them makes the
following declaration, taken from the thirty-sixth canon of the Church
of England (as revised and confirmed in 1865):
'I, _A.B._, do solemnly make the following declaration. I assent to
the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and to the Book of Common Prayer
and of the ordering of bishops, priests, and deacons, and I believe
the doctrine of the United Church of England and Ireland, as therein
set forth, to be agreeable to the Word of God.'
The Senior Proctor then says to the other candidates:--
'Eandem declarationem quam praestitit _A.B._ in persona sua, vos
praestabitis in personis vestris, et quilibet vestrum in persona
sua.'
('The declaration which _A.B._ has made on his part, you will make on
your part, together and severally.')
[Sidenote: (4) The Admission by the Vice-Chancellor.]
When the candidates have duly taken the oath, the last and most
important part of the ceremony is performed.
The candidates for any Doctorate, except the new 'Research' ones, or for
the M.A., kneel before the Vice-Chancellor; the Doctors are taken
separately according to their faculties, then the M.A.s in successive
groups of four each; the Vice-Chancellor, as he admits them, touches
them each on the head with the New Testament, while he repeats the
following form:--
'Ad honorem Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et ad profectum sacrosanctae
matris ecclesiae et studii, ego auctoritate mea et totius
Universitatis do tibi (_vel_ vobis) licentiam incipiendi in facultate
Artium (_vel_ facultate Chirurgiae, Medicinae, Juris, S. Theologiae)
legendi, disputandi, et caetera omnia faciendi quae ad statum
Doctoris (_vel_ Magistri) in eadem facultate pertinent, cum ea
completa sint quae per statuta requiruntur; in nomine Domini, Patris,
Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.'
('For the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the profit of our
holy mother, the Church, and of learning, I, in virtue of my own
authority and that of the whole University, give you permission to
incept in the Faculty of Arts (or of Surgery, &c.), of reading,
disputing, and performing all the other duties which belong to the
position of a Doctor (or Master) in that same faculty, when the
requirements of the statutes have been complied with, in the Name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.')
This venerable form goes back (p. 26) to the beginning of the fifteenth
century, and is probably much older; the only change in it is the
omission at the beginning of 'et Beatae Mariae Virginis'. Modern
toleration has provided a modified form for use in cases of candidates
for whom the full form is theologically inappropriate, but this is
rarely used.
[Sidenote: Change of Gowns.]
The ceremony of the licence is now complete; but before the B.A.s are
admitted, the Doctors first, and then the Masters in their turn, retire
outside, and don 'their appropriate gowns and hoods'. They receive these
from those who were once their college servants, and the right of thus
bringing gown and hood is strictly claimed; nor is this surprising, as
unwritten custom prescribes that the gratuity must be of gold. The newly
created Doctors or Masters then come back, with the Bedel leading the
procession, and 'make a bow' to the Vice-Chancellor, who usually shakes
hands with the new Doctors; they are then conducted to a place in the
raised seats behind and around his chair, from which they can watch the
rest of the proceedings. The M.A.s either leave the house or join their
friends among the spectators.
The ceremony of admitting B.A.s is much simpler. As in the case of the
Masters, they are presented by their college Dean; the form of
presentation is:
'Insignissime Vice-Cancellarie, vosque egregii Procuratores,
praesento vobis hunc meum scholarem (_vel_ hos meos scholares) in
facultate Artium, ut admittatur (_vel_ admittantur) ad gradum
Baccalaurei in Artibus.'
The charge is then given by the Junior Proctor (see pp. 12 and 13).
After this the candidates are, without kneeling, admitted by the
Vice-Chancellor, in the following words:
'Domine (_vel_ Domini), ego admitto te (_vel_ vos) ad gradum
Baccalaurei in Artibus; insuper auctoritate mea et totius
Universitatis, do tibi (_vel_ vobis) potestatem legendi, et reliqua
omnia faciendi quae ad eundem gradum spectant.'
This form also is old, but has been cut down from its former fullness;
e.g. in the Laudian Statutes the candidate was admitted, among other
things, to 'read a certain book of the Logic of Aristotle'. The B.A.s,
when admitted, are allowed to disperse as they please, and the ceremony
is over. It is unfortunate that the form of admission to the degree
which is most frequently taken, and which (speaking generally) is the
most real degree given, should be such an unsatisfactory and bare
fragment of the old ceremonial.
[Sidenote: Degrees in Absence and Incorporations.]
It may be noticed that degrees 'in absence' are announced by the
Vice-Chancellor after each set of degrees has been conferred, e.g. an
'absent' M.A. is announced after the M.A.s have made their bow. The
University only allows this privilege to those who are actually out of
the country, and to them only on stringent conditions; an extra payment
of £5 is required.
The proceedings terminate sometimes with the admission to 'ad eundem'
rank at Oxford, of graduates of Cambridge or of Dublin; this privilege
is now rarely granted, though it was once freely given. When all is
over, the Vice-Chancellor rises, announces 'Dissolvimus hanc
Congregationem', and solemnly leaves the building in the same pomp and
state with which he entered.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In 1619 a B.A. candidate from Gloucester Hall (now
Worcester College), who failed to present himself for his 'grace', was
excused 'because he had not been able to hear the bell owing to the
remoteness of the region and the wind being against him'.]
[Footnote 2: Till recently the whole list of candidates for all degrees
was read by the Registrar, as well as by the Proctors afterwards when
'supplicating' for the graces of the various sets of candidates. Time is
now economized by having the names read once only.]
[Footnote 3: If the Doctor be not an M.A., then his admission to the
Doctorate follows the admission of the M.A.s.]
[Footnote 4: _Verdant Green_ was published in 1853, and this is the
oldest literary evidence for the connexion of 'plucking' and the
Proctorial walk. The earliest mention of 'plucking' at Oxford is
Hearne's bitter entry (May, 1713) about his enemy, the then
Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Lancaster of Queen's--'Dr. Lancaster, when Bachelor
of Arts, was plucked for his declamation.' But it is most unlikely that
so good a Tory as Hearne would have used a slang phrase, unless it had
become well established by long usage. 'Pluck', in the sense of causing
to fail, is not unfrequently found in English eighteenth century
literature, without any relation to a university; the metaphor from
'plucking' a bird is an obvious one, and may be compared to the German
use of 'rupfen'.]
[Footnote 5: The old principle is that no one should be presented except
by a member of the University who has a degree as high or higher than
that sought; this is unfortunately neglected in our own days, when an
ordinary M.A., merely because he is a professor, is appointed by statute
to present for the degree of D.Litt. or D.Sc.]
[Footnote 6: This delightful piece of English conservatism was only
removed from the statutes in 1827. It refers to the foundation of a
university at Stamford in 1334 by the northern scholars who conceived
themselves to have been ill-treated at Oxford; the attempt was crushed
at once, but only by the exercise of royal authority.]
CHAPTER II
THE MEANING OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY
[Sidenote: The Oath of the M.A.]
For the last 500 years certainly, for nearly 200 longer probably, the
candidate presented for 'inception' in the Faculty of Arts (i.e. for the
M.A. degree) has sworn that he will observe the 'statutes, privileges,
customs and liberties' of his university.[7] It is difficult to know
what the average man now means when he hurriedly says 'Do fidem' after
the Junior Proctor's charge; but there is no doubt that when the form of
words was first used, it meant much. The candidate was being admitted
into a society which was maintaining a constant struggle against
encroachments, religious or secular, from without, and against unruly
tendencies within. And this struggle gave to the University a vivid
consciousness of its unity, which in these days of peace and quiet can
hardly be conceived.
[Sidenote: What is a University?]
The essential idea of a university is a distinctly mediaeval one; the
Middle Ages were above all things gifted with a genius for organization,
and men were regarded, and regarded themselves, rather as members of a
community than as individuals. The student in classical times had been
free to hear what lectures he pleased, where he pleased, and on what
subjects he pleased, and he had no fixed and definite relations with his
fellow students. There is little or no trace of regular courses of
study, still less of self-governing bodies of students, in the
'universities' of Alexandria or Athens.
But with the revival of interest in learning in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, the real formation of universities begins. The students
formed themselves into organized bodies, with definite laws and courses
of study, both because they needed each other's help and protection, and
because they could not conceive themselves as existing in any other way.
These organized bodies were called 'universitates'[8], i.e. guilds or
associations; the name at first had no special application to bodies of
students, but is applied e.g. to a community of citizens; it was only
gradually that it acquired its later and narrower meaning; it finally
became specialized for a learned corporation, just as 'convent' has been
set apart for a religious body, and 'corps' for a military one.
[Sidenote: The origin of Oxford University.]
When these organized bodies were first formed is a question which it is
impossible to discuss at length here, nor could a definite answer be
given. The University of Oxford is, in this respect, as in so many
others, characteristically English; it grew rather than was made, like
most of our institutions, and it can point to no definite year of
foundation, and to no individual as founder. Here it must suffice to say
that references to students and teachers at Oxford are found with
growing frequency all through the twelfth century; but it is only in the
last quarter of that century that either of those features which
differentiate a university from a mere chance body of students can be
clearly traced. These two features are organized study and the right of
self-government.
The first mention of organized study is about 1184, when Giraldus
Cambrensis, having written his _Topographia Hibernica_ and 'desiring not
to hide his candle under a bushel,' came to Oxford to read it to the
students there; for three days he 'entertained' his audience as well as
read to them, and the poor scholars were feasted on a separate day from
the 'Doctors of the different faculties'. Here we have definite evidence
of organized study. Much more important is the record of 1214 (the year
before Magna Carta[9]), when the famous award was given by the Papal
Legate, which is the oldest charter of the University of Oxford. In this
the 'Chancellor' is mentioned, and we have in this office the beginnings
of that self-government which, coupled with organized study, may justify
us in saying that the real university was now in existence. It is quite
probable that the first Doctor of Divinity whom we find 'incepting' in
Oxford, is the learned and saintly Edmund Rich, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury; he seems to have taken this degree in the reign of John,
but he had been already teaching secular subjects in the preceding reign
(Richard I's). It is significant of mediaeval Oxford's position as a
pillar of the Church and a champion of liberty, that her first traceable
graduate should be the last Archbishop of Canterbury who was canonized,
and one of the defenders of English liberties against the misgovernment
of Henry III.
[Sidenote: The University a Guild of M.A.s.]
The 'University' of Oxford, like the great sister (or might we say
mother?) school of Paris, was an association of Masters of Arts, and
they alone were its proper members. In our own days, when not more than
half of those who enter the University proceed to the M.A. Degree, and
when only about ten per cent. of them reside for any time after the B.A.
course is ended, this state of things seems inconceivable; but it has
left its trace, even in popular knowledge, in the well-known fact that
M.A.s are exempt from Proctorial jurisdiction; and our degree
terminology is still based upon it. It is the M.A. who is admitted by
the Vice-Chancellor to 'begin', i.e. to teach (_ad incipiendum_), when
he is presented to him, and at Cambridge and in American Universities
the ceremonies at the end of the academic year are called
'Commencement'. What seems an Irish bull is really a survival of the
oldest university arrangements.
[Sidenote: The meaning of the 'Degree'.]
As then the University is a guild of Masters, the degree is the 'step'
by which the distinction of becoming a full member of it is attained.
Gibbon wrote a century ago that 'the use of academical degrees is
visibly borrowed from the mechanic corporations, in which an apprentice,
after serving his time, obtains a testimonial of his skill, and his
licence to practise his trade or mystery'. This statement, though
accurate in the main, is misleading; the truth is that the learned body
has not so much borrowed from the 'mechanic' one, as that both have
based their arrangements independently on the same idea.
[Sidenote: A Bachelor of Arts.]
This connexion may be illustrated from the other degree title,
'Bachelor.' If the etymology at present best supported may be accepted,
that honourable term was originally used for a man who worked on a
'cow-strip' of land, i.e. who was assistant of a small cultivator;
whether this be true or not, it at any rate soon came to denote the
apprentice as opposed to the master-workman; in fact the 'Bachelor' in
the university corresponded to the 'pupil-teacher' of more humble
associations in our own days. In this sense of the word, as Dr. Murray
quaintly says, a woman student can become a 'Bachelor' of Arts.
[Sidenote: Two elements in the Degree Ceremony: (1) Consent of existing
M.A.'s.]
It was natural that the existing members of the 'university' or guild
should be consulted as to the admission of new members; their consent
was one element in the degree giving. The means by which the fitness of
applicants for the degree was tested will be spoken of later, and also
the methods by which the existing Masters expressed their willingness to
admit the new-comer among them.
[Sidenote: (2) Outside authority, that of the Church.]
But there is quite a different element in the degree from that which has
so far been mentioned. That was democratic, the consent of the
community; this is autocratic, the authority conferred by a head,
superior to, and outside of the community. The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford
represents this second principle; he gives the degree in virtue of 'his
own authority' as well as of that 'of the University'. This authority is
originally that of the Church, to which, in England at any rate, all
mediaeval students _ipso facto_ belonged; the new student was admitted
into the 'bosom' (_matricula_) of the University by receiving some form
of tonsure, and for the first two centuries of University existence, no
other ceremony was needed. Matriculation examinations at any rate were
in those happy days unknown. Hence the authority which the cathedral
chancellor, representing the bishop, had exercised over the schools and
teachers of the diocese, was extended as a matter of course to the
teachers of the newly-risen Universities. The fitness of the applicant
for a degree was tested by those who had it already, but the
ecclesiastical authority gave the 'licence' to teach. This
ecclesiastical origin of the M.A. degree is well shown in the formula of
admission (pp. 15, 16). The new Master is admitted 'in honorem Domini
nostri Jesu Christi' and 'in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost'.
[Sidenote: The Pope and the Universities.]
The close connexion of the Church and higher education is further
illustrated by the view of the fourteenth-century jurists that a bull
from the Pope or from the Holy Roman Emperor was needed to make a
teaching body a 'Studium Generale', and to give its doctors the _jus
ubique docendi_[10]. A curious survival of the same idea still remains
in the power of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as English Metropolitan,
to recommend the Crown to grant 'Lambeth degrees' to deserving clergy;
this is probably a survival of the old rights of the Archbishop as
'Legatus Natus' in England of the Holy See.
[Sidenote: Survivals in the modern Degree Ceremony.]
There were then two elements in the conferring of a mediaeval degree,
the formal approval of the candidate by the already existing Masters and
the granting of the 'licence' by the Chancellor.
Of these the 'licence' is fully retained in our present ceremony; the
new M.A. receives permission (_licentia_) from the Vice-Chancellor to
'do all that belongs to the status of a Master', when 'the requirements
of the statutes have been fulfilled'. This condition is now meaningless,
for he has already fulfilled all 'the requirements'; but in mediaeval
times it referred to the second (and what was really the most important)
part of his qualifications, his appearance at the solemn 'Act' or
ceremony which was the chief event of the University year. At it Masters
and Doctors formally showed that they were able to perform the functions
of their new rank, and were then 'admitted' to it by investiture with
the 'cap' of authority, with the 'ring', and with the 'kiss' of peace;
the kiss was given by the Senior Proctor; the ring was the symbol of the
inceptor's mystical marriage to his science. The 'Act' in our day only
survives as giving a name to one of our two Summer Terms, which still
have a place in the University Calendar, and in the requirements of
'twelve terms of residence', although only nine real terms are kept. Its
disappearance was gradual; already in 1654, when John Evelyn attended
the 'Act' at St. Mary's, he expresses surprise at 'those ancient
ceremonies and institution (_sic_) being as yet not wholly abolished';
but the 'Act' survived into another century, although becoming more and
more of a form; it is last mentioned in 1733. With the ceremony
disappeared the formal exhibition of the candidate's fitness for the
degree he is seeking.
[Sidenote: The Master in Grammar.]
But in the mediaeval University it had been far otherwise. The idea that
a degree was formally taken by the applicant showing himself competent
for it, may be well illustrated from the quaint ceremony of admitting a
Master in Grammar at Cambridge, as described by the Elizabethan Esquire
Bedel, Mr. Stokys: 'The Bedel in Arts shall bring the Master in Grammar
to the Vice-Chancellor, delivering him a palmer with a rod, which the
Vice-Chancellor shall give to the said Master in Grammar, and so create
him Master. Then shall the Bedel purvey for every Master in Grammar a
shrewd boy, whom the Master in Grammar shall beat openly in the Schools,
and he shall give the boy a groat for his labour, and another groat to
him that provideth the rod and the palmer. And thus endeth the Act in
that faculty.' It may be added that the Vice-Chancellor and each of the
Proctors received a 'bonnet', but only one, however many 'Masters' might
be incepting. In Oxford likewise the 'Master in Grammar' was created
'_ferula_ (i.e. palmer) _et virgis_'.
[Sidenote: The Disputations at the Act.]
The Oxford M.A. had to show his qualifications in a way less painful,
though as practical, by publicly attacking or defending theses solemnly
approved for discussion by Congregation. These theses were themselves by
no means always solemn, e.g. one of those appointed in 1600 was 'an uxor
perversa humanitate potius quam asperitate sanetur?' ('whether a shrew
is better cured by kindness or by severity'). This question, obviously
suggested by Shakespeare's _Taming of the Shrew_, which was written soon
after 1594, was answered by the incepting M.A.s in the opposite sense to
the dramatist. It need hardly be said that all the disputations were in
Latin. The Doctors too of the different faculties were created at the
'Act' after disputations on subjects connected with their faculty.
Something resembling these disputations still survives in a shadowy form
at Oxford, in the requirements for the degrees of B.D. and D.D. A
candidate for the B.D. has to read in the Divinity School two theses on
some theological subject approved by the Regius Professor, a candidate
for the D.D. has to read and expound three passages of Holy Scripture;
in both cases notice has to be given beforehand of the subject, a custom
which survives from the time when the candidate might expect to have his
theses disputed; but now the Regius Professor and the candidate
generally have the Divinity School to themselves.
All the ceremonies of the 'Act' have passed away from Oxford
completely.[11] They are only referred to here as serving to illustrate
the idea that a new Master was not admitted till he had performed a
'masterpiece', i.e. done a piece of work such as a Master might be
expected to do. There was till quite recently one last trace of them in
our degree arrangements; a new M.A. was not admitted to the privileges
of his office till the end of the term in which he had been 'licensed to
incept'; although the University, having given up the 'Act', allowed no
opportunity of 'incepting', an interval was left in which the ceremony
might have taken place. Now, however, for purposes of practical
convenience, even this form is dropped, and a new M.A. enters on his
privileges, e.g. voting in Convocation, &c., as soon as he has been
licensed by the Vice-Chancellor. Strictly speaking an Oxford man never
takes his M.A., for there is no ceremony of institution; he is
'licensed' to take part in a ceremony which has ceased to exist.
[Sidenote: The Encaenia.]
And yet in another form the 'Act' survives in our familiar
Commemoration; the relation of this to the 'Act' seems to be somewhat as
follows. The Sheldonian Theatre was opened, as will be described later
(p. 81), with a great literary and musical performance, a 'sort of
dedication of the Theatre'; this was called 'Encaenia'.[12] So pleased
was the University with the performance that the Chancellor next year
(1670) ordered that it should be repeated annually, on the Friday before
the 'Act'. From the very first there was a tendency to confuse the two
ceremonies; even the accurate antiquarian, Antony Wood, speaks of music
as part of 'the Act', which was really performed at the preliminary
gathering, the Encaenia. The new function gradually grew in importance,
and additions were made to it; the munificent Lord Crewe, prince-bishop
of Durham, who enjoys an unenviable immortality in the pages of
Macaulay, and a more fragrant if less lasting memory in Besant's
charming romance _Dorothy Forster_, left some of his great wealth for
the Creweian Oration, in which annual honour is done to the University
Benefactors at the Commemoration.
Hence, while the customs of the 'Act' became more and more meaningless
and neglected, the Encaenia became more and more popular, until finally
the older ceremony was merged in the newer one. In our Commemoration
degree-giving still takes place, along with recitation of prize poems
and the paying of honour to benefactors. The degrees are all honorary,
but they are submitted to the House in the same way as ordinary degrees;
the Vice-Chancellor puts the question to the Convocation, just as the
Proctor submits the 'grace' to Congregation, and in theory a vote is
taken on the creation of the new D.C.L.s, just as in theory the Proctors
take the votes as to the admission of new M.A.s.
Commemoration may be, as John Richard Green said, 'Oxford in
masquerade'; there may be 'grand incongruities, Abyssinian heroes robed
in literary scarlet, degrees conferred by the suffrages of virgins in
pink bonnets and blue, a great academical ceremony drowned in an
atmosphere of Aristophanean (_sic_) chaff'. But the chaff is the
legitimate successor of the burlesque performance of the Terrae Filius
at the old 'Act', and the degrees are submitted to the House with the
old formula; even the presence of ladies would have been no surprise to
our predecessors of 200 years ago, however much they would have
astonished our mediaeval founders and benefactors; in the Sheldonian
from the first the gallery under the organ was always set apart for
'ladies and gentlewomen'. 'Oxford', to quote J.R. Green once again, 'is
simply young', but when he goes on to say 'she is neither historic nor
theological nor academical', he exaggerates; the charm of Oxford lies in
the fact that her youth is at home among survivals historic,
theological, and academical; and the old survives while the new
flourishes.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: The form is found in the two 'Proctors' books', of which
the oldest, that of the Junior Proctor, was drawn up (in 1407) by
Richard Fleming, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln and founder of Lincoln
College; but it was then already an established form, and probably goes
back to the thirteenth century, i.e. to the reign of Henry III.]
[Footnote 8: It is perhaps still necessary to emphasize the fact that
the name 'University' had nothing to do with the range of subjects
taught, or with the fact that instruction was offered to all students;
the latter point is expressed in the earlier name 'studium generale'
borne by universities, which is not completely superseded by
'universitas' till the fifteenth century.]
[Footnote 9: The coincidence is not accidental. Magna Carta was wrested
from a king humiliated by his submission to the Pope, and the University
Charter was given to redress an act of violence on the part of the
Oxford citizens, who had been stimulated in their attack on the 'clerks'
of Oxford by John's quarrel with the Pope.]
[Footnote 10: Oxford never received this Papal ratification; but as its
claim to be a 'studium generale' was indisputable, it, like Padua, was
recognized as a 'general seat of study' 'by custom'. The University of
Paris, however, at one time refused to admit Oxford graduates to teach
without re-examination, and Oxford retorted (the Papal bull in favour of
Paris notwithstanding) by refusing to recognize the rights of the Paris
doctors to teach in her Schools.]
[Footnote 11: In the Scotch Universities Doctors are still created by
'_birettatio_', the laying on of the cap, and I believe this is still
done at many 'Commencements' in America.]
[Footnote 12: Compare St. John x. 22, [Greek: enkainia] = 'The Feast of
the Dedication'.]
CHAPTER III
THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY
[Sidenote: The Preliminaries of the Degree Ceremony.]
It is needless to describe the requirements of our modern examination
system, for those who present themselves for degrees, and their friends,
know them only too well. And to describe completely the requirements of
the mediaeval or the Laudian University would be to enter into details
which, however interesting, would yet belong to antiquarian history, and
which have no relation to our modern arrangements.
But there are certain broad principles which are common to the present
system and to its predecessors, and which well deserve attention.
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: (1) Residence.]
The first and most important of these is that Oxford has always required
from those seeking a degree, as she requires now, 'residence' in the
University for a given time. It is declared in the Proctors' books
(mediaeval statutes used picturesque language), that 'Whereas those who
seek to mount to the highest places by a short cut, neglecting the
steps (_gradibus_) thereto, seem to court a fall, no M.A. should present
a candidate (for the B.A.) unless the person to be presented swear that
he has studied the liberal arts in the Schools, for at least four years
at some proper university'. There was of course a further three years
required of those taking the M.A. degree, and a still longer period for
the higher faculties. Residence, it may be added, was required to be
continuous; the modern arrangement which makes it possible to put in a
term, whenever convenient to the candidate, would have seemed a scandal
to our predecessors. It will be noticed that much more than our modern
'pernoctation' was then required for residence, and that migration from
other universities was more freely permitted than is now the case. This
freedom to study at more than one university is still the rule in
Germany, and Oxford is returning to it in the new statute on Colonial
and Foreign Universities, which excuses members of other bodies who have
complied with certain conditions, from one year of residence, and from
part of our examinations.
[Sidenote: Relaxations of Residence.]
The University in old days, however, was more prepared to relax this
requirement than it is in modern times; the sons of knights and the
eldest sons of esquires[13] were permitted to take a degree after three
years, and 'graces' might be granted conferring still further
exemptions; e.g. a certain G. More was let off with two years only, in
1571, because being 'well born and the only son of his father', he is
afraid that he 'may be called away before he has completed the appointed
time', and so may 'be unable to take his degree conveniently'. The
University is less indulgent now.
[Sidenote: (2) Lectures.]
The old statute quoted above also implies that there were special
lectures to be heard during the four years of residence; some of them
had to be attended twice over. The old Oxford records give careful
directions how the lectures were to be given; the text was to be closely
adhered to and explained, and digressions were forbidden. There are,
however, none of those strict rules as to the punctuality of the
lecturer, the pace at which he was to lecture, &c., which make some of
the mediaeval statutes of other universities so amusing[14].
The list of subjects for a mediaeval degree is too long to be given
here; it may be mentioned, however, that Aristotle, then as always, held
a prominent place in Oxford's Schools.[15] This was common to other
universities, but the weight given to Mathematics and to Music was a
special feature of the Oxford course.
The lectures were of course University and not college lectures; the
latter hardly existed before the sixteenth century, and were as a rule
confined to members of the college. As there were no 'Professors' in our
sense, the instruction was given by the ordinary Masters of Arts, among
whom those who were of less than two years' standing were compelled to
lecture, and were styled 'necessary regents' (i.e. they 'governed the
Schools'). They were paid by the fees of their pupils (_Collecta_, a
word familiar in a different sense in our 'Collections'). There was keen
competition in early days to attract the largest possible audience, but
later on the University enacted that all fees should be pooled and
equally divided among the teachers. For this (and for other reasons) the
lectures became more and more a mere form, and no real part of a
student's education.
[Sidenote: Cutting Lectures.]
There had been from time immemorial a fixed tariff for 'cutting'[16]
lectures, and there was a further fine of the same amount for failing to
take notes. But the University from time to time tried actually to
enforce attendance. A curious instance of this occurs toward the close
of the reign of Elizabeth; a number of students were solemnly warned
that 'by cutting' lectures, they were incurring the guilt of perjury,
because they had sworn to obey the statutes which required attendance at
lectures. They explained they had thought their 'neglect' to hear
lectures only involved them in the fine and not in 'perjury', and after
this apology they seem to have proceeded to their degrees without
further difficulty.
[Sidenote: Graces.]
In fact there was a growing separation after the fifteenth century,
between the formal requirements for the degree, and the actual
University system; sometimes irreconcilable difficulties arose, e.g.
when two students were (in 1599) summoned to explain why they had not
attended one of the lectures required for the degree, and they presented
the unanswerable excuse that the teacher in question had not lectured,
having himself been excused by the University from the duty of giving
the lecture. In fact the whole system would have been unworkable but for
the power of granting 'graces' or dispensations, which has already been
referred to: how necessary and almost universal these were, may be seen
from the fact that even so conscientious a disciplinarian as Archbishop
Laud, stern alike to himself and to others, was dispensed from observing
all the statutes when he took his D.D. (1608) 'because he was called
away suddenly on necessary business'. We can well believe that Laud
then, as always, was busy, but there were other students who got their
'graces' with much less excuse. Modern students may well envy the good
fortune of the brothers Carey from Exeter College, who (in 1614) were
dispensed because 'being shortly about to depart from the University,
they desired to take with them the B.A. degree as a benediction from
their Alma Mater, the University'.
[Sidenote: The New College Privilege.]
One curious development of the old system of 'graces' survived in one of
the most prominent of Oxford colleges almost till within living
memory.[17] William of Wykeham had ordained that his students should
perform the whole of the University requirements, and not avail
themselves of dispensations. When the granting of these became so
frequent that they were looked upon as the essential part of the system,
the idea grew up that New College men were to be exempt from the
ordinary tests of the University. Hence a Wykehamist took his degree
with no examination but that of his own college, both under the Laudian
Statute and after the great statute of 1800, which set up the modern
system of examinations. What the founder had intended as an
encouragement for industry was made by his degenerate disciples an
excuse for idleness.
[Sidenote: (3) Examinations.]
So far only the qualifications of residence and attendance on lectures
have been spoken of. The great test of our own times, the examination,
has not even been referred to. And it must certainly be admitted that
the terrors of the modern written examinations were unknown in the old
universities; such testing as took place was always viva voce. That the
tests were serious, in theory at any rate, may be fairly inferred from
the frequent statutes at Paris against bribing examiners, and from the
provision at Bologna that at this 'rigorous and tremendous examination',
the examiner should treat the examinee 'as his own son'. Robert de
Sorbonne, the founder of the famous college at Paris, has even left a
sermon in which an elaborate comparison is drawn between university
examinations and the Last Judgement; it need hardly be said that the
moral of the sermon is the greater severity of the heavenly test as
compared with the earthly; if a man neglects his prescribed book, he
will be rejected once, but if he neglect 'the book of conscience, he
will be rejected for ever'. Such a comparison was not likely to have
been made, had not the earthly ordeal possessed terrors at least as
great as those that mark its modern successors.
[Sidenote: Responsions.]
It may be added at once, however, that we hear very little about
examinations in old Oxford; but still there were some. Then as now the
first examination was Responsions, a name which has survived for at
least 500 years, whatever changes there have been in its meaning. The
University also still retains the time-honoured name of the 'Masters of
the Schools' for those who conduct this examination (though there are
now six and not four, as in the thirteenth century), and candidates who
pass are still said as of old to have 'responded in Parviso'.[18]
In the fifteenth century a man had to be up at least a year before he
entered for this examination, in the sixteenth century he could not do
so before his ninth term, i.e. only a little more than a year before he
took his B.A. The examination is now generally taken before coming into
residence, and the most patriotic Oxford man would hardly apply to it
the enthusiastic praises of the seventeenth-century Vice-Chancellor
(1601) who called it 'gloriosum illud et laudabile in parviso certamen,
quo antiquitus inclaruit nostra Academia'.
[Sidenote: Other examinations.]
At the end of four years, as has been said, a man 'determined', i.e.
performed the disputations and other requirements for the degree of
B.A., and after this ceremony there were more 'lectures and disputings'
to be performed in the additional three years' residence required for a
Master's degree. Nothing, however, is said of definite examinations as
to the intellectual fitness of candidates for the M.A. Hearne (early in
the eighteenth century) quotes from an old book, that the candidate
'must submit himself privately to the examination of everyone of that
degree, whereunto he desireth to be admitted'. But the terror of such a
multiplied test was no doubt greatly softened by the fact that what is
everybody's business is nobody's business.
[Sidenote: (4) Character.]
The stress laid on the course followed rather than on the final
examination brings out the great idea underlying the old degree; it
sought its qualifications on all sides of a man's life, and not simply
in his power to get up and reproduce knowledge. Hence it is provided
that M.A.s should admit to 'Determination' (i.e. to the B.A.) only those
who are 'fit in knowledge and character'; 'if any question arises on
other points, e.g. as to age, stature, or other outward qualifications
(_corporum circumstantiis_)', it is reserved for the majority of the
Regents. How minute was the inquiry into character can be seen in the
case of a certain Robert Smith (of Magdalen) in 1582, who was refused
his B.A., because he had brought scandalous charges against the fellows
of his College, had called an M.A. 'to his face "arrant knave", had been
at a disputation in the Divinity School' in the open assembly of Doctors
and Masters 'with his hat on his head', and had 'taken the wall of M.A.s
without any moving of his hat'.
All such minute inquiries as these are now left to the colleges, who are
required by statute to see to it that candidates for the degree are 'of
good character' (_probis moribus_).
[Sidenote: (5) _Circuitus_.]
When a candidate's 'grace' had been obtained there was still another
precaution before the degree, whether B.A. or M.A., was actually
conferred. He had to go bare-headed, in his academical dress, round the
'Schools', preceded by the Bedel of his faculty, and to call on the
Vice-Chancellor and two Proctors before sunset; this gave more
opportunity to the authorities or to any M.A. to see whether he was fit.
Of this old ceremony a bare fragment still remains in the custom that a
candidate's name has to be entered in a book at the Vice-Chancellor's
house before noon on the day preceding the degree-giving; but this
formality now is usually performed for a man by his college Dean, or
even by a college servant.
[Sidenote: (6) _De positio._]
When the day of the ceremony arrived, solemn testimony was given to the
Proctor of the candidate's fitness by those who 'deposed' for him. In
the case of the B.A., nine Bachelors were required to testify to
fitness; in the case of the M.A., nine Masters had to swear this from
'sure knowledge', and five more 'to the best of their belief' (_de
credulitate_). These depositions were whispered into the ears of the
Proctor by the witnesses kneeling before him. The information was given
on oath, and as it were under the seal of confession; for neither they
nor the Proctors were allowed to reveal it. Of all this picturesque
ceremony nothing is left but the number 'nine'; so many M.A.s at least
must be present, in order that the degree may be rightly given. It is
not infrequent, towards the close of a degree ceremony, for a Dean who
is about to leave, having presented his own men, to be asked to remain
until the proceedings are over, in order to 'make a House'.
The preliminaries, formal or otherwise, to the conferment of degrees
have now been described. Two other points must be here mentioned, in
one of which the University still retains its old custom, in the other
it has departed from it.
[Sidenote: Degrees in Arts required for entrance to the Higher
Faculties.]
The first is the requirement which has always been maintained in Oxford,
that a candidate for one of the higher degrees, e.g. the D.D. or the
D.M., should have first passed through the Arts course, and taken the
ordinary B.A. degree.
This principle, that a general education should precede a special study,
is most important now; it has also a venerable history. It was
established by the University as long ago as the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and was the result of a long struggle against the
Mendicant Friars. This struggle was part of that jealousy between the
Regular and the Secular Clergy, which is so important in the history of
the English Church in mediaeval times.
The University, as identified with the ordinary clergy, steadfastly
resisted the claim of the great preaching orders, the Franciscans and
the Dominicans, to proceed to a degree in Theology without first taking
the Arts course. The case was carried to Rome more than once, and was
decided both for and against the University; but royal favour and
popular feeling were for the Oxford authorities against the Friars, and
the principle was maintained then, and, as has been said, has been
maintained always.
[Sidenote: The M.A. becomes a form.]
In the other point there has been a great departure from old usage. The
original degree course involved seven years' residence for those who
wished to become Masters. Even before the Reformation, the number of
those who took the degree was comparatively small, although the
candidate at entrance was often only thirteen years old or even younger;
and with the improvement of the schools of the country in the sixteenth
century, the need of such prolonged residence became less, as candidates
were better prepared before they came up. Since the old arrangements
were clearly unworkable, different universities have modified them in
various ways; in Scotland the Baccalaureate has disappeared altogether,
and the undergraduate passes straight to his M.A.; in France the degree
of _bachelier_ is the lowest of university qualifications, and more
nearly resembles our Matriculation than anything else; in Germany the
Doctorate is the reward of undergraduate studies, although it need
hardly be said that those studies are on different lines from those of
our own undergraduates. In England the old names have both been
maintained (the English, like the Romans, are essentially conservative),
but their meaning has been entirely altered.
We can trace in the Elizabethan and the Stuart periods the gradual
modification of the old requirements for the residence of M.A.s, by
means of dispensations. This was done in two ways. Sometimes the actual
time required was shortened, because a man was poor, because he could
get clerical promotion if he were an M.A., or even by a general 'grace'
in order to increase the number of those taking the degree. If only a
small number incepted it was thought a reflection on Oxford, and there
were always Cambridge spectators at hand to note it. And as the Proctors
were largely paid by the degree fees, they had an obvious interest in
increasing the number of M.A.s.
But it was more frequent to retain the length of time, but to dispense
with actual residence; special reasons for this, e.g. clerical duties,
travel, lawsuits, are at first given, but it gradually became the normal
procedure, and residence ceased to be required after the B.A. degree had
been taken. The Master's term was retained _pro forma_ till within the
recollection of graduates still living (it will be remembered that Mr.
Hughes makes 'Tom Brown' return to keep it, a sadder and a wiser man);
but even that form has now disappeared, and the Oxford M.A. qualifies
for his degree only by continuing to live and by paying fees. It may be
added at once that the maintenance of the form is essential to the
finance of the University; the M.A. fees alone, apart from the dues paid
in the interval between taking the B.A. and the M.A., amount to some
£6,000 a year, and considering how little the ordinary man pays as an
undergraduate to the University, the payment of the M.A. is one that is
fully due; it should be regarded by all Oxford men as an expression of
the gratitude to their Alma Mater, which they are in duty bound to show.
The future of Oxford finance would be brighter if some reformer could
devise means by which the relation of the M.A. to his University might
become more of a reality, so that he might realize his obligations to
her. The doctrine of Walter de Merton that a foundation should benefit
by the 'happy fortune' (_uberiore fortuna_) of its sons in subsequent
life, is one that sadly needs emphasizing in Oxford.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: This custom has left its trace in our matriculation
arrangements. Candidates are still required to state the rank of their
father, and their position in the family, though birth and primogeniture
no longer carry any privileges with them at Oxford.]
[Footnote 14: The University authorities at Paris and elsewhere had a
great objection to dictating lectures; on the other hand the mediaeval
undergraduate, like his modern successor, loved to 'get something down',
and was wont to protest forcibly against a lecturer who went too fast,
by hissing, shouting, or even organized stone-throwing.]
[Footnote 15: It is amusing to notice that the irreducible minimum of
the _Ethics_ at Paris in the fourteenth century consists of the same
first four books that are still almost universally taken up at Oxford
for the pass degree (i.e. in the familiar 'Group A. I').]
[Footnote 16: It was only _2d._, a sum which has been immortalized by
Samuel Johnson's famous retort on his tutor: 'Sir, you have sconced me
_2d._ for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny.']
[Footnote 17: It was resigned voluntarily by New College in 1834; but
the distinction is still observed (or should be) that a Fellow of the
College needs no grace for his degree, or if one is asked, 'demands' it
as a right (_postulat_ is used instead of the usual _supplicat_). I have
adopted Dr. Rashdall's explanation of the origin of this strange
privilege. It is curious to add that King's College, Cambridge, copied
it, along with other and better features, from its great predecessor and
model, New College.]
[Footnote 18: i.e. in the Parvis or Porch of St. Mary's, where the
disputations on Logic and Grammar, which formed the examination, took
place: this was probably a room over the actual entrance, such as was
common in mediaeval churches; there is a small example of one still to
be seen in Oxford, over the south porch of St. Mary Magdalen Church.]
CHAPTER IV
THE OFFICERS OF THE UNIVERSITY
[Sidenote: The Origin of the Chancellor's Authority.]
The beginning of the organized authority of the University, as has been
already said (p. 22), is the mention of the Chancellor in the charter of
1214. In the earliest period this officer was the centre of the
constitutional life of Oxford. Although the bishop's representative, and
as such endowed with an authority external to the University, he was,
perhaps from the first, elected by the Doctors and Masters there. Hence
by a truly English anomaly, the representative of outside authority
becomes identified with the representative of the democratic principle,
and the Oxford Chancellor combined in himself the position of the
elected Rector of a foreign university, and that of the Chancellor
appointed by an external power. The reason for this anomaly is partly
the remote position of the episcopal see; Lincoln, the bishop's seat,
was more than 100 miles from the University town, which lay on the very
borders of his great diocese. The combination too was surely made
easy by the influence of the great scholar-saint, Bishop Grosseteste,
who had himself filled the position of Chancellor (though he may not
have borne the title) before he passed to the see of Lincoln, which he
held for eighteen years (1235-1253) during the critical period of the
growth of the academic constitution.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
During the first two centuries of the University's existence, the
Chancellor was a resident official; but in the fifteenth century it
became customary to elect some great ecclesiastic, who was able by his
influence and wealth to promote the interests of Oxford and Oxford
scholars; such an one was George Neville, the brother of the King-Maker
Earl of Warwick, who became Chancellor in 1453 at the age of twenty. He
no doubt owed his early elevation to the magnificence with which he had
entertained the whole of Oxford when he had proceeded to his M.A. from
Balliol College in the preceding year.
[Sidenote: The Vice-Chancellor.]
From the fifteenth century onwards the Vice-Chancellor takes the place
of the Chancellor as the centre of University life; as the Chancellor's
representative, he is nominated every year by letters from him, though
the appointment is in theory approved by the vote of Convocation.
The nomination of a Vice-Chancellor is for a year, but renomination is
allowed; as a matter of fact, the Chancellor's choice is limited by
custom in two ways; no Vice-Chancellor is reappointed more than three
times, i.e. the tenure of the office is limited to four years, and the
nomination is always offered to the senior head of a house who has not
held the position already; if any head has declined the office when
offered to him on a previous occasion, he is treated as if he had
actually held it.
The Vice-Chancellor has all the powers and duties of the Chancellor in
the latter's absence; but in the rare cases when the Chancellor visits
Oxford, his deputy sinks for the time into the position of an ordinary
head of a college.
[Sidenote: The Control of Examinations.]
The only duties of the Vice-Chancellor that need be here mentioned are
his authority and control over examinations and over degrees, duties
which are of course connected. Any departure from the ordinary course of
proceeding needs his approval: e.g. (to take a constantly recurring
case) he alone can give permission to examine an undergraduate out of
his turn, when any one has failed to present himself at the right time
for viva voce.
Now that all Oxford arrangements for examinations have developed into a
cast-iron system, the appeal, except in matters of detail, to the
Vice-Chancellor is rare; but it was not always so; his control was at
one time a very real and important matter. In the case of the famous Dr.
Fell, Dean of Christ Church, Antony Wood notes 'that he did frequent
examinations for degrees, hold the examiners up to it, and if they would
or could not do their duty, he would do it himself, to the pulling down
of many'. It is no wonder that men said of him:--
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell.
He was equally careful of the decencies and proprieties of the degree
ceremony; 'his first care (as Vice-Chancellor) was to make all degrees
go in caps, and in public assemblies to appear in hoods. He also reduced
the caps and gowns worn by all degrees to their former size and make,
and ordered all cap-makers and tailors to make them so.'
It was necessary for him to be strict; some of the Puritans, although
they were not on the whole neglectful of the dignity and the studies of
the University, had carried their dislike of all ceremonies and forms so
far as to attempt to abolish academical dress. 'The new-comers from
Cambridge and other parts (in 1648) observed nothing according to
statutes.' It was only the stubborn opposition of the Proctor, Walter
Pope (in 1658), which had prevented the formal abolition of caps and
gowns; and one of Fell's predecessors as Vice-Chancellor, the famous
Puritan divine, John Owen, also Dean of Christ Church, had caused great
scandal to the 'old stock remaining' by wearing his hat (instead of a
college cap) in Congregation and Convocation; 'he had as much powder in
his hair as would discharge eight cannons' (but this was a Cambridge
scandal, and may be looked on with suspicion), and wore for the most
part 'velvet jacket, his breeches set round at knee with ribbons
pointed, Spanish leather boots with Cambric tops'. But in spite of this
somewhat pronounced opposition to a 'prelatical cut', Owen had been in
his way a disciplinarian. He had arrested with his own hands, pulling
him down from the rostrum and committing him to Bocardo prison, an
undergraduate who had carried too far the wit of the 'Terrae Filius',
the licensed jester of the solemn Act.
[Sidenote: The Bedels.]
Fortunately the Vice-Chancellor in these more orderly days has not to
carry out discipline with his own hands in this summary fashion. He has
his attendants, the Bedels, for this purpose, who, as the statutes
order, 'wearing the usual gowns and round caps, walk before him in the
customary way with their staves, three gold and one silver.' The office
of Bedel is one of the oldest in Oxford, and is common to all
Universities; Dr. Rashdall goes so far as to say that 'an allusion to a
bidellus is in general (though not invariably) a sufficiently
trustworthy indication that a School is really a University or Studium
Generale'. The higher rank of 'Esquire Bedel' has been abolished, and
the old office has sadly shrunk in dignity; it is hard now to conceive
the state of things in the reign of Henry VII, when the University was
distracted by the counter-claims of the candidates for the post of
Divinity Bedel, when one of them had the support of the Prince of Wales,
and another that of the King's mother, the Lady Margaret, and when the
electors were hard put to it to decide between candidates so royally
backed; it was a contest between gratitude in the sense of a lively
expectation of favours to come, and gratitude for benefits already
received (i.e. the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity, the first
endowment of University teaching in Oxford). Even the Puritans had
attached the greatest importance to the office, and a humorous side is
given to the sad account of the Parliamentary Visitation in 1648 and the
following years, by the distress of the Visitors at the disappearance of
the old symbols of authority. The Bedels, being good Royalists, had gone
off with their official staves, and refused to surrender them to the
usurping intruders. Resolution after resolution was passed to remedy the
defect; the Visitors were reduced to ordering that the stipends of
suppressed lectureships should be applied to the purchase of staves, and
were finally compelled to appeal to the colleges for contributions
towards the replacing of these signs of authority. The present staves
date from the eighteenth century, while the old ones[19] rest in
honourable retirement at the University Galleries.
Though the office of Bedel has ceased to be in our own days a matter of
high University politics, it would be difficult to exaggerate the
importance of the part played by the Bedel of the Faculty of Arts in the
degree ceremony. It is he who marshals the candidates for presentation,
distributes the testaments on which they have to take their oath, and
superintends the retirement of the Doctors and the M.A.s into the
Apodyterium, whence they return under his guidance in their new robes,
to make their bow to the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors.[20] If the truth
must be added, he is often relied on by these officers to tell them what
they have to do and to say.
[Sidenote: The Proctors.]
If the Vice-Chancellor is responsible for order in the Congregation, and
actually admits to the degree, the Proctors, as representatives of the
Faculty of Arts, play an equally important part in the ceremony. These
officials are to the undergraduate without doubt the most prominent
figures in the University; they form the centre of a large part of
Oxford mythology; it may be said (it is to be hoped the comparison is
not irreverent) that they play much the same part in Oxford stories as
the Evil One does in mediaeval legends, for like him they are mysterious
and omnipresent beings, powerful for mischief, yet often not without a
sense of humour, who are by turns the oppressors and the butts of the
wily undergraduate. To most Oxford men it comes as a discovery, about
the time they take their degree at the earliest, that the Proctors have
many other things to do besides looking after them.
The office goes back to the very beginnings of the University and is
first mentioned in 1248, when the Proctors are associated with the
Chancellor in the charter of Henry III, which gave the University a
right to interfere in the assize of bread and beer.
Their number recalls one of the most important points in the early
history of Oxford. The division of the students according to 'Nations',
which prevailed at mediaeval Paris, and which still survives in some of
the Scotch universities, never was established in the English ones; in
this as in other respects the strong hand of the Anglo-Norman kings had
made England one. But though there was no room for division of
'Nations', there was a strongly-marked line of separation between the
Northerners and the Southerners, i.e. between those from the north of
the Trent, with whom the Scotch were joined, and those south of that
river, among whom were reckoned the Welsh and the Irish. The fights
between these factions were a continual trouble to the mediaeval
University, and it was necessary for the M.A.s of each division to have
their own Proctor; hence originally the Senior Proctor was the elect of
the Southerners and the Junior Proctor of the Northerners.
Proctorial elections were a source of constantly recurring trouble, till
Archbishop Laud at last transferred the election to the colleges, each
of which took its turn in a cycle carefully calculated according to the
numbers of each college. In our own generation this system has been
carried a step further, and all colleges, large or small alike, have
their turn for the Proctorship, which comes to each once in eleven
years. The electors for it are the members of the governing body along
with all members of Congregation belonging to the college.
The Proctors represent the Masters of Arts as opposed to the higher
faculties (i.e. the Doctors), and it is in virtue of the time-honoured
right of the Faculty of Arts to decide all matters concerning the
granting of 'graces', that the Proctors take their prominent part in the
degree ceremony. Although the Vice-Chancellor is presiding, it is the
Proctor who submits the degrees to the House, and declares them
'granted'. Before doing this the two Proctors, as has been said (p. 9),
walk half-way down the House and return, thus in form fulfilling the
injunction of the statutes that 'they should take the votes in the usual
way'.[21]
[Sidenote: The Registrar.]
One other University official must be mentioned, the Registrar, i.e. the
Secretary of the University. The existence of a Register of Convocation
implies that there must have been an officer of this kind in mediaeval
Oxford, but the actual title does not occur till the sixteenth century;
its first holder seems to have been John London of New College, so
scandalously notorious in the first days of the Reformation. But the
character of University officials was not high in the sixteenth century.
One of the earliest Registrars, Thomas Key of All Souls, was expelled
from his post in 1552 for having during two years neglected to take any
note of the University proceedings; he actually struck in the face
another Master of Arts who was trying to detain him at the order of the
Vice-Chancellor. For this he was sent to prison, and fined 26_s._ 8_d._;
but he was released the very next day, and his fine cut down to 4_d._ He
lived to be elected Master of University College nine years later, and
to be the mendacious champion of the antiquity of Oxford against the
Cambridge advocate. This was his namesake Dr. Caius, equally mendacious
but more reputable, the pious 'second founder' of a great Cambridge
college.
The Registrar's duty in the degree ceremony, as has been said (p. 5), is
to certify that the candidates have fulfilled all the requirements for
the degree, that they have received 'graces' from their colleges as to
proper residence, and that all examinations have in every case been
passed; the Registrar derives this latter information from the
University books in which records are now kept of each stage of an
undergraduate's career. It is only recently, however, that this system
has been adopted; less than twenty years ago each candidate for a degree
had to produce his 'testamur', the precious scrap of blue paper issued
after every examination to each successful candidate, pass-man and
class-man alike. It was a clumsy system, but it had strong claims of
sentiment; most old Oxford men will remember the rush to get the
'testamur' for self or for friend, and the triumph with which the
visible symbol was brought home. Since the University has abolished
these, it might with advantage introduce the custom of granting to each
graduate, on taking his degree, a formal certificate of the examinations
he has passed, of his residence and of the rank to which he has
attained. Such a certificate, whether called 'diploma' or by any other
name, would be of practical value; in these days study is international,
and the number of men is very great, and is increasing, who need to
produce evidence of their University career and its results for the
authorities of foreign or American universities. These bodies often
issue diplomas of most dignified appearance; it is a pity that Oxford,
which in some ways is so rich in survivals of picturesque custom, should
fail in this matter. It is true that a certificate of the degree can be
obtained, if a man writes to the Registrar for it and pays an extra fee;
this additional payment seems a little unjust; and men would be more
willing to take the degree if, as they say, 'they had something definite
to show for it.'
[Sidenote: The Presenters for the degrees.]
The presenters for the degrees are mainly college officials; it is only
for the higher degrees that University professors present, and then not
simply in virtue of being University officials[22], but also as having
already attained the degree which the candidate is seeking. The old
Oxford theory was that of the Roman magistracy, that only those who
were of a certain rank could admit others to that rank. Thus the Regius
Professor of Medicine usually presents our medical Bachelors and
Doctors; but he performs this duty because he is a Doctor; he has,
however, as occupying the professorial chair, the right to claim
presentations for himself, as against all other Doctors, even those
senior to him in standing. This right is a matter of immemorial custom
for the Regius Professors; it has been given to the Professor of Music
by a recent statute (1897).
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: For their history and for a description of the present
staves, cf. Appendix II.]
[Footnote 20: It seems a pity that the old order cannot be restored, and
the candidates kept outside till their 'graces' have been passed.
Formerly they were kept in the 'Pig Market', i.e. the ante-chamber of
the Divinity School (see p. 89), or in the Apodyterium, till this part
of the ceremony was completed; they were then finally ushered into the
presence of the Vice-Chancellor by the Yeoman Bedel. The modern
arrangement, by which candidates are present at the passing of their own
'graces', i.e. at their admission to the degree, may be convenient, but
it is quite inconsistent with the whole theory of the ceremony.]
[Footnote 21: For the importance of the Proctorial walk and for the
legends attached to it, compare p. 10.]
[Footnote 22: For the presentation to the new doctorates, D.Litt. and
D.Sc., cf. p. 11.]
CHAPTER V
UNIVERSITY DRESS
[Sidenote: Importance attached to dress.]
'From the soberest drab to the high flaming scarlet, spiritual
idiosyncrasies unfold themselves in the choice of colour; if the cut
betoken intellect and talent, so does the colour betoken temper and
heart.'
Mediaeval Oxford would have agreed with Carlyle's German Professor in
his philosophy of clothes, as an instance or two will show. A solemn
enactment was passed in 1358 against the tailors, who were apparently
trying to shorten the length of University garments; 'for it is
honourable and in accordance with reason that clerks to whom God has
given an advantage over the lay folk in their adornments within, should
likewise differ from the lay folk outwardly in dress.' If any tailor
broke the statute, he was to be imprisoned.
[Illustration: _PROCURATOR_]
[Illustration: _COMMENSALIS Superioris ordinis_]
[Sidenote: Statute as to M.A.s.]
The observance of this principle was strictly enjoined also on members
of the University; the Master of Arts at his inception had to swear that
he has 'of his own' the dress proper for his degree, and that he will
wear it on all proper occasions. Moreover it was further provided
that Masters should wear 'boots either black or as near black as
possible', and that they should never give 'ordinary lectures' when
wearing 'shoes cut down or short in any way'.
[Sidenote: Sophisters[23].]
Naturally means had to be taken also to prevent members of the
University of lower rank from usurping the dress of their superiors. In
1489 it was ordained that 'whereas the insolence of many scholars in our
days is reaching such a pitch of audacity that they are not afraid to
wear hoods like Masters', henceforth they were to wear only the
'_liripipium consutum et non contextum_'[24], on pain of a fine of
2_s._; the fine was to be shared between the University, the Chancellor,
and the Proctors; it was further provided (which seems unnecessary) that
if any official had been negligent in exacting it, his portion should go
to the University.
[Sidenote: B.A.s.]
At the same time, the hoods of the B.A.s were legislated on: 'Whereas
the B.A.s in the different faculties, careless of the safety of their
own souls,' were wearing hoods insufficiently lined with fur, henceforth
all hoods were to be fully lined; a fortnight was given to the B.A.s to
put their scanty hoods right. The danger to salvation was incurred by
the perjury involved in the neglect of a statute which had been solemnly
accepted on oath.
[Sidenote: Tailors.]
The University further settled what was to be charged by tailors for
cutting the various dresses; the prices seem very low, only 3_d._ for a
furless gown (_toga_) and 6_d._ for a furred cope; but no doubt the
tailors of those days knew how to evade the statute by enhancing their
profit on the price of materials; we have one suit before the Chancellor
(in 1439) in which the furred gown in question was priced at no less
than 36_s._ 8_d._
These instances, which could be multiplied indefinitely, are enough to
show how careful the mediaeval University was as to dress. But it will
be noticed that they nearly all refer to the dress of graduates; the
modern University on the other hand practically leaves its M.A.s
alone[25], while it still enforces (at least in theory) academic dress
on its undergraduates, as to whom the mediaeval University had little to
say.
The Laudian Statutes here as elsewhere form the transition from the
arrangements of Pre-Reformation Oxford to those of our own day. They
enforce (on all alike) dress of a proper colour, short hair, and
abstinence from 'absurdus ille et fastuosus mos' of walking abroad in
fancy boots (_ocreae_); only while the graduate is fined 6_s._ 8_d._ for
offending, the undergraduate ('if his age be suitable') suffers '_poena
corporalis_' at the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors.
Perhaps the following general points may be made as to University dress
in the olden times.
[Sidenote: (1) University Dress clerical.]
As all members of the University were _ipso facto_ clerks, their dress
had to correspond; the marks of clerical dress were that it was to be of
a certain length (later it was specified that it should reach the heels,
_talaris_), and that it should be closed in front, but there was great
licence as to colour; the 'black' or 'subfusc' prescribed by the
Laudian Statutes is the result of the asceticism of the Reformation, and
was unknown in Oxford before the sixteenth century. We have in the wills
of students and in the inventories of their properties, abundant
evidence that our mediaeval predecessors wore garments suitable to
'Merrie Englande', e.g. of green, blue or blood-colour. Sometimes the
founder of a college left directions what 'livery' all his students
should wear; e.g. Robert Eglesfield prescribed for the fellows of
Queen's College that they were to dine in Hall in purple cloaks, the
Doctors wearing these trimmed with fur, while the M.A.s wore theirs
'plain'; the colour was 'to suit the dignity of their position and to be
like the blood of The Lord'. Cambridge colleges still in some cases
prescribe for their undergraduates gowns of a special colour or cut.
One curious survival of the 'clerkship' of all students is the
requirement of the white tie in all University examinations and in the
degree ceremony. The 'bands', which (to quote Dr. Rashdall) 'are merely
a clerical collar', have disappeared from the necks of all lay members
of the University below the degree of Doctor, except the Vice-Chancellor
and the Proctors; the dress of the latter is the full-dress of an
ordinary M.A. in the seventeenth century, and preserves picturesque old
features which have been lost elsewhere.
[Sidenote: (2) The Cope and the Gown.]
The proper dress of the mediaeval Master, though probably an
undergraduate could also wear it, was the _cappa_ or cope; this at
Oxford was usually black in colour, but Doctors had quite early (i.e. in
the time of the Edwards) adopted as the colour for it some shade of red,
thus beginning the custom which still survives. The scarlet 'habit',
worn at Convocations by Oxford Doctors over their ordinary gowns,
retains the old name '_cappa_', but the shape has been completely
altered. The sister University, however, still preserves the old shape;
the Cambridge Vice-Chancellor presides at their degree ceremonies in a
sleeveless scarlet cloak, lined with miniver, which exactly corresponds
to the fourteenth-century picture of our Chancellor receiving the
charter from Edward III. The gown, the 'putting on' of which is now the
distinguishing mark of the taking of the B.A. or M.A., is simply the
survival of a mediaeval garment which was not even clerical, the long
gown (_toga_) or cassock, which was worn under the _cappa_. The dress of
the 'Blues' at Christ's Hospital preserves the gown in an earlier stage
of development. The modern usage which gives the gown of the B.A.
sleeves, while that of an M.A. has them cut away, has in some
unexplained way grown out of a similar usage as to the mediaeval
_cappa_.
[Sidenote: (3) The Hood.]
The mark, however, which specially distinguished the degree was the
hood, as to which the University was always strict, assigning the proper
material and the proper colour[26] to that of each faculty. The hood was
not a mere adornment or a badge, it was an article of dress. Originally
it seems to have been attached to the _cappa_, and, as its name implies,
was used for covering (the head) when required. Its practical purpose is
quaintly implied in the books of the Chancellor and the Proctors (sub
anno 1426), where it is provided that 'whereas reason bids that the
varieties of costume should correspond to the ordering of the seasons,
and whereas the Festival of Easter in its due course is akin from its
nearness to summer,' it is henceforth allowed that from Easter to All
Saints' day, 'graduates may wear silken hoods,' instead of fur ones,
'old custom notwithstanding.' The M.A. hood, even in its present
mutilated form, still presents survivals of the time when it was a real
head covering, survivals which should prevent those who wear it from
putting it on upside down, as many often do. The B.A. hood was already
in the fifteenth century lined with lamb's wool or rabbit's fur, and the
use of miniver by other than M.A.s and persons of birth or wealth[27]
was strictly forbidden by a statute of 1432.
[Sidenote: (4) The Cap.]
The last and not the least important part of mediaeval academic dress
still remains to be spoken of, the cap. The conferring of this with the
ring and the kiss of peace has been already mentioned (p. 27), these
being the marks of the admission of new Masters and Doctors. As under
the Roman Law the slave was manumitted by being allowed to put on a cap,
so the '_pileus_' of the M.A. was the sign of his independence; hence he
was bound to wear it at all University ceremonies. The cap was sometimes
square (_biretta_), sometimes round (_pileus_); Gascoigne (writing in
1456) tells us that in his day the round cap was worn by Doctors of
Divinity and Canon Law, and that it had always been so since the days of
King Alfred; not content with this antiquity, he also affirms that the
round cap was given by God Himself to the doctors of the Mosaic Law. He
adds the more commonplace but more trustworthy information that the cap
was in those days fastened by a string behind, to prevent its falling
off.
The modern stiff corners of the cap are an addition, which is not an
improvement; the old cap drooped gracefully from its tuft in the centre,
as can still be seen in the portraits of seventeenth-century divines,
e.g. in Vandyck's 'Archbishop Laud', so familiar from its many replicas
and copies. Later usage has specialized the round cap of velvet as
belonging to the Doctors of Law and Medicine, and a most beautiful
head-gear it is; it is preserved, in a less elaborate form, at the
degree ceremony in the round caps of the Bedels.
After the Reformation the cap began to be worn by B.A.s and
undergraduates, but originally without the tuft; the eighteenth century,
careless of the old traditions, replaced the tuft by the modern
commonplace tassel, and extended this to all caps except those of
servitors. With the disappearance of social distinctions in dress, the
tassel has been extended to all, except to choir-boys, and so the
coveted badge of the mediaeval Master is now the property of all
University ranks, and is undervalued and neglected in the same
proportion as it has been rendered meaningless.
Before leaving the subject of head-gear, it may be noted that the old
University custom of giving the son of a nobleman a gold tassel for his
cap has left a permanent mark in the familiar phrase 'tuft-hunting'; the
right of wearing this distinctive badge still exists for peers and for
their eldest sons[28], but they are at liberty not to avail themselves
of it, and it is practically never used. Academic dress has sadly lost
its picturesqueness, especially for the undergraduate; his gown no
longer reaches to his heels, as the statute still requires it to do, and
the injunction against 'novi et insoliti habitus' is surely a dead
letter in these days when Norfolk jackets and knickerbocker suits
penetrate even to University and college lecture-rooms. But what can the
University expect when M.A.s, in evasion of the statutes, come to
Congregation without gowns, and borrow them from each other in order to
vote, and when the University itself knows nothing of the 'exemplaria'
(models) which are supposed to be 'in archivis reposita'? Whether there
ever were these models of proper University dress, e.g. a doll in D.D.
habit, &c., is uncertain; what is certain is that there are none now. At
the present time the scanty relics of mediaeval usage are at the mercy
of the tailors; and though it must be said for their representatives in
Oxford that they do their best to maintain old traditions, yet there is
no doubt that innovations are slowly but steadily introduced, e.g. the
M.A. hood is losing in length, and is altering in colour.
The recent attempt on the part of the University to devise new gowns and
habits for the 'Research' Doctors is, it may be hoped, the beginning of
a better state of things; whatever may be thought of the aesthetic
success in this case, the subject was treated with seriousness and
expert evidence was taken. Perhaps in the near future Oxford may bestir
itself in this matter, and see that nothing more is lost of its
mediaeval survivals; restoration of what is actually gone is probably
hopeless. Such pious conservatism would be in accordance with the spirit
of the present age; for even the modern Radical, unlike his predecessor
of half a century back, cares, or at any rate professes to care, for the
external traces of the past.
[Sidenote: Oxford Hoods and Gowns.]
The following list makes no attempt to distinguish between the full
dress and the undress of Doctors; it is only intended as a help in
identifying the various functionaries who take part in the degree
ceremony.
_Doctors._
Divinity (D.D.[29]).--Scarlet hood and habit; the gown has black velvet
sleeves.
{Scarlet hood and
Civil Law (D.C.L.) {habit; the gown
Medicine (D.M.) {has sleeves of crimson
{silk.
The Master of Surgery (M.Ch.) wears the same hood, gown, and habit as an
M.D., and ranks next after him.
Science (D.Sc.) {Scarlet hood and habit;
Letters (D.Litt.) {the gown has sleeves of
{French grey.
The habits of these Doctors, though in the main similar, have different
facings, that of the D.D. being black, of the D.M. and D.C.L. crimson,
and of the D.Litt. and D.Sc. French grey.
Doctor of Music (Mus.Doc.).--Gown of crimson and cream brocade. The hood
is of the same colours. This gorgeous dress goes back for nearly 300
years. The gown is made of that rich kind of brocade which is popularly
said to be able to stand up by itself, and tradition (not very well
authenticated) has it that the identically same gown was worn by Richter
on his admission as Doctor in 1885, which had been worn by Haydn in the
preceding century. The Doctor of Music, however, unlike all other
Doctors, ranks after an M.A.; the reason is that musical graduates need
not take the ordinary Arts course, but the degrees in Music are open to
all who have passed Responsions, or an equivalent examination.
The undress gowns of all Doctors but those of Divinity have the sleeves
trimmed with lace; D.D.s wear also a scarf (fastened by a loop behind),
and a cassock under their habit or their gown.
All Doctorates are given, or at any rate are supposed to be given, for
original work that is a contribution to knowledge; but in the case of
the D.D. the theses have quite lost this character.
_The Proctors._
The Proctors, as the representatives of the M.A.s, wear their old
full-dress gown, which has otherwise disappeared from use. The sleeves
are of black velvet; the hoods are of miniver, and are passed on from
Proctor to Proctor. On the back of the gown is a curious triangular
tassel, called a 'tippet'; this is a survival of a bag or purse, which
was once used for collecting fees; the appropriateness of its retention
by Proctors will still be easily understood by undergraduates. They used
also to receive all fees for examinations, till about 1891.
_Master of Arts_ (M.A.)
Crimson hood and black gown, with the sleeves cut short and fitting
above the elbows, and hanging in a long bag, cut at the end into
crescent shape.
_Bachelors._
Divinity (B.D.).--The hood is black. A scarf is worn, and a cassock also
is worn under the gown.
The Bachelor of Divinity is placed here for convenience of reference;
but the degree is really higher than that of an M.A. and can only be
taken three years after a man has 'incepted' as M.A.
Civil Law (B.C.L.)}
Medicine (B.M.) } The hoods are blue,
Surgery (B.Ch.) } trimmed with lamb's
Music (B.Mus.) } wool.
The gown of all the above Bachelors has laced sleeves fitting to the
arm, like those of the M.A.s, but slit; the bag is straight and also
trimmed with lace.
Arts (B.A.).--The hood is trimmed with lamb's wool; the gown has full
sleeves, with strings to fasten back.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 23: When a candidate had passed Responsions, he was called a
'_sophista generalis_'. The title has now died out in the English
Universities, but survives in the form 'sophomore' in America.]
[Footnote 24: This adornment seems to have survived in Oxford till
within the last half-century; at all examinations subsequent to
'Responsions' a candidate, when going in for Viva Voce, had a little
black hood placed round his neck; this arrangement has now disappeared.]
[Footnote 25: The old statutes as to the dress of graduates are still in
force, and partially observed at conferment of degrees, examinations,
&c., but there is consideredable slackness as to them. It is only too
common to see a Dean 'presenting' in a coloured tie, although his
undergraduates are all compelled to don a white one.]
[Footnote 26: This is delightfully commemorated in the old custom of
Queen's College, by which, at the Gaudy dinner on Jan. 1st, each guest
receives a needle with a silk thread of the colour of his
faculty--Theologians black, Lawyers blue, Arts students red--and is
bidden 'Take this and be thrifty'. The mending of the hood was a duty
which must have often devolved on the poor mediaeval student. The custom
dates from the time of the Founder (1340). It is sad that so few
colleges have been careful, as Queen's has been, to preserve their old
customs.]
[Footnote 27: Those of royal blood, the sons of peers and members of
Parliament, and those who could prove an income of 60 marks a year, were
allowed the privilege of Masters.]
[Footnote 28: i.e. if they are admitted by a college as 'noblemen', and
are entered on the books as such.]
[Footnote 29: The initials S.T.P. (Sanctae Theologiae Professor), so
commonly used for Doctors of Divinity on monuments, are simply a
survival of the old usage according to which, in the Middle Ages,
Doctor, Professor, and Master were synonymous terms for the highest
degree. It was only later that 'professor' came to be especially applied
to a paid teacher in any subject.]
CHAPTER VI
THE PLACES OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY
The University of Oxford confers its degrees in three rooms, the
Sheldonian Theatre, the Divinity School, and the Convocation House; the
choice rests with the Vice-Chancellor, and now that, in the last year or
so, degree-days have been made less frequent, and there are consequently
more candidates on each occasion, the place is often the Sheldonian.
This is a great improvement on old custom, for it is the only one of the
three buildings which was designed for the purpose, and it is also the
only one which gives room for the proper conduct of the ceremony, when
the number of candidates is large.
[Sidenote: The Sheldonian.]
The Sheldonian, therefore, commonly known in Oxford as 'The Theatre',
will be spoken of first, although it is the last in date of
construction. It is a memorial at once of the munificence of one of the
greatest among Oxford's many episcopal benefactors, and also of the
architectural skill of her most eminent architect, Sir Christopher Wren.
Down to the time of the Civil War, the ceremony of the 'Act' (cf. p. 27
seq.) at which degrees were conferred, had taken place in St. Mary's;
but the influence of the Puritans was beginning to affect all parties,
and was causing the growth of a feeling that religious buildings should
not be used for secular purposes. John Evelyn, who gives us our fullest
account of the opening ceremony at the Sheldonian, notes that it might
be thought 'indecent' that the Act should be held in a 'building set
apart for the immediate worship of God'[30], and this was 'the
inducement for building this noble pile'. Wren had shown his design to
the Royal Society in 1663, and it had been much commended; he was only a
little more than thirty years of age, and it was his first public
building, but he was already known as that 'miracle of a youth' and that
'prodigious young scholar', and he fully justified the Archbishop's
confidence in him. So great was this that Sheldon told Evelyn that he
had never seen the building and that he never intended to do so. Wren
showed his boldness alike in the style he chose--he broke once for all
with the Gothic tradition in Oxford--and in the skill with which he
designed a roof which was (and is) one of the largest unsupported roofs
in England. The construction of it was a marvel of ingenious design.
[Sidenote: Its Dedication.]
The cost of the whole building was £25,000, as Wren told Evelyn, and
architects, even the greatest of them, do not usually over-estimate the
cost of their designs; but other authorities place it at £16,000, or
even at a little over £12,000. At any rate, it was felt to be, as Evelyn
writes, 'comparable to any of this kind of former ages, and doubtless
exceeding any of the present, as this University does for colleges,
libraries, schools, students and order, all the universities in the
world.' We may pardon the enthusiasm of one who was himself an Oxford
man, after a day on which 'a world of strangers and other company from
all parts of the nation' had been gathered for the Dedication. The
ceremonies lasted two days (July 9 and 10, 1669), and on the first day
extended 'from eleven in the morning till seven at night'; we are not
told how long they lasted on the second day. They consisted of speeches,
poems, disputations, and all the other forms of learned gaiety wherein
our academic predecessors took such unwearying delight; there was 'music
too, vocal and instrumental, in the balustrade corridor opposite to the
Vice-Chancellor's seat'. And those who took part had among them some who
bore famous names; the great preacher, South, was Public Orator; among
the D.D.s incepting were Tillotson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury,
one of the first to introduce Modern English into the style of the
pulpit, and Compton, who, as Bishop of London, took so prominent a part
in the Revolution.
[Sidenote: The Roof Paintings.]
Not the least conspicuous feature in the new building was the paintings
by Robert Streater, which had been especially executed for it. In
accordance with the idea of Wren, who wished to imitate the uncovered
roofs of Greek and Roman theatres, the building, 'by the painting of the
flat roof within, is represented as open.' Pepys, who went to see
everything, records how he went to see these pictures in Streater's
studio, and how the 'virtuosos' who were looking at them, thought 'them
better than those of Rubens at Whitehall'; 'but,' Pepys has taste enough
to add, 'I do not fully think so.' This unmeasured admiration was,
however, outdone by the contemporary poetaster, Whitehall, who ends his
verses on the paintings,
That future ages must confess they owe
To Streater more than Michael Angelo,
lines in which the grammar and the connoisseurship are about on an
equality. The paintings are on canvas fixed on stretchers, and hence
have been removed for cleaning purposes more than once; this was last
done only a few years ago (1899-1901). There are thirty-two sections,
and the whole painting measures 72 feet by 64. Unfortunately the subject
is rendered difficult to understand, because the most important section,
which is the key of the whole, representing 'The Expulsion of
Ignorance', is practically concealed by the organ; the present
instrument was erected in 1877.
[Sidenote: The Sheldonian Press.]
Sheldon's building was designed for a double use. It was to be at once
the University Theatre and the University Printing Press, and it was
used for the latter purpose till 1714, when the Oxford Press was moved
across the quadrangle to the Clarendon Building, designed by Sir John
Vanbrugh. The actual printing was done in the roof, on the floor above
the painted ceiling. The Theatre is for this reason the mark on all
Oxford books printed during the first half-century of its existence. In
one respect Archbishop Sheldon was so unlike most Oxford benefactors
that his merit must be especially mentioned. Men are often willing
enough to give a handsome sum of money down to be spent on buildings;
they too often leave to others the charge of maintaining these; but
Sheldon definitely informed the University that he did not wish his
benefaction to be a burden to it, and invested £2,000 in lands, out of
the rents of which his Theatre might be kept in repair. The Sheldonian,
thanks to its original donor and to the ever liberal Dr. Wills of
Wadham, who supplemented the endowment a century later, has never been a
charge on the University revenues.
[Sidenote: The Restoration of the Sheldonian.]
Unfortunately these repairs have been carried out with more zeal than
discretion. Even in Wren's lifetime the alarm was raised that the roof
was dangerous (1720), but the Vice-Chancellor of the time was wise
enough not to consult a rival architect but to take the practical
opinion of working masons and carpenters, who reported it safe. Nearly
100 years later the same alarm was raised, whether with reason or not we
do not know, for no records were left; all we do know is that the
'restorers' of the day took Wren's roof off, removed his beautiful
windows, inserted a new and larger cupola, and generally did their best
to spoil his work. It is only necessary to compare the old pictures of
the Sheldonian with its present state to see how in this case, as in so
many others, Oxford's architectural glories have suffered from our
insane unwillingness to let well alone.
[Sidenote: The History of the Sheldonian.]
The Sheldonian was not in existence during the period when University
history was most picturesque. Its associations therefore are nearly all
academic, and academic functions, however interesting to those who take
part in them, do not appeal to the great world. Perhaps the most
romantic scene that the Sheldonian has witnessed was the Installation of
the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor in 1833, when the whole theatre
went mad with enthusiasm as the writer of the Newdigate, Joseph Arnould
of Wadham, declaimed his lines on Napoleon,--
And the dark soul a world could scarce subdue
Bent to thy genius, chief of Waterloo.
The subject of the poem was 'The Monks of St. Bernard'.
But the enthusiasm was almost as great, and the poetry far superior,
when Heber recited the best lines of the best Newdigate on record:--
No hammer fell, no ponderous axes swung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
Majestic silence.
This happy reference to the manner of building of Solomon's Temple was
suggested by Sir Walter Scott.
Another almost historic occasion in the Sheldonian was when, at a
Diocesan Conference, the late Lord Beaconsfield made his well-known
declaration, 'I for my part prefer to be on the side of the angels.' But
these scenes only indirectly touch Oxford. More intimately connected
with her history are the famous Proctorial Veto of 1845, when Dean
Church and his colleague saved Tract No. 90 from academic condemnation,
and the stormy debates of twenty years ago, when the permission to use
Vivisection in the University Physiological Laboratory was only carried
after a struggle in which the Odium Scientificum showed itself capable
of an unruliness and an unfairness to opponents which has left all
displays, previous or subsequent, of Odium Theologicum far behind.
[Sidenote: Commemoration Scenes.]
There is no doubt that the organized medical vote on that occasion holds
the record for noise in the Theatre. And the competition for the record
has been and is still severe; every year at Commemoration, we have a
scene of academic disorder, which can only be called 'most unbecoming of
the gravity of the University', to use John Evelyn's words of the
performance of the Terrae Filius at the opening of the Sheldonian. It is
true that the proceedings of the Encaenia have been always able to be
completed, since the device was hit on of seating ladies freely among
the undergraduates in the upper gallery; this change was introduced in
1876. The disorder of the undergraduates' gallery had culminated in
1874, and in 1875 the ceremony was held in the Divinity School. But the
noise is as prevalent as ever, and it must be confessed that
undergraduates' wit has suffered severely from the feminine infusion.
However, our visitors, distinguished and undistinguished alike,
appreciate the disorder, and it certainly has plenty of precedent for it
in all stages of University history.
But the Sheldonian has more harmonious associations. Music was from the
first a regular feature of the Encaenia, and compositions were written
for it. The most famous occasion of this kind was in July, 1733, when
Handel came to Oxford, at the invitation of the Vice-Chancellor, to
conduct the performance of some of his works; among these was the
Oratorio _Athaliah_, especially written for the occasion. Handel was
offered the degree of Doctor of Music, but (unlike Haydn) declined it,
because he disliked 'throwing away his money for dat de blockhead wish'.
[Sidenote: Convocation House.]
Till quite recently the degree ceremony was usually held in the
Convocation House, which lies just in front of the Sheldonian, under the
northern end of the Bodleian Library (the so-called Selden Wing). This
plain and unpretentious building, which was largely due to the
munificence of Archbishop Laud, was begun in 1635 and finished two years
later. It cost, with the buildings above, about £4,200. Its dreary
late-Gothic windows and heavy tracery, and the Spartan severity of its
unbacked benches, are characteristic of the time of transition, alike
architectural and religious, to which it belongs. It has been from that
time to this the Parliament House of the University, where all matters
are first discussed by the Congregation of resident Doctors and Masters;
it is only on the rare occasions when some great principle is at stake,
and when the country is roused, that matters, whether legislative or
administrative, are discussed anywhere else; a Sheldonian debate is
fortunately very rare.
[Sidenote: Its History.]
The building is well suited for the purpose for which it was erected,
and so has not unnaturally been used as the meeting-place of the
nation's legislators, when, as has several times happened, Parliament
has been gathered in Oxford. Charles I's House of Commons met here in
1643, when Oxford was the royalist capital of England; and in 1665, when
Parliament fled from the Great Plague, and in 1681, when Charles II
fought and defeated the last Exclusion Parliament, the House of Commons
again occupied this House. It was on the latter occasion just preparing
to move across to the Sheldonian, and the printers there were already
packing up their presses to make room for the legislators, when Charles
suddenly dissolved it, and so completed his victory over Shaftesbury and
Monmouth.
A less suitable use for the Convocation House was its employment for
Charles I's Court of Chancery in 1643-4.
For the reasons given above, degree days are now much more important
functions than they used to be, and the Convocation House, never very
suitable for the ceremony, is now seldom used.
[Sidenote: Divinity School.]
But the Divinity School, which lies at a right angle to the Convocation
House, under the Bodleian Library proper, is a room which by its beauty
is worthy to be the scene of any University ceremony, for which it is
large enough, and degrees are still often conferred there as well as in
the Sheldonian.
The architecture of the School makes it the finest room which the
University possesses. It was building through the greater part of the
fifteenth century, which Professor Freeman thought the most
characteristic period of English architecture; and certainly the
strength and the weakness of the Perpendicular style could hardly be
better illustrated elsewhere. The story of its erection can be largely
traced in the _Epistolae Academicae_, published by the Oxford Historical
Society; they cover the whole of the fifteenth century, and though they
are wearisome in their constant harping on the same subject--the
University's need of money--they show a fertility of resource in
petition-framing and in the returning of thanks, which would make the
fortune of a modern begging-letter writer, whether private or public.
The earliest reference to the building of the proposed new School of
Divinity is in 1423, when the University picturesquely says it was
intended 'ad amplianda matris nostrae ubera' (so many things could be
said in Latin which would be shocking in English). In 1426 the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Chichele, is approached and asked 'to open
the torrents of his brotherly kindness'. Parliament is appealed to, the
Monastic Orders, the citizens of London, in fact anybody and everybody
who was likely to help. Cardinal Beaufort gave 500 marks, William of
Waynflete lent his architectural engines which he had got for building
Magdalen--at least he was requested to do so--(1478), the Bishop of
London, by a refinement of compliment, is asked to show himself 'in this
respect also a second Solomon'. [The touch of adding 'also' is
delightful.] The agreement to begin building was signed in 1429, when
the superintendent builder was to have a retaining fee of 40_s._ a year,
and 4_s._ for every week that he was at work in Oxford; the work was
finally completed in 1489. And the building was worthy of this long
travail; its elaborate stone roof, with the arms of benefactors carved
in it, is a model at once of real beauty and of structural skill.
[Sidenote: History of the Divinity School.]
The Divinity School, as its name implies, was intended for the
disputations of the Theological Faculty, and perhaps it was this special
purpose which prevented it being used so widely for ordinary business,
as the other University buildings were. At any rate it was this
connexion which led to its being the scene of one of the most
picturesque events in Oxford history; it was to it, on April 16, 1554,
that Cranmer was summoned to maintain his theses on the Blessed
Sacrament against the whole force of the Roman Doctors of Oxford,
reinforced by those of Cambridge. Single-handed and without any
preparation, he held his own with his opponents, and extorted their
reluctant admiration by his courtesy and his readiness. 'Master Cranmer,
you have answered well,' was the summing up of the presiding Doctor, and
all lifted their caps as the fallen Archbishop left the building. It was
the last honour paid to Cranmer.
In the eighteenth century, when all old uses were upset, the Divinity
School was even lent to the City as a law court, and it was here the
unfortunate Miss Blandy was condemned to death. But as a rule its
associations have been academic, and it is still used for its old
purpose, i.e. for the reading of the Divinity theses. It is only
occasionally that University functions of a more general kind are held
there, e.g. the famous debates on the admission of women to degrees in
1895. So splendid a room ought to be employed on every possible
occasion, and happy are they who, when the number of candidates is not
too large, take their degrees in surroundings so characteristic of the
best in Oxford.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 30: The buffooneries of the Terrae Filius, who was a
recognized part of the 'Act', would be even more shocking in a
consecrated building than merely secular business.]
APPENDIX I
THE PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
I. Degrees are given and examiners appointed by the Ancient House of
Congregation. This corresponds to the 'Congregation of Regents' of the
Laudian Statutes. Its members are the University officials, the
professors, the heads and deans of colleges, all examiners, and the
'necessary regents', i.e. Doctors and Masters of Arts of not more than
two years' standing; it thus includes all those who have to do with the
conduct, the instruction, or the examination of students. The 'necessary
regents' are added, because in the mediaeval University the duty of
teaching was imposed on Doctors and Masters of not more than two years'
standing; others might 'rule the Schools' if they pleased, but the
juniors were bound to discharge this duty unless dispensed.
II. Congregation consists of all those members of Convocation who reside
within two miles of Carfax, along with certain officials. This body has
nothing to do with degrees; it is the chief legislative body of Oxford.
III. Convocation is made up of all Doctors and Masters whose names are
on the University's books. It confirms the appointment of examiners, and
confers honorary degrees at Commemoration.
It is also the final legislative body of the University, and controls
all expenditure.
APPENDIX II
THE UNIVERSITY STAVES
The old University staves, which are now in the Ashmolean Museum at the
University Galleries, seem to date from the reign of Elizabeth; they
have no hall-marks, but the character of the ornamentation is of that
period. No doubt the mediaeval staves perished in the troubles of the
Reformation period, along with other University property, and the new
ones were procured when Oxford began to recover her prosperity.
Two of the old staves were discovered in 1895 in a box on the top of a
high case in the Archives; their very existence had been forgotten, and
they were covered with layers of dust. The legend that they had been
concealed there by the loyal Bedels must be given up; no doubt they were
put away when the present staves were procured in 1723. The third staff
was in the keeping of the Esquire Bedel, and was brought to the
University Chest, when that office ceased to exist.
The present staves are six in number, three silver and three
silver-gilt. The three former are carried by the Bedel of Arts and the
two sub-bedels, the three latter are carried by the Bedels of the three
higher faculties, Divinity, Law, and Medicine. All of them date (as is
proved by the hall-marks) from 1723, except one of the silver staves,
which seems to have been renewed in 1803. The three silver staves bear
the following inscriptions:--
No. I. On the top 'Ego sum Via'; on the base 'Veritas et Vita'.
No. II. On the top 'Aequum et Bonum'; on the base 'Iustitiae Columna'.
No. III. On the top 'Scientiae et Mores'; on the base 'Columna
Philosophiae'.
The inscriptions are the same on the silver-gilt staves, except that the
staff of the Bedel of Divinity has all the mottoes on it--'Ego sum Via',
'Veritas et Vita' on the top, and the others on the base.
The letters on the bases of all the staves are put on the reverse way to
those on the tops; this is because the staves are carried in different
ways; before the King and the Chancellor they are carried upright,
before the Vice-Chancellor always in a reversed position, with the base
uppermost.
It should be noted that they are staves and not maces, as the University
of Oxford derives its authority from no external power, but is
independent.
The arms on the tops of three of the staves present a very curious
puzzle; one roundel bears those of Neville and Montagu quarterly, and
seems to be a reproduction of the arms of the Chancellor of 1455, George
Neville, the Archbishop of York; another bears the old Plantagenet
'England and France quarterly' as borne by the sovereigns from Henry IV
to Elizabeth; a third the Stuart arms as borne from James I to Queen
Anne; yet the work of all three roundels seems to be seventeenth century
in character, and does not match that of the rest of the fabric of the
staves.
INDEX
'Act,' meaning of, 27;
term, 28;
confused with Encaenia, 31-2.
Aristotle, portions read of, 18, 37.
Arnould, J., 85.
Bachelor (of Arts), etymology of, 24;
in France, 47;
dress of, 69, 78;
hood of, 66, 71, 78;
when taken, 35, 43.
---- of Divinity, qualification for, 30;
dress of, 77.
Bands worn, 68.
Beaconsfield, Lord, 86.
Beaufort, Cardinal, 91.
Bedels, history of, 54 seq.;
caps of, 72;
at degrees, 4, 17.
Bodleian, 88, 89.
Boots to be worn, 65.
Caius, Dr., 61.
Cambrensis, G., 22.
Cambridge, dress of Vice-Chancellor at, 69;
degree ceremonies at, 28-9;
King's College, 40 _n._;
gowns at, 68.
Candidates (for degrees), dress of, 1;
presentation of, 11;
oath of, 13;
admission of, 15, 17.
Cap, 71 seq.
_Cappa_, 69, 70.
Chancellor, origin of, 22, 26;
authority of, 50;
non-resident, 51.
Chichele, Archbishop, 90.
Church and University, 25.
Church, Dean, 86.
_Circuitus_, 44.
_Collecta_, 37.
'Commencement' in American Universities, 23.
Commemoration, origin of, 31;
description of, 32-3;
noise at, 86-7;
music at, 87.
Compton, H., 82.
Congregation, 88, 93.
---- Ancient House of, 93;
degrees conferred in, 4, 5;
nominates examiners, 4.
Convocation, 93;
business in, 4.
---- House, 88 seq.
Cranmer, Archbishop, 92.
Crewe, Lord, 32;
oration of, 32.
Degrees, meaning of, 24;
order of taking, 6-7;
elements in, 27;
requirements for, 34 seq.;
in absence, 18;
_ad eundem_, 18;
Lambeth, 27;
honorary, 32.
---- ceremony, admittance to, 2;
notice of, 3.
D.C.L., 32; dress of, 75.
D.D., first, 22;
qualifications for, 30;
dress of, 69, 75-6; cap of, 72;
theses for, 30, 92.
_Depositio_, 45.
Divinity School, 87, 89 seq.
D.M., dress of, 75.
D.Mus., dress of, 76;
Haydn, 76;
Handel, 87;
Richter, 76.
Doctorate, German, 47;
qualifications for, 76;
presentation for, 11, 63.
Eglesfield, R., 68, 70 _n._
_Encaenia_, see Commemoration; etymology of, 31 _n._
Evelyn, J., 28, 80, 81, 87.
Examinations, mediaeval, 41 seq.;
control of, 52.
Fell, Dr., 53.
Friars at Oxford, 46.
Gibbon, E., quoted, 24.
Gowns, 69, 75 seq.;
proposed abolition of, 54.
'Graces,' college, 5, 6;
University, 38 seq., 59.
Green, J.R., quoted, 33.
Heber, R., 85.
Hoods, 70-1, 75 seq.
'Inception,' 19, 29, 31.
Key, T., 60.
Laud, 'Grace' for, 39;
and Proctorial election, 59;
portrait of, 72;
munificence of, 88.
Laudian Statutes, quoted, 4, 6, 18, 40;
oath in, 13;
greater strictness of, 67.
Lectures required for degree, 36;
rules as to, 36-7;
fees for, 37;
cutting of, 38;
college, 37.
'Licence,' origin of, 26;
conferred, 27.
London, J., 60.
Margaret, the Lady, 55.
Master of Arts, admission of, 15;
association of, 23;
old qualifications for, 29, 43, 47;
modern, 49;
privileges of, 31;
M.A.s term, 48;
gowns of, 64, 69, 77;
hood of, 71, 74, 77.
Master in Grammar, 28.
Masters of the Schools, 42.
Matriculation, 25.
'Nations,' divisions into, 58.
Neville, G., Chancellor, 51;
arms of, 95.
New College, privilege of, 40.
Paris, University of, 23;
examinations at, 41;
Oxford and, 26 _n._
Parliaments at Oxford of Charles I and Charles II, 89.
Parvis of St. Mary's, Examinations in, 42.
Pepys, S., 82.
Pig Market, the, 57 _n._
'Plucking,' 10.
Pope and universities, 26.
Printing Press, 83, 89.
Proctors, history of, 57 seq.;
walk of, 9;
charge by, 12, 14, 17;
'books' of, 19 _n._;
dress of, 77.
Professor, original meaning of, 75 _n._;
presentations by, 11 _n._, 62-3.
Queen's College, customs of, 70 _n._
Rashdall, Dr., quoted, 40 _n._, 55.
Registrar, history of, 60 seq.;
duties of, 5, 61.
Residence for degree, 34;
relaxations as to, 35, 47.
Responsions, 42.
Rich, E., 22-3.
St. Mary's, 80;
bell of, 3.
Scott, Sir W., 86.
Sheldon, G., 80, 84.
Sheldonian, history of, 79 seq.;
dedication of, 31, 81;
roof of, 82;
organ, 83;
alteration of, 84.
Sophisters, 65.
South, R., 82.
Staves, description of, 94;
Puritan 'Visitors', 55-6.
Streater, R., 82.
_Studium Generale_, 21 _n._, 26.
_Supplicat_, 8, 9.
Tailors, Oxford, 66, 74;
statute as to, 64.
_Terrae Filius_ at 'Act', 33, 54, 80 _n._
_Testamur_, 61.
Tillotson, J., 82.
_Tom Brown_, quoted, 48.
Tract No. 90, 86.
Tufts on caps, 72,
tuft-hunting, 73.
University, meaning of, 20;
oldest charter of, 22;
colonial and foreign, 35.
Vanbrugh, Sir J., 83.
_Verdant Green_, quoted, 10.
Vice-Chancellor, history of, 51 seq.;
admission by, 17, 25.
Vivisection, debate on, 86.
Wellington, Duke of, 85.
White ties, 68.
Wills, J., 84.
Wood, A., quoted, 53, 54.
Wren, Sir C., 80, 81, 84.
Wykeham, W. of, 40.
Oxford: Printed at the Clarendon Press by HORACE HART, M.A.
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