The Papacy and The Rise of The Universities

The Papacy and the Rise of the Universities
Education and Society

in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Editors
William J. Courtenay (Madison)

Jürgen Miethke (Heidelberg)
Frank Rexroth (Göttingen)
Jacques Verger (Paris)
Advisory Board
Jeremy Catto (Oxford)

Daniel Hobbins (Notre Dame)
Roberto Lambertini (Macerata)
Volume 54
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/esmr

The Papacy and the Rise
of the Universities
By
Gaines Post (†)
Edited with a Preface by
William J. Courtenay
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Post, Gaines, 1902–1987, author. | Courtenay, William J., editor.

Title: The papacy and the rise of the universities / by Gaines Post ; edited
with preface by William J. Courtenay.
Description: Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Education and society in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance, ISSN 0926-6070 ; Volume 54 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026499 (print) | LCCN 2017035645 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004351882 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004347267 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Papacy—History—To 1309. | Universities and
colleges—History. | Education, Medieval.
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Contents
Preface vii
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
PART 1
The Papacy and the Constitution of the Universities
1 The Twelfth Century—Alexander III and the Licentia docendi 7
2 The License-System of the University of Paris in the Thirteenth

Century 28
3 The License-System in Universities of Ecclesiastical Origin Influenced

by Paris 74
4 The License-System in Universities of Secular Origin 88
5 The License-System, Conclusion: the Licentia ubique docendi 116
6 Jurisdiction 122
7 The Papacy and the Internal Development of the Universities 158
PART 2
The Papacy and the Members of the Universities
Introduction to Part 2 173
8 The Papacy and the Masters 175

§1 Masters’ Salaries in the Mediaeval Universities 175
§2 Patronage of Masters 203
vi contents
9 The Papacy and the Students 208

§1 Ecclesiastical Benefices 208
§2 House-Rents 227
§3 Colleges 234
10 Conclusion: The Papacy and the Founding of the Universities 237
Bibliography 243
Index 254
Preface
The research contributions of Gaines Post (1902–1986) lay in two different

areas: the history of medieval universities, especially the University of Paris,
and the influence of canon and Roman law on representative institutions, legal
theory, governmental power, and concepts of the State.1 Although this second
area was the one in which he produced the most articles and on which his
reputation was principally based, medieval universities was his earliest inter-
est. His first article, “Alexander III, the Licentia docendi, and the Rise of the
Universities,” in Anniversary Essays in Mediaeval History by Students of Charles
Homer Haskins (Boston – New York, 1929), 255–77, was an early version of the
first chapter of his dissertation at Harvard under Charles Homer Haskins,
which he completed and defended for the doctoral degree in 1931. His second
article, “Masters’ Salaries and Student-Fees in the Mediaeval Universities,”
Speculum, 7 (1932), 181–98, was similarly taken from Chapter 8 of his disser-
tation, with slight revisions. Post’s other articles in the area of university his-
tory, such as “Parisian Masters as a Corporation, 1200–1246,” Speculum, 9 (1934),
421–45,2 “Three Letters relating to the University of Paris, ca 1284–1289,”
Speculum, 14 (1939), 478–82, and with two of his students, Kimon Giocarinis
and Richard Kay, “The Medieval Heritage of a Humanistic Ideal: ‘Scientia
donum dei est, unde vendi non potest’,” Traditio, 11 (1955), 195–234, were inde-
pendent studies, although the first and last did draw on material first discussed
in the dissertation.
As far as we know, Post never submitted his dissertation for publication but,
as stated above, only published two chapters as articles. That raises the ques-
tion of why publish a work posthumously that the author chose not to publish,
for whatever reasons. The decision to do so is based on the following rationale.
First and foremost, the articles mentioned above made Gaines Post one of
the leading historians of medieval universities in the twentieth century, whose
contributions remain relevant to scholarship today. While two of those articles
were taken from the dissertation, they comprise less than a quarter of that
1 His major articles were collected in G. Post, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought. Public Law and
the State, 1100–1322 (Princeton, 1964). It was this area of Post’s scholarship that was the focus
of his memoir in Speculum, 62 (1987), 791–92. Those interests were already being developed
while a graduate student at Harvard. In a letter of Dec. 7, 1953, preserved in the archives
of the Medieval Academy of America, a leading historian of medieval political thought,
C. H. McIlwain, remarked: “Gaines was one of my prize students many years ago.”
2 Reprinted in Studies in Medieval Legal Thought, 27–60.
viii preface
work. Thus three fourths of the dissertation, which contains Post’s research on
areas of medieval universities extensively researched and analyzed, has never
appeared in print. Those chapters are deserving of an audience, even after the
better part of a century.
Secondly, making the dissertation available puts the articles back into the
context of the work as a whole. They were part of a larger story told in ten
chapters. Their publication now allows one to assess Post’s true contribution to
the history of medieval universities, even if he did not make most of that work
available to other scholars during his lifetime.
Thirdly, from the standpoint of the historiography of American scholar-
ship on medieval universities, its context was Charles Homer Haskins’ circle
of students in the 1920s and should be viewed alongside Haskins’ own Rise
of Universities (1923) and Gray C. Boyce’s The English-German Nation in the
University of Paris during the Middle Ages (1927), an academic generation
before Lynn Thorndike’s University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (1944)
and Pearl Kibre’s The Nations in the Mediaeval Universities (1948). It is not often
recognized that Boyce’s book, although he was not a student of Haskins, was to
some extent a product of that seminar in those years. Boyce, who did his gradu-
ate studies at Berkeley under L. J. Paetow, took a year out to study with Haskins
at Harvard in 1922–23, and completed his dissertation in 1925.3
When comparing Haskins’ and Boyce’s books with Post’s dissertation,
Haskins’ is a brief survey, dependent on information gleaned from Hastings
Rashdall’s The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, with some of Haskins’
own research added from articles. As a series of three lectures prepared for a
general audience at Brown University in 1923, it was not intended to be any-
thing more than an overview of the topic. Boyce’s work was a new research
contribution, based on his analysis of the records of one of the four nations in
the faculty of arts at the University of Paris in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies and thus was limited to that group. Post’s dissertation, by contrast, cov-
ers the interaction of the papacy with multiple universities from the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries and opened up a much broader range of topics, con-
sidering papal intervention and influence in the areas of licensing to teach,
financial support for masters and students, dispensations for study, regulation
of housing rents, and the founding of colleges. While it would be too much to
suggest that the publication of the dissertation would have changed the course
of research on medieval universities more than did the articles Post culled
3 Boyce’s research interests were also formed by Paetow, whose master’s and doctoral theses
were on the arts faculty at medieval French universities, particularly Paris, and who had stud-
ied under Haskins and Dana C. Munro at Wisconsin.
Preface ix
from it, it certainly would have expanded the issues on which his interpreta-
tions would have influenced the scholarly discussion.
We can never know why Post failed to make the bulk of his work on medieval
universities available to the scholarly community. It was certainly not because
his mentor had exhausted the subject. In fact, Haskins’ own pattern of scholar-
ship may have set a model for some of his students, Post included. Apart from
the publication of his forty-five page dissertation in American history in 1891
and jointly written reports on behalf of the American Historical Association
and the United States Bureau of Education, from the time of his appointment
at Wisconsin in 1890 to the publication of The Normans in European History
in 1915, Haskins wrote a series of articles on a variety of medieval topics, most
of which were later brought together in books. As a professional model, that
meant publishing one’s research first as articles, from which books might later
emerge. Whether consciously or not, Post adopted that model and delayed
turning any of his articles into a book until the publication of Studies in
Medieval Legal Thought (1964) shortly before retirement. Joseph Strayer and
Boyce, who published their dissertations two years after receiving the doctor-
ate, followed a different plan. By 1935, when Post joined the Department of
History at Wisconsin, his research interests increasingly focused on the impact
of Roman and canon law on governmental institutions. All Post’s articles on
medieval universities, with two exceptions, were published between 1929 and
1934 while he was a tutor at Harvard.
It is important for readers to keep in mind that the arguments in this book
that did not appear in published articles were not accessible to historians and
should not be viewed as if they had been part of an ongoing scholarly discus-
sion between 1931 and now. It is equally important to recognize that Post would
not have published this work exactly as he submitted it for his doctoral degree.
Had he taken the time to revise the book for publication, he might have reex-
amined some of his evidence, rethought some of his observations and conclu-
sions, or strengthen his arguments. One has to view the contents of the book,
therefore, as Post’s understanding of the relationship between the papacy and
universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as he saw it in 1931, based
on the sources available to him at that time.
Except for the correction of typographical errors, the footnotes have been
left in the form as written in 1931, which is a style of citation different from
what is preferred today. Moreover, some of the editions used in the notes were
later revised, most notably Hastings Rashdall’s The Universities of Europe in the
Middle Ages. Most libraries today have the three-volume 1936 revised edition
by F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, whose pagination differs from the origi-
nal edition of 1895 used by Post. But since the point of the present book is to
x preface
present Post’s observations, not Rashdall’s, citations to the latter have been left
according to the first edition.
Similarly, the bibliography has been left generally as Post compiled it,
arranged not according to manuscript sources, printed sources, and secondary
literature, but according to types of sources and topics, with additional com-
ments of his own. Some sections are in chronological order by popes, and oth-
ers according to bureaucratic office, specific universities, parts of Europe, and
persons. Bibliographical information missing in certain entries, which Post
would certainly have added had he published the work, has been inserted, and
manuscript sources have been placed in a separate section at the beginning.
A few changes have been made in the text, mostly with regard to capital-
ization and consistency, but not knowing what Post would have changed in
revising it for publication and in order to retain a style that was common in
1931, the book was been left essentially as written. As the Medieval Academy of
America approaches its centennial in 2025, this publication by one of the last
doctoral students of Charles Homer Haskins, its principal founder, is a window
into Haskins’ seminar in the first years of the Academy’s existence.
My sincere appreciation goes to Gaines Post, Jr. for permission to publish his
father’s dissertation, and to Harvard University Archives for allowing publica-
tion and providing a photographic and digital copy of the work. Appreciation
also goes to E. J. Brill Press for correcting the digital version of the original
typescript used here, and to Charlotte Whatley for her valuable help in check-
ing the text and notes against the photocopy as well as compiling the index.
William J. Courtenay
Madison, Wisconsin
20 April 2017
List of Abbreviations
Archiv Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters

B. Éc. fr. A. R. Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome
Berger Berger, Les Registres d’Innocent IV
Ch.U.P. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis
Jaffé-Löwenfeld Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, 2nd ed.
M.G.H. Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Migne, PL Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina
M.O.F.P.H. Monumenta ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum historica
Potthast Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum inde ab anno 1198 ad
annum 1304
Pressutti Pressutti, Regesta Honorii Papae III
Sarti-Fattorini Sarti (continued by M. Fattorini), De claris Archigymnasii Bononiensis
Certification page of the original dissertation by Gaines Post.
Introduction
To the Church in the Middle Ages belonged the duty to preserve and propagate
orthodox Christianity, and to teach and supervise all knowledge pertaining to
the salvation of mankind.1 It was more than a duty, it was a sacred privilege
conferred on the hierarchy by the potestas magisterii. For the defense of the
faith the Church could by this power correct erroneous interpretations of di-
vine revelation and impart religious education to young and old.2 The goal of
education was the salvation of souls through the instruction of men in the di-
vine commands. To that end theology as the science of God, the liberal arts as
a preparation for the study of theology, and the physical sciences as attempts
to explain the phenomenal world created by God, should all, ideally at least, be
taught. By its potestas magisterii, strengthened by the potestas jurisdictionis,3
the Church kept learning from straying from orthodoxy, and erected schools
for the teaching of the true Christian knowledge and for the training of priests
who were responsible for the souls of men. By divine right the Church super-
vised education. To be sure it did not perform its duty at all times. That there
were periods of slackness was owing largely to the state of learning from one
century to another, for the Church could not escape the influences of spatial
and temporal environment.
It was natural that the pope as the supreme head of the Church should be-
come, in effect if not in name, the superintendent of education in the Middle
Ages. The rise of universities in the twelfth century as international centers
of learning coincided with the assertion by the papacy of its international
power and with the centralization of ecclesiastical government in the Roman
Court. Before that time, however, except for the policy of establishing episco-
pal and parochial schools in the ninth century, the papacy had participated
but little in the mediaeval school-system. Papal control, indeed, of learning in
the Middle Ages was hardly necessary: the little knowledge available was kept
alive in local centers of learning, in a few monasteries and cathedrals or in
the towns of Italy. Students were few, the schools were simply organized, and
there was little danger of heretical opinions; complications in organization,
discipline, and thinking, therefore, scarcely ever demanded the intervention of
1 Matthew, 28:19: “Ite et docete gentes.” Cf. Sägmüller, Lehrbuch des Katholischen Kirchenrechts,
2nd ed., p. 457; G. Bourbon, “La license d’enseigner,” Revue des Questions Historiques, XIX
(1879), 516.
2 Hinschius, System des kathol. Kirchenrechts, IV, 432 f.; cf. pp. 57 2–574.
3 Ibid., IV, 433.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi ��.��63/9789004351882_002

2 Introduction
outside authority. But the awakening of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a
rapid increase in the number of students and teachers, and the interest in new
subjects of knowledge produced new problems that first the monasteries and
then the cathedrals were unable to solve, and produced an intellectual move-
ment threatening to free itself from ecclesiastical control.4 Only the papacy,
now at the same time understanding its power and active in asserting it, could
attempt to guide the new movement according to the needs of the Church and
the aspirations of the enthusiasts in the new learning.
The new centers of learning, directly or indirectly, developed either out of
the old system of cathedral schools, or from the lay schools in the Italian com-
munes. They naturally could not break loose from the old system without com-
ing into conflict with the local officials, episcopal or communal. It was largely
the favor of the popes that enabled the universities to constitute themselves
with enough independence from local control to become international centers
of learning. To understand the nature of the role of the papacy in the con-
stitution of the universities it is necessary first of all to appreciate the extent
and the results of the interference of the papacy in the difficulties that marked
the history of the relations between local ecclesiastical or secular authorities
and the new societies of teachers and students. For the end of the twelfth and
the beginning of the thirteenth century were a period of guild formation, and
to have their own corporations the masters and students were compelled to
wrest corporate privileges from churches and communes. To be independent
they must control membership in the corporations, obtain immunities in ju-
risdiction, and have the right to regulate by statutes internal discipline and
the organization of teaching. In winning recognition of these prerogatives
the two great mother universities—Paris and Bologna—succeeded only after
sharp and prolonged conflicts with the Cathedral Chapter of Paris and with
the Commune of Bologna. The principles established in the rise of the cor-
porations of Paris and Bologna were generally applied to the universities that
appeared in the thirteenth century. Hence through a study of the University
of Paris we can approach the universities which, like Paris, arose in some con-
nection with the Church, and through a study of Bologna we can interpret the
growth of the universities influenced by its constitution.
In the first part, therefore, of this study, we shall observe how the papacy
influenced the rise of the corporations which came to be known as studia gen-
eralia, or universities. Thereafter, in the second part, we shall observe how the
papacy aided the members of the universities through material support for the
4 Cf. Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 2.

Introduction 3
masters and students, and how this aid in turn affected the constitution of the
studia generalia in the early period of their development.
This period extends roughly from about 1150 to 1275, and includes the pon-
tificates of Alexander III, Innocent III, Honorius III, Gregory IX, Innocent IV,
and Alexander IV. Within this century and a quarter the chief universities had
attained to maturity, to the status, that is, of legal corporations of masters or
of students. It has been necessary, however, sometimes to look beyond 1275 in
order to note developments that were not complete, or that illustrate condi-
tions, in the principal age of university formation.
Covering as it does a long period of time and a new movement in the or-
ganization of learning and teaching, the subject of the papacy and the rise of
the universities has presented numerous difficulties inherent in its wideness of
scope. These difficulties need not be enumerated. One serious difficulty, how-
ever, lies in the nature of the sources, of which the principal ones are the papal
letters. It is not that the papal bulls have survived in too small a quantity—for,
although many have not even found entry in the Vatican registers, we may be
safe in believing that most of those of importance have survived in partial or
complete text—to furnish evidence of the imperfect sort to be expected in
such documents; it is rather that they cannot explain all that caused their is-
suance by the Roman Court. Unfortunately the letters of the members of the
universities have not survived, except occasionally as models in formularies, to
relate what was happening in the process of guild formation. Only occasional-
ly, in a sermon or a chronicle or a model of a letter, or in a gloss to a decretal, do
we find commentaries on the disputes that the popes had to settle. One more
difficulty lies in determining to what extent the popes personally, rather than
officially, influenced the growth of the universities. One often cannot judge
whether the pope himself or the chancery of the Roman Court, following prec-
edents established in earlier pontificates, examined petitions and rendered
decisions. The popes were pretty thoroughly absorbed in their own conflicts
with secular rulers, and frequently ordered legates or bishops or other ecclesi-
astics to judge disputes in which the universities were involved. Nevertheless,
if it is not always possible to say that Innocent III or Gregory IX or Innocent IV
acted, it is possible to say that the papacy through delegates intervened to
achieve compromises and grant privileges that guided the development of the
mediaeval universities.
Part 1
The Papacy and the Constitution of the Universities
⸪
CHAPTER 1
The Twelfth Century—Alexander III and the

Licentia docendi
The pontificate of Alexander III, 1159–1181, fell within the period that saw
the partial transformation of certain centers of learning into universities. The
universities as legal corporations did not appear until the beginning of the
thirteenth century and later, but the conditions that caused their rise already
existed and were revealing themselves in the twelfth century. Alexander III
was the first pope actively to concern himself with the new movement, which
revealed itself in its first conflict with outside authorities over the question of
the license to teach and the control of membership in the societies of masters.
A study of his pontificate, therefore, is a logical introduction to the investiga-
tion of the relation of the papacy with a major phase of the development of the
universities in the thirteenth century.
Papal legislation for church schools was inaugurated in the ninth century by
Eugenius II and Leo IV. A council at Rome, held under the former in 826, or-
dered that in all dioceses and parishes masters able to teach the liberal arts and
sacred dogma should be appointed by the bishops.1 Another council, held by
Leo IV at Rome in 853, provided that the office of teaching in episcopal schools
should be given to clerks, and that parish churches should give elementary
instruction in Holy Scripture and in the offices.2 No new policy, but rather a
renewal of papal interest after two centuries of silence is to be found in the
decision of the Council of Rome of 1079, which again imposed on the bishops
the obligation to establish schools in their churches.3
The twelfth century brought a change in the nature of papal legislation for
the schools, a change necessitated by two movements; first, the fight against
simony in the Church; and secondly, the intellectual renaissance. Scholastic
* This chapter was published as an essay, “Alexander III, the Licentia Docendi, and the Rise of
the Universities,” in Anniversary Essays in Mediaeval History (Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin,
1929). Since it appeared I have added a few citations of documents and modern works.
1 M .G.H., Leges, sectio III, II, 2, p. 581, cap. xxxiii. On this canon, and also that of 853, cf.
G. Manacorda, Storia della scuola in Italia, I, i, 60 ff.
2 Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima Collectio, ed. P. Labbé and G. Cossart (1759–
98), XIV, 1014.
3 Labbé-Mansi, XX, 509: “ut omnes episcopi artes litterarum in suis ecclesiis docere faciant.”
Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, 70. Only the title of this canon exists.

8 CHAPTER 1
simony arose from the organization of teaching in the bishopric. In the early
period, before the cathedral schools became important as centers of learning
in the eleventh century, the bishop himself was sometimes the master who
attracted students. Often an outsider, some wandering scholar, was called in
to teach. The office of master acquired greater dignity when the number of
students warranted the appointment of several teachers at the cathedral or
in the whole bishopric, and from that time the master of the schools tended
to become the official who superintended the schools and granted the license
to teach. He himself ceased to teach, or occasionally retained the teaching of
theology, leaving instruction in grammar and dialectic to his subordinates, the
ordinary masters. At the same time, that is, from the eleventh century on, it
became customary to make this official a member of the cathedral chapter of
canons; he was called chancellor, as at Paris,4 or scholasticus, magischola, or
magister scholarum.5 Subject only to the cathedral chapter and the bishop, he
supervised the cathedral schools and sometimes those of the whole diocese.6
His authority was necessary, at least generally in France, for the setting up of
schools by scholars desiring to teach for profit.
When simony flourished everywhere it was natural that it should affect
the office of the magister scholarum. If the teacher profited from his pupils,
the master of the schools found it reasonable to demand his share by exact-
ing a fee for granting the license to teach. This was of course simony, and as
such came under the general condemnation of that evil by Gregory VII and
his successors.7 Scholastic simony itself, however, was not mentioned by
Gregory VII, nor condemned officially until 1138. Conditions in the schools did
not yet demand papal intervention.
The impulse to reform came from the new conditions created by the great
intellectual movement of the twelfth century. The fame of an Abelard, the new
4 He was already master of the schools of Paris in 1120: H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe
in the Middle Ages, I, 282, note 1.
5 Ibid., I, 280–282; I have in general followed Rashdall’s description of the chancellor’s office up
to the time of Alexander III. On the organization of the cathedral chapter, cf. C. H. Haskins,
The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, pp. 47 ff.
6 For exceptions see Rashdall, op. cit., I, 284, note 1. To them may be added one made by
Alexander III, who took from the master at Châlons jurisdiction over the schools of a mon-
astery, giving it to the abbot; Regesta pontificum romanorum, ed. Jaffé and Loewenfeld, 2nd
edition, no. 12096; cf. infra, note 18. Another exception was at Paris, where the chancellor of
the cathedral did not control the schools of Sainte-Geneviève; cf. H. Denifle, Die Entstehung
der Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400, pp. 662–665.
7 Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, cap. iii, emphasizes the question of simony and its feudal nature with
reference to the schools.
The Twelfth Century—Alexander III and the Licentia docendi 9
dialectical method, and the revival of interest in all fields of learning8 resulted
in a great increase in the number of those who were eager to learn, and conse-
quently of those who wished to teach.9 As it became more profitable to teach
a greater number of students willing to pay, the number of masters multiplied,
making the office of master of schools or chancellor more lucrative. Scholastic
simony became too glaring to escape attention from Rome as soon as com-
plaints from the poorer masters or from unsuccessful applicants for the license
reached the pope.
The mere correction of the evil of simony itself was not the only aim of the
papacy. There was also the sincere desire to make teaching free in some mea-
sure for poor students. At the very beginning of the twelfth century Geoffroy
Babion, scholasticus at Angers, said in a sermon that no one should teach for
money.10 Alexander III himself expressed the theory of the Church in advo-
cating gratuitous instruction,11 and for poor students made at least the study
of elementary theology free.12 Since, however, as will be seen, Alexander did
not effectively carry out the theory, the motive of free education did not have
much weight in causing the papacy to interfere in the matter of the license;
reform of offices in the Church and centralization of authority in Rome13 were
the main objectives of Alexander’s policy.
Whatever the causes or the motives involved, Alexander actively undertook
the destruction of scholastic simony. He had a precedent in the decree of the
Council of London of 1138, which forbade the practice of selling the permission
to teach, but which did not refer to learning as a necessary qualification for the
8 For the whole movement in learning see Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century.
9 Rashdall, op. cit., I, 59 ff., 282 ff., 289 ff., 389 ff. This happened chiefly at Paris, but students
were also more numerous elsewhere.
10 B. Hauréau, Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits, I, 86: “… sive qui docet sit mem-
brum alterius in doctrina, nec doceat pro pecunia, sed pro doctrina fratrum.” Chevalier,
Bio-bibliographie, I, 1701: “Geoffroy Babion, écolatre d’Angers 1096–1110.” Cf. Manacorda, I,
ii, cap. i, passim.
11 “… quoniam, cum donum Dei sit scientia litterarum, liberum debet esse cuique talentum
gratis cui voluerit erogare … Non enim debet venale exponi, quod munere gratiae coeles-
tis acquiritur: sed gratis debet omnibus exhiberi, ut impleatur quod scriptum est: Gratis
accepistis, gratis date”: Migne, Patrologia Latina, CC, col. 840. But here “gratis” refers to
the relation of the master of schools with the teachers, not with the students themselves.
Cf. the decretal Quanto Gallicana (infra. p. 13).
12 Decree of the Lateran Council, 1179; cf. infra, note 27.
13 Cf. A. Luchaire, L’Université de Paris sous Philippe-Auguste, p. 17.
10 CHAPTER 1
applicant.14 The energy with which Alexander took up the problem is evidence
enough that this decree did not embarrass the masters of the schools. The first
letter we have from the pope against the sale of the license is addressed to the
dean and chapter at Châlons-sur-Marne, who had been impeding the liberty
of teaching by exactions and by threats of excommunication against masters
who taught without their permission.15 Alexander commanded the chapter to
permit all clerks in the diocese and especially outside the walls of the city who
wished to instruct others in “scholastic disciplines” to do so freely and without
any hindrance.16 This letter failed to stop the chapter in its customary practice,
and another followed in 1171–1173 to the archbishop of Rheims, asking him per-
sonally to interfere.17 In this instance the master of the schools of Châlons had
been claiming jurisdiction over the schools of an abbot, refusing to permit any
one to teach in them. Alexander would not allow the master to enjoy rights on
the lands of the abbot, which by a “wicked custom” he enjoyed over the schools
in the city itself.18 In no case was teaching to be subjected to simony: both the
master and the abbot were strictly forbidden to refuse permission to teach to
14 Leach, Educational Charters and Documents, p. 138; Labbé-Mansi, XXI, 514: “Sancimus
praeterea, ut si magistri scholarum aliis scholas suas locaverint legendas pro pretio, ec-
clesiasticae vindictae subjaceant.” Rashdall, op. cit., I, 283, note 1, suggests “regendas” for
“legendas.” On Alexander III’s legislation see G. Bourbon, “La License d’enseigner,” Rev. des
Questions Historiques, XIX (1879), pp. 516–529; Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders des Dritten,
III, 699 ff.; Hefele-Hergenröther, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd ed., V, 437 (Council of London),
715 (Council of 1179).
15 The date of the letter is 1166–1167; Jaffé-Loewenfeld, no. 11329; for the text, Migne, CC, 440.
16 Ibid., CC, 440: “… universitati vestrae … mandamus quatenus clericos omnes, qui in epis-
copatu vestro, et praesertim extra muros civitatis aliis legere voluerint et eos scholasticis
instruere disciplinis, id libere et sine omni contradictione efficere permitatis, nec super
hoc molestare de caetero praesumatis, vel occasione ista aliquam sibi laesionem inferre.”
One may infer that the pope wished to encourage more the teachers in the country
schools than those of the cathedral school, “praesertim extra muros civitatis”; cf. infra,
note 19.
17 Jaffé-Loewenfeld, no. 12096, already noted above to illustrate the theory of learning as a
gift of God.
18 Migne, CC, 840: “Dilectus filius noster abbas S. Petri de Montibus transmissa nobis re-
latione monstravit quod magister scholarum Catalaunensis Ecclesiae in terra jam dicti
abbatis sibi scholarum magisterium vindicat et nullum per abbatem ibi regere scholas
permittit … Verum licet idem magister scholarum, illud sibi forte in civitate ipsa obtentu
pravae consuetudinis vindicet: hoc in terra abbatis non potest aliquatenus vindicare.”
Cf. Denifle, op. cit., p. 665.
any worthy and literate man wherever he might elect to open his school.19 Not
only, therefore, was scholastic simony condemned, but the territorial extent of
the authority of the master of schools was restricted by papal intervention in
the bishopric.
Local legislation for the schools is found in three other letters of
Alexander III. The date (1159–1181) is indefinite for all of them, but because of
their local application I shall analyze them before considering the more gener-
al provisions on the subject. Two letters are to Odo, chancellor of the Cathedral
Chapter of Bourges. In the first, Alexander confirmed to him the right to grant
the license, provided he did not demand a fee from those wanting to teach nor
refuse the license to those properly equipped by their learning; but the license
should not be given to any one who was too ignorant to instruct others.20 The
letter is of further importance in indicating that the chancellor was beginning
to seek papal confirmation for all the rights connected with his office, and was
at least in some cases acquiescing in papal interference at the expense of his
own and of the chapter’s local autonomy. The second letter repeats in general
the terms of the first one, adding, however, that the chancellor’s permission
was not necessary for a canon who wished to lecture to his fellow-canons or
the clerks of the choir.21 Excepting this minor limitation the chancellor’s for-
mal permission was necessary for the teacher in all schools of Bourges.
The last letters of local importance that I can bring forward concern
England. In one, Alexander, hinting that the bishop of Winchester had been
lax in preventing scholastic simony—prohibeas attentius—ordered the bishop
19 Migne, CC, 840: “… mandamus, quatenus tam abbati, quam magistro scholarum prae-
cipias, ne aliquem probum et litteratum virum regere scholas in civitate, vel suburbiis,
ubi voluerit, aliqua ratione prohibeant, vel interdicere qualibet occasione praesumant.”
Here the cathedral school is affected as much as those in the country.
20 Jaffé-Loewenfeld, no. 13779; S. Loewenfeld, Epistolae Pontificum Romanorum ineditae
(Leipzig, 1885), p. 202, no. 338: “… cancellariam Bituricensem … devotioni tue auctoritate
apostolica confirmamus et praesentis scripti patrocinio communimus. Ad hec auctoritate
praesentium inhibemus, ne quis doctoris officium in villa Bituricensi, nisi a te prius licen-
tia, fuerit expetita, qualibet levitate audeat exercere, ita tamen ut ab his, qui docere vel
legere voluerint, nullum omnino precium exigatur. Hoc quidem modo volumus provideri,
ut nec idoneis licentia denegatur nec indoctis et incompositis fas sit ad docendos alios
aspirare.”
21 Jaffé-Loewenfeld, no. 13780; Loewenfeld, Epistolae, no. 339: “… prohibemus, ne tu vel
quilibet alius scolas Bituricenses audeat vendere nec alicui liceat sine licentia tua vel
successorum tuorum, dummodo scole non vendantur, in urbe vel suburbiis legere, nisi
forte aliquis canonicorum alicuius ecclesiae Bituricensis concanonicis suis aut clericis de
choro ipsius ecclesiae tantum legere voluerit.”
12 CHAPTER 1
to prohibit the selling of the license to teach in his parish.22 There existed, one
learns from this letter, a method by which a prospective teacher promised to
make a gift to the head of the schools in return for the license, so that the ac-
cusation of simony might be avoided. Such promises the pope could tolerate
no more than the actual exactions made by the official and imposed on the
applicant. In another bull, addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury and his
suffragans, Alexander prohibited the exaction of fees “pro scolis regendis …,
quoniam turpe est et apud deum et homines abhominabile pro re tam honesta
precium extorquere.”23
Local abuses of the magisterial office in France resulted in a more sweeping
condemnation of scholastic simony. At least one case of these abuses, which
occurred at Châlons, illustrates the necessity of papal action; the others given
above came perhaps after the general prohibition of 1170–1172. Another local
example of the evil is found in the cathedral schools of Paris.24 If documents
are too few to prove definite cases before 1170, it is nevertheless probable that
the practice of selling the license to teach was widespread.25 Not Paris schools
alone aroused the pope to condemnation of simony. Indeed, the schools of
22 Jaffé-Loewenfeld, no. 14157; Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Friedberg, 2nd ed. II, Decret. Greg.
IX, lib, v. tit. v, cap. 2: “Prohibeas attentius de cetero ne in parochia tua pro licentia docen-
di aliquos exigatur aliquid, aut etiam promittatur. Si quid vero postea solutum fuerit vel
promissum, remitti promissum facias, et restitui, appellatione cessante solutum, sciens,
quod scriptum est [Matth. 10]: gratis accepistis, gratis date. Sane, si quis occasione huius
prohibitionis distulerit magistros in locis congruis instituere, tibi liceat … ibi aliorum in-
structioni praeficere viros providos, honestos et discretos.”
As usual, the license should be given to any worthy man; by the bishop himself if it was
not done by the master of the schools. But the freedom of teachers to establish schools
anywhere, as at Châlons and Bourges, is limited, “in locis congruis.”
For “aliquos” Jaffé-Loewenfeld, no. 14157, reads “ab aliquo.”
23 W. Holtzmann, “Beiträge zu den Dekretalensammlungen des zwölften Jahrhunderts,”
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung, XLVII, Kanonistische Abteilung, XVI (1917), 59.
24 Vincentius Hispanus, writing 1210–1215, states, referring to the decretal Quanto Gallicana,
“Hoc caput fuit impetratum contra cancellarium Parisiensem, qui a quolibet docente
marcam unam exigebat.” Denifle et Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis,
subsequently cited as Ch.U.P., vol. I (Paris, 1889), pars introd., no. 4, note; cf. Savigny,
Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, 2nd ed., III, 341, note b. See also Serio of
Wilton’s appeal to Louis VII, ante 1171: “… dono scolasque rego. Tractamur misere, dare
cogimur atque tacere; Hac ego lege lego, doque darique nego.… palam lego, clam do.…”
Hauréau, Notices et extraits, I, 311, and 310–312; G. Robert, Les Écoles et l’enseignement,
pp. 27, 33.
25 Cf. Laspeyres, ed., Bernardi Papiensis episcopi Faventini Summa Decretalium, p. 209,
sec. 1: “… Erat autem quaedam prava consuetudo, scil. ut ille, qui magister scholarum
Paris, frequented by wealthier students than those attending the less renowned
cathedral schools, and offering more profit both to masters and chancellor,
were less likely to attract attention to the evils of the sale of the teaching posi-
tion than were the less prosperous episcopal schools.
Because of the prevalence, therefore, of scholastic simony particularly in
France, Alexander tried to stop the evil by a decretal to the French bishops. The
importance of the decretal requires its full quotation:
Quanto Gallicana ecclesia majorum personarum scientia et honestate

prefulget, et cautius nititur evitare que confundere videantur ecclesias-
ticam honestatem, tanto vehementiori dignos eos esse animadversione
censemus, qui nomen magistri scolarum et dignitatem assumunt in ec-
clesiis vestris et sine certo pretio ecclesiasticis viris docendi alios licen-
tiam non impendunt. Cum autem hec prava et enormis consuetudo a
cupiditatis radice processerit, et decorem admodum ecclesiastice ho-
nestatis confundat, providendum vobis est et summopere satagendum,
ut consuetudo ipsa de ecclesiis vestris penitus extirpetur, cum vobis pre-
cipue et specialiter ascribatur, si quid in ecclesiis eisdem laude dignum
inveniatur vel reprehensione notandum. Nos quoque, qui licet immeriti
dispensante clementia conditoris suprema fungimur potestate, tante cu-
piditatis et rapacitatis vitium nolentes inemendatum relinqui, fraterni-
tati vestre per apostolica scripta mandamus, quatinus consuetudine ipsa
de vestris ecclesiis extirpata sub anathematis interminatione hoc inhibe-
re curetis ne qui dignitate illa, si dignitas dici potest, fungentes pro pres-
tanda licentia docendi alios ab aliquo quidquam amodo exigere audeant
vel extorquere; sed eis districte precipiatis, ut quicunque viri idonei et lit
terati voluerint regere studia litterarum, sine molestia et exactione quali-
bet scolas regere patiantur, ne scientia de cetero pretio videatur exponi,
que singulis gratis debet impendi. Si qui vero hujusmodi prohibitionis vel
precepti extiterint transgressores, eos auctoritate nostra et vestra officiis
et dignitatibus spolietis. Porro si hoc iuxta mandatum nostrum corrigere
neglexeritis, negligentiam vestram gravem habebimus et molestam et ad
ea corrigenda manum extendere compellemur; ita quod si voluerint in
hujus rapacitatis proposito persistere non valebunt.26
dicitur et ad quem alii magistri tamquam ad suum praelatum habent recursum, nemini
daret licentiam docendi, nisi ille pro re tam honesta sibi pretium largiretur …”.
26
Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 4.
14 CHAPTER 1
To all masters of schools in the churches of France it was strictly forbidden to

demand payment of any kind for conferring the licentia docendi, which, more-
over, should not be refused to any able and learned man desiring to teach in
the schools under the supervision of the Church. The chancellor or master of
the schools thus retained the right to grant the license and to judge the fitness
of the candidate.
In 1179 the Third Lateran Council renewed the prohibition against the sale
of the licentia docendi, again making it clear that the license should not be
withheld from any learned man who sought it. As in the Quanto Gallicana,
any chancellor or master who violated the statute should be deprived of his
benefices,27 a punishment far more effective in preventing the sale of the li-
cense than the ecclesiastica vindicta threatened by the Council of London in
1138.28 But did the decree of 1179 provide for all the teachers in the diocese?
It seems from the context of canon 18 of the council, which begins by pre-
scribing for every cathedral church a master whose special function should
be to instruct the clerks of the church and poor students,29 that the free li-
cense was here intended for the new master to be appointed, who was further
aided by being provided with an adequate benefice. The purpose of the decree
was to ‘open the way to doctrine’ to the poor; a free license and a benefice for
the master were the practical means to that end. It was a special case caused
by the papal decision to give poor students the opportunity to study theol-
ogy, at least, at cathedral schools.30 I do not mean to say, of course, that the
27 Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 12: “Pro licentia vero docendi nullus omnino pretium exigat,
vel sub obtentu alicujus consuetudinis ab eis, qui docent, aliquid querat, nec docere
quemquam, qui sit idoneus, petita licentia interdicat. Qui autem contra hoc venire pre-
sumpserit, ab ecclesiastico fiat beneficio alienus.”
On ‘interdicat’ Innocent IV says (Apparatus, [Venice, 1481]; lib. V, tit. De magistris):
“Interdicat. nisi forte esse ibi nimia multitudo magistrorum, vel alia iusta causa subsit.”
28 Cf. supra, see p. 10, note 14.
29 Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 12: (§18) “Quoniam ecclesia Dei et in his, que spectant ad sub-
sidium corporis, et in iis, que ad profectum proveniunt animarum, indigentibus, sicut
pia mater, providere tenetur; ne pauperibus, qui parentum opibus juvari non possunt,
legendi et proficiendi opportunitas subtrahatur, per unamquamque cathedralem eccle-
siam magistro, qui clericos ejusdem ecclesie et scholares pauperes gratis doceat, com-
petens aliquod beneficium prebeatur, quo docentis necessitas sublevetur, et discentibus
via pateat ad doctrinam. In aliis quoque restituatur ecclesiis seu monasteriis, si retroactis
temporibus aliquid in eis ad hoc fuerit deputatum. Pro licentia.…”
30 Compare with the provision of the Lateran Council of 1215 for a master for the free
teaching of grammar in cathedral and other churches able to support him, and a mas-
ter to teach theology in metropolitan churches Ch.U.P., I, part 1, no. 22. Encouragement
Lateran decree weakened, by replacing, the prohibition made for all France in
the decretal Quanto Gallicana. The latter, along with the letters to particular
bishoprics, remained in effect in France31 for all other teachers subject to the
master of the schools; it had legally abolished scholastic simony in the eccle-
siastical educational system then extant. By the decree of 1179 the master of
the schools should not sell the license to the new master for the poor in each
cathedral church.32
of theological study as opposed to secular sciences is the purpose in 1179 and in 1215.
Cf. Manacorda, op., cit., I, i, 72 f.
31 ln Italy, as I shall point out again, ecclesiastical schools were not sufficiently important to
be included in Alexander III’s legislation on the license. England already had its special
statute against simony, that of 1138. Alexander made no special provision for Italy.
32 Neither Rashdall, 0p. cit., I, 283, nor Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, 74, makes the distinction I
have made between the letter to French bishops and the Lateran decree. If one separates
the part of the Lateran decree dealing with the sale of the license from the foregoing part
concerning a new master in each cathedral church, one is naturally led to apply it univer-
sally for all teachers in all schools subject to the chancellor.
My interpretation is strengthened by a gloss to the decretal of 1179 in the MS. Vat. lat.
1377, containing the Compilation of Decretals of Bernard of Pavia, fol. 83v.: “Patet ex hoc
capite et duobus sequentibus quod magister cui certum beneficium est constitutum pretium
pro doctrina vel docendi licentia petere non debet. Sed quid dicemus de magistris qui do-
cent Bononie vel Parisius, numquid licet eis collectam vel pretium accipere, utique cum
non habeant beneficium ad hoc deputatum …” The same gloss occurs in the MS. Borghes.
lat. 264 (the folios are not numbered), containing likewise Bernard’s Compilation; here
the gloss is by “T[ancredus?].” The date of these glosses is apparently the second or third
decade of the thirteenth century, since those of Vicentius Hispanus and Laurentius ac-
company them and since Tancred flourished at that time (cf. Schulte, Die Geschichte
der Quellen und Literatur des Canonischen Rechts [Stuttgart, 1875], pp. 199 ff.). Moreover,
Tancred has a gloss on the Bull Super speculam of 1219. Thus at this time glossators in-
terpreted both provisions of the decretal Quoniam ecclesia Dei as referring to beneficed
masters for poor students, and not to those without benefices at Bologna and Paris.
Later canonists, however, particularly Raymond of Peñafort and Geoffrey of Trani, state
emphatically that under no circumstance shall a fee be involved in granting the license
(MS. Vat. lat. 10270, Raymond of Peñafort, Summa de casibus, lib. i, de Magistris, fol. 170;
MS. Vat. lat. 10269, Summa Gaufredi de Trano de titulis decretalium, lib. v, de Magistris,
fol. 134).
F. M. Powicke, reviewing the Haskins Anniversary Essays in the English Historical
Review, XLV (1930), 642–644, disagrees with my belief that the decree of 1179 had in view a
particular class of students; for, he says (p. 644), the phrase pauperes scolares is common
in the thirteenth century. Nevertheless the glossators do draw a line between poor and
wealthy students. But see Chap. VIII, “The Papacy and Masters’ Salaries,” p. 193, note 85.
16 CHAPTER 1
A review of the provisions on the licentia docendi yields the following con-
clusions. As regards the chancellor himself and his control of education in the
diocese, his old authority over the schools was limited in two respects: he could
no longer accept as a gift, and could not demand, a fee for granting the licen-
tia docendi; he must confer the license on any worthy and learned man seek-
ing it. On the other hand, he retained, along with the office itself, important
rights. He supervised all the schools of the diocese except certain special ones
as noted above, and except those that were purely lay in origin and charac-
ter, notably in Italy. His supervision covered all ecclesiastical schools, whether
regular cathedral and parochial schools or temporary ones set up by masters
anywhere33 in the diocese for profit from whatever students their personal re-
nown for learning could attract. In all these schools he appointed the teachers
by conferring the license. What is more important, the chancellor had the right
to judge the fitness of the applicant, to grant him the license, without having
to consult his master on his scholastic record; the masters did not yet always
pass on the qualification of the candidate.34 His power, then, was more than
that of a mere superintendent of education,35 more than that of an official
who, because he already existed, was used to represent papal authority in the
schools by the simple act of ecclesiastical investiture. Yet he was no longer a
local official of the cathedral chapter; the first step was taken by Alexander III
in the development that in the first half of the thirteenth century was to make
the chancellor a papal official, conferring the license to teach in the name of
the pope.36 Alexander’s interference in the matter of scholastic simony was the
real beginning of active control of the teaching organization by the papacy, if
only as a precedent.
Three types of schools were affected by the legislation of Alexander: ca-
thedral, parochial, and schools of masters who lectured to students as the
33 Cf. supra, see p. 11, note 19, “in civitate, vel suburbiis, ubi voluerit”; note 22, “in urbe vel
suburbiis”; note 23, “in locis congruis”; the letter to French bishops does not specify the
place, but the inference is that a master could set up schools anywhere he wished. Paris
is an example: the masters themselves had elected to teach near the cathedral under the
control of the chancellor; the majority did not teach in the cathedral school, were indeed
connected with it only by the common official, the chancellor. The university developed
partly out of, but more in this connection with, the cathedral school, which, however, was
the original nucleus.
34 Cf. Denifle, Die Entstehung der Universitäten, p. 685, for Paris.
35 A phrase used by Rashdall, op. cit., I, 283; Rashdall does not sufficiently emphasize the
importance of the right left to the chancellor to judge the fitness of the candidate for
teaching.
36 Cf. Denifle, op. cit., p. 687, and note 102, the same page.
opportunity offered. All had one thing in common, an official, called chancel-
lor or magister scholarum, who conferred the license to teach, and all to that
extent were ecclesiastical. The cathedral and parish schools were regular in
the sense of having been established by ecclesiastical authority; those of mas-
ters teaching elsewhere than in the regular episcopal schools were irregular in
the sense of having been opened on the personal initiative of masters eager to
teach.37 Such masters, licensed by the chancellor, naturally chose to open their
lecture rooms in places offering the advantages, material and intellectual, that
attracted large numbers of students. Since no university arose from the mere
expansion of a cathedral school proper into a studium generale, but rather
from the concentration of a large number of masters and students where con-
ditions favored them, it is precisely in relation to the independent masters that
the legislation on the license to teach affected, if at all, the development of the
university system. In that way alone, as will be explained, could Alexander’s
reform of the office of chancellor advance or retard the movement towards
the formation of a corporation of masters or of students. His intention was not
to encourage such a movement, which was probably not even seen for what it
was; his activity against scholastic simony was rather a phase of the destruc-
tion of the feudal system in the Church than an effort to erect a new school
system. It is not the intention so much as what actually resulted from the papal
policy that is of interest here. What part, therefore, did Alexander’s control of
the chancellor actually play in the rise of the universities? The answer depends
upon the relation of the masters to ecclesiastical authority in each center of
learning that became a university.
If no universities as corporations or societies of masters and students yet
existed in the twelfth century, the most famous ones of the Middle Ages,
Bologna and Paris, were in the process of formation and were already interna-
tional centers of learning. Montpellier and Oxford had their origin in the same
century, Salerno even earlier. All of them developed spontaneously, without
being founded by any authority, civil or ecclesiastical. But in the course of their
constitution, with the exception of Salerno, they encountered papal interven-
tion and control in varying degrees. For each school, the essential point to be
considered in relation to the papacy is the admission to the guild of masters or
professors, for the development of the Society of Masters is fundamental even
at Bologna, where the student body developed into the university.38
At Bologna, however, there was no ecclesiastical authority that granted the
license to teach in the twelfth century, although house rents paid by students
37 A. Luchaire, La société francaise au temps de Philippe-Auguste, p. 68.

38 Cf. Haskins, op. cit., p. 370.
18 CHAPTER 1
and masters were an excuse for regulation by Clement III in 1189.39 The mas-
ters or doctors of law conducted the examination of the candidates and con-
ferred the license. Not until 1219 did Honorius III give to the archdeacon the
right to grant the license to teach in the name of the Church.40 Alexander III’s
limitation of the chancellor’s scholastic rights had therefore nothing to do with
the formation of the guild of masters or professors at Bologna. But at least his
regulation of the French chancellor-system of conferring the licentia docendi
was a precedent for Honorius III in bringing the law school of Bologna with-
in the papal system for controlling education. Then, however, the university
was already formed as a guild of students. In the twelfth century, indeed, the
schools of Bologna and generally of Italy were lay in character.41
As late as 1181 no definite organization of masters had risen in the school of
medicine at Montpellier, and neither the bishop of Maguelone, who claimed
jurisdiction over the school, nor the masters possessed undisputedly the right
of granting the license.42 In fact, it was a lay lord, William VIII of Montpellier,
who first provided for the liberty of teaching, saying that the faculty of medi-
cine should not be monopolized by one person.43 That he was loyal to the pa-
pacy, and was perhaps influenced by Alexander’s legislation for the free license
to any learned man seeking it, does not lessen the fact that his authority was
not ecclesiastical, and that the prohibition did not come from the bishop of
Maguelone or the pope.44 No ecclesiastical official, apparently, conferred the
license, and the control of the chancellor or magister scholarum by Alexander
III did not in the twelfth century apply to the situation at Montpellier. By 1220
the bishop conferred the license, and by the statutes of that year a chancellor
was appointed to preside over the university.45 Indirectly, perhaps, in influenc-
ing William VIII, Alexander’s control of the chancellor in France, making
the license free, was a factor at Montpellier in favoring the multiplication
of the masters and consequently their organization; masters, however, had
a habit of multiplying in spite of fees paid to an official appointing them, a
39 Friedberg, Corpus Iuris, Canonici, II, Decret. Greg. IX, lib. iii, tit. xviii, cap. 1.
40 Cf. Manacorda, op. cit., I, 1, 213; Rashdall, op. cit., I, 206, note 1, and p. 223. Sarti and
Fattorini, De claris archigymnasii bononiensis professoribus, new edition by Albicinius and
Malagola, II, 14–15, epist. 3 and 4.
41 Rashdall, op. cit., I, 92 ff.; Denifle, op. cit., p. 736.
42 Rashdall, II, i, 118.
43 Les statuts et privilèges des universités françaises depuis leur fondation jusqu’en 1789, ed.
M. Fournier (Paris, 1890–94), II, 3, no. 879.
44 Luchaire, op. cit., p. 8, and Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 114, point out the relation of William VIII
with the papacy, but not the difference between their policies.
45 Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 119; Fournier, II, no. 882; Denifle, Universitäten, p. 341 f.
habit that Paris will illustrate. The essential point that makes the provision of
William VIII more favorable to the masters than papal decrees now or later,
is the ruling that no one should have exclusive control of the faculty of medi-
cine, and that any man, whatever his origin, who so desired could freely teach
at Montpellier.46 No official is named who should grant the license, or deter-
mine the fitness of the candidate. Alexander aimed at making papal authority
felt in the schools, and left an ecclesiastical official in charge of them who,
if he could not make his office a source of profit, retained a good measure of
control over masters and students through his right to examine the candidate
before he conferred the license. Surely William VIII of Montpellier pursued
a far more liberal policy, for he imposed no limitation whatever on the mas-
ters. But his policy had no permanency, for in the next century the bishop,
hence the Church, acquired jurisdiction over the university, and it was then
that Alexander’s legislation had its effect in furnishing the precedent for
papal control.47
As in the cases of Bologna and Montpellier, Oxford was not a cathedral
school in its origin, which may be dated about 1167.48 Until 1214 there was no
chancellor, and the bishop of Lincoln had only general ecclesiastical supervi-
sion over the students. The masters in the early period taught without a license
from a special official of the Church, a situation ended by papal regulation in
the thirteenth century.49 Again, like Bologna and Montpellier, Oxford did not
46 Fournier, II, no. 879: “Ego Guillelmus … proprio motu ductus et spontanea voluntate, fine
bona et sine fraude, cum hac carta, ob bonum publicum et commune proficuum et utili-
tatem mei et tocius Montispessulani et universe terre mee, dono et firmitate perpetua
concedo Domino Deo et vobis, meis probis viris Montispessulani, presentibus et futuris,
et universo populo, quod ego, de cetero, prece aliqua vel precio seu sollicitatione alicujus
persone, non dabo concessionem seu prerogativam aliquam alicui persone, quod unus
solus tantummodo legat seu scolas regat in Montepessulano, in facultate fisice discipline,
quia acerbum est nimium et contra fas et pium, uni soli dare et concedere monopolium
in tam excellenti scientia; et quoniam equitas hoc fieri prohibent et justicia, uni soli in
posterum nullatenus dabo. Et ideo mando, volo, laudo atque concedo in perpetuum,
quod omnes homines, quicumque sint vel undecumque sint, sine aliqua interpellatione
regant scolas de fisica in Montepessulano, qui refere scolas de fisica voluerint, et plenam
facultatem, licentiam et potestatem inde eis stabilitate dono et concedo perpetua.…” If
one compares this statute with the letters of Alexander III, one finds them entirely dif-
ferent in wording and in purpose. Alexander’s influence on William, if any, is remote. If
otherwise, why did not the lay ruler of Montpellier give the conferring of the license to an
ecclesiastical official?
47 Cf. Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 120.
48 Ibid., II, ii, 339.
49 Ibid., II, ii, 352 ff.
20 CHAPTER 1
develop as a Society of Masters under the jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical of-

ficial who conferred the license; that official was provided by the papacy after
the essential formation of the masters into a guild, in order to establish papal
authority over the university. Alexander III’s scholastic legislation was not a
factor in the rise of Bologna, Montpellier, and Oxford; nor, of course, in the rise
or history of Salerno.50
Paris alone of the universities that arose in the twelfth century presented
the conditions that called forth papal regulation of all episcopal schools. By
the middle of the century a considerable number of masters was teaching in
the neighborhood of the cathedral under the jurisdiction of the chancellor of
Notre-Dame, who by custom collected fees for giving them the permission to
teach, and could appoint whom he pleased. So long, possibly, as the candi-
date was willing to pay, the chancellor did not raise the question of fitness, nor
prevent the master from teaching anywhere he wished in the parts of the city
and diocese under the chancellor’s supervision. When conditions were favor-
able, as certainly they were at this time in Paris, owing to the impetus given
to the dialectical and theological movements by Abelard, and to the physical
advantages of geographical position and the delights offered to students by
the city, students and masters multiplied in spite of the fee demanded by the
chancellor, and by 1159 Paris was already a “city of teachers.”51 By the time of
Alexander III, then, the germ of the university organization in the right of the
chancellor to confer the license to teach, soon confirmed by the pope, and in
the still vaguely formed guild of masters, was in existence at Paris.52
The legal relation between the chancellor and the masters, or those apply-
ing for the degree of master, was changed by Alexander in that henceforth the
chancellor was to confer the license on any learned man to teach anywhere he
might choose, and was to have the right to judge the fitness of the candidate,
but in no case was to demand any kind of payment for the license. What was
the effect of these provisions on the development of the University of Paris?
Considering the right of the competent candidate to the license, at first
one sees in this right an obvious advantage for the teachers if the chancellor
ever wished seriously to limit their number, for that official would hardly dare
often,53 against express injunctions from Rome, withhold the license from a
50 Ibid., I, chap. iii, for the history of Salerno.

51 Cf. Rashdall, op. cit., I, 289; cf. John of Salisbury’s description, Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 19.
52 Cf. Haskins, op. cit., p. 382.
53 As Fulco, master of the schools of Orléans, did in stubbornly refusing to permit a certain
Master G. to teach even after receiving papal command to give the permission; Fulco as-
serted that Master G. was not suitable for teaching, and Stephen of Tournai, appointed by
man known to be learned. But at Paris the chancellor had no reason for reduc-
ing the number of the masters, seeing that he perhaps continued, by special
dispensation, to profit personally from a fee. This profit might have the effect
of making any normal chancellor license as many teachers as possible. In any
case, the pope’s desire that all properly qualified men should be allowed to
teach was at best an ineffectual check on a possible attempt by the chancellor
to limit the number of masters, for the chancellor still had the right to judge
the fitness of the candidates for the license; he could even give the permis-
sion to teach without having consulted a master on the qualification of the
candidate, and could refuse it to a candidate recommended by his master.54
It was perhaps customary even before the pontificate of Alexander III for a
master to approve of the candidate,55 but as late as 1212 a chancellor was refus-
ing the license, against the evidence of learning furnished by the masters, to
those who would not pay the precium.56 The customary right of the masters to
examine and pass the candidate before the chancellor could confer the license
was not legalized by the papacy until the same and the following years, when
the masters were powerful enough, through having organized, to protest ef-
fectively against the actions of the chancellor.57 What right of examination the
masters had in the twelfth century they had by custom, not by special privilege
from Alexander III. If anybody, it was the chancellor who could claim a papal
privilege in the clause from the decretal Quanto Gallicana, “ut quicunque viri
idonei et litterati voluerint regere studia litterarum,”58 should he, like the master
the pope to examine the case, ordered the master of the schools either to obey, or to prove
the unfitness of Master G. See the letter of Stephen to Fulco; Migne, CCXI, 404, dated
1177–1192.
54 On the privileges of the chancellor at this time, see Denifle, Universitäten, pp. 685 ff.;
Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., pp. xi–xv.
55 Abelard was condemned by the Council of Soissons for having presumed to lecture with-
out the approval of a master; C. Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis … (Paris,
1665–73), II, 66; cf. Rashdall, op. cit., I, 285.
56 Ch.U.P., I, no. 14.
57 Cf. Denifle, Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., p. xii; ibid., I, no. 16, the agreement between the chan-
cellor and the masters; the chancellor gave up his practices of collecting fees, requiring
an oath of fidelity, and keeping a prison for the students; he should not refuse the license
to teach in theology, in civil or canon law, in medicine, or in the arts if the candidate had
been passed by the masters of the faculty (the term “facultas” does not appear, however,
until 1219 in letters of Honorius III, ibid., I, nos. 29, 31). But if the chancellor, Johannes de
Candelis, wished to give the license to any one, he could do so without the consent of the
masters. The masters did not obtain absolute control of the license in 1213.
58 Ibid., I, pars introd., no. 4; cf. supra, p. 13.
22 CHAPTER 1
of the schools of Orleans, wish to turn it to his advantage, and thus try to limit
the number of masters.
Did the provision, in specifying a certain amount of learning for the can-
didate, improve the quality of the teachers at Paris? If so, it was a benefit to
the masters themselves in tending to increase their prestige, and a gain for
education. But the evidence is that the result was not altogether in that direc-
tion, even if Alexander so intended it. Stephen of Tournai’s letter to a pope to-
wards the end of the century, or at the beginning of the next, shows that, from
his point of view, too great a number of young and insufficiently instructed
masters was teaching at Paris.59 Innocent III, perhaps aroused to action by
Stephen’s complaint, realized the danger to the efficiency of teaching from a
multitude of unformed masters, and limited the number of masters in the fac-
ulty of theology to eight.60 The chancellor, then, was not too zealous in restrict-
ing the license to properly qualified applicants. Any other result could hardly
59
Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 48: “… facultates quas liberales appellant amissa libertate pris-
tina in tantam servitutem devocantur, ut comatuli adolescentes earum magisteria impu-
dentes usurpent, et in cathedra seniorum sedeant imberbes, et qui nondum norunt esse
discipuli laborant ut nominentur magistri.”
Cf. the following verses from the Carmina Burana. ed. J. A. Schmeller, 2nd ed. (Breslau,
1883), p. 40:
At nunc decennes pueri.
decusso iugo liberi.
se nunc magistros iactitant,
cęci cęcos pręcipitant.
Cf. also E. du Méril, Poésies populaires du moyen âge (Paris, 1847), p. 153:
Jam fit magister artium Jam fiant baccalaurei
qui nescit quotas partium pro munere denarii
de vero fundamento: quam plures idiotae:
habere nomen appetit in artibus, ab aliis
rem vero nec curat nec scit, egregiis scientiis
examine contento. sunt bestiae promotae.
The date of this poem is uncertain, that of the verses from the Carmina Burana about the
second half of the twelfth century. Cf. Rashdall, op. cit., I, 291, who quotes these verses and
suggests substituting “et” for “ab” in “ab aliis” (ibid., note 1).
One must of course make full allowance for the exaggerations of such conservatives
as John of Salisbury, Peter of Blois, and Stephen of Tournai. They often called ignorance
that which was not their own ideal of learning; they opposed the triumph of dialectic over
grammar and rhetoric, and its popularity at the expense of theology. Yet dialectic seems
to have led to much shallow pedantry, to a skill in logic that needed less learning than
other subjects for a degree. For a warning against accepting the moralists too literally, see
F. M. Powicke, Stephen Langton (Oxford, 1928), pp. 31, 51–52.
60
Ch.U.P., I, no. 5 (an. 1207).
be expected when the masters of each faculty did not themselves have the full
right of examination and of making their decision valid over any opposition
from the chancellor. It must be said, however, that it made little difference in
improving the intellectual level of the masters as a whole in the twelfth cen-
tury whether it was chancellor or masters who examined; the amount of learn-
ing required was at best comparatively small for the degree of Master of Arts,
owing to the triumph of dialectic over the liberal arts, and the sacrifice of the
latter to the rush for degrees.61 What is important, the number of teachers in-
creased, and number more than quality was essential in enabling the masters
to form a consortium.62 The lack of proper examination of the candidate for
the degree and the low standard of requirements, together with the promise to
the ambitious of ecclesiastical dignities and benefices, fostered the multiplica-
tion of the masters. In brief, Alexander’s regulation of the chancellor-license-
system of education in France with respect to the qualification of learning did
not affect, either by retarding or by hastening, the rise of the Society of Masters.
As for the provision against the practice of simony by the chancellor, this
was an advantage for the teachers and an encouragement for their position. If
enforced, it removed a serious obstacle to candidates who were poor, though
meritorious. A direct result at Paris, one might expect, would be an increase
in the number of masters and a more speedy organization into a guild. The
decretal of 1170–1172 was not, however, strictly applied at Paris. Perhaps from
the time when Abelard attracted a large number of students to Paris, and the
teachers consequently became more numerous, simony made the office of
chancellor profitable and became customary. The chancellor just before 1170
collected fees from the candidates for the license,63 but how long he had been
doing so is impossible to say. In a center of learning as prosperous as that of
Paris he found it difficult to give up a right, which, if not exaggerated, no one
could find abusive among teachers who themselves sold learning in that they
were paid by their students.64 When it happened that a famous scholar was
chancellor, Alexander III perhaps found it the easier to understand that at
61 Rashdall, op. cit., I, 291.

62 Rashdall, op. cit., I, 293; the term “consortium” appears first about 1170–1175.
63 Cf. supra, p. 12, note 23.
64 Only the master in each cathedral church for poor students, provided by the Council
of 1179, was enabled to dispense with fees from his pupils. In the thirteenth century
Raymund de Peñafort stated that a master could accept payment from wealthy students
and foreigners; cf. Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, 88 ff. Teaching was not free at Paris for the stu-
dents; e.g., the words of Stephen of Tournai against the “secularium scolas et venditores
verborum,” Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 42 (1178–92).
24 CHAPTER 1
least at Paris he should have some material reward for his office, and in 1174
Alexander apparently conceded to Peter Comestor, chancellor from about 1168
to 1178, the right to moderate fees for conferring the license to teach:
Alexander … dilecto filio Petro tituli sancti Chrysogoni presbytero car-

dinali, apostolice sedis legato … Licet mandaverimus ut hi qui volunt
docere nihil pro scolis regendis ab aliquo exigant, juxta illud: veni et
audi: volentes tamen honestati et litterature magistri Petri, cancellarii
Parisiensis, quantum salva honestate possumus, prompta benignitate de-
ferre, quem speciali prerogativa diligimus et volumus honorare, discre-
tioni tue mandamus quatinus, habito consilio cum venerabilibus nostris
Willelmo Senonensi archiepiscopo, apostolice sedis legato, et H. Remensi
archiepiscopo, et aliis dignis et honestis personis, super regimine scola-
rum Parisiensium, quod tibi visum fuerit, ita quod personam jam dicti
Petri non excedat quod exinde feceris, circumspecta diligentia provideas
atque disponas, eam cautelam et maturitatem adhibiturus, quod non vi-
dearis modum excedere, et illi qui scolas rexerint, non debeant immode-
rate gravari.65
65
Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 8. The pope’s intention is not very clear. He had ordered that
those who wished to teach should exact nothing from any one for conducting schools,
“pro scolis regendis.” Does “ab aliquo” refer to the students? If so the sentence would
mean only that the masters should not accept fees from their students, though the phrase
“pro scolis regendis” is difficult to reconcile with such a meaning. I find, however, no trace
of a mandate of Alexander prohibiting students to pay fees to teachers, and the Third
Lateran Council enabled only the poor students to escape the burden of fees in the ca-
thedral schools. The pope could hardly, therefore, be referring to such a prohibition in his
words, “Licet mandaverimus, etc.” To what decree does he refer? I think it is to the Quanto
Gallicana, which, as seen above, prohibited the payment of fees for the license to teach.
Now, while Peter Comestor, as chancellor of the cathedral of Paris, was also probably a
teacher, it seems strange that he alone was permitted to collect fees from his students if
other teachers were not allowed to do the same. But the teachers at Paris had not been
forbidden their student-fees. The letter therefore seems to apply to Peter as chancellor,
not as a master. For the rest, although it is not expressly stated that Peter could receive
payment from candidates for the license, the contents of the letter seem to point that
way: first, the reference to a previous decree on fees, probably the Quanto Gallicana; sec-
ondly, the expression of esteem for the learning of Peter Comestor; thirdly, the desire of
the pope that any reform of the schools should not derogate from the person and rights
of the chancellor; and fourthly, the admonition that by such a reformation of the schools
and by such respect for the chancellor’s rights, the teachers were not to be immoderately
oppressed, “et illi qui scolas rexerint, non debeant immoderate gravari.” Cf. Rashdall, I,
283, note 2; G. Robert, Les Écoles et L’enseignement de la théologie, p. 34.
In 1212, as we have seen,66 a chancellor met opposition from the organized

masters when he was trying to exact the fee for the licentia docendi; this time
Innocent III definitely deprived the chancellor of this privilege, as well as of
others.67 Whether a chancellor between the years 1178, perhaps the last of
Peter Comestor’s chancellorship,68 and 1212 was paid a fee by the licentiate
is uncertain.69 An answer one way or the other is of small importance, for by
1175 there was a vague organization,70 and the masters had already multiplied
sufficiently at Paris to form a society and develop corporate grievances. They
do not seem to have protested the special privilege given to Peter Comestor,
and in 1212 they had more than the one complaint of fees for the license to
make. The essentially formative years of the guild of masters and of the univer-
sity, the middle decades of the twelfth century, from as early at least as 1140 to
about 1178, coincided with the very period during which—excepting possibly
four years, 1170–1174—the chancellor of Notre-Dame received a payment from
those who desired to teach. The fee was thus no obstacle to the growth of the
university, above all when the masters themselves profited from teaching and
could very well afford to pay for their position. If Alexander had effectively
forbidden it at Paris, the organization of the masters could hardly have been
hastened; but precisely at Paris he did not strictly enforce the rule, and left
to the chancellor most of his other old rights besides, including the impor-
tant one of judging the fitness of the applicant for the license. Rather than
encouraging and hastening the growth of the Society of Masters, Alexander,
perhaps unintentionally, by his legislation on scholastic simony would have,
other things being equal, retarded the development. The movements of the
century, however, were more powerful than papal decrees, and the intellectual
renaissance, whatever its causes, resulted in the concentration of masters and
students at Paris in spite of fees for the license and lack of statutes for exami-
nations. The masters were already a de facto corporation when they obtained
positive privileges from the papacy in the thirteenth century.
66 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 14 and 16; cf. supra, p. 20, note 53.

67 Ibid., I, nos. 14 and 16.
68 Cf. ibid., I, pars introd., no. 8, note 1, for the date.
69 Innocent III, in the letter of 1212 (Ch.U.P., I, no. 14), says that the abuses of the chancellor’s
office that he wishes to correct did not exist when he was a student at Paris; one infers
that the chancellor did not then exact a fee. On Innocent III as a student at Paris, cf.
A. Luchaire, Innocent III. Rome et l’Italie, 3rd edition (Paris, 1917), p. 3.
70 Cf. supra, p. 21, note 58.
26 CHAPTER 1
It is possible now to consider the conclusions to which the scholastic leg-

islation of Alexander III led Rashdall:71 “The control of the chancellor on the
one hand, and the right of the competent teacher to a gratuitous license on
the other, formed the basis of the French educational system. The control of
the chancellor distinguished it from the early Italian system: without the cor-
responding right, a University of Masters could never have grown up at all.
The right to the license once established, there was nothing to prevent the
multiplication of masters in connexion with any famous church-school.” As
we have seen, at Paris the chancellor indeed had control over the schools and
masters; and the masters had the right to the license, but not a full right, since
the chancellor passed on the fitness of the candidate. Moreover, the license
was probably not gratuitous before 1178, possibly not before the beginning of
the thirteenth century. The teachers in all ecclesiastical schools of France had
the legal right after 1170–1172 to a free license; but at Paris the chancellor, or at
least one chancellor, Peter Comestor, had, if my reading of Alexander’s letter is
correct, the equally legal right to demand his precium. Thus of these two ele-
ments, chancellor-control and the right of the teacher to a gratuitous license,
which were the basis of the French educational system, only one, the former,
was part of the system at Paris during the formative period of the Society of
Masters. Against Rashdall’s statement, therefore, that without the right to a
gratuitous license “a University of Masters could never have grown up at all,”
stands the evidence that a University of Masters did grow up at Paris without
the right to a free license, and also without the right of forcing the chancellor
to accept their examination and of passing the candidate before the license
was conferred. The masters of the various sciences were already a de facto uni-
versity when in 1212 and later, supported by the papacy, they finally wrested
these prerogatives from the chancellor. Even before Alexander III provided
them with the half-privilege of obtaining the license if they were competent,
they had multiplied at Paris; there was no serious obstacle to their multiplica-
tion. In a word, the teachers at Paris developed into an organization, into the
University of Masters, without privileges, in spite of minor hindrances such as
fees and the qualification of competency, as a result of the advantages offered
by the city and of the intellectual and guild movements of the twelfth century.
In this regulation of the licentia docendi Alexander III did not directly influ-
ence, either adversely or favorably, the rise of the university.72
71 Op. cit., I, 284.

72 Any direct influence on the growth of the masters into a university must be sought in
Alexander’s encouragement of student-canons by granting dispensations from the resi-
dence obligation, e.g., at Modena and York (cf. Jaffé-Loewenfeld, nos. 12853 and 13879);
In the constitutional history of none of the centers of learning that devel-

oped into universities at the end of the twelfth century, Bologna, Montpellier,
Oxford, and Paris, did Alexander play an important part. His legislation had no
application whatever at Bologna and Oxford, and only very indirectly, if at all,
at Montpellier. It related to Paris only in so far as the schools were episcopal,
that is, under the official of the cathedral chapter, the chancellor. Alexander
did not, like the popes of the thirteenth century, have a ‘university conscious-
ness’. His legislation aimed at stopping feudal practices in the Church, at cen-
tralizing papal authority. It purposed also to encourage learning by helping
the teachers in episcopal schools, but not, in practice, those in great centers
of learning. The prohibition of scholastic simony was enforced locally, at less
important centers of learning, at Châlons, Bourges, or Winchester, but not at
Paris. The importance of Alexander’s control of the chancellor lies in its effect
as a precedent on papal regulation of the universities in the thirteenth century;
the chancellor, obliged by Alexander to accept papal interference in his su-
perintendency of the schools, became the representative of the papacy in the
university, a development, however, which was completed after the masters
and students had organized. The cathedral schools—with the sole and quali-
fied exception of Paris, which, however, by 1160 was no longer one of the local
type—did not become universities; those centers of learning that had their
origin in the twelfth century and became universities developed out of natural
conditions of the time that were too strong to be greatly affected by the decrees
of Alexander III.
of several students at Paris, given papal protection or prebends (cf. ibid., nos. 11040, 11519;
Ch.U.P., I, pars introd., no. 13); of certain masters teaching, e.g., Gerardus Puella, to have
a benefice so long as he was teaching (ibid., no. 10); and, because of their learning or for
political reasons, of certain masters by giving them benefices, e.g., David of London (cf.
Jaffé-Loewenfeld, nos. 11716, 11718, 11917, 11915, 11916, 11918; Migne, CC, 643, 737; Spicilegium
Liberianum, ed. F. Liverani (Florence, 1863), pp. 544, 545, 547; cf. Brooke, “The Register of
Master David of London,” in Essays in History presented to R. Lane Poole (Oxford, 1927).
But there was yet no general papal provision for students, only local confirmation of
chapter statutes, or the encouragement of individuals, who were favored for special rea-
sons. There was no general provision for teachers, except for the master in each cathedral
church for poor students; most of the teachers were not salaried by the Church, but were
paid by their students. Yet already, and far more in the thirteenth century, this support by
benefices of a few, and the hope of ecclesiastical dignities in the future, were beginning to
attract more and more students to the great centers of learning.
CHAPTER 2
The License-System of the University of Paris in the

Thirteenth Century
After Alexander III, the popes of the twelfth century played no part in the de-
velopment of the license-system of the universities that had become important
by 1200. The opening of the new century suddenly disclosed Paris, Bologna,
and Oxford as at least de facto corporations in conflict with ecclesiastical or
secular authorities; and the papacy was forced to intervene in the ambitious
struggles of the universities for independence of any control but that of the
popes themselves. In all universities where the masters formed the real corpo-
rations, the question of the license and admission of the new masters to the
societies of masters or faculties was fundamental. In breaking loose from local
ecclesiastical control the masters were in one sense merely asserting their right
as corporations to administer their internal affairs and assure the loyalty of
the members. Such was the situation at Paris. There the papacy had to decide
whether the masters should have complete or only partial independence—
subject, of course, to the popes. At some of the universities that arose without
connections to cathedral chapters, the papacy was to subject the masters to a
measure of episcopal administration. The papal policy was well established
by 1254 for all universities that had been constituted by that date, and was to
remain fixed for new universities founded afterwards. To understand the na-
ture of that policy it is necessary to study first the universities of ecclesiastical
origin, and afterwards the universities of secular origin. Of the studia generalia
of ecclesiastical origin, Paris is the best example; and it was usually the model
for later universities regulated by the Church.
By the end of the twelfth century the Society of Masters at Paris was a de
facto corporation.1 While this corporation as yet had no legal recognition, it
1 Cf. Rashdall, Universities. 1. 293 f. and 302 f. Denifle (Universitäten, I, 693 f.) rightly points out
the fact that the masters, having common interests, could voluntarily form a society or cor-
poration even though they depended on the chancellor for the license. If independence of
authorities not belonging to it was an essential for a legal corporation, neither a part nor the
whole of the University of Paris could be called a corporation throughout the thirteenth cen-
tury. Luchaire (L’Université de Paris sous Philippe-Auguste, p. 7) agrees that the universities as
corporations were constituted towards the end of the twelfth century, but wrongly, I think,
assigns their constitution as such to the date of Alexander III’s proclamation of the “double

The License-system of the University of Paris in the 13th C. 29
was none the less real2 in so far as it was able to present organized complaints
against the authority of the bishop and the chancellor. But to make its com-
plaints effective and to secure its corporate position, the Society of Masters
needed the recognition and support of a superior authority. If conflicts had
not arisen with the bishop and chancellor, or with the city of Paris, the corpo-
ration might conceivably have continued to exist quietly without seeking spe-
cial recognition and privileges. Matters of dispute, however, were unavoidable,
for the rising Society of Masters was ambitious and impatient of restrictions,
while the chancellor of Notre-Dame was jealous of the new power growing
uncontrollable under his supervision. What the chancellor’s powers were, we
have seen. Alexander III had left the chancellor in practically complete control
of all that related to the university, limiting his authority only in the matter of
fees for the license and in the acceptance of suitable candidates.3 Even these
restrictions were not absolute: fees were possibly paid for the license,4 and the
masters did not yet have the right to make their examinations valid without
the consent of the chancellor.5 So long as the masters were subjected to the
chancellor and bishop in the licensing of new masters to enter their society,
they could not be an independent corporation, nor could they freely plan mea-
sures of discipline for their own profit and development.
The first two decades of the thirteenth century marked the first stages of
conflict and of complete corporate recognition. Indeed, papal recognition in
a measure preceded, but at the same time accompanied, the first resistance of
the masters against the chancellor’s control of the license. By 1208 or 1209 the
principe de la gratuita et de la liberti du haut enseignement.” As I have explained above

(pp. 23–26), Alexander was unsuccessful in trying to enforce his ideal of the gratuity, and
certainly his ideal of the liberty, of teaching. The Society of Masters was formed in spite of
hindrances. That it was not recognized officially as a corporation until the beginning of the
thirteenth century does not mean that it was not until then a real corporation.
See the conclusion reached by Denifle, op. cit., pp. 68 f., 131, who dates the corporation as
formed by 1209. See infra, note 7.
2
On the nature of corporations in the Middle Ages see O. Gierke, Das deutsche
Genossenschaftsrecht. III, Die Staats- und Korporationslehre des Altertums und des Mittelalters,
pp. 192–236, and 248–290; on the reality of the voluntary Society of Masters as a corporation,
see Rashdall, I, 302 f., and the curious example he cites of the prisoners at Genoa, I, 303,
n. 1; cf. Denifle, op. cit., I, 169–175. See infra, note 19; Innocent III admits that the whole body
of scholars, including masters, was a de juri communi corporation that could elect its own
officials.
3 Supra, pp. 20–26.
4 Supra, pp. 23 f.
5 Supra, p. 26; cf. Denifle, op. cit., I, 385; Rashdall, I, 306; Luchaire, op. cit., p. 40.
30 CHAPTER 2
masters of arts had written statutes, which were in some measure recognized
as valid by Innocent III. Responding to the supplications of the doctors of the-
ology, canon law, and arts, Innocent restored to their consortium a Master G.,
who had violated their statutes.6 It is true that the pope’s letter was not a spe-
cial charter or privilege confirming the corporation of masters, but it did tacitly
confirm it, in that the pope did not question the right of the masters to draw
up statutes for their society and to punish violators of them.7 Implicit in the
letter is the papal validation both of statutes already made and of those
that the society might make in the future. Yet the importance of Innocent’s
6 Ch.U.P., I, no. 8; cf. Rashdall, I, 300–302. The masters had taken an oath to deprive any master
of the benefit of their society who refused to obey their statutes. Before Master G. could
be readmitted Innocent III had to release the masters from their oath. Cf. Rashdall, I, 304;
Luchaire, pp. 37 f. On this letter a gloss of the thirteenth century reads: “Magister G. tertio
admonitus noluit acquiescere ordinationi magistrorum parisien., et immo privatus fuit ben-
eficio societatis eorum.” MS. Casanatense lat. 1094, fol. 121r.
7 Denifle, Univ., I, 68, is of the opinion that this bull of Innocent IV is a good proof of the ex-
istence of a corporation. But L. Halphen, “Débuts de l’Université de Paris,” Studi Medievali,
Nuova Serie (1929), pp. 134–139, disagrees, maintaining that the words universitas and societas
are used only in their current, loose sense, and that Master G. was deprived not of member-
ship in the university, but of association with the professors and of the advantages derived
therefrom (p. 135). M. Halphen, however, seems to reason a little too closely, although he is
right in pointing out (p. 135) that the words “vestra universitas,” in Innocent III’s bull of about
1214–1216 granting the right of procuration to the scholars, are employed again loosely. But,
returning to the bull concerning Master G., one must remember that the masters had drawn
up statutes and had imposed an oath of obedience to these statutes, which oath Master G.
refused to take. M. Halphen does not mention that the masters had taken the oath to exclude
such a member from their society, and had therefore petitioned the pope for release from the
oath that they might readmit Master G. to their communio. Innocent III readmits the master:
“quia tamen constitutum non fuit ut in perpetuum hujusmodi privatio [beneficio societa-
tis] perduraret, et tam juris canonici quam nostri moris existat, ut is qui propter contumaciam
communione privatur, cum satisfactionem congruam exhibuerit, restitutionem optineat, uni-
versitati vestre presentium auctoritate mandamus, quatinus supradictum magistrum statutis
vestris humiliter curantem ad communionis vestre consortium in magistralibus admittatis.”
(Ch.U.P., I, 67 f.) The combination of universitas, communio, consortium, and societas,—all
of these words except communio were at this time synonymous with one another, and dis-
tinctions between them were not important (Gierke, Deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, III, 193,
248)—makes it difficult to maintain that the pope is not addressing a corporation in the
legal sense, a corporation with its statutes and privilege of expelling members who may be
readmitted according to a principle of “juris canonici” and custom—the implication being
that such members are legally expelled, and are readmitted only after due satisfaction made
to the corporation.
confirmation of these statutes8 must not be exaggerated, for full papal recog-
nition of the right of the masters to make constitutions did not come until
12159 and 1231.10 Moreover, the regulation of the license and of the admission of
masters to the society is not here in question: it is too important, involving too
greatly the prerogatives of the chancellor, to be granted offhand to the masters.
Until the Society of Masters could restrict the power of the chancellor over
the license, their right to make statutes regulating other matters was of minor
importance as late as the conflict with the friars in 1250–1259.
To attain full growth, therefore, the University of Masters must limit the
control of the chancellor and gain the legal right to examine the candidates
before the chancellor granted the license. Magisterial examination, or at least
recommendation, was perhaps customary in the twelfth century,11 but the
chancellor was not compelled to accept its decision.12 At the beginning of the
thirteenth century the chancellor’s position with regard to the masters was
that of an official who was not a member of the Society of Masters,13 but who
had, owing to his office and to the nature of the development of the university
from the cathedral school, immediate ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the mas-
ters and students, with the right to deprive a master of his license, to enforce
his judgments by excommunication or imprisonment, and to issue ordinances
for the administration and discipline of the members of the university.14 The
chancellor was, of course, directly subject to the interference of the bishop of
Paris; both the chancellor and the bishop were naturally in turn responsible to
Rome. It hardly even needs stating that, as both the bishop and the chancellor
on the one hand, and the masters and students as clerks on the other, were
under the superior authority of the papacy,15 it was the pope who held the
balance of power in the struggle for prerogatives.16 Let us see how and to what
extent the popes intervened in favor of the university.
8 The statutes seem to have been three in number, dealing with the dress of the masters, the
observance of the “accustomed order in lectures and disputations,” and “attendance at the
funerals of deceased masters.” Ch.U.P., I, no. 8; Rashdall, I, 300 f.
9 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20; infra. Chap. VII, pp. 159 f.
10 Ibid. I, no. 79; infra. Chap. VII.; see pp. 159–163. The discussion of the right of the masters
to draw up statutes, see Chap. VII, pp. 158–168.
11 Rashdall, I, 306.
12 Denifle, Universitäten, p. 685; Rashdall, I, 306, somewhat inconsistently, for elsewhere
(I, 284) he insists upon the right of candidates to a free license; cf. supra, p. 26.
14 Rashdall, I, 306; Denifle, pp. 685 f.
15 Hinschius, System des Kirchenrechts, IV, 432 f. and 572 ff.
32 CHAPTER 2
It has just been pointed out that Innocent III did not recognize the right of
the masters to regulate the system of the license when in 1208–1209 he con-
firmed their privilege of expelling or readmitting members of the corporation.17
Yet here was perhaps a shock to the chancellor’s authority, for there is no hint
that his opinion was even consulted about the readmission of Master G. The
conflict broke out, however, not, apparently, because of any encroachment by
the masters upon the prerogatives of the chancellor, but because of the chan-
cellor’s abuse of his rights in granting the license and because of his judicial
authority. Between 1209 and 121218 the students began to complain at Rome19
that the chancellor, Jean de Chandelles, was exacting fees and oaths of fidel-
ity and obedience from candidates passed by the masters as suitable for the
license.20 The significance of the chancellor’s actions is obvious. As Rashdall
so well states it, had the chancellor succeeded in his attempt to secure by oaths
the obedience of the masters to himself, “either the university could not have
continued to exist or the chancellor’s position in it would have become even
more powerful than that of the chancellor of Oxford in the days when he was
really the bishop’s officer and before the masters had succeeded in making
17 Supra, pp. 29–31; Ch.U.P., I, no. 8.

18 Prévostin of Cremona was chancellor from 1206 to 1209; cf. G. Lacombe, Prepositini
cancellarii Parisiensis (1206–1210) opera omnia, I, 36–46. To Prévostin succeeded Jean de
Chandelles, 1209–1215 (Ch.U.P., I, no. 14, note 2, and no. 21, note 1). Considering the char-
acter of the two men, one naturally judges that the quarrel must have begun in abuses
practised by the latter chancellor, and therefore about 1209, or shortly thereafter.
19 In 1210–1211 Innocent III granted to the scholars (scholares at this time probably included
the masters) the right to elect a proctor to represent them (at Rome, says Rashdall; but
probably also at Paris) in cases concerning them; Ch.U.P., I, no. 24: “Quia in causis, que
contra vos et pro vobis moventur, interdum vestra universitas ad agendum et responden-
dum commode interesse non potest, postulastis a nobis ut procuratorem instituere super
hoc vobis de nostra permissione liceret. Licet igitur de jure communi hoc facere valeatis,
instituendi tamen procuratorem super his auctoritate presentium vobis concedimus fac-
ultatem.” Cf. Rashdall, I, 302 and note 1; Denifle, pp. 86 and 688. This was a recognition of
the corporation of masters and students. Innocent also recognizes that it was a de facto
corporation before the scholars asked for a confirmation of it, “Licet igitur de jure com-
muni hoc facere valeatis, etc.” But it was still no independent corporation until it could
free itself of the control of another corporation, the Cathedral Chapter of Paris.
20 Ch.U.P., I, no. 14: “Innocentius … episcopo et … decano et … archidiacono Trecen.…
Miramur non modicum et movemur quod, sicut ex dilectorum filiorum scolarium
Parisiensium querela didicimus, a volentibus scolas regere, quos etiam magistrorum as-
sertio idoneos asserit ad regendum, juramentum fidelitatis vel obedientie ac interdum
pecunie precium dilectus filius … cancellarius Parisiensis nititur extorquere.…” In 1212 a
council of Paris had itself forbidden fees for the license; Labbé-Mansi, XXII, 824.
him merely the executor of their own decrees.21 He would have become him-
self … the head of the master’s guild; and there would have been no room for
the growth of the rectorship.”22
The masters and students, perhaps hardly conscious of the consequences
for the future, saw the immediate effect of the chancellor’s actions upon their
existence as a corporation independent of the Cathedral Chapter at Paris. It
was better to be indirectly dependent on the papacy than directly subject to
constant episcopal intervention through the chancellor.23 The members of
the university, therefore, appealed to Rome. Innocent III instantly responded,
partly because the chancellor had violated the legislation of Alexander III,24
partly because of his natural interest in the university from the days when he
was a student at Paris,25 and partly, perhaps, because of the policy of the popes
to make the new intellectual center dependent on the papacy.26 Expressing
his surprise that the chancellor was treating the students in a way that was
unknown when he was a student at Paris, the pope, writing to the bishop, dean,
21 Cf. Rashdall, II, ii, pp. 355–359.

22 Ibid., I, 309.
23 Until the reform of the chancellor-license-system from 1212 to 1231 the chancellor was
still the representative of the bishop more than of the papacy. Alexander III started the
process of making the chancellor the pope’s representative for granting the license. It was
probably the events of the second and third decades of the century that caused the final
transformation. In 1218 we find for the first time a pope, Honorius III, directly interfer-
ing to order the chancellor to confer the license in theology on Matthew Scot; Ch.U.P., I,
no. 27. Cf. Denifle, Universitäten, pp. 686 f., and note 102, p. 687.
In the theory of the canonists singulae ecclesiae were corporations within the great
corporation of the Church, and their head was the pope. As long as the university was
subject to the corporation of the church of Paris, it could not be an independent corpora-
tion. When it became subject to the pope, it became independent in so far as it was then
itself a complete corporation within the Church, but subject, of course, like ecclesiae sin-
gulae, to the pope. Cf. Gieirke, op. cit., III, 251.
24 Supra, Chap. I, pp. 9–17.
25 Cf. Luchaire, Innocent III. Rome et l’Italie, 3rd edition (Paris, 1917), p. 3; Ch.U.P., I, Introd.,
no. 17.
26 This reason should not be stressed too much. The popes usually intervened, as I hope to
point out in another place, after and not before complaints reached the Roman Court;
and intervention came gradually as points of dispute arose. If on the whole the papacy
inclined to the side of the university until 1250, it was not to subject it to direct papal
control. The popes were careful to adhere to the traditional system while trying to adjust
it by a series of compromises to new conditions and needs. On the general support of the
cause of the university, see Rashdall, I, 309; but, as I intend to show, the papacy was cau-
tious in its support.
34 CHAPTER 2
and archdeacon of Troyes, says that he had already commanded the chancellor
to correct his behavior.27 But if the chancellor had failed to carry out the pope’s
commands, the addressees were to compel him to obey.28
What were the pope’s commands? They were, evidently, that the chancellor
should stop his practice of exacting oaths and fees from the candidates for the
license, and of imprisoning students without just cause.29 There is nothing to
show that Innocent appointed the board that was to effect a compromise; he
merely appointed the bishop, dean, and subdeacon of Troyes as executors to
see that the chancellor obeyed his injunction against abuses, and that what-
ever agreement was effected should be carried out.30 Nor did the pope oth-
erwise call attention to details of the ensuing compromise; they were left for
settlement to the chancellor and masters. This will be an important point to
remember in estimating the personal influence of the pope on the outcome
of the struggle.
At any rate the masters and students, in obtaining Innocent’s letter of 1212,
forced the chancellor’s hand.31 Hence in 1213 it was possible for the conflict-
ing parties themselves to submit their differences to a board of six men, three
representing the chancellor and three the masters and students.32 This board
ordained in the first place that the chancellor should henceforth not require
from candidates for the license oaths of fealty or obedience, or any other ob-
ligation; masters who had previously taken the oath were released from it.33
The chancellor, moreover, should demand neither money nor any substitute
27 Ch.U.P., I, no. 14: “Cum igitur tempore, quo vacavimus Parisius studio litterarum, nun-
quam scolares viderimus sic tractari, eidem cancellario nostris litteris dedimus in precep-
tis, ut sic hujusmodi corrigat per seipsum, quod eum per alium ad id compelli minime
faciamus.”
28 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Ideoque discretioni vestre … mandamus, quatinus, si dictus cancellarius
mandatum nostrum neglexerit adimplere, vos eum a presumptione hujusmodi sublato
appellationis obstaculo censura ecclesiastica compescatis.”
29 The actual letter to the chancellor is lost, but it is doubtful that the pope prescribed rules
for the granting of the license, except for his general condemnation of the exaction of
oaths of fidelity and fees.
30 Ch.U.P., loc. cit.
31 So from the letter of Bishop Pierre de Nemours in 1213, Ch.U.P., I, no. 16: “… notum faci-
mus quod cum contentio verteretur inter J. cancellarium Parisiensem ex una parte, et
magistros et scolares Parisienses ex alia super diversis querelis, ipsi magistri et scolares ad
judices delegatos litteras impetrarunt apostolicas.…”
32 Ibid., loc. cit.
33 Ibid., loc. cit.
for money for granting the license.34 These provisions corresponded to the
abuses condemned by Alexander III in 1170–72 and by Innocent III in the let-
ter cited above, and did not affect the official position of the chancellor. But the
commission of six proceeded to try to remedy the more fundamental source of
trouble, that is, the desire of the masters to have a legal instead of a customary
voice in the qualification of the candidates for the license—a natural desire,
since the masters as a guild could not tolerate that an official outside their body
should determine who were to be its new members. The arrangement made by
the board was a compromise: the masters failed to obtain full autonomy in
controlling the admission of new masters to their consortium. The terms of
the agreement are the more interesting because they reveal the ‘faculties’35 of
arts, theology, canon and civil law, and medicine, as distinct and separate com-
partments within the Society of Masters.36 From the masters of arts, six were
to be chosen semi-annually—three masters by the chancellor, and three by
the faculty37—to act as a board of examiners to testify that the candidate was
suitable for the license. Whom this board or a majority of the board passed, to
him the chancellor must grant the license to teach.38 Similarly, except for the
six special examiners, it was provided for the other faculties that the chancel-
lor should not refuse the license to any one passed as suitable by a majority of
the masters of theology or of the two laws or medicine, as the case might be.39
34 Ibid., loc. cit.

35 But the use of the word ‘faculty’ in this sense does not occur until 1219. On its meaning and
history see Denifle, Universitäten, p. 71.
36 For the question of the influence of the papacy on the development of the faculties, see
infra, Chap. VII, pp. 164–166.
37 My excuse for using the word ‘faculty’ now is that a real organization of the masters of arts
already exists.
38 Ch.U.P., I, no. 16, p. 76: “De magistris quoque artium sex eligentur, tres ab ipsis magistris et
tres a cancellario; et ille cui isti sex vel major pars perhibebunt testimonium fide corpo-
raliter prestita quod idoneus sit, cancellarius non poterit ei denegare licentiam … Singulis
autem sex mensibus removebuntur isti sex, at alii ad id sex similiter eligentur.” It is not
clear whether “major pars” refers to the six examiners or to all the masters of arts; prob-
ably to the former.
39 Ibid., loc. cit., p. 75. In medicine not a majority of the faculty, but the members of it under
whom the candidate has studied testify. On the compromise of 1213 see Rashdall, I, 309
f; Denifle, pp. 685–688; G. Kaufmann, Geschichte der deutschen Universitäten, I, 251;
Luchaire. L’Université de Paris sous Philippe Auguste, pp. 40–45; Thurot, De l’organization
de l’enseignement, p. 11 f. The teaching of civil law at Paris was prohibited by Honorius III
in 1219 (Ch.U.P., I, no. 33, p. 92), but it perhaps continued to be taught nevertheless to a
small extent; cf. G. Périés, La faculté de droit dans l’ancienne Université de Paris, pp. 93–108.
36 CHAPTER 2
These provisions were all in favor of the masters. They now were freed from
obligations and fees to the chancellor, and could force the chancellor to ac-
cept their candidates for the license. The chancellor, however, retained an
important privilege. If he so desired, he could give the license to anyone with-
out asking the masters of the faculty in question for evidence of fitness,40 ex-
cept that in the case of theologians he could not license a candidate, whether
passed by the masters or by himself, if the number in the faculty was fixed and
already attained. In the latter event the arrangement was to be what it was
before the present agreement.41 What was the license-system for theologians
prior to 1213? In 1207 Innocent III limited the masters of theology teaching at
Paris to the number of eight,42 but did not touch the matter of the confer-
ring of the license. Evidently, unless the provision of 1213 refers to an arrange-
ment now lost, it was the old chancellor-system, with no legal participation
in it of the regent theologians. We may suppose that if the number of theolo-
gians reached eight, the limit set by Innocent, the chancellor could refuse the
license even to candidates passed by a majority of the faculty. Here, then, was
perhaps another privilege left to the chancellor.43 It should be noted that these
powers remained more for the person than for the office of the chancellor,
for it is expressly stated that the provisions concerning magisterial evidence
and examination were to be valid only so long as Jean de Chandelles should
hold the chancellorship.44 Except for the condemnation of oaths and fees, the
After 1219, however, there could be no recognized faculty of the two laws, but only a fac-
ulty of canon law.
40 Ch.U.P., I, no. 16: “… salvo hoc ipsi cancellario, quod ipse possit dare licentiam [in theol-
ogy] cui viderit esse dandam etiam non habito testimonio aliquorum magistrorum vel
alicujus magistri … Aliis [in the two laws] quibus voluerit dare poterit licentiam sine testi-
monio illorum vel alicujus magistro.” The same concession is made for medicine (but not
stated) and for the arts.
41 Ch.U.P., I, no. 16, p. 76: “Et iste articulus maneat, quamdiu non erit taxatus numerus the-
ologorum; et si forte fuerit taxatus, sit de hoc articulo sicut erat ante compromissum.”
Thurot, De l’Organization de l’enseignement, p. 112, thinks that this clause means that the
number was passed in 1213; that is, the number of eight fixed by Innocent III (Ch.U.P., I,
no. 5); cf. Powicke, Stephen Langton, p. 26.
42 Ibid., I, no. 5.
43 Rashdall, I, 311, and Luchaire, pp. 40–45, do not sufficiently emphasize the concessions
made to the chancellor. Denifle, pp. 688–690, recognizes the powers of the chancellor as
made evident in later developments in the struggle; but the prerogatives of the chancel-
lor are obvious in the compromise of 1213. Thurot, op. cit., pp. 12 and 49 f., fails to note its
temporary character.
44 Ch.U.P., I, no. 16, p. 75: “Alia vero que sequuntur ad tempus tenebunt, quamdiu videlicet
predictus cancellarius cancellariam tenebit.” Then follow the provisions on magisterial
compromise was therefore only temporary; and we shall find the masters and
chancellor again in conflict over the license immediately after the assumption
of the office by Philippe (de Grève?) about 1218.45
One more observation on the agreement of 1213 is of importance. If the
chancellor persisted in his refusal of the license to a candidate from any of the
four faculties who had been recommended by a majority of the masters, or by
the board of six in the arts, the bishop of Paris might grant the license.46
The influence of Innocent III, on this temporary settlement may now be
estimated. Upon receiving the complaints of the students and masters he had
ordered the chancellor to make an end of collecting fees and demanding obe-
dience from the candidates for the license, and he had appointed the bishop,
dean, and archdeacon of Troyes to see that the chancellor obeyed the papal
mandates.47 The chancellor, as we have seen, agreed to forego oaths of fealty
and obedience, as well as any kind of fee for the license.48 Here, certainly, the
influence of the pope is direct and decisive, but it does not change the legal
position of the chancellor, nor limit his functions. There is indeed no indica-
tion in Innocent’s letter that it was intended by the pope that the chancellor
should lose any of his legitimate rights in the superintendency of the masters
and students. The pope’s aim was to eradicate abuses of these rights, abuses al-
ready condemned by Alexander III, whose condemnation of fees had already
become a part of canon law. What followed in the agreement of 1213 apparently
did not proceed from papal commands or instigation, except in so far as it was
the pope’s desire that an arrangement should be accomplished. Innocent ap-
pointed the bishop of Troyes and his officers to observe the proceedings and to
ratify whatever was settled upon as a compromise between the chancellor and
the university. The details of the compromise itself were left to the conflicting
parties for determination, each of which appointed three members of a com-
mittee of six, as related above, for the discussion and settlement of the points
examinations. Périés, op. cit., p. 11, is wrong in dating from 1213 the effective participation
of the masters of law in the examinations; the power to force the chancellor to license
their candidates was not fully recognized by the papacy until the sixth and seventh de-
cades of the century. Infra, pp. 71 f.
45
Ibid., I, no. 27, note 3, and no. 29; cf. infra, p. 40.
46
Ch.U.P., I, no. 16, p. 76: “Quod si forte denegaverit cancellarius, ex tunc quandocumque
voluerit auctoritate nostra habeat legendi licentiam;” that is, by the bishop’s authority,
since it is the bishop who is reporting the agreement. This provision is stated for each
faculty except for that of canon and civil law, but doubtless applies to the latter also.
47
Ibid., I, no. 14; supra, pp. 33–34.
48
Ibid., I, no. 16.
38 CHAPTER 2
in dispute.49 This committee, after long deliberation and thoughtful consid-

eration, relying on the advice of experienced men, settled the difficulties in
the manner just outlined.50 Their settlement of the question of the admission
of candidates to the license was directly affected by the papacy only on one
point, the limitation of the number of theologians.51 The participation of the
masters in the examination and the license was not ordered by the pope. It
is doubtful, however, that the masters would have gained the little they did
towards controlling the admission of new men to their ranks had Innocent not
brought the chancellor to better behavior in the matter of abuses. Possibly the
chancellor was persuaded to concede a little to the masters by the thought that
the pope would otherwise grant them still more.
In the first phase, then, in the conflict between the chancellor and the uni-
versity, the pope acted on the whole not as a creator of a new system but rather
as a referee and as the natural superior authority for confirming and compel-
ling observance of the statutes of the university. For if it was not Innocent
himself, it was nevertheless his delegates, the bishop, dean, and archdeacon
of Troyes, who confirmed the agreement52 of 1213 as soon as the chancellor,
Jean de Chandelles, promised to observe its provisions.53 That the pope influ-
enced only indirectly the compromise is, I think, the more certain considering
the temporary character of the settlement54 and the inconclusiveness of the
results. Innocent did not attempt to change the position of the chancellor, who
remained, as before, the official for granting the license to teach; nor did he
urge the masters to acquire a certain measure of participation in the examina-
tions. What was of real importance was the papal confirmation of the system
as reformed by the compromise; what the masters gained at one moment, the
pope’s sanction alone could enable them to hold.55
A second confirmation by Innocent III of the agreement of 1213 was in effect
given in 1215 through the statutes of the Cardinal-Legate Robert Curzon. The
pope ordered him to devote himself to reforming “in melius” the condition of
the students of Paris, and the legate accordingly drew up his statutes after due
49 Ch.U.P., I, no. 16.

50 Ibid., loc. cit.
51 Supra, note 41 and p. 36.
52 Ch.U.P., I, no. 18.
53 Ch.U.P., I, no. 17.
54 Supra, note 44.
55 But papal sanction for the compromise of 1213 was ended by the new statutes of 1228 and
1232; hence the masters did not hold what they gained in 1213.
consultation with men acquainted with the needs of the university.56 The stat-
utes provided that no one should lecture in arts under twenty years of age, nor
without a preparation of six years in the faculty of arts. The candidate must tes-
tify that he would lecture at least two years. Having fulfilled these conditions,
and also the condition of a good character, he would be examined according
to the form established by the agreement of 1213.57 Similarly, it was provided
for candidates for the license in theology that thirty-five years was fixed as the
minimum age, with eight years of preparatory study, five of which were to be
in theology.58 Obviously the masters should observe these rules in conducting
the examinations. As we have seen, the chancellor must grant the license to
candidates passed by the masters, and thus indirectly his function was touched
by the statutes. There is no provision, however, that the chancellor should ob-
serve the age-limit and prerequisite studies in conferring the license on can-
didates of his own choice. It is nevertheless possible that the chancellor did
conform to these rules, else there would have been complaints in the future
from the masters on this point, complaints that are not found until the time
of the conflict with the Dominicans.59 Barring these prescriptions for students
‘coming up’ for examinations, the statutes did not in any way alter the official
relations between the chancellor and the masters; they continued the force of
the compromise of 1213, even repeating the injunction against oaths and fees.60
56 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20, p. 78.

57 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20, p. 78: “Nullus legat Parisius de artibus citra vicesimum primum etatis sue
annum, et quod sex annis audierit de artibus ad minus, antequam ad legendum accedat,
et quod protestetur se lecturum duobus annis ad minus, … et quod non sit respersus ali-
qua infamia, et quod cum legere disposuerit, examinetur quilibet secundam formam, que
continetur in scripto domini P. Parisiensis episcopi, ubi continetur pax confirmata inter
cancellarium et scolares a judicibus delegatis a domino papa.…” Cf. infra, pp. 165–66.
58 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Circa statum theologorum statuimus, quod nullus Parisius legat citra trice
simum quintum etatis sue annum, et nisi studuerit per octo annos ad minus, et libros
fideliter et in scolis audierit, et quinque annis audiat theologiam, antequam privatas
lectiones legat publice, et illorum nullus legat ante tertiam in diebus, quando magistri
legunt.”
59 Infra, pp. 55–64.
60 But this time the emphasis is shifted from the chancellor to the students, indicating that
some candidates who lacked confidence in their learning were willing to procure the li-
cense by means other than the regular path through magisterial examination; Ch.U.P., I,
no. 20, p. 79: “Nullus incipiat licenciatus a cancellario vel ab alio data ei pecunia vel fide
prestita, vel alia conventione habita.” Possibly “ab alio” refers to the bishop, who could
grant the license if it was refused by the chancellor.
40 CHAPTER 2
In 1219 the weakness of the compromise of 1213 was revealed. It was tem-
porary in character, and it was not made permanent by Robert Curzon:61 the
compromise granting the masters participation in the examination was valid,
apparently, only during the chancellorship of Jean de Chandelles.62 About 1218
a new chancellor, Philippe,63 supported by the bishop, began his career of op-
position to the growing powers of the guild of masters. It seems that Philippe
began his term by depriving of their chairs certain masters who had received
the license from his predecessor.64 Was the new chancellor acting within his
right? Undoubtedly he was, for he was not compelled by any statutes to follow
the regulations made for Jean de Chandelles, and he could risk refusing the
license to candidates passed by the masters, or the magisterial chair to a man
who had been licensed by his predecessor. Philippe was determined to take
advantage of the end of the validity of the provisions of 1213 in order to regain
all the power the chancellor had formerly enjoyed over the masters. The mas-
ters and students were equally determined to retain the advantages they had
temporarily acquired in 1213 and 1215, and they chose to regard the statutes of
those years as irrevocable. Evidently their attitude was shared by Honorius III,
who pretended that the chancellor was violating the agreement made under
papal authority, temporary as it was.65 Hence it was that the pope granted to
the scholars that anyone who had been given the license by the chancellor
61 The permanency of the statutes of 1215 applied, it seems, only to the new provisions con-
tained in them; but they reconfirmed the agreement of 1213, therefore its temporary va-
lidity. Rashdall, I, 310, implies by silence that the statutes made the compromise of 1213
permanent. The statutes of 1228 and 1230 show that by then the compromise was not
considered as in effect.
62 Supra, p. 36.
63 Ch.U.P., I, no. 27, note 3. Between Jean de Chandelles and Philippe, in the years 1215–1218,
Étienne de Reims was chancellor; ibid., I, no. 21, note 1.
64 Ibid., I, no. 29; Honorius III to the students of Paris, February 18, 1219: “Oblata siquidem
nobis ex parte vestra petitio reseravit, quod cum quidam vestrum regendi sollicitudinem
assumpturi legendi licentiam ab eo ad quem ipsius collatio pertinere dinoscitur fuerint
assecuti, quia is ad quem collationis dignitas supradicte pertinet decessit interdum seu
cessit etiam dignitati impetrante cathedram magisterii non adepto, propositum regere
volentium extitit aliquando impeditum, causas difficultatis eo qui successerit ingerente.”
The new chancellor, at least, seems to have believed that the provisions of 1213 were not
binding on him. But in the following May Honorius III assumes, possibly because he was
not fully informed or was misinformed by the petition of the scholars, that the compro-
mise of 1213 was still valid: “cancellarius ipse [Philippe] … contemptis statutis, que super
hiis facta fuerunt per judices a sede apostolica delegatos, magistros ab officio suo suspen-
dere ac scolares mancipare carceri non veretur” (ibid., I, no. 31, p. 89).
65 See previous note.
could retain possession of his magisterial chair upon the death of that chancel-
lor, unless he was found unfit by the new chancellor.66
Meanwhile the chancellor and bishop were trying, by excommunication,
to prevent the masters and students from organizing themselves for protec-
tion or for drawing up statutes.67 Honorius III invalidated the sentences of
excommunication,68 and ordered the chancellor to appear at Rome to answer
for his unwarranted actions in imprisoning students and suspending masters
from office.69 There was as yet no permanent limitation of the chancellor’s
right to give the license, nor again in 1222 when Honorius asked the archdea-
cons of Rheims and Sens to prevent the bishop, his official or the chancellor
from exacting fees, oaths, or obedience of any kind,70 pending the arbitration
of the conflict by the papal judges delegated in 1221.71 As Rashdall remarks,
“the Bulls of 1219 and 1222 are of an interlocutory character;”72 however, they
protected the students and masters, and aided their boycott of the chancellor
until the conflict was settled. Honorius did, it must be remarked, disregard in
the meantime the chancellor’s claim to grant the license outside the Isle-de-
la-Cité, for he ordered the bishop and chancellor pendente lite not to molest
masters of the arts licensed by the abbot of Sainte-Geneviève.73
This restraint of the bishop’s and chancellor’s jurisdiction is of some im-
portance. Let us leave for the moment the question of the chancellor’s
66 Ch.U.P., I, no. 29: “… duximus concedendum ut is, qui cupit ascendere cathedram ma-
gistralem, postquam regendi licentiam ab eo, ad quem ipsius collatio pertinet, fuerit as-
secutus, concedentis cessione vel obitu non obstante libere possit in ea, de qua licentiam
obtinuit, regere facultate, nisi a successore forte aliquid objectum fuerit et probatum,
propter quod a regendi regimine sit merito repellendus.” This mandate was no real limita-
tion of the rights of the new chancellor; it even went against the compromise of 1213. See
note 92.
67 Ibid., I, nos. 30 and 31; cf. infra, pp. 159–163.
68 Ibid., I, no. 31; cf. Rashdall, I, 311 ff.
69 Ibid., loc. cit.; supra, note 64. The chancellor went to Rome, but was not tried, since no one
appeared against him; ibid., I, no. 33.
70 Ibid., I, no. 45, p. 103: “… neque predicti episcopus et officialis ac cancellarius a licentian-
dis juramentum aut obendientiam exigant vel aliam cautionem, donec per nos negotium
terminetur.”
71 Ibid., I, no. 41.
73 Ch.U.P., I, no. 45, p. 103: “… nec episcopus et officialis ac cancellarius memorati licentiatos
ab … abbate Sancte Genovefe quin ubi consueverint libere incipere valeant interim mo-
lestabunt.” That the masters of arts are involved here is clear from the bull of Gregory IX
in 1227 extending the prohibition to theologians and decretists; see Rashdall, I, 342,
note 1.
42 CHAPTER 2
authority on the island in order to understand the movement that led to

Honorius’ prohibition, and the effect it had on the license system. In 1222, we
learn, some of the masters had been receiving the license from the abbot of
Sainte-Geneviève. Now it seems probable that these masters were motivated
by the desire to escape the exactions renewed since 1218 by the chancellor74
by placing themselves outside the territory of his jurisdiction.75 The chan-
cellor and bishop naturally tried to extend their jurisdiction and deprive of
their license masters who began to teach on the left bank of the Seine; hence
Honorius III’s censure of their molestation of the masters of arts licensed by
the abbot. The masters of arts were the first to move their schools from the
island,76 but the theologians and decretists followed. The chancellor of Notre-
Dame in obedience to Honorius, apparently giving up the masters of arts,
tried to force by means of the oath the masters of the other two faculties to
teach on the island, “inter duos pontes.” Again the pope intervened, this time
Gregory IX in 1227, addressing himself directly to Chancellor Philippe; and,
while forbidding the chancellor to continue his efforts to keep the masters
under his jurisdiction, Gregory definitely confirmed the right of the abbot of
Sainte-Geneviève to grant the license to the masters on his lands within the
walls of Paris.77 Again in 1231 the abbot was permanently confirmed in this
privilege by Gregory IX, who granted that the masters of arts who had gone
to Angers or Orleans because of the dispersion of 1229 could lecture again at
Paris if before their departure they had been examined by the chancellor of
74 See note 73; the words “quin ubi consueverint libere incipere valeant” seem to mean that
the masters had sought the license from the abbot because they had been unable to incept
freely, owing to the chancellor’s demands, where they had been accustomed to incept,
that is, on the island; but Denifle, Univ., p. 666, interprets the passage as meaning that
the masters licensed by the abbot should be permitted to incept wherever they wished.
I think both meanings are permissible. The chancellor and the bishop were throwing ob-
stacles in the way of masters who refused them obedience; the masters had to get off the
island if they would teach without such interference, and in the territory of the abbey
they would not be molested; though as we see the cathedral officials tried to pursue them
even there. Cf. Rashdall, I, 341.
Honorius intended this command to be valid until (“interim”) the whole conflict could
be settled; Gregory IX made it permanent, infra, p. 49.
76 Denifle, op. cit., p. 666.
77 Ch.U.P., I, no. 55. Cf. Denifle, op. cit., p. 666. Gregory also appointed judges to settle the
dispute between the chancellor and the abbot (Ch.U.P., I, no. 56). While their decision
does not appear, it was incorporated in the provisions of the agreement soon effected by
the papal legate; infra, note 78.
Notre-Dame, or by the abbot of Sainte-Geneviève, or by the masters.78 In 1255,

instead of the abbot, the chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève was the official who
conferred the license on masters in the territory of the abbey.79 Thus, as a re-
sult of the conflict of 1218–1228 and of direct papal intervention, the bishop
and the chancellor of Notre-Dame found their control of the license shared
by a new power. What was worse—from the point of view of the cathedral
dignitaries—the masters of any faculty (it happened, however, that only the
masters of arts moved onto the abbey lands) could, in case of trouble with the
chancellor of Notre-Dame, direct their students to apply for licenses only at
Sainte-Geneviève;80 and such was perhaps the event in 1292, when the masters
of arts forbade bachelors of arts to be examined and licensed by the chancellor
of the cathedral.81 Like the threat of dispersion, the right to choose between
two authorities for the license might be for the masters a means of checking
real or fancied abuses of the statutes by the chancellor of Notre-Dame, or of
gradually encroaching upon that official’s undoubted rights.
If the cathedral chancellor’s rights over the license were limited territori-
ally, on the Isle-de-la-Cité itself his traditional control of the license remained
effective. To understand the final outcome of the struggle, which began
about 1218, it is necessary to go back to 1222. In that year, as we have seen,
78 Ibid., I, no. 89: “… Decano Suessionensi et magistro Symoni de Alteis canonico

Ambianensi. Cum sicut nobis est pro certo relatum magistri artium et phisice faculta-
tis, qui in Andegavensi vel Aurelianensi civitate licentia obtenta rexerunt, prius a dilectis
filiis … cancellario Parisiensi vel … abbate Sancte Genovefe aut a magistris discessionis
tempore juxta formam a dilecto filio nostro R. Sancti Angeli diacono cardinali Portuensi
electo, tunc apostolice sedis legato, traditam examinati fuissent, quia si eos iterum ex-
aminari vel licentiari contingeret, ex hoc posset dissensionis occasio suboriri: volumus et
mandamus, quatinus eis pro bono pacis hac vice, ut libere legant Parisius.…” Cf. Denifle,
p. 668. This document shows that the abbot had won a permanent right over the license
by the statutes of the Legate Romano, and by Gregory’s confirmation of them.
79 Ch.U.P., I, no. 260; Rashdall, I, 342.
80 Rashdall, loc. cit. It seems that when the university dissolved itself in 1255 (infra, p. 66)
some students in arts sought the license from the chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève. In
1259, after the trouble with the friars was settled, the faculty of arts decreed that no
one should apply to the abbey for the license without its consent (Ch.U.P., I, no. 333).
Alexander IV confirmed this decree, and ordered the chancellor to grant the license only
to candidates who had been examined by four masters of the faculty (ibid., I, no. 346;
cf. no. 363). In fact, the chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève depended more than the chancel-
lor of the cathedral on the faculty of arts (cf. Thurot, op. cit., p. 53).
81 Ch.U.P., II, no. 579. But the statute does not, as Rashdall, I, 342, says, command the bach-
elors to apply to Sainte-Geneviève for licenses; nor does it forbid them to do so. The chan-
cellor of the cathedral remained the chief official over the university.
44 CHAPTER 2
Honorius III appointed a commission to protect the masters and students

against the bishop and chancellor until the dispute could be allayed by a new
agreement between the conflicting parties.82 Through the efforts and media-
tion of the Cardinal-Legate Romano a settlement was effected towards the
beginning of 1228,83 which at the request of the masters and students was con-
firmed in the same year by Gregory IX.84 The provisions of the new agreement
have not survived, but we know in general what matters were treated—the
license, constitutions made by the masters concerning lectures and disputa-
tions, punishment of rebels against the constitutions, house-rents, and ‘certain
other articles’—85 and from scattered evidence it is possible to reconstruct, in
a measure, a few of the provisions. Here for the moment it is question of the
license-system, of the respective rights of the bishop and chancellor on the
one hand and of the masters on the other in examining and licensing can-
didates to be admitted into the corporation. Since Honorius III in 1222 had
again forbidden the exaction of oaths or obedience,86 we may be sure that
the new statutes repeated the provision of 1213 and 1215,87 that the bishop and
chancellor should not in any way, by oaths or fees, try to bind the candidates
to themselves. Who the examiners were is a difficult question that cannot be
decided with certainty. It seems, however, from the bull of Gregory IX concern-
ing masters who had gone to Angers and Orleans and had then returned to
Paris in 1231, that the duty of examining applicants for the license was shared
by the chancellor of the cathedral, the abbot of Sainte-Geneviève, and by the
masters.88 Whether the chancellor and the abbot were compelled to accept
candidates approved by the masters of each of the four faculties, as was the
case in 1213, it is impossible to say, but it is not likely that there was any seri-
ous compulsion of that kind on these two dignitaries, considering the statutes
three years later in the bull Parens scientiarum. One thing at least is certain: the
82 Ch.U.P., I, no. 45; supra, pp. 41–42.

83 The bull directed by Gregory IX to the chancellor, and dated November 22, 1227 (ibid.,
I, no. 55), against interference with masters licensed by the abbot of Sainte-Geneviève,
indicates that the general dispute was not yet settled; for, as I shall point out, this prohibi-
tion itself was apparently incorporated in the agreement effected by the legate. Gregory’s
confirmation of this agreement is dated June 3, 1228 (ibid., I, no. 58). The date of the settle-
ment was, then, sometime between these dates; probably nearer the latter.
84 Ibid., I, no. 58.
85 Ibid., loc. cit.
86 Supra, pp. 41–42.
87 Supra, p. 40.
88 Ch.U.P., I, no. 89.
license could be obtained either from the chancellor or from the abbot,89 and
the chancellor’s control of the license, however effective on the Isle-de-la-Cité,
did not necessarily extend over the candidates under masters in the territory
of the abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, though it may be that such aspirants could
apply to the chancellor for the license if they so desired. If the chancellor or
abbot could grant the license, it is improbable that either one could arbitrarily
deprive a master of his degree and of his chair in a faculty, for, as pointed out
earlier, Innocent III had recognized the right of the masters to expel a member
of their corporation,90 and Honorius III in 1219 reprimanded the chancellor for
unjustly depriving masters of their chairs.91 Once more, it must be observed
that there was not absolute forbiddance of such an exercise of the chancellor’s
power: a master who had obtained the license from Jean de Chandelles before
1218, and who was proved unfit to hold a chair, could rightly, says Honorius, be
deprived of his license and office by the succeeding chancellor, Philippe.92 I
am aware of no evidence to prove that this privilege was ever rescinded by
the papacy, although in practice it was probably not employed by a chancellor
after this time.93
Just as the agreement of 1213 and the statutes of Robert Curzon were the
high points of one period, extending from Alexander III to Honorius III, in the
development of the license-system, so too did the settlement effected by the
Legate Romano mark the end of a second period, 1218–1228. Papal intervention
in each period resulted only in a compromise, in which the chancellor of the
cathedral was restrained from abuses condemned repeatedly by Alexander III,
Innocent III, and Honorius III, but was left with important rights that were,
within the territory of his jurisdiction, somewhat more extensive in 1228 than
in 1213–1218. In the second period the papacy interfered more directly than
in the first, particularly in giving the privilege of the license to the abbey of
89 See the preceding note, and notes 73–77.

90 Ch.U.P., I, no. 8; supra, p. 30.
91 Ibid., I, no. 31; supra, p. 40.
92 Supra, note 61; Ch.U.P., I, no. 29: “… duximus concedendum ut is, qui cupit ascendere
cathedram magistralem, postquam regendi licentiam ab eo, ad quem ipsius collatio per-
tinet, fuerit assecutus, concedentis cessione vel obitu non obstante libere possit in ea, de
qua licentiam obtinuit, regere facultate, nisi a successore forte aliquid objectum fuerit et
probatum, propter quod a regendi regimine sit merito repellendus.”
93 Cf. Rashdall, I, 340. By 1256 only the pope could, as will be explained later, definitely
deprive a master of his license and chair. Thus Alexander IV deprived Guillaume de
Saint-Amour of his chair in the faculty of theology (Ch.U.P., I, nos. 262, 280, 282; infra,
pp. 67–68). The masters could expel members of their society only if the pope confirmed
their act, as the whole conflict with the Dominicans showed; see also ibid., I, no. 400.
46 CHAPTER 2
Sainte-Geneviève, and directly as before in the condemnation of the bishop

and chancellor’s arbitrary acts; but papal intervention was indirect in matters
affecting examinations and the admission of candidates to the license, matters
that were left to discussion and arrangement by the conflicting parties, but
under the whip, so to speak, and supervision and confirmatory powers of papal
judges and of the papal legate. It is obvious, of course, that even where papal
action was indirect, it was none the less necessary and effective in forcing the
parties in dispute to come to an agreement.
The third period extends from 1228 or 1231 to well into the pontificate of
Innocent IV. It begins with the statutes of the bull Parens scientiarum, includes
the dispute between the masters and the bishop of Paris over the question of
the episcopal control of the license during a vacancy of the chancellorship,
and ends with Innocent IV’s confirmation of the settlement of 1228 and of the
papal statutes of 1231. In one sense the Parens scientiarum belongs with the
compromise of 1228, but it has its own special significance since it followed the
troubles and dispersion of 1229–1231.
The story of the student riot of 1228–29, of its bloody suppression by Blanche
of Castile, of the suspension of lectures, of the dispersion of 1229–1231 and
of Gregory IX’s protection of the students and masters, has been told so fre-
quently and completely that there is no need to relate it at this point.94 While
the bishop, Guillaume d’Auvergne, was hostile to the university,95 the trouble
does not appear to have been complicated by a renewal of abuses by the chan-
cellor in granting the license. Since a few masters and students remained at
Paris during the self-imposed exile of the majority of the masters,96 it is prob-
able that the latter resented the chancellor’s granting the license during the
94 See, for the story of these events, Rashdall, I, 335–339; Delègue, L’Université de Paris
1224–1244, pp. 36–45; N. Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, pp. 53–56; Haskins, The Rise of
Universities, p. 23; idem, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, p. 61, note 4; Matthew Paris, Chron.
Maj., ed. Luard, III, 166–169.
95 Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., III, 168; Délaborde, Oeuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume le
Breton, I, 330.
96 In the spring of 1229 the masters decreed that no one should study or teach in Paris for
six years. They must naturally have resented the violation of this decree by any of the
masters (Ch.U.P., I, no. 62). But some masters did remain in Paris, for example, John of
St. Giles, regent in theology, under whose patronage Roland of Cremona applied for and
obtained the license and filled the first Dominican chair in theology; see Denifle, “Quellen
zur Gelehrtengeschichte des Predigerordens im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert,” Archiv für
Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, II, 173; Mandonnet, “Les Dominicains
dans l’Université de Paris,” Revue Thomiste, IV, 155.
dispersion.97 So long as the bishop and chancellor remained to create new

masters, who could not easily be refused membership by the society when it
was scattered over France and England,98 a part of the official university still
existed, even though it was not the corporation. When peace was established
in 1231 by the intervention of Gregory IX, the masters, on returning to Paris, did
not try to deprive the first Dominican master of theology, Roland of Cremona,
of his chair, although he had been licensed by the chancellor in 1229 during
their absence.99 Whether they could, by statutory right, expel members from
their society is a question that, I think, can be provisionally answered in the
affirmative.100 But it was a point that did not cause conflict until twenty years
later, when the secular masters were bitterly contesting the growing power and
influence of the friars in the university.101
Through the efforts of Gregory IX on their behalf102 the masters in 1231 ob-
tained satisfaction and returned to Paris.103 The pope felt that the settlement
of the difficulties with the royal authority and the citizens of Paris was not
enough. After consultation, therefore, with representatives of the university—
William of Auxerre, accredited in 1230 by the king at Gregory’s command,104
and Geoffrey of Poitiers, sent to Rome in the same year by the masters at
Angers, again at the pope’s request105—Gregory drew up the first papal stat-
utes for the university. In a sense, it is true, the compromise of 1213, the lega-
tine statutes of 1215, and the agreement of 1228 had all been papal provisions
for the university;106 but only indirectly so, for in each case the arrangement
was made at Paris under the supervision of papal judges or legates who had
97 But I find no trace of complaints until 1254 (Ch.U.P., I, no. 230; infra, note 186). Probably
in their eagerness to return to Paris the masters were willing to overlook the chancellor’s
initiative in licensing the first Dominican.
98 Ch.U.P., i, no. 89, note 2; Rashdall, I, 337.
99 Rashdall, i, 370 f.
100 Supra, p. 31.
101 Infra, pp. 54 ff.
102 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 69, 70, 71, 74, 75.
103 Cf. Rashdall, I, 338; Ch.U.P., I, nos. 81–88.
104 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 74 and 75.
105 Ibid., I, no. 75. Cf. ibid., I, no. 90, in which Gregory asks the king to favor Masters William
of Auxerre and Geoffrey of Poitiers, who had aided the pope in the reformation of the
university. Another delegate of the masters at Angers was a Master Alexander; Denifle,
“Zum päpstlichen Urkunden- und Regestenwesen des 13. und 14. Jhs.,” Archiv, III, 630.
106 Innocent III’s limitation of the number of theologians was a statute for the university; but
it scarcely comes into consideration at this point since it did not affect the position of the
chancellor.
48 CHAPTER 2
no definite instructions from the pope except on the matter of oaths and fees,
and except the command to effect an agreement between the contending par-
ties. Honorius III had also directly interfered to protect the abbot of Sainte-
Geneviève; but in doing so he did not change the powers of the chancellor
on the island. The statutes of Gregory IX, however, those of the bull Parens
scientiarum, were drawn up at Rome under the personal direction of the pope,
who, besides commanding the king and the masters to send representatives
to Rome, had asked also for a copy of all the privileges and indulgences of the
university, in order that he might be guided by them.107 We can expect, then,
the provisions of 1231 to follow the traditions and precedents set in the past;
and in fact Gregory did not, on the whole, depart from the line of development
taken by the university; far from being revolutionary, the pope’s statutes were
conservative. How did they affect the license-system?
In the compromise of 1213 the rights of the masters in the matter of exami-
nations were stressed; in 1231 the pope emphasized the rights of the chancellor.
It was provided, it is true, that upon his installation in office by the bishop the
chancellor should take an oath in the presence of two masters as witnesses
for the university, that he would grant the license in theology and canon law
only to suitable men, and reject the unworthy without respect to persons or
nations.108 The oath may be considered a limitation of any arbitrariness on
the part of the chancellor, the more so that he should confer the license ac-
cording to the condition of the city and the honor and reputation of the two
faculties.109 Yet this was only a formal limitation, not an effective one, for the
chancellor could apparently judge whether or not it was advisable to give a
license under certain conditions;110 in any case the license would be granted
“secundum conscientiam suam.” The worthiness of a candidate in theology
107
Ch.U.P., I, no. 75: “Et ut possimus plenius instrui de libertatibus vestris et negotium
vestrum planius expedire, volumus et mandamus, ut transcripta omnium privilegiorum
vel indulgentiarum, que habetis sive a nobis sive a regibus, nobis sub aliquibus sigillis
autenticis transmittatis.”
108
Ch.U.P., I, no, 79, p. 137; “Circa statum itaque scolarium et scolarum hec statuimus ob-
servanda, videlicet, quod quilibet cancellarius Parisiensis deinceps creandus coram
episcopo vel de ipsius mandato in capitulo Parisiensi, vocatis ad hoc et presentibus pro
Universitate scolarium duobus magistris in sua institutione jurabit, quod ad regimen the-
ologie ac decretorum bona fide secundum conscientiam suam loco et tempore secundum
statum civitatis et honorem ac honestatem facultatum ipsarum non nisi dignis licentiam
largietur, nec admittet indignos, personarum et nationum acceptione summota.”
109
Ibid., loc. cit.
110
Ibid., loc. cit., “secundum statum civitatis”; this phrase seems to have back of it the disper-
sion of 1229; in case of disturbances in the city the chancellor could perhaps alter the
and canon law was to be determined through an examination by the chancel-

lor within three months after the license was applied for, based upon infor-
mation obtained from all the masters of theology in the city and from other
learned men. Having made his inquiries, the chancellor should then give or
refuse the license in good faith and according to his conscience.111 The mas-
ters of theology and canon law must upon inception take a public oath that
they would give true testimony as to the candidate’s ability, and the chancellor
must swear that he would not reveal the advice of the masters to their injury.112
Candidates from the other faculties, arts and medicine, were to be examined
by the chancellor, who was to admit, as usual, only the worthy.113 From those
licensed in any faculty the chancellor must never require oaths of obedience
or any pledge, nor receive any emolument or promise for granting the license.114
These provisions applied only to the powers of the chancellor of Notre-
Dame. The privilege of the license possessed since 1222–1228 by the abbot of
Sainte-Geneviève is not mentioned, but the abbot, and later the chancellor of
the abbey, were left in possession of it, as we have seen,115 and probably the
conferment of the license there was regulated by the rules governing it on the
Isle-de-la-Cité.116 Nor is the bishop mentioned. In 1213 he had been empow-
ered to grant the license if under certain conditions the chancellor refused to
do so, but that privilege ended, at least formally, about 1218.117 Here was an
ambiguity in Gregory’s statutes that caused trouble a few years later.118 As for
the cathedral chancellor’s rights, then, they remained limited territorially, but
on the island they were greater than those he enjoyed in 1218. As compared
with those he had by the settlement of 1228, they apparently were similar,
though because of the loss of the provisions made under Legate Romano, no
just comparison can be made. One distinction, however, is possible: in 1228 it
was provided that the candidates should be examined either by the masters or
conditions for the license. In 1254 the masters will use this clause to their own advantage;
ibid., I, no. 230; infra, p. 61.
111
Ibid., I, no. 79.
112
Ibid., loc. cit.: “Magistri vero theologie ac decretorum, quando incipient legere, prestabunt
publice juramentum, quod super premissis fidele testimonium perhibebunt. Cancellarius
quoque jurabit, quod consilia magistrorum in malum eorum nullatenus revelabit …”
113
Ibid., loc. cit.: “De phisicis autem et artistis ac aliis cancellarius bona fide promittet exami-
nare magistros, et non nisi dignos admittens repellet indignos.”
114
Ch.U.P., I, no. 79.
115
Supra, p. 43.
116
Supra, note 80.
117
Supra, p. 36.
118
Infra, pp. 51–53.
50 CHAPTER 2
by the chancellor,119 whereas in 1231 the chancellor conducted all the examina-
tions, was merely advised by the masters, and his power to grant or refuse the
license was greater than ever since 1213.120 The masters had failed to preserve
the advantages gained in 1213. The failure was caused by Popes Honorius III
and Gregory IX, particularly by the latter, who had decided it was necessary to
leave the masters in subjection to the chancellor and bishop, except for mat-
ters affecting only the internal government of the faculties.
Important as the statutes of Gregory IX were, with regard to the license-
system they apparently were only an amplification, perhaps in part a repetition,
of the provisions of 1228. At least they did not conflict with the latter, which,
moreover, remained in full force and were confirmed in 1245 by Innocent IV.121
The license-system, then, was in the main regulated by two groups of papal
statutes, the legatine statutes of 1228 and the papal statutes of 1231.122 Another
papal statute was that of Innocent III of 1207, which restricted to eight the
number of masters in theology.123 Although Honorius III in 1218 ordered the
Chancellor Philippe to license Matthew Scot in theology, notwithstanding the
provision of Innocent III,124 that provision was probably considered to be valid
in 1231. But by 1252 it was apparently a dead letter, although the secular masters
in theology perhaps tried to use it as an excuse for refusing membership in
their society to the friars.125 Thus, the principal statutes were those of 1228 and
1231. By them the chancellor on the island and the abbot on the left bank of the
Seine grant the license, with the masters of theology and canon law partici-
pating in the examinations but having no power to force their decision upon
the chancellor. The future history of the license-system is that of the work-
ing out of the application of the papal statutes: the bishop and the chancellor
on the one hand, and the masters on the other, try to increase their respec-
tive rights by taking advantage of ambiguities in the statutes. The bishop and
masters will seize upon the silence of the statutes concerning the bishop, the
119 Supra, p. 44.

120 Cf. Rashdall, I, 340.
121 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 135 and 140. Rashdall, I, 340 f., thinks that any ambiguity left in the matter
was owing to the failure of Gregory to confirm or repeal previous statutes; I should at-
tribute ambiguities rather to the silence of the statutes of 1228 and 1231, which failed to
define the rights of the bishop in the license-system. The compromise of 1213 ended in
1218 for reasons I have already given supra, p. 36.
122 The statutes of 1215, fixing age-limits and books, remained, but affected the license-
system only when the masters could examine the candidates.
123 Ch.U.P., I, no. 5.
124 Ibid., I, no. 27.
125 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 200, 219, etc.; infra. pp. 62 f.
chancellor upon the weakness of the provision that he should grant or refuse
the license according to his conscience, and the masters upon the lack of defi-
nite regulations forcing them to admit to their consortium students licensed
by the chancellor or bishop. These points must be considered in order to judge
the influence of the papacy upon the constitution of the university. That influ-
ence has so far been conservative, restraining the masters as much as the chan-
cellor and leaving in effect, for the most part, the original cathedral jurisdiction
over the masters. We shall see that the masters finally won a limited right to
admit or refuse licensed candidates to their membership.
The first weakness of the statutes came to light in 1237. The masters and
students complained to the pope that the bishop, taking advantage of the va-
cancy of the chancellorship in 1237,126 had granted the license to certain stu-
dents in canon law without consulting the masters according to the statutes
of 1231. The masters of theology and canon law naturally appealed to Rome,
and meanwhile refused to take part in the ceremony of inception, that is, to
receive into the society the men licensed by the bishop. The official of the
bishop thereupon excommunicated de facto (he could not do so de jure, for
a few months earlier the pope had forbidden sentences of excommunication
against the members of the university127) the masters opposing the action of
the bishop.128 Gregory appointed the bishops of Meaux and Amiens to inves-
tigate the dispute and to pronounce their judgment upon it.129 Shortly after-
wards he confirmed the statutes of 1231 and commanded the bishop to grant
126 Philippe de Grève, according to the editors of the Chartularium, died December 23, 1236;
Guiard de Laon became chancellor sometime before May 30, 1237 (Ch.U.P., I, no. 115,
note 1). In the interval the bishop licensed masters in canon law. But L. Auvray holds
that Philippe died on December 25, 1237 (Documents Parisiens tirés de la Bibliothèque du
Vatican, p. 36).
127 Ibid., I, no. 113; June 12, 1237.
128 Ibid., I, no. 115; August 4, 1237: “Gregorius … Meldensi et … Ambianensi episcopis.
Exposita nobis magistrorum et scolarium Parisiensium petitio continebat, quod … nuper
cancellaria Parisiensis vacante venerabilis frater noster … episcopus Parisiensis premissis
omnibus [the statutes of 1231] pretermissis et eisdem magistris reclamantibus et invitis,
quibusdam scolaribus in decretis regendi concessit licentiam pro sue libito voluntatis in
eorum prejudicium et gravamen, propter quod ex parte ipsorum fuit ad nostram audi-
entiam appellatum. Set officialis ejusdem episcopi appellatione hujusmodi contempta
in eosdem magistros et quosdam alios, qui principiis licentiatorum a dicto episcopo
renuerant interesse, de facto cum de jure non posset excommunicationis sententiam
promulgavit.”
129 Ibid., loc. cit.
52 CHAPTER 2
the license according to them, that is, only after consulting the masters.130 But
the bishop, Guillaume d’Auvergne, had his own version of the trouble. He held
that he had the right to grant the license when the office of chancellor was
vacant, and that the masters acted wrongly in refusing to permit the students
to teach whom he had ‘reasonably’ licensed, in depriving the new masters of
their students, and in excluding them as well as the masters who had spon-
sored them from the Society of Masters.131 Again Gregory appointed a judge,
this time the prior of Saint-Victor, to hear the two conflicting parties and to re-
store harmony. The pope himself did not decide the case, nor has the decision
of the judges survived. We can at least be sure of Gregory’s intention from the
nature of the opposing claims. The bishop was perhaps licensing candidates
without consulting the masters; but the masters in turn apparently wished to
use the occasion of the vacancy of the chancellorship, and the silence of the
statutes of 1228 and 1231, to wrest for themselves the right to exclude from their
society anybody licensed by the bishop, just as in 1250 and later they were to
attempt the exclusion of the friars licensed by the chancellor. The pope wished
the matter to rest with his provisions of 1231, but was willing that the bishop
should grant the license if he did so according to the rules that governed the
chancellor. The masters probably did not want the bishop to have any right
whatever; but they did not, it seems, obtain their wish. Unless the bishop vio-
lated the statutes of 1231, he had acted legally in granting the license during a
vacancy of the chancellorship, for the chancellor was his officer, not subject to
the university. If, therefore, harmony was restored, it was probably recognized,
as it was in 1213,132 that the bishop could under certain conditions confer the
130
Ibid., I, no. 117; September 7, 1237: “Verum quia statuta edidisse non sufficit, si firma illo-
rum auctoritas non subsistit, ne Parisiensis episcopus, qui pro tempore fuerit, seu quilibet
alius contra predictam licentiandi formam aliquo modo venire presumat, auctoritate pre-
sentium districtius inhibemus.”
131
Ibid., I, no. 121; June 4, 1238: Gregory, “Priori Sancti Victoris Parisiensis.” The bishop had
complained to the pope that the masters were violating the spirit of their privilege to
make constitutions. “Preterea cum idem cancellarla Parisiensi vacante sit in possessione
vel quasi licentiandi provectos ad officium magistratus, prefati magistri ei [episcopo]
super hoc se indebite opponentes, quosdam scolares rationabiliter licentiatos ab ipso, ad
docendum pro sue voluntatis arbitrio non admittunt, scolares suos subtrahentes eisdem,
ac insuper scolares ipsos et magistros, sub quibus licentiari inceperunt predicti, a societa-
te sua excludunt in ejus prejudicium et gravamen, alias abutendo indulgentia memorata
injuriosi existentes ei plurimum et molesti.” Cf. N. Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, p. 62.
132
Supra, p. 37.
license.133 Thus again we see the pope acting conservatively, careful to avoid
conceding too much to either side, desiring rather to restore peace on the basis
of compromises already existing.
Conflict, however, still could arise over an important question. Were the
masters privileged to refuse inception, that is, the ceremony of admission to
their society, to candidates licensed by the chancellor or the bishop? It has just
been evident that they tried to assume that right in the case of the bishop’s
licensees; apparently because of the pope’s willingness to listen to both sides
they gained only a compromise, which left the question as before. Legally, by
the statutes of 1231, it must have been intended that the masters should accept
anyone licensed by the chancellor according to his conscience. But it was also
intended that the chancellor—and, it follows, the bishop—should adhere to
the spirit of the statutes, that he should license students approved by the mas-
ters of theology and canon law, if not those approved by the other faculties.134
We may be sure, then, that the masters could feel that they had the right to re-
fuse membership in their society to students licensed without magisterial ap-
proval or participation in the examinations. It was not an explicit right granted
by the statutes of 1231, but it obtained at least the sympathy, if not the enforce-
ment, of Gregory IX when the masters complained of the action of the bishop.
It could not, of course, be maintained against a pope who might make all stat-
utes invalid by papal decrees setting them aside. What rights, indeed, could
the masters constitutionally claim from statutes that were forced upon them
or conceded to them by the papacy, and that could be violated by the popes
themselves? Let it be said now that the university could boast of no indepen-
dence as a corporation when the papacy disregarded papal regulations for it.
Until 1250 the constitution of the Society of Masters was essentially that
which was regulated by the papal measures of 1238 and 1231. In 1250 the
133 That the authority of the bishop of Paris over the license-system was recognized by the
papacy seems to be implied in Innocent IV’s letter in 1246 to Robert Grosseteste, bishop
of Lincoln; the pope commanded him to let no one teach in any faculty at Oxford, “nisi
qui secundum morem Parisiensem a te vel hiis quibus in hac parte tuas vices commiseri-
mus examinatus fuerit, et etiam approbatus” (Ch.U.P., I, no. 154; Rashdall, II, ii, 354). The
bishop of Paris, we learn from a decree of the papal legate in 1247, had some voice in the
expulsion of a master from the faculty of theology for heretical opinions: “de consilio dic-
torum magistrorum et aliorum bonorum, venerabilique patre Parisiensi episcopo suum
in hoc prestante consensum, … dictum Johannem de Brescain tam de civitate quam dio-
cesi Parisiensi decrevimus in perpetuum expellendum interdicentes eidem … tam mo-
randi quam docendi non solum publice sed etiam privatim decetero facultatem” (Ch.U.P.,
I, no. 176, p. 207).
134 Supra, pp. 48–49.
54 CHAPTER 2
questions left unsettled in the two intervening decades became a source of

serious trouble owing to the suddenly matured power of the mendicant orders.
The Dominicans135 obtained a chair in theology in 1229, when, in the absence
of the masters, Roland of Cremona was licensed by the chancellor.136 They ob-
tained a second chair, occupied by John of St. Giles, about two years later.137
The latter was already a licensed secular master, and thus did not need to ob-
tain the license from the chancellor to continue lecturing as a friar.138 But the
question was, could the secular masters (that is, secular priests or canons) of
the faculty of theology refuse the religious masters entrance into their soci-
ety? And could they expel members who refused to obey the constitutions
that, by papal privilege, the masters could draw up for their internal affairs?
For nearly twenty years these questions did not cause friction, because, even
if the two chairs had not been sanctioned by them, the masters did not object
to the Dominican doctors. Moreover, it seems that for the most part students
who incepted under the two Dominican doctors began to teach without being
licensed by the chancellor or incorporated into the Society of Masters. They
could teach without the chancellor’s license but could not be regular members
of the university.139 Their principles even forbade them to seek the license, but
they none the less desired to become members of the university because of its
great prestige and renown.140 Other orders, the Franciscans about 1231 in the
135 On the Dominicans in the University of Paris see, besides Rashdall, I, 345–392: Mandonnet,
“Les Dominicains dans l’Université de Paris,” Revue Thomiste, IV, 133–170; Mortier, Histoire
des maîtres généraux de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, I. 435–475; Chapotin, Histoire des
Dominicains de la Province de France, pp. 118–148, 433–479; Rashdall’s is by far the best
account of the subject; Kaufmann’s is brief but sound, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 275–
291; cf. M. Bierbaum, Bettelorden und Weltgeistlichkeit an der Universität Paris, pp. 12 ff.;
F. Ehrle, “S. Domenico, le origini del primo studio generale,” Miscellanea Dominicana (1923),
pp. 85–134.
136 Rashdall, I, 370; cf. supra, note 95; Ehrle, op. cit., pp. 92 f. Roland was already a master,
perhaps of medicine and arts.
137 Rashdall, I, 371, assumes that because Roland of Cremona was still lecturing at Paris, the
Dominican Order permitted John of St. Giles, recently converted to the Order, to hold the
second chair. But Roland went to Toulouse in 1231, and to his chair succeeded Hugues de
Saint-Cher. Cf. Mortier, op. cit., I, 240.
138 Mandonnet, op. cit., IV, 155 f.; Denifle, Archiv, II, 174.
139 Rashdall, I, 371–372.
140 Also because by 1250, a license to teach at Paris was a license to teach everywhere; see the
section on the licentia ubique docendi, infra, pp. 116–117.
person of Alexander of Hales,141 the Cistercians in 1244–1245,142 and by 1254

the Premonstratensians, the Order of the Vallis-Scolarium, and the Trinitarians
or Mathurines,143 all established chairs of theology,144 and found themselves
in a position similar to that of the Dominicans. But it was particularly the
Dominicans who, by their policy and zeal for theology, and because of their un-
doubted attainments in learning, aroused the jealousy and opposition of the
secular theologians of the university.145 To their opposition the secular masters
could give expression only when the Dominicans and other religious tried to
become members of the faculty of theology. Innocent IV, by trying to make the
religious doctors members of the corporation, precipitated the trouble.
It has been remarked that the friars did not like to apply for honors, but
nevertheless did accept them. Now, on the basis of the statutes of 1231, it had

142 H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, Études sur l’état intérieur, pp. 64–67. In 1245 Innocent IV con-
firmed their college; Ch.U.P., I, no. 146; cf. Denifle, Archiv, I, 571.
143 Ch.U.P., I, no. 230, p. 253.
144 The colleges of these orders were founded: Franciscan, 1220; Mathurine, 1229; Vallis-
Scolarium, 1229; Cistercian, 1245; Premonstratensian, 1252. Ehrle, Miscel. Domin., p. 89,
note 3.
145 Cf. Mandonnet, Revue Thomiste, IV, 135–136; Ch.U.P., I, pp. 310 and 325; Thomas de
Cantimpré makes Chrétien de Beauvais, repenting his hostility to the friars, say that he
and other secular masters had no reason for opposing the Dominicans, “nisi quod illis ae-
quari scientia non valerent”, Bonum universale de apibus (Douay, 1627), pp. 178 f. Thomas
relates as the cause of the struggle, “quod fratres Parisiis, plures, et prope omnes litteratio-
res in scholis auditores habebant, et in regimine pręeminebant. Videbant enim scholares
quod magistri seculares, sicut viri divitiarum, dormierunt somnum suum, ducebantque
in bonis dies suos.” But Thomas was a Dominican, and naturally blamed all the trouble on
the envy and worldliness of the seculars. Yet he does touch upon a fundamental cause of
the conflict: the secular masters were losing their students; see infra, note 186.
Matthew Paris, however, a partisan of the secular masters, points out another real
cause of the conflict; it was that the Dominicans refused to subject themselves to the ap-
proved constitutions and rights of the university; Historia Anglorum, ed. Madden, III, 148:
“Praedicatores, qui in tantum multiplicati sunt et exaltati, ut approbatis consuetudinibus
et juribus scolarium renuissent subjacere.” See ibid., III, 330; and Chron. Maj., ed. Luard,
V, 416, where Matthew Paris explains the exaltation of the Dominicans as being the result
partly of their position as confessors and advisers of kings; cf. Rutebeuf (ed. Jubinal, I, 152),
who complains of the pride and worldliness of the Dominicans, “que par lor grant chape
roonde ont versé l’Université.” Probably neither Thomas de Cantimpré nor Matthew Paris
was well acquainted with the privileges of the university. Yet both were right, perhaps, for
jealousy and privileges were involved, the former stimulating grievances over violations
of the latter. The masters did not protest the first Dominican encroachment because they
did not yet fear the friars.
56 CHAPTER 2
become customary for all students or bachelors coming up for the degree to
apply to the chancellor for the license;146 the license granted, normally the ap-
plicants by inception147 were incorporated into the Society of Masters; thus
both license and inception were considered necessary steps towards mem-
bership in the society. The friars apparently wished to enjoy the advantages
offered by the university, but also probably, to gain control of the faculty of the-
ology, which in their opinion suffered from the inferior learning of the secular
masters.148 Since they would not apply for the license as a step to enter the
faculty, they seem to have asked the pope to compel the chancellor to grant
the license to them without application. Innocent IV, in 1250, directed a let-
ter to the chancellor, Aimery de Vaire, reprimanding him for using the pro-
vision of 1231 (that the chancellor, when the applicant for the license had
been examined, should grant or refuse the license in theology according to
his conscience)149 as a pretext for not voluntarily conferring the license upon
anyone who had not applied to him for it. Since, said the pope, there were
several religious who were suitable for teaching and had not applied for the
license, let the chancellor at once grant the license to them, “etsi non peta-
tur ab ipsis.”150 The right of the secular masters to advise the chancellor was
ignored by the pope, but not forgotten by the masters themselves. Gregory IX
had decreed that the chancellor should grant the license, if according to his
conscience, yet also according to the condition of the city and the honor and
reputation of the faculties of theology and canon law.151 What Gregory had
given, Innocent IV should not take away. If the chancellor proceeded to license
the friars without consultation with the secular masters, the honor of the fac-
ulty of theology would be insulted, its already weak voice in the license-system
rendered entirely futile.152 Not merely the honor and dignity of the faculty

147 Ibid., I, 286.
148 Ibid., I, 373, note 1; Richerius, Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae (M.G.H., SS. XXV, 328): “Nam
Predicatores dicebant, ab eis questionum diffiniciones debere proferri, quia pocior scien-
cia in personis ordinis ipsorum vigeret et dignitas predicacionis eis auctoritate difiniendi
prerogare videbatur.”
149 Supra, pp. 48–49.
150 Ch.U.P., I, no. 191. Cf. Rashdall, I, 373.
151 Ch.U.P., I, no. 79, p. 137; supra, note 108.
152 Ibid., I, no. 200: “Quoniam in promotione ad cathedram et regimen sacre scripture in stu-
dio Paris, non solum sunt attendenda merita personarum, sed etiam honor civitatis, nec-
non et totius studii status et honestas juxta summi pontificis ordinationem merito sunt
pensanda, ideo doctores Parisienses actualiter in theologia regentes volentes in posterum
statui sui et studentium in theologia Parisius honestatem servare, et promotionis locum
would be wounded: the power of the secular masters would be destroyed even
within the faculty, for the religious doctors, if permitted to enter the society in
unlimited numbers, could soon control its policy, deprive the masters, to their
pecuniary loss, of their students,153 and make entrance into the faculty difficult
for the seculars.154Added to the danger of the loss of rights and of prestige, the
fear and jealousy of the superior learning of great Dominican doctors such as
Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas155 impelled the secular masters to
resistance.
Actuated by these motives, the secular masters of theology assumed the
offensive in 1251 and passed an ordinance refusing entrance into their society
to any religious who did not belong to one of the colleges founded by the or-
ders and who was prohibited to teach publicly,156 and limiting each college to
one master occupying a chair in theology and to one school.157 The colleges
might have other teachers, but only one teacher from each college could be a
member of the faculty; and that one must submit to an examination upon cer-
tain prescribed books he had followed, in the class of a master “actu regentis,”
and must then be licensed by the chancellor according to the regulations of
1231, that is, through personal application for the license.158 Any master in the
studentibus opportuno tempore reservare, … ordinaverunt, etc.” Cf. ibid., I, no. 79, the
statutes of 1231.
153 Cf. Rashdall, I, 379; Ch.U.P., I, no. 230; infra, Chap. VIII, p. 199, note 118.
154 This reason is clearly expressed in the words, “volentes … promotionis locum studentibus
opportuno tempore reservare” (see note 152), and in the consideration of the problem of
the multiplication of the masters in the society, “preter necessitatem magistrorum mul-
tiplicationem” (Ch.U.P., I, no. 200; cf. no. 230). Here the masters are referring, probably, to
the mandate of Innocent III, restricting the number of theologians (Ch.U.P., I, no. 5). Now
it is the pope who wishes to add more theologians, and the masters who wish to retain the
old number; see infra, note 186.
155 Supra, notes 133 and 136.
156 Ch.U.P., I, no. 200: “ideo doctores … ordinaverunt, ut de cetero religiosus aliquis non ha-
bens collegium et cui est a jure publice docere prohibitum, ad eorum societatem nullate-
nus admittatur.”
157 Ibid., loc. cit.: “… ideo predicti magistri ordinaverunt, ut singula religiosorum collegia sin-
gulis magistris actu regentibus et unica scola de cetero sint contenta.” This provision was
of course aimed in particular at the Dominicans, who had had two chairs in theology
since 1231.
158 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Preterea cum grande fidei periculum immineat et a ratione plurimum dis-
sonet, ut quisquam sibi sumat honorem cathedre sacrarum litterarum, qui nec seipsum
examinavit diligenter, nec ab eo qui licentiandis preesse dignoscitur, secundum formam
Universitatis a summo pontifice roboratam legitime sit vocatus, maxime cum alias inter
doctores theologicos tractatum fuerit et concorditer inhibitum, ne aliquis bachellarius
58 CHAPTER 2
faculty or bachelor who refused to abide by these statutes would be expelled

from or denied admittance to the faculty.159 The purpose of the theologians
was threefold: to limit the number and power of the religious masters if they
must be admitted into the society, to enforce and interpret to their own ad-
vantage the statutes of 1231, and to assert their right to control membership in
their corporation. Such was the answer to Innocent IV’s interference two years
before; an answer hardly softened by the saving of reverence and obedience to
the Apostolic See.160
The struggle thus begun was to continue openly until 1259, and was not
to be settled definitely until several years thereafter. Before considering the
constitutional questions and rights involved, it will be well to outline the out-
standing events.161 In spite of the ordinance of the faculty of theology, the
mendicants, two Dominicans and one Franciscan,162 were apparently ad-
mitted to membership in the society and to general congregations,163 but on
what terms, whether by acceptance of the regulations of the theologians, it is
difficult to say. In 1252–1253 occurred a student riot, accompanied by severe
measures taken by the city policy,164 which precipitated anew the quarrel with
the friars. To obtain justice the university, employing the means confirmed by
Gregory IX in the Parens scientiarum,165 decreed for a month or more a sus-
pension of all lectures. The count of Toulouse, Alfonse of Poitiers—Louis IX
was still absent from the kingdom on his crusade—punished the malefactors
in theologica facultate promoveantur ad cathedram, nisi prius seipsum examinaverit,

saltem aliquos libros theologie glosatos et Sententias in scolis alicujus magistri actu re-
gentis diligenter legendo; idcirco supradicti magistri tractatum antedictum et consensum
mutuo renovantes consensu firmaverunt, et ita decetero observari debere unanimiter
ordinaverunt.”
159 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Quod si aliquis contra dictas eorum ordinationes venire presumpserit, ei so-
cietatem suam tam in principiis quam aliis penitus denegabunt. Et de cetero quicunque
bachellarius licentiatus fuerit, si requisitus huic ordinationi assensum prestare noluerit, a
consortio magistrorum penitus excludetur et eidem tam in principiis, quam alibi magis-
tralem societatem denegabunt.”
160 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Hec autem ordinata sunt a magistris salva in omnibus reverentia et obe
dientia sedis apostolice et aliorum, quibus obedire tenentur.”
161 For the history of the conflict I follow, in the main, the documents in the Ch.U.P., I; and
Rashdall, I, 369–392. Cf. the historians of the Dominicans, Mandonnet, Mortier, and
Chapotin; for these see note 135.
162 Ch.U.P., I, no. 219.
163 On the Congregations see Rashdall, I, 402 ff.
164 Ibid., I, 374 f.
165 Ch.U.P., I, no. 79, p. 138. On constitutions and ordinances made by the masters, see infra,
pp. 159–160.
who had injured the students, and restored peace with the city of Paris.166 The
Dominican and Franciscan doctors, however, had refused to observe the cessa-
tion of lectures, and to take the oath binding them to the measures decreed by
the university.167 The University of Masters and students therefore passed an
ordinance that provided that no master who would not swear in congregation
or in the presence of three masters of his faculty to observe the ordinances
and privileges granted by the Apostolic See and the statutes made by the uni-
versity, should be admitted to the college of masters or the consortium of the
university. The religious masters must swear that they would not reveal the
secrets of the society, and that they would consent to confederations formed
by the members of the university and confirmed by papal privileges. Bachelors
should bind themselves to obey these provisions, and should not lecture if a
cessation were decreed. Violators of these statutes should not be recommend-
ed to the chancellor for the license and should be excluded from the consor-
tium whether it remained at Paris or went elsewhere.168 It is obvious that the
statutes were passed against the friars, to exclude them from the university if
they persisted in refusing to obey the regulations of the faculty of theology and
of the congregations.
Meanwhile, during the trouble connected with the student riot, the friars
had appealed to Rome to be released from the obligations imposed according
to papal privileges by the university.169 Before the pope could pronounce his
decision upon the matter, the university had passed the regulations just out-
lined, and had, says Innocent IV, expelled the religious doctors from the col-
lege of masters and congregation of the university, and forbidden students to
attend their lectures.170 The pope, wishing to restore peace between the friars
and the secular masters, had restored the three religious doctors to the college
and congregation, and had revoked the prohibition of students to study under
the friars.171 The masters had not heeded his command, and now the pope
ordered them to admit the three doctors without delay.172 He also wrote to the
Franciscan and Dominican priors at Paris, permitting them to release the three
166
Ch.U.P., I, no. 219.
167
Ibid., loc. cit.; cf. no. 222.
168
Ch.U.P., I, no. 219.
169
Ibid., I, no. 222, p. 247.
170
Ch.U.P., I, no. 222. This injunction against the friars is not expressed, but is certainly im-
plied, in the ordinances of the secular masters (ibid., no. 219).
171
Ibid., I, no. 222.
172
Ibid., loc. cit.; July 1, 1253. The pope appointed the bishops of Senlis and Evreux to enforce
his mandate (ibid., I, no. 223), notwithstanding any previous indulgence or privileges
granted by the papacy to the university.
60 CHAPTER 2
doctors from the excommunication imposed by the university for their viola-
tion of the magisterial cessation.173 Another letter followed in August of 1253
commanding the university to protect the Dominican and Franciscan masters
in their rights during the following scholastic year, until August 15, 1254. At that
date the university and the friars should send delegates to Rome to help the
pope arrange a final agreement between them.174
The truce proposed was not regarded. From an encyclical letter that the
masters drew up in February, 1254, and addressed to the prelates and scholars
of all Christendom, it is evident that the university was wounded too deep-
ly by the pope’s action in favor of the friars to accept a compromise, short of
compulsion, unfavorable to it. The masters were thoroughly roused. As if to
goad them further, in January of 1254 Innocent IV, apparently forgetting the
truce or the spirit of it, had granted to the Cistercians the rights in ordinary
lectures in theology—that is, lectures given publicly by masters licensed by
the chancellor and thereby members, so the pope intended, of the faculty
of theology—which the friars possessed by papal mandate.175 At the same
time the pope had ordered the chancellor to confer the license on the first
Cistercian master, Guido, and on any other worthy religious studying at Paris.176
If this was not enough, certainly the measures taken by the bishop of Senlis
and the bishop of Evreux, appointed by Innocent IV, were more than sufficient
to arouse the masters to obdurate resistance to the claims of the friars and
other religious.177 The bishops in turn appointed Master Luca, a canon of the
cathedral of Paris and an enemy of the university, to enforce the papal bulls
commanding the masters to admit the friars to their society. The masters of
all the faculties and their students were suspended by him, but the university,
undaunted by bulls and ecclesiastical censures, again forbade its students to
attend the lectures of the friars and appealed to the judgment of the world of
scholars.178 In fighting the Dominicans and Franciscans, who were powerfully
supported by royalty and papacy, the masters needed outside encouragement.
173 Ibid., I, no. 224. The pope refers to the statutes of 1215 of Robert Curzon, one of which gave
the masters the right to regulate lectures; ibid., I, no. 20. The like privilege was granted by
Gregory IX in 1231 (ibid., I, no. 79).
174 Ibid., I, nos. 225 and 226.
175 Ch.U.P., I, no. 227. Cf. ibid., I, no. 228.
176 Ch.U.P., 1, no. 229. But apparently because of the confusion at Paris the chancellor did not
confer the license on Guido, who was examined in the Roman Court by two cardinals and
received his license there; ibid., I, no. 229, note 1, and no. 265; see infra, p. 67.
177 Supra, note 172.
178 For these events see the encyclical letter of the masters, Ch.U.P., I, no. 230, pp. 256 f.; cf.
Rashdall, I, 378. I have not attempted to relate the events in detail, for Rashdall has done
Hence they addressed their grievances both to the secular clergy, who had no
reason to love, even though they respected, the friars, and to the masters and
students in other universities.179 Naturally, in telling their story they painted
the friars as ungrateful for being favored and nourished with the pabulum of
learning through the efforts and hospitality of the university180 and as selfish
in their ambition to control the faculty of theology. The Dominicans, asserted
the encyclical letter; had obtained their first chair legally, but their second
“preter voluntatem concellarii.”181 In the course of time brothers of five other
orders—the Cisterican, Premonstratensian, Vallis-Scolarium, Mathurine, and
Franciscan—and other religious not having colleges came to Paris to learn;
of them certain ones—how many is not stated—obtained magisterial chairs,
while others aspired to them in the future.182 Considering that the secular
canons of the cathedral of Paris, who already had three masters in theology,
were accustomed to multiply their number,183 and having in mind the diffi-
culty of sustaining—in a fashion consistent with the condition of the city and
the prestige of the faculty of theology, and in accordance with the apostolic
statute sworn to by the chancellor and each master of theology—twelve chairs
on account of the scarcity of students now that theology was being taught in
so with good judgment; moreover, the relation of them is unnecessary here, where I am
interested chiefly in the constitutional aspects of the struggle.
179 Ch.U.P., I, no. 230.
180 Cf. the complaint of Rutebeuf against the Dominicans (A. Jubinal, ed., Oeuvres complètes
de Rutebeuf, I, 153):
Chascuns d’els d’eust estre amis.
L’Université voirement,
Quar l’Université a mis.
En els tout le bon fondement,
Livres, deniers, pains et demis;
Mès or lor rendent malement,
Quar cels destruit li anemis.
Qui plus l’ont servi longuement.
And ibid., I, 154:
Por riens que Jacobins acroie,
La peléure d’une pomme.
De lor dete ne paieroie.
181 On the meaning of preter, cf. Mandonnet, “Les Dominicains,” Revue Thomiste, IV, 161–162.
Mandonnet stretches the meaning of the word in order to justify the Dominicans. But
Rashdall, I, 371, is right, I think, in accepting the literal sense of the word as “against,”
“contrary to.”
182 Ch.U.P., I, no. 230, p. 253.
62 CHAPTER 2
other cities by the friars,184 the masters of the university foresaw that if the six
colleges of the religious should obtain irrevocably nine of the twelve chairs as
a result of Innocent IV’s mandate of 1250,185 the secular theologians would be
left with only two or three chairs.186 As things actually were, the Dominicans
184
Ch.U.P., I, no. 230, p. 253 f.: “attendentes nichilominus, statum civitatis et honestatem
theologice facultatis secundum statutum apostolicum a cancellario Parisiensi et a sin-
gulis magistrorum theologie juratum vix posse in eadem facultate xij cathedras sustinere
propter scolarium apud nos in theologia studentium raritatem, cum jam in civitatibus
et aliis locis majoribus universis per fratres eosdem et alios non sine grandi periculo
dicte littere doceantur …” Denifle, in note 11 to this document, thinks the papal statute in
question is that of Innocent III of 1207 (ibid., I, no. 5), supplemented by Honorius III’s
non obstante (ibid., I, no. 27), which added a ninth chair, permanently, it seems, to the
eight fixed by Innocent III; but the reference is more directly to the statutes in the Parens
scientiarum (ibid., I, no. 79), which provided that the chancellor should swear that he
would grant the license “secundum statum civitatis et honorem ac honestatem faculta-
tum ipsarum [theologie ac decretorum]”. The masters pretended that this statute was
being violated. But they also had in mind the violation of the statute of Innocent III; see
supra, note 154.
How did the masters count twelve chairs in theology? I can offer this conjecture: they
included nine chairs as established by Innocent III and Honorius III, and three more,
which were occupied by the secular canons of Notre-Dame, although the three canons
were not regular members of the faculty. This was the situation when the Dominicans and
Franciscans obtained three chairs in 1229–1232. See note 186.
185
Ibid., I, no. 191; see supra, p. 56. The masters do not expressly refer to this mandate; but
they are explaining the difficulties that followed it, and their attempt to obviate the con-
sequences of its provisions by their ordinance of 1252 (ibid., I, no. 200).
186
Ibid., I, no. 230, p. 254: “… luce clarius previderunt quod, postquam ex illis xij novem ca-
thedre, sicut in promptu est, a predictis collegiis irrevocabiliter fuerint occupate, que
propter fratrum regentium successionem continuatam ad seculares magistros nunquam
deinceps revertentur, due aut tres dumtaxat poterunt superesse, que personis secularibus
ex omni regione que sub celo est ad studium Parisius confluentibus valeant reservari.”
How are we to explain the statement of the masters that the religious would control nine
of the chairs? Denifle (ibid., I, p. 258, note 12) thinks the masters were deliberately falsify-
ing the facts for the sake of propaganda; he can count only seven possible chairs for the
six colleges “isto tempore”, that is, 1254. But the masters, while issuing their encyclical in
1254, are speaking of the danger attendant on the mandate of Innocent IV of 1250. By the
pope’s mandate there could have been six, nine, or even more religious occupying chairs
in theology. Why, then, do the masters talk of nine such chairs? Perhaps—I offer this
explanation only as a possibility—they were estimating them on the basis of one for each
of the six colleges, or two for the Dominicans and one for each of the other orders, and
were adding to them the three chairs occupied by the secular canons of Paris, who were
not members of the faculty, and who allied themselves with the religious; that is, in effect,
the religious would control nine or ten chairs, leaving to the secular masters only two or
and Franciscans had three masters regent in theology, making fifteen alto-
gether in 1250. If the other four colleges and regulars not having colleges were
permitted to have one or more regent masters, there would be too many chairs
for the faculty. But the real danger to the seculars lay not so much in the addi-
tion of the chairs of the regulars to the twelve recognized by the university, as
in the gradual assumption by the religious of most of the twelve chairs. This
was not mere imagination, for since the religious lived mostly on alms, they
could easily take the students away from the seculars, who collected fees for
their lectures;187 the seculars would then naturally have to leave. Apparently
the plan of the secular masters was therefore both to limit the number of re-
gent masters the religious could have, and to keep them from getting posses-
sion of chairs occupied by the seculars. At all costs the regent secular masters
intended to keep control of the faculty of theology, as it was their right as a
corporation to do. Hence in 1252 they had decreed that no religious not in one
three, “due aut tres dumtaxat poterunt superesse.” The masters are not telling about a
fait accompli, but about a possibility. Now follow the facts as given by the seculars: there
were in 1250 nine secular masters, three secular canons teaching as regent-masters, and
three friars (two Dominicans and one Franciscan); fifteen all told. The three friars, since
they did not depend on student-fees, might replace three secular masters (see note 184).
By a like process, if the other colleges each obtained one chair, the seculars would be
driven out of all but two or three chairs; and if, like the Dominicans, they obtained two
chairs each, the secular masters would soon be driven completely out of the university.
Therefore the masters determined that each of the six colleges should have only one chair
in theology. But surely the secular masters were not content to retain only three chairs!
Hence their whole plan must have been to regulate, if they must admit to their society, the
six religious masters so that they could never replace six seculars; in other words the secu-
lars intended to keep all of their nine chairs, to let the three canons of Paris and the six
colleges have nine more in addition. Thus a balance might be possible, with nine regent
masters on each side. This conclusion does not appear in the encyclical of 1254, but seems
to me to be supported by the efforts made by the seculars to control the examinations of
bachelors and the licensing of the religious (Ch.U.P., I, no. 200), and to compel secular
students to study only under secular masters (ibid., I, no. 219, p. 243).
Rashdall, I, 379, accepts the statement of the masters about the danger of nine chairs
being occupied by the religious; but, like Denifle, he assumes that the masters are stat-
ing a fact instead of a possibility as a result of Innocent IV’s mandate of 1250. Thurot,
L’organization de l’enseignement, p. 122, also makes the same mistake: “En 1253 [1254], sur
douze chaires que comportait alors le nombre des étudiants en théologie, 9 etaient dans
les couvents.” On the fears of the secular masters, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra impu
gnantes Dei Cultum et religionem, Opera omnia, XV, 4, col. 2.
187 See the section on salaries, pp. 199–201.
64 CHAPTER 2
of the colleges could occupy a chair in theology, and that each of the six col-
leges should have only one chair.188
Such was the version of their reasons for resistance to the religious that the
University of Masters and students offered to the world as a defense for their
actions. The rest of the encyclical is taken up with their history of the struggle
from 1252 to 1254: the student riot, the cessation, and the drastic measures
against the university taken by the papal judges.189 Evidently, by the encycli-
cal the university wished to obtain influence to aid them in the approaching
discussion at Rome. Innocent IV, as remarked above, had asked the conflict-
ing parties to send delegates to Rome in August of 1254.190 The university ac-
cordingly, while apologizing to the world of secular clergy, raised funds for the
expenses of its appeal to Rome;191 and the pope himself granted to Guillaume
de Saint-Amour, one of the agents192 appointed by the university to represent
the masters and students at Rome, the right to borrow three hundred pounds
tournois for his expenses,193 and ordered the cantor of Beauvais and Master
Robert of Douai to aid the university in collecting money from its members.194
Indeed, the pope was evidently beginning to veer around to the side of the
university. Not only his desire to facilitate the settlement at Rome by aiding
the masters to pay the cost of a representative, but also his limitation in May
of this year of certain privileges of the friars in parochial functions that had
belonged to the secular clergy,195 is an indication of his change of sympathy.
Apparently Innocent IV was influenced by the representations made by the
university and by the general hostility of the secular clergy against the friars.196
188 Supra, p. 59. In general I have followed the account of the masters in their encyclical
letter, Ch.U.P., I, no. 230, pp. 253 f.; but I have added my own interpretation; cf. notes 184
and 186.
189 Ch.U.P., I, no. 230, pp. 254–257.
190 Ibid., I, no. 225.
191 Ibid., I, no. 231; February 26, 1254: the university had ordered all masters and students of
all faculties to contribute; students who failed to do so were deprived of the privileges of
the university, of the license of determining and of teaching, or of promotion to any rank.
192 Besides Guillaume de Saint-Amour, the agents were Eudes de Douai, Chrétien de Beauvais,
and Nicholas de Bar-sur-Aube; Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj. (ed. Luard), V, p. 598.
193 Ibid., I, no. 238; July 15, 1254. Guillaume de Saint-Amour was already in Rome.
194 Ibid., I, no. 239; August 31, 1254.
195 Ch.U.P., I, no. 236. The opposition of the university to the friars was only one of the mani-
festations of the hostility to them of the whole secular clergy.
196 Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux, I, 447–452, explains Innocent IV’s volte-face as the
result of Guillaume de Saint-Amour’s taking advantage of his old age and paralysis. But
he cites (p. 448, note 1) Étienne de Salagnac, who relates that the pope began to hate the
Whatever were his reasons, on November 21, 1254, the pope, directing a bull
to all the regular clergy without mentioning the quarrel with the university,
reprimanded them for assuming parochial duties to the injury of the secular
clergy.197 If he had lived longer, perhaps Innocent IV might have specifically
rescinded the privileges he had granted the regulars in the University of Paris,
but his death occurred before an agreement could be arranged.198
The death of Innocent IV marked the end of one period, the accession
of Alexander IV the beginning of a second, in the struggle between the
Dominicans and the university. The second period is marked by a shift of em-
phasis; from 1254 to 1259 the conflict is more between the university and the
pope than between the university and the friars. Alexander began his pon-
tificate by withdrawing the limitations imposed by his predecessor on the
religious,199 and by ordering the masters to restore the friars to their society.
In a bull, the Quasi lignum vite, addressed to the university in 1255, Alexander
explains how, after the death of Innocent IV, he had continued the hearing of
the case at Rome, and had been inclined to the side of the Dominicans by their
master general, Humbert de Romans.200 Referring to the statutes of Gregory IX,
Alexander decided that it was manifest that by them the chancellor was given
full control of the license-system; accordingly he ordered the masters not to
diminish the chancellor’s prerogatives.201 The chancellor, continues the pope,
must give the license not only according to the condition of the city and the
honor of the theologians, as Gregory IX commanded, but also according to the
necessity of the Church and the salvation of the people; therefore he should
grant it according to these conditions to any religious learned in theology and
thus suitably equipped for preaching and for the regimen of souls.202 If the
Dominicans from the moment they refused to let him have one of their houses in Genoa;
cf. Galvanus de la Flamma, Chronica, ed. Reichert, M.O.F.P.H., II, 96 f. Is it not possible
that Innocent IV was honestly persuaded by Guillaume de Saint-Amour that the secular
masters had certain privileges from the papacy that should not be lightly set aside?
197 Ch.U.P., I, no. 240.
198 So Alexander IV says, Ch.U.P., I, no. 247, p. 282. But Guillaume de Nangis says that
when Guillaume de Saint-Amour went to Rome “dicta discordia per dominum papam
Innocentium pacificata est.” Gesta Sancti Ludovici, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de
la France, XX, p. 384. If Innocent IV did settle the conflict, he died before his terms could
be published.
199 Ch.U.P., I, no. 244.
200 Ch.U.P., I, no. 247, p. 282.
201 Ibid., I, p. 283: “Volumus itaque cancellarii potestatem in constitutione sepefati Gregorii
circa statum Parisiensis studii declaratam nulla imminutione convelli.”
66 CHAPTER 2
chancellor should see fit to license their masters, the religious orders, whether
they had colleges or not, could each have one or several chairs in theology.203
Obviously these provisions left no right of examination, or participation in
granting the license, to the masters of the faculty of theology; to clinch this
intention, the pope abolished the statute made by the masters that candidates
for the license in theology should read certain books under a regent master.204
As we have seen, the masters claimed the right to force new members of their
society to take the oath of secrecy and obedience with respect to constitutions
and secrets of the society. This oath Alexander weakened by the provision that
no one need take it if it endangered his soul.205 Moreover, the masters should
not vote a cessation of lectures without a two-thirds majority of the masters in
each faculty.206 Finally, the faculty of theology should restore to its member-
ship the Dominican masters and their students.207 In short, by these provi-
sions the masters could neither participate effectively in examinations for the
license, nor control the entrance of new members into their society. No au-
tonomy would remain to them, their corporation would practically no longer
exist if Alexander’s mandate were accepted.208
The secular masters, however, had no intention of obeying the pope.
Failing to restore the friars to their society within fifteen days, as Alexander
commanded,209 the masters were excommunicated by the bishops of Orleans
and Auxerre,210 who had been appointed by the pope to execute the provi-
sions of the Quasi lignum vite.211 In October of 1255 the masters addressed a
letter to the pope, pointing out the injustice—from their point of view—of
his mandate, explaining their reasons for disobedience, and, finally, declaring
that if they were not released from excommunication they would dissolve the
university.212 The pope paid no attention to the dissolution: the official univer-
sity would now be that of the chancellor and the friars, and of all who would

204 Cf. ibid., I, no. 200.
205 Ch.U.P., I, no. 247, p. 284.
208 On the Quasi lignum vite, see Rashdall, I, 380; Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux, I, 462
f.; Chapotin, Histoire des Dominicains, pp. 441 f.
209 Ch.U.P., I, no. 249.
210 Ibid., I, no. 256, p. 293.
211 Ibid., I, no. 248.
212 Ibid., I, no. 256. I shall not try to relate the details of the history of the struggle from this
point, for the constitutional problems are clear and need only the treatment necessary
for the understanding of the outcome of the conflict. For the history, see historians of
remain in Paris and accept the papal terms. He commanded the chancellors
of the cathedral and of Sainte-Geneviève to grant the license to no one in any
faculty who refused to obey the Quasi lignum vite,213 ordered the excommuni-
cation nominatim of all who resisted the pope’s commands,214 and attempted
to stop the collection of money for the expenses of the university during the
conflict.215 The secular masters tried resistance by boycotting the religious.216
A compromise was reached in March, 1256,217 but it was condemned in June
by Alexander because in it the friars ceded too much for the sake of peace.218
Meanwhile the pope, aroused the more because the university was now direct-
ly disobeying him, ordered the bishop of Paris to excommunicate masters who
did not permit their students to enter the schools of the friars,219 praised the
chancellor, Aimery, for granting the license in theology to Thomas Aquinas,220
continued to order the masters and students to return to obedience and good
behavior,221 and commanded the bishop of Paris to enforce all the papal
mandates.222 He asked the king to expel the leaders of the secular masters from
France223 and to aid the bishop of Paris in enforcing his papal injunctions, con-
demned the libellus of Guillaume de Saint-Amour, De periculis novissimorum
temporum, which attacked the friars,224 deprived Guillaume of his license to
the Dominicans, Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux, I, 454–475; Chapotin, Histoire des
Dominicains, pp. 444–479; above all, Rashdall, I, 381–392.
213 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 259 and 260; repeated in 1257, ibid., nos. 298 and 299.
214 Ibid., I, no. 261.
215 Ibid., I, nos. 263, 264, 267, and 301.
216 Cf. Rashdall, I, 386–388. Meanwhile in 1256 the pope personally granted the license and
admittance into the faculty of theology to an abbot of the Cistercian Order; the abbot,
Guy, had been examined by two cardinals (Ch.U.P., I, nos. 265 and 266). This may indicate
that the ‘official’ university had difficulty in functioning without the old university, for
the mandate of Innocent IV ordering the chancellor to license Guy (January, 1254; ibid., I,
no. 229) had apparently not been obeyed. It may well be that the chancellor for some time
hesitated to grant the license without the cooperation of the secular masters in Paris. By
March, 1256, however, he had conferred the license on Thomas Aquinas (ibid., I, no. 270).
217 Ch.U.P., I, no. 268.
218 Ibid., I, nos. 276, 280, and 284.
219 Ibid., I, no. 269.
220 Ibid., I, no. 270.
221 Ibid., I, nos. 271, 272, 275, and 309.
222 Ibid., I, no. 281.
223 Ibid., I, no. 282; cf. no. 313.
224 Ibid., I, nos. 288, 289, 291, 296, 308, 315, 316, 318, etc. Cf. Rashdall, I, 382–385.
68 CHAPTER 2
teach,225 and in every possible way kept hammering at the resistance of the
secular masters.
Gradually the resistance of the university broke down. The secular masters
by 1257 were returning to obedience, to the acceptance of the terms of the
Quasi lignum vite. In September, 1257, Alexander IV empowered the bishop of
Paris to absolve from excommunication all who submitted to the papal com-
mands.226 Peace was generally restored by April 5, 1259, when Alexander, re-
joicing that harmony now ruled, ordered the papal statutes of every kind to be
read before the assembled university, and again condemned all who persisted
in fomenting strife.227 Friction remained, and until the death of the pope bulls
continued to be issued for the final settlement of the conflict. Alexander again
ordered the chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève and the chancellor of the cathe-
dral to confer the license only on those who obeyed his injunctions,228 and he
forbade the masters of arts and the rectors of the four nations to busy them-
selves with matters pertaining to the license in theology.229 Practically, how-
ever, the conflict was at an end.230
Supported by Alexander IV, the Dominicans and other regulars had tri-
umphed. Excepting the faculty of arts,231 the university had been compelled to
receive the mendicants into the general congregation, and the faculty of the-
ology to accept friars licensed by the chancellor. Moreover, the religious won
power in the faculty of theology from their votes in decreeing cessations. Yet
their triumph was not complete: the faculty of arts still refused them member-
ship, and the colleges of the orders were permitted to have each only one re-
gent master in theology, with the exception of the Dominicans who might have
two chairs in the faculty. It has been observed that the secular masters had
feared that the mendicants would take their students and means of support
225 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 314–316, 318, 321.

226 Ibid., I, no. 319. Chrétien de Beauvais and Eudes de Douai, two secular masters, retracted;
ibid., I, nos. 317 and 320.
227 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 331 and 332. This was done in September; see ibid., no. 354. Guillaume de
Saint-Amour was still proscribed; ibid., nos. 332, 339. In 1260 Alexander IV permitted the
bishop of Paris to absolve repentant readers of Guillaume’s book; ibid., nos. 366–368.
228 Ibid., I, nos. 337 and 345.
229 Ibid., I, no. 338; this injunction was, of course, aimed at the main body of the university.
Cf. ibid., I, no. 342, for a further difficulty.
230 The accession of Urban IV in 1261 resulted in privileges in favor of the university and for
the most part renewing old privileges: Ch.U.P., I, nos. 376, 377, 379, 381–383, etc. To be
noted is the confirmation of the statutes of the Parens scientiarum, ibid., no. 384.
231 Ibid., I, nos. 342 and 501.
from them; this danger was avoided through their requiring secular students
to incept only under secular masters,232 and so the fear of being displaced by
the friars was allayed.233 The friars, then, enjoyed no complete triumph. The
secular masters by stubborn resistance were able to retain some control over
the faculty of theology.
What the nature of this control was we can understand only after determin-
ing the extent of the changes, if any, made in the constitution of the university
by papal interference on the side of the mendicants. The changes here involved
are those affecting the license-system, embracing examinations, the chancel-
lor-license, inception or entrance of candidates licensed into the Society of
Masters, and the expulsion of disloyal members from the consortium of the
masters. By the statutes of Gregory IX in 1231 the masters in theology offered
their testimony on the attainments of a candidate, who then, if declared wor-
thy, might be granted the license by the chancellor. The chancellor, however,
was not compelled to confer the license, for he could consider his conscience,
the condition of the city, and the honor of the faculty. It was evidently intend-
ed by Gregory that he should, in general, license bachelors declared worthy by
the masters. Candidates thus licensed in good faith by the chancellor should
be allowed to incept and enter the faculty.234 But the faculty had its own inter-
pretation of this statute, as we have seen; it urged that the statute permitted it
to reject anyone licensed contrary to the needs of the city and the honor of the
faculty.235 The secular masters of theology held, moreover, that they had the
right, by the same statutes, and by those of 1215, to pass regulations concerning
lectures and disputations, to expel rebels against their constitutions, and to
exact oaths of obedience and secrecy on matters of importance to the faculty.236
The right of expulsion of members from their society had been conceded
tacitly as early as 1208–1209 by Innocent III,237 and their right to deny incep-
tion to candidates licensed by the bishop in 1237 had not been questioned by
Gregory IX, saving the pope’s desire that no injustice be thereby committed.238
The chancellor himself, as the mandate of Innocent IV of 1250 shows, conceded,
232 Cf. Rashdall, I, 389 f.

234 Supra, pp. 48 f.
235 Ch.U.P., I, no. 230; supra, p. 61.
236 Ibid., I, nos. 219, 230.
237 Ibid., I, no. 8; supra, pp. 29–30.
238 Ibid., I, nos. 115, 117, 121; supra, pp. 51–52.
70 CHAPTER 2
temporarily at least, to the masters the right of participation in the examina-

tions.239 Such, in general, was the constitution of the license-system in 1250.
When the trouble with the mendicants started, Innocent IV disregarded
all the rights of the masters, and Alexander IV likewise spurned them.240 As
a result of the struggle, the secular masters of theology had no right to exam-
ine candidates from the religious, who were to be licensed by the chancellor
and promoted to magisterial chairs—given the limitation of the number of
chairs allowed to each religious college—without hindrance from the faculty.
The faculty could not force the religious masters to take oaths of obedience
to their ordinances, nor refuse them membership in the consortium; nor, of
course, ever expel them from the society. So, then, as regards the religious, the
papacy completely abrogated the license-system as defined and developed by
Honorius III and Gregory IX.241
For all other applicants for the license, however, for all secular students,
the license-system as organized in 1231 to 1250 remained legal. The papacy, no
239 Ibid., I, no. 191; supra, p. 56.

240 Mandonnet (Revue Thomiste, IV, 148 ff.), and Mortier (Les maîtres généraux, I, 235) fol-
lowing him, holds that in 1229–1231 and for long afterwards the university had neither
the right to erect new chairs, nor to deprive any master of his chair; that only the bishop
had these rights, saving the superior rights of the papacy: (p. 150) “Les maîtres parisiens
n’avaient donc … aucun droit à introduire un autre maître dans l’Université ou à l’en
faire sortir. La prétendue autonomie de l’Université en cette matière est une fiction;”
(p. 152) “… la nomination des maîtres à l’Université de Paris … appartient exclusivement
au chancelier et au Souverain Pontife. Quant aux maîtres euxmêmes, ils n’y sont pour
rien.” It is true that the masters could not, by Gregory IX’s statutes, prevent the licensing of
candidates; they themselves explain in their encyclical letter of 1254 that the Dominicans
can have as many teachers licensed by the chancellor as they wish; but the point was, they
would not let the religious enter their faculty, or the university. They had the right to ex-
clude undesirable men from their corporation, that is, if the constitution of the university
functioned normally. Only the pope—not the bishop or chancellor—could temporarily
suspend the constitution and force the masters to accept new members against their will;
and the popes had a hard time of it.
Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 278, also misses the main point. He wrongly
states that the chancellor’s licensing of the first Dominican master in theology, Roland of
Cremona, was illegal, since the masters did not pass on Roland’s fitness. But the chancel-
lor could, in 1229 or later, license whom he pleased, and to that extent Mandonnet and
Delègue (L’Université de Paris 1224–1244, pp. 23 ff.) are right. What was important, were the
masters compelled to let Roland—or any candidate licensed but unapproved by them—
incept and become a regular member of their society?
241 The Quasi lignum vite in particular contains the demands of Alexander IV, which the uni-
versity had to accept; supra, p. 65.
matter how hostile to the university during the strife of 1250–1259, never
abolished the system it had helped organize and had confirmed. This system
remained valid for the secular students and masters. Its abrogation for the re-
ligious was only, so to speak, a non obstante interlude for the benefit of the
new religious orders. That the system I have described at work from 1231 to
1250 continued in effect throughout the thirteenth century, is shown clearly
by bulls of Urban IV and by statutes of various faculties. The masters, in the
first place, made good their claim to participation in the examinations of sec-
ular students. We find, for example, the faculty of arts confirmed in 1259 by
Alexander IV in its right to force the chancellor of Sainte-Geneviève to license
only the candidates passed by a board of examiners consisting of four mas-
ters regent in arts.242 Urban IV recognized the right of the masters of theol-
ogy to examine candidates before they could be licensed by the chancellor of
the cathedral.243 The faculty of medicine successfully claimed the same right
in 1270–1274.244 Doubtless by 1275 it was recognized that every faculty could
examine its own students or bachelors before they were licensed by the chan-
cellor of the cathedral. If the chancellor refused the license to candidates ap-
proved by the faculty of theology, he might be censured by the papacy.245 If, on
the other hand, candidates were licensed without the consent of the faculty in
question, they should be, by the mandate of Urban IV, refused inception;246 if
perchance they had incepted, the faculty—of theology, in this case—should
suspend them from their chairs and expel them from the consortium.247 The
same pope confirmed the statute of Gregory IX on oaths: masters licensed in
theology should, before incepting, take an oath that they would give honest
evidence on bachelors who were to be licensed.248
242
Ch.U.P., I, no. 346; cf. nos. 333 and 363. Cf. Boyce, The English-German Nation in the
University of Paris, p. 100.
243
Ch.U.P., I, no. 400; cf. nos. 396, 399, 404.
244
Ibid., I, nos. 433, 453, 454, and 456.
245
Ibid., I, no. 465. But this is the case of a friar, Johannes de Lixiaco. Yet the whole faculty had
passed him, and still the chancellor refused the license. The date is uncertain, 1259–1275.
246
Ibid., I, no. 400. The chancellor, Étienne Tempier, had licensed Ivo Brito and Johannes de
Aurelianis, who had not been examined by the masters of theology.
247
Ibid., loc. cit. But in 1264 Urban IV commanded the masters in the faculty of arts to restore
to their consortium Master Gualterus de Vaceria, who had been expelled for eight years
because he aided Johannes Frequestel to ascend a magisterial chair without a license to
teach. Yet this mandate is a recognition of the right of the masters to expel members of
the consortium; though the pope, but the pope alone, could restore them to the society.
Ch.U.P., I, no. 395.
248
Ch.U.P., I, nos. 79, 396, and 399.
72 CHAPTER 2
Not only, then, did the statutes of Gregory IX remain valid, but they were
interpreted far more than in 1231 to the advantage of the masters as against
the rights of the chancellor. The chancellor, indeed, could no longer grant
the license according to his conscience. In the conflict of 1280–1290 he lost
completely any right he had ever had to license students without the exami-
nation or consent of the masters. Now, at the end of the thirteenth century,
the masters were able to restrain the chancellor’s arbitrary actions without the
aid of the papacy. Martin IV, in 1284, even had to restrain the masters from
taking the right of the license from the chancellor.249 Papal regulation of the
license-system in favor of the masters during the thirteenth century is not en-
countered after about 1286.250 If, during the troubles between the friars and
the university, the papacy suspended the license-system for the religious, it
hastened, between the years 1259 and 1285, to confirm that system for the secu-
lars as established by Gregory IX, but more in favor of the masters regent in the
university.251 Thereafter the system is a recognized part of the constitution of
the university. Changes in it henceforth do not belong to the field of this study.
249 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 516 and 528; Rashdall, I, 394. Martin IV recognized the chancellor as the
real head of the university (cf. Denifle, Univ., p. 130); but the chancellor as head of the uni-
versity was now the representative of the papacy, not of the bishop and chapter at Paris.
250 In 1286 Honorius IV repeated the injunction of Martin IV against the masters’ assumption
of the rights of the chancellor. Ch.U.P., I, no. 528.
251 According to Robert de Sorbon, in his De Conscientia (ca. 1270), the system of examina-
tions for the license was still loose; the chancellor, however, seems to have conducted
the examinations, but with the aid and advice of a board of examiners from each faculty.
Both chancellor and masters who did the examining were ready to accept gifts to induce
them to pass the candidate; some candidates, “magnates,” were sometimes licensed with-
out being examined. (Apparently the chancellor could still license students without the
concurrence of the masters; but the latter had the right, if they did not always exercise
it, to refuse inception to such licensees. Herein the right of the masters was clear, and it
was obtained definitely from the papacy in the 1260’s.) Although the popes had time and
again condemned corruption in the license-system, it is evident from Robert de Sorbon
that both the chancellor and the masters were guilty of accepting fees or gifts. The system
as described by Robert is worth citing, De conscientia, ed. Chambon, pp. 2–18: (p. 2) “De
primo, nota quod si aliquis proposuisset modis omnibus se lecturum Parisius, et qui pro
nullo thesauro vellet refutari, quia incurreret suspendium, multum libenter sciret et que-
reret si deberet ei dici a Cancellario, vel ab aliquibus de consilio suo, in quo libro deberet
examinari, si nullatenus sine examinacione posset licenciari. Multis enim magnatibus fit
aliquando gracia ut licencientur sine examinacione.” (p. 5) “Preterea, si aliquis refutetur
Pafisius a Cancellario hoc non est nisi per annum, quia, si post annum redeat et bene
didiscerit, licenciatur. Preterea, data sentencia revocatur aliquando per preces aliquo-
rum, vel per dona, vel per servicia aliquando data vel facta collateralibus Cancellarii, vel
The influence of the papacy on the development of the license-system was

throughout conservative. The respective rights of the chancellor and of the
masters were well balanced. The chancellor lost only the arbitrary part of his
privileges, and remained the indispensable official for granting the license. The
masters gained a victory in so far as the examinations and inception were con-
cerned, but could not let students enter their society without a license from
the chancellor. They had been recognized as a corporation at the beginning of
the century, but they were not allowed to become independent of all episcopal
control. In so far as the chancellor now represented the papacy rather than the
cathedral of Paris, they had won independence of the bishop and chapter at
Paris, at least in the licensing of new members of their society. In this sense the
development of the license-system is a part of the development of the univer-
sity from a guild within the corporation of the church of Paris, to a complete
corporation within the whole Church. Its head was no longer the bishop, it
was the pope,252 as the masters were compelled to acknowledge in their defeat
by the friars,253 and it now stood on a level with the ecclesiae singulae in the
Church.
examinatoribus aliis.” (But God, the supreme chancellor, will not accept bribes or gifts,
continues Robert.) (p. 9) “Item Cancellarius Parisiensis nullum prevenit vel cogit ad peten-
dum licenciam, sed expectat quamdiu volunt scolares, immo gravatur multociens quod
ita instanter examinari et licenciam petunt.” (p. 18) “Item, Cancellarius non audit omnes
qui petunt licenciam in propria persona, sed facit eos audiri ab aliquibus aliis magistris.
Multi autem bene respondent coram aliquibus simplicibus magistris, qui male respon-
derent coram Cancellario, perterriti et stupefacti propter magnitudinem sue sapiencie.”
Cf. Dorothy Louise Mackay, “Le système d’examen du xiiie siècle d’après le De
Conscientia de Robert de Sorbon,” Mélanges … Lot, pp. 491–500.
252 Cf. Luchaire, La société française au temps de Philippe-Auguste, p. 110: “Ce n’est pas le roi de
France, ce n’est pas l’évêque de Paris, c’est le pape qui regne sur l’Université;” and Delègue,
p. 48.
253 St. Thomas says that the secular masters had claimed that the apostolic authority did not
extend to the ‘studentium societas;’ and, therefore, they could not be compelled to admit
the religious to their society, ‘unde auctoritate apostolica cogi non possunt ut religiosos
ad suam societatem admittant.’ Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem (Opera
Omnia, XV, p. 9, col. 2).
CHAPTER 3
The License-System in Universities of Ecclesiastical

Origin Influenced by Paris
Like the University of Paris, the universities of Angers, Orleans, and Toulouse
had their origin in episcopal cities; but Angers and Orleans developed into uni-
versities not as a result of an expansion of the old cathedral schools, but as a re-
sult of migrations and of the prohibition of the teaching of civil law at Paris in
1219; while Toulouse owed its appearance to a papal foundation. Nevertheless
the cathedral authorities, the bishop and the scholasticus, or magister schola-
rum, as they had by the law of the Church superintended the cathedral schools,
assumed control of the universities.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries a cathedral school flourished at
Angers;1 it was subject to the scholasticus and the bishop.2 Honorius III in 1219
forbade the study of civil law at Paris,3 and possibly some legists thereupon
established themselves at Angers.4 But the greatest growth resulted from the
self-imposed exile of the masters and students of Paris, most of whom settled
in Angers in 1229.5 They constituted a university that had a brief existence of
about five years, for it broke up in 1234 and its members returned to Paris.6
1 Rashdall, II, i, 148 f.; Denifle, Universitȁten, p. 270.

2 Rashdall, loc. cit. To the scholastici named by Rashdall may be added Geoffroy Babion (1096–
1110); U. Chevalier, Bio-Bibliographie, I, 1701.
3 Ch.U.P., I, no. 32, p. 92.
4 Rashdall, II, i, 149f.; Denifle, op. cit., p. 271.
5 On the troubles at Paris and dispersion of 1229, supra, pp. 46 f. On the arrival of the masters
at Angers, see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (ed. Luard), III, 166 ff.; Rashdall, II, i, 149. See
the passage cited by Professor Haskins from a sermon of Chancellor Philip of Paris, Studies in
Mediaeval Culture, p. 61, note 4: “… Felix locus et felix civitas que filios dispersos pie collegit,
pie dico scilicet ut eos nutriret et postmodum matri restitueret, quia signum est quod talis
nutrix non diligit dispersionem. Non sic autem illa que quos nutriret sibi retinere intenderet,
ut Andegavis, de qua impletur illud Ieremiae xvii.II, Perdix fovit que non peperit.... Videtur
inter alias Aurelianis sic quos recepit habuisse, non tamquam emula sed tamquam nutrix et
gerilla, et recte quia inter alias Parisiensis civitas soror est.… Ruben, filius visionis, scolares,
…. terra Moabitidis civitas Andegavis.” Cf. J. C. Russell, “An Ephemeral University at Angers
(1229–1234),” Colorado College Publications, December, 1927, p. 47.
6 Russell, op. cit., p. 48, produces evidence, overlooked by Rashdall, that the university returned
to Paris in 1234; though perhaps most of the members returned in 1231, when Gregory IX
secured peace in Paris. But apparently it was only the members of the faculties of the arts,

The License-System in Universities of Ecclesiastical Origin 75
Thereafter, until the fourteenth century, Angers was a studium particulare.7

Before 1229 and after 1234 the scholasticus of the cathedral granted the license,
and, unlike the chancellor of Paris, was a member of the college of masters.8
Apparently even the masters from Paris between 1230 and 1234 obtained the
license to teach in Angers from the scholasticus or bishop, although they had
been examined at Paris and licensed there before their departure.9 Neither in
the thirteenth nor in the fourteenth century do we find a papal provision on
the license.10
In the rise of the University of Orleans the papacy played a more impor-
tant role. Towards the end of the twelfth century a pope had to order Fulco,
the magister scholarum of the church of Orleans, to grant the license to
teach to a certain Master G.11 At this time Orleans was famous as a school of
grammar, rhetoric, and classical literature, and it was over this cathedral school
theology, and medicine who decided to leave Angers. They had claimed to be a studium
generale on an equality with Paris; cf. the words of Chancellor Philip, in the preceding
note. John of Garland, however, describing the dispersion of 1229, states that Angers was
a studium particulare: “Andegavis studium quod particulare cohaeret Illud dissolvunt
proxima bella novum.” (Cited by Rashdall, II, i, 150, note 4); also Henry of Avranches (J. C.
Russell, op. cit., p. 49):
“Cui se stupet Parisus,
Non esse parem studio,
Parem, non si infimus,
Non in omni magisterio.”
But Matthew Paris speaks of the Angers resulting from the dispersion as of a studium
generale: “Quorum tamen maxima pars civitatem Andegavensium metropolitanam ad
doctrinam elegit universalem.” (Chron. Maj., ed. Luard, III, 168). And since Chancellor
Philip condemned it for emulating Paris, one may safely conclude that the masters from
Paris pretended that they constituted a university in the sense in which Paris was held to
be one. It had no legal recognition from the papacy.
7 In 1337 the bishop of Angers recognized the status of a studium generale (Rashdall. II. i,
150 f.; Denifle, p. 273), and in 1363 Urban V granted the privilege of non-residence to eccle-
siastics studying at Angers (Denifle, p. 274).
9 Ch.U.P., I, no. 89; May 5, 1231: “Cum sicut nobis est pro certo relatum magistri artium et
phisice facultatis, qui in Andegavensi vel Aurelianensi civitate licentia obtenta rexerunt,
prius a dilectis filiis … cancellario Parisiensi vel … abbate Sancte Genovefe aut a magistris
discessionis tempore … examinati fuissent.…”
10 Rashdall, II, i, 151 ff.; Denifle, pp. 272 ff. I have not examined the papal registers beyond
1254, but Fournier in his Statuts et privilèges, I, publishes no papal letter regulating the
license.
11 The pope ordered Stephen of Tournai to investigate, and Stephen commanded Fulco to
obey or else prove the unfitness of Master G.; Migne, PL, CCXI, 404; supra, Chap. I, note 53.
76 CHAPTER 3
that the magister scholarum exercised his authority.12 With the suppression of
the teaching of civil law at Paris in 1219 Orleans gradually became more im-
portant as a school of law.13 In 1235 Gregory IX informed the bishop of Orleans
that civil law could be taught and studied in his city by all persons except those
ecclesiastics to whom it had been forbidden by Honorius III.14 The master of
the cathedral school at once claimed the right to license masters in law and
assumed the authority over them that the chancellor at Paris exercised over
masters in other faculties.15 In a document of 1280–1300 we find the scholas-
ticus—such was now the title of the magister scholarum—licensing profes-
sors of law “in nomine Sancte et Individue Trinitatis ac victoriossime sancte
crucis”—not, it is interesting to note, in the name of the pope.16 Clement V, in
a bull of 1306, granted the privilege of the licentia ubique docendi to the univer-
sity, forbade the scholasticus to exact oaths or fees for the license, and decreed
that the scholasticus should have the power of conferring the license, but in
the presence of the bishop and two doctors representing the university should
swear to license only worthy candidates.17 The provisions made by Clement V
are clearly influenced by those made for Paris by Gregory IX in 1231;18 almost
literally the bull of 1306 follows the terms of the Parens scientiarum, except that
in the former the terms apply only to the licensing of candidates in civil and
canon law.19
In 1237, it will be remembered, the bishop of Paris asserted his right to li-
cense masters during a vacancy of the chancellorship.20 At the end of the
century the bishop of Orleans went further in trying to exercise his authority
over the law school of Orleans. Between 1288 and 1296 the scholasticus and
12 Cf. Rashdall, II, i, 137 f.

13 Ibid., II, i, 139.
14 Ch.U.P., I, no. 106; for Honorius III’s prohibition, ibid., no. 32, p. 92. Gregory IX’s letter to
the bishop of Orleans is also published by Fournier, I, 2, no. 2. Cf. Denifle, Univ., p. 253;
Fournier, Histoire de la science du droit, III, 6.
15 Rashdall, II, i, 140 f.
16 Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, I, 8, no. 13.
17 Fournier, I, no. 20, p. 13; idem, Hist. de la science du droit, III, 11.
18 Ch.U.P., I, no. 79; supra, pp. 48 f.
19 The provisions of the two bulls are parallel on the following points: (1) the oath to license
worthy candidates taken before the bishop and representatives of the masters; (2) the
examination to be held within three months after the application for the license; (3) the
oath taken by new teachers to give fair testimony, and by the chancellor or scholasticus
not to reveal the advice or vote of the examiners.
20 Supra, pp. 51 ff.
professors limited the number of doctors in civil law to five.21 When the bishop
thereafter licensed a doctor beyond the number fixed by the statute, the scho-
lasticus and professors appealed to the pope. Boniface VIII ordered the bishop
of Auxerre to investigate and settle the dispute.22 No settlement, however, was
achieved until about 1309. The limitation statute caused trouble, even endan-
gered the existence of the university: competition for only five positions on the
faculty resulted in the abuse of wealth in the purchase of the license; and the
university had grown to the requirement of more than five professors of law.23
The Cardinal-Legate Peter therefore advised the bishop of Orleans to abrogate
the statute.24 Clement V definitely repealed it, stating that no one should be
prevented from teaching, and that even doctors from other universities should
be permitted to lecture.25 The bishop thus won his case largely because the
pope upheld the papal policy of enforcing the liberty of teaching and of mak-
ing valid the licentia ubique docendi.26
At Orleans, then, the development of the license-system, although it applied
to civil and canon law, was similar to that at Paris. Proximity to Paris accounts
for much of the Parisian influence; but the papal policy accounts for more. Just
as at Paris the chancellor and later the masters tried to monopolize the right to
admit new members to the Society of Masters, so at the end of the thirteenth
century the scholasticus and doctors at Orleans attempted to close the faculty
of law to “foreign” doctors. At Paris the papacy prevented an arbitrary control
of the license either by the chancellor or by any of the faculties, and at Orleans
21 Rashdall, II, i, 142; Fournier, I, no. 17; cf. Denifle, pp. 254 f.; Fournier, Hist. de la science du
droit, III, 10.
22 Fournier, loc. cit.
23 Ibid., I, no. 24; April 26, 1308–1311. The papal legate is sarcastic about the honesty of the
scholasticus (p. 24): “Et si dicatur, quod verissimile est, quod scolasticus eligit meliores,
quomodo respondeatur si scolasticus est homo vel angelus; si homo est decipi potest …;
si vero angelus concedo positionem; bene scimus multi venerantur personas potentum et
quod multi obediunt pecunie, set forsan excipietur scolasticus Aurelianensis …”
24 Ibid., loc. cit.
25 Fournier, I, no. 26: “Nullus etiam postquam licenciatus fuerit et inceperit excludatur,
volens legere ordinarie ibidem, quantuscumque sit numerus legentium ordinarie, non
obstante statuto de certo lectorum numero … quod auctoritate apostolica … idem
Penestrinus episcopus revocavit …” Peregrine doctors should be permitted to lecture,
“dum tamen fidem faciant de licentia obtenta in studio generali.” The scholasticus is em-
powered to license bachelors examined in civil or canon law by the doctors. He must
take an oath just as the chancellor of Paris does. He must exact nothing for the license to
bachelors, “aut ultra non recipiet pro hujusmodi licentia et sigilla quam decem solidos
monete predicte.” Cf. idem, Hist. de la science du droit, III, 82.
26 On the licentia ubique docendi, see infra, Chap. V.
78 CHAPTER 3
Boniface VIII and Clement V in like manner limited the power of the scholasti-
cus and opened the guild of doctors—the analogy at Paris is the admittance of
the friars to chairs in theology—to scholars licensed elsewhere in recognized
studia generalia. One difference is of interest: at Paris the papacy limited the
number of theologians, and a degree of limitation was maintained after the re-
ligious were permitted to occupy chairs; at Orleans the papacy refused to sanc-
tion the desire of the university to limit the number of professors in law. The
explanation of this difference in the treatment of the two universities seems to
lie in the greater regard that the Holy See had for theology, and consequently in
the desire to keep on a high level the learning of the faculty of theology at Paris.
If it is surprising that the papacy should apply to Orleans, preeminently a
school of civil law, the policy that had guided seventy years earlier the devel-
opment of the license-system at Paris, it is on the other hand quite natural
that the papal founders of Toulouse should extend to it the provisions that
regulated the license-system in Paris. Indeed in 1245 Innocent IV confirmed
for the University of Toulouse the statutes of Gregory IX for Paris in the Parens
scientiarum.27 At Toulouse also, therefore, the chancellor, who was a member
of the cathedral chapter, should take an oath before the bishop and two mas-
ters delegated by the university that he would grant the license only to wor-
thy men according to his conscience and to the condition of the city and the
honor of the faculties of theology and canon law.28 Examinations, in which the
masters of the faculties participated, of candidates in theology and canon law
should be held within three months after the applications for the license. The
masters of these faculties should, when they began to lecture, swear to furnish
true evidence in the examinations, and the chancellor should not reveal their
testimony. As at Paris, again, the chancellor was to conduct the examinations
in the faculties of arts, medicine, and in other faculties that might exist.
In the case of the faculty of theology there were differences from the system
at Paris, differences owing to the peculiar origin of the University of Toulouse.
When the Church and the invaders from the north had crushed physical re-
sistance, the papacy wished to establish an intellectual stronghold against
27 Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, I, no. 523; Ch.U.P., I, nos. 79 and 149. Cf. Denifle, Univ., p. 334;
Gatien-Arnoult “L’Histoire de l’Université de Toulouse,” in Mémoires de l’Académie des
sciences, inscriptions et belles lettres de Toulouse, série 7, X, 1878. pp. 12 ff., analyzes the bull
in detail.
28 In 1314 the chancellor violated the terms of the Parens scientiarum; see Fournier, I, no. 545,
p. 486; A. Molinier, “Étude sur l’organisation de l’Université de Toulouse au 14e et au 15e
siècles (1309–1450),” in DeVic et Vaissette, Histoire générale de Languedoc, VII, 583. In 1380
the chancellor was collecting fees for the license, ibid., loc. cit.
the Albigensian heresy.29 Founded, therefore, in 1229–1233 by the papal leg-

ate Romano and Gregory IX, the university was at the start largely controlled
by the Dominicans.30 Particularly was this control recognized in the faculty
of theology. The Dominicans supplied the masters for the chairs in theology,31
and consequently the chancellor and the bishop did not license theologians
during the thirteenth century, although the bull of Innocent IV granted them
that privilege.32 In 1335 Benedict XII would not recognize the licensing of a
theologian (a Franciscan) by the chancellor.33 But in 1360 Innocent VI con-
firmed a studium generale in theology,34 elevating the faculty to an equality,
29 Rashdall, II, i, 158 f.; see Honorius III’s invitation addressed in 1217 to the masters of Paris,
Ch.U.P., I, no. 25; Fournier, I, no. 502.
31 Roland of Cremona, the first Dominican to hold a chair in theology at Paris in 1229,
went to Toulouse in 1230 (Denifle, Univ., p. 327; Rashdall, II, i, 160); cf. Douais, Essai sur
l’organisation des études dans l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, pp. 6 f. In 1290 we find the
university requesting the Dominican prior of Provence to send a master of theology; the
request was not, however, granted (Fournier, I, no. 532).
32 Denifle, Univ., p. 336, shows that no secular theologians taught at Toulouse; cf. Rashdall,
II, i, 163.
33 Ch.U.P., II, nos. 993 and 994; Fournier, III, nos. 1902 and 1903. I cite from Ch.U.P., no. 993:
“Cancellario ecclesie Tholosane … Intelleximus siquidem quod licet in studio Tholosano
non consueverit hactenus honor magistralis in facultate supradicta impendi, nec ibi-
dem habeatur copia magistrorum in facultate ipsa: tu tamen dilectum filium Geraldum
Pesquerii, Ordinis fratrum Minorum, pridem in eodem studio ad honorem hujusmodi
nescimus quo ductus consilio promovisti de facto.… mandamus et inhibemus expresse,
ne ulterius quoad dictum Geraldum vel aliqua promotionem ipsius predictam tangen-
tia, nec ad licentiandum seu promovendum aliquem alium deinceps in eodem studio ad
magisterii honorem in facultate predicta presumas procedere absque nostra et apostolice
sedis licentia speciali.” In the second bull Benedict XII orders the chancellor to produce
the papal privilege (evidently that of Innocent IV), which the chancellor claims gave him
the right to license masters in theology; the pope seems to doubt its existence.
34 The university had petitioned for the confirmation; Fournier, I, nos. 640 and 641; but
“theology continued practically in the hands of the regular orders” (Rashdall, II. i, 164).
Denifle, Univ., p. 704, and Rashdall, II, i, 163, think that the popes refused to recognize
studia generalia in theology at Toulouse and elsewhere because they wished to respect
the Parisian monopoly of theology. But Mandonnet (“La crise scolaire au début du XIIIe
siècle et la fondation de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs,” in Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique,
XV [1914], 47) decides that this policy was caused by the desire of the Holy See to favor
the Dominican studia generalia, which were indeed practically equivalent to the univer-
sity faculties of theology. Mandonnet’s view carries weight with it, for the papacy forced
the faculty at Paris to admit the friars, and encouraged the Dominican control of theol-
ogy at Toulouse. “La papauté cherchait plutôt à décentraliser Paris, comme elle le fit par
80 CHAPTER 3
as a part of the university, with the faculties of theology at Paris, Oxford, and
Cambridge. Until 1360 the faculty at Toulouse was more directly subject to the
papacy than that at Paris; at the latter place even the Dominican masters were
licensed by the chancellor, though by the authority of the papacy.
With the exception of the license-system at Montpellier, consideration of
which will have its place in connection with universities secular in their origin,
the license-systems of the universities of France that developed by the middle
of the thirteenth century have now been studied. Paris, Angers, Orleans, and
even Toulouse,35 developed in connection with earlier cathedral schools. Over
these universities, as they gradually or suddenly revealed themselves as dis-
tinct from the local centers of learning, the chancellor or scholastics of the ca-
thedral asserted his authority, at first quietly and by the consent of the masters,
since the chancellor had long been the superintendent of education in the dio-
cese and had jurisdiction over students and teachers who were all, in France,
in clerical standing. But when the masters began to form guilds and to draw up
their own statutes, the chancellor had, at Paris, to maintain his authority over
a corporation of which he was not a member. By the aid of the papacy he suc-
ceeded, but could not prevent the members of the corporation from regulat-
ing, by 1275, admission to their society. The compromise thus effected at Paris
was extended by the Holy See to Orleans and ultimately to Toulouse. Angers
needed and experienced no papal intervention because there the power of the
scholasticus was recognized by the masters, and apparently no conflict arose
owing to the fact that the scholasticus was a member of the university. It may
be safely assumed, however, that had Angers developed without a connection
with the cathedral, the papacy would have intervened to establish the author-
ity of the scholasticus.
The universities of Oxford and Cambridge may logically be considered
ecclesiastical in origin, although neither one was located in a cathedral city.
Oxford became important by the end of the twelfth century. Most of its first
masters came from Paris,36 but for several decades showed no inclination to
subject themselves to the licensing power of the bishop of Lincoln. Until 1214
la fondation de l’université de Toulouse en 1229, où l’on enseignait aussi la théologie.”

(p. 47, note 1).
35 There was a cathedral school at Toulouse in 1215, when St. Dominic commanded his com-
panions to study under Master Alexander, a theologian; Denifle, “Die Constitutionen des
Prediger-Ordens vom Jahre 1228,” in Archiv, I, 186. The privilege of Gregory IX of 1233 does
not mention the licensing power of the bishop, but implies it in granting the jus ubique
docendi (Fournier, I, no. 506).
36 On the origin of Oxford, see Rashdall, II, ii, 319 ff.
the masters themselves seem to have licensed new members of their society,37
and as late as 1246 there was no real ecclesiastical control of the license and
no effective system of examinations.38 In 1240 Robert Grosseteste, bishop
of Lincoln, ordered the masters of theology to follow the Parisian system of
lectures.39 Indirectly this was an episcopal regulation of the requirements
for examinations for the degree, but the bull of Innocent IV of 1246 expressly
empowered the bishop of Lincoln to regulate the examinations according to
the custom at Paris. The pope could delegate this function to his own legates.40
Although the pope states “secundum morem Parisiensem,” the actual develop-
ment of the license system at Oxford did not follow strictly on the model of the
chancellor system at Paris. The chancellor, it is true, in granting the license,41
represented the bishop of Lincoln, but was chosen from the masters and soon
became a member of the university.42 The university itself, moreover, by 1252
was regulating the conditions for the degree in theology. It decreed that no one
should incept in theology unless he had before taught in the faculty of arts, and
had lectured on a book of the Bible, or on Peter Lombard’s Sentences or Peter
Comestor’s Historia scholastica.43 That this statute was intended to make it dif-
ficult for the Dominicans or Franciscans to become members of the faculty
of theology justifies one’s surprise that Innocent IV or Alexander IV did not
37 Possibly the archdeacon occasionally granted the license; Rashdall, II, ii, 352.
38 Rashdall, II, ii, 354; Mallet, History of the University of Oxford, I, 26 ff.
39 Ch.U.P., I, no. 127.
40 Berger, Reg. d’Inn. IV, I, no. 1859; Ch.U.P., I, no. 154: “… Episcopo Lincolniensi. Cum sicut te
accepimus intimante apud Oxoniam tue diocesis, ubi studium vigere dinoscitur, nonnulli
passim absque examinatione cathedram presumant ascendere magistralem, ex quo pe-
riculum imminet et scandalum etiam generatur, nos tuis supplicationibus inclinati pre-
sentium tibi auctoritate concedimus, ut nullum ibi docere in aliqua facultate permittas,
nisi qui secundum morem Parisiensem a te vel hiis quibus in hac parte tuas vices com-
miserimus examinatus fuerit, et etiam approbatus.” Cf. Denifle, Univ., pp. 250 f.; Rashdall,
II, ii, 354; Lyte, History of the University of Oxford, p. 39.
41 Papal documents do not name the chancellor as the licensing official, but he licensed
masters to teach grammar. A thirteenth century statute of the Grammar School warns stu-
dents to attend classes only of someone “licentiati per Cancellarium ad docendum pub-
lice grammaticam modo debito hactenus consueto.” Anstey, Mun. Acad., II, 444; Leach,
Educational Charters and Documents, p. 188.
42 Rashdall, II, ii, 357 f.; Kaufmann, Geschichte der deutschen Universitatȅn, I, 314.
43 Anstey, Munimenta Academica, I, 25: “Statuit Universitas Oxoniensis … quod nullus in
eadem Universitate incipiat in theologia nisi prius rexerit in artibus in aliqua Universitate,
et nisi legerit aliquem librum de canone Bibliae vel librum Sententiarum vel Historiarum,
et praedicaverit publice Universitati, salva Cancellario et Universitati magistrorum potes-
tate gratiam hujusmodi defectum patientibus faciendi, cum viderit expedire.”
82 CHAPTER 3
abrogate it.44 It was the period in which the popes were securing privileges for
the friars at Paris; yet in 1254 Innocent IV confirmed this statute along with all
customs and constitutions of the university.45 In spite, therefore, of Innocent’s
privilege for the bishop of Lincoln, the university secured its practical author-
ity over examinations and the license,46 although the bishop of Lincoln re-
tained his nominal superintendency of the university.
The University of Cambridge was founded by masters and students who
migrated in 1209 from Oxford and in 1229 from Paris.47 In 1231 Henry III
complained that the students were not under the discipline of a magister
scholarum,48 and it may be assumed that there was no recognized outside of-
ficial for granting the license to teach. As at Oxford, however, the chancellor
was a member of the university,49 and besides having jurisdiction over the stu-
dents, subject to the bishop,50 he granted the license.51 This power, although
ecclesiastical in origin, he exercised in accordance with the masters, who regu-
lated and conducted the examinations, and who made their own rules on pro-
motions.52 Thus, they imitated Oxford in deciding that no one should profess
44 On the friars at Oxford, see Lyte, op. cit. pp. 23–30, 172–176; Little, Grey Friars in Oxford,
pp. 376. In 1312 Clement V commanded the university to admit two Dominican theolo-
gians to chairs, notwithstanding the statutes prohibiting masters to lecture in theology
unless they were masters in arts; Bliss, Calendar of Entries, II, lll f. In this struggle the
university won; John XXII in 1317 confirmed the compromise based on the statutes; ibid.,
II, 167.
45 Anstey, Mun. Acad., I, 26 f.; Berger, III, no. 8081.
46 See the university statutes of the fifteenth century, Anstey, Mun. Acad., II, 374–380.
47 Cf. Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge, I, 133; Denifle, Univ., p. 369;
Rashdall, II, ii, 545 f.
48 Documents Relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge, I, l; Rashdall, II, ii, 547.
49 Mullinger, op. cit., I, 140; as the chancellor was elected by the regent masters, it is obvious
that his licensing authority depended upon them rather than on the bishop of Ely.
50 See the privilege of Gregory IX, 1231, Auvray, Reg. Greg. IX, no. 1389; Bliss, Calendar of
Entries in the Papal Registers, I, 135 f.
51 To the end of the thirteenth century the bishop, through his official, decided internal
disputes between the faculties, but here is no indication that he controlled, except indi-
rectly, the promotions; Rashdall, II, ii, 548. Cf. Mullinger, I, 142; Peacock, Observations on
the Statutes (London, 1841), p. 19; “the regents alone … were authorized to form rules for
the regulation of the terms of admission to the regency,” but the chancellor granted the
license (p. 18).
52 Peacock, loc. cit. The chancellor conferred the degree “in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus
Sancti.” Ibid., p. 17, note 2.
theology without having been a regent in arts.53 Possibly it was because of the
small importance of Cambridge in the thirteenth century that the papacy did
not prescribe the episcopal license. In the fourteenth century Pope John XXII
interfered with the control by the faculty of arts of admission to the faculty of
theology; but he only modified the system by ruling that no theologian should
be rejected by one or two votes only of the masters of arts.54 The same pope
in 1318 conferred on the university the jus ubique docendi, but did not establish
episcopal authority over the license system.55
It is to be expected that if the papacy could and often did regulate the
license-system in universities of ecclesiastical origin, that is, in connection
with cathedral chapters, it would establish an official corresponding to the
chancellor of Paris over the promotions in the University of the Roman Court.56
Founded in 1244–1245 by Innocent IV, in order that ecclesiastics at the Curia
on business might spend their time in useful studies, the university was given
the privilege of non-residence for its students and masters in theology and
civil and canon law, and other privileges, including the jus ubique docendi, of
studia generalia.57 It was governed by the college of doctors, which controlled
examinations, subject, of course, to the will of the papacy.58 On the command
of the pope, a scholar from any school might be examined by the doctors and
given the licentia ubique docendi.59 The license was granted by the Cardinal
Camerlengo,60 or by a papal notary.61 The pope himself might dispense with
any preliminary studies or examinations, and confer the license by a bull—a
practice that the Council of Constance tried to reform.62
The universities of Spain and Portugal differed in origin from those of Italy,
France, and England, and present peculiarities that make it difficult to classify
53 Bliss, op. cit., II, 495 (1330). John XXII states that hitherto it had been permitted to no one
to profess theology unless he had been a regent in arts.
54 Ibid., loc. cit.
55 Denifle, Univ., p. 375; Rashdall, II, ii, 551 f.; Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitȁten, I, 321.
57 The foundation privilege does not name the official. The best text is given by Denifle,
Univ., p. 302, notes 323 and 326; cf. Friedberg, II, Liber Sextus Decretalium, lib. V, tit. vii,
c. 2, and note c.
59 For example, Guillaume Séguier in 1268; Fournier, II, no. 895.
61 Clement IV ordered Berard of Naples, papal subdeacon and notary, to grant the license to
Guillaume Séguier; Fournier, II, no. 895.
62 Rashdall, II, i, 29; H. von der Hardt, ed., Canones … in Concilio Constantiensi, I, ii, 605 f.,
“De amplius non faciendo doctores bullatos.”
84 CHAPTER 3
them either with the Italian or with the French type. “They were created by
the sovereigns of the various kingdoms … In their internal constitution and
government they are more or less closely modelled on the Bologna type. But
the last mentioned fact did not exclude a close connexion also with cathe-
dral or other churches. Some of the universities (especially those of Castile)
were distinctly developments—though artificial developments under royal
authority—of ancient chapter-schools; and except where (as at Lerida) the
chancellor was a royal nominee, the bishop and the capitular master of the
schools exercised considerable authority in the studium.”63
It was not by recent papal authority that the bishop and maestrescuela su-
pervised the universities. Before the thirteenth century there were cathedral
schools in Spain,64 and when the kings founded universities they generally re-
tained the maestrescuela as the logical official for conducting examinations
and granting the license to teach. The royal policy, however, was in accord with
the papal, and hence the popes had no reason to regulate the license-system in
Spain and Portugal in the thirteenth century. In any case the retention by the
kings of episcopal control of the promotions was an acknowledgement of the
papal legislation of the ninth century.
At Palencia, founded in 1213–1214 by Alfonso VIII of Castile,65 the bishop
and magister scholarum asserted over the new university the authority that
they had possessed by earlier papal legislation,66 over the cathedral school.
The bishop himself called to Palencia as professors a theologian, a decretist, a
logicus, and a grammarian,67 and, although no description of the constitution
survives, it is probable that the maestrescuela granted the license to masters
who completed their studies in the university.68 During the brief history of
Palencia—it had disappeared by 126369—we encounter no papal regulation of
the license-system, not even a privilege of the jus ubique docendi.
For the constitution of Salamanca the evidence is clear. There, also, there
had long been a cathedral school,70 and when Alfonso IX of Leon about 1220

64 De La Fuente, Historia de las universidades, I, ch. vi; in particular pp. 61 ff., on the
maestrescuela.
65 Denifle, Univ., p. 474; Rashdall, II, i, 65 f.
66 Supra, pp. 1 f.
67 So Honorius III relates in 1220; Reg. Vat. Hon. III, 1.5, ep. 153, f. 32, and 1.9, ep. 237, f. 40, cited
by Denifle, p. 475, note 1039.
68 Rashdall, II, i, 66 ff.
69 Ibid., II, i, 68.
70 La Fuente, I, 86.
and Ferdinand of Castile again in 1242 founded the university,71 the maestre
scuela or scholasticus, subject to the bishop, continued to grant the license,72
while the masters participated in the examinations.73 This system, tacitly rec-
ognized by Alexander IV in 1255, when he conferred on the university the privi-
lege of the licentia ubique docendi, except at Bologna and Paris,74 was definitely
confirmed by John XXII in 1333.75
The studium generale of Seville (1254),76 and the universities of Valladolid77
and Lerida (1300)78 were controlled, like Salamanca, by royal authority. The
papacy did not interfere with whatever license-system was instituted. But
there may have been a measure of ecclesiastical control at Seville, where the
Dominicans participated indirectly in the founding of the studium generale for
the study of Latin and Arabic.79 Valladolid, which was not the see of a bishop,
was subject, in the matter of licenses, to the abbot of the secular collegiate
church.80 At Lerida, although the king of Aragon appointed a chancellor as
the licensing authority, his appointee was chosen from the canons of Lerida, “a
concession to the connexion generally existing between chapter and schools
in Spain.”81
If, however, in Spain the concession to ecclesiastical influences was usually
made, it was made by royal, not by papal, authority. The influence of papal
control in France and in Italy may be perceived; but more direct was the influ-
ence of the old system of the cathedral schools, which served as a convenient
model for the license-system of the universities. Even where, as at Salamanca,
the maestrescuela continued to grant the license, the ecclesiastical authority
seems to have been formal only, for the provision in the Siete Partidas (1263)
on the license does not mention the licensing function of the scholasticus; it
71 Rashdall, II, i, 69 f.; Denifle, pp. 479 f.; La Fuente, I, 89 f.

72 Rashdall, II, i, 70 and 78.
73 lbid., II, i, 71.
74 Denifle, Archiv, V, 171, no. 6. It should be noted that the pope grants the privilege in ac-
cordance with the wishes of the king.
75 Archiv, V, 173.
76 Cf. Denifle, Univ., pp. 495 ff.; Rashdall, II, i, 81 f.
77 Denifle, Univ., pp. 376 ff.; Rashdall, II, i, 82 ff. Valladolid was a studium generale before
1300.
78 Denifle, pp. 499 ff.; Rashdall, II, i, 86 ff.
79 Denifle, pp. 497 f.
80 Ibid., p. 380; Rashdall, II, i, 84. In 1418 Martin V, founding a studium generale in theology,
confirmed the licensing power of the abbot; Denifle, loc. cit.
81 Rashdall, II, i, 88; cf. Denifle, p. 501.
86 CHAPTER 3
provides that the mayorales, or rectors elected by the masters and students,82
shall give candidates the permission to take the examination and receive the
license to teach.83 Apparently the scholasticus was bound to confer the license
on all who were legally examined by the university. Ecclesiastical authority in
Spain was subordinate to the royal.
In Portugal the University of Lisbon, transferred to Coimbra in 1308–1309,84
was founded by King Diniz.85 The foundation was confirmed and given privi-
leges in 1290 by Nicholas IV.86 One of the privileges was in favor of the bishop
of Lisbon, who was empowered to grant the jus ubique docendi in all faculties
except that of theology.87 But the royal statutes for the University of Coimbra
in 1309 only mention the licensing power of an ecclesiastical authority, which
as at Salamanca was purely formal.88
Papal regulation of the license-system in Spain was thus nonexistent or, at
the most, quite indirect in so far as papal regulation in France and in Italy served
as a precedent for the royal concessions to ecclesiastical tradition in Spain. If
it was direct in Portugal, it was only the recognition of the royal foundation,
and royal authority prevailed in giving the University of Lisbon-Coimbra the
effective control of the license. To the Church in Spain and in Portugal was

83 Las Siete Partidas (ed. of 1848, Los Codigos Españoles), I, Partida segunda, tit.xxxi, ley
ix: “Como deven provar al Escolar que quiere ser Maestro ante que le otorgien licencia.
Discipulo deue ante ser al Escolar, que quier auer honrra de Maestro. E desque ouiesse
bien aprendido, deve venir ante los Mayorales de los Estudios que han poder de les otor-
gar la licencia para esto.” When the candidate passes the examination, “deuenle despues
otorgar publicamente honrra, para ser Maestro; tomando jura del, que demuestre bien e
lealmente la su sciencia, e que nin dio, nin prometio a dar ninguna cosa a aquellos que le
otorgaron la licencia.…”
But elsewhere the Siete Partidas (Partida I, tit. vi ley vii, p.113) recognizes the maestre
scuela’s licensing function in both cathedral schools and in studia; but in the latter he pre-
sides over the examinations, and licenses students approved by the masters: “… E otrosi,
a su oficio pertenesce, de estar delante, quando se provaren los Escolares en las Cibdades
donde son los estudios, si son tan letrados que merezcan ser otorgados por Maestros de
Gramatica o de Logica, o de alguno de los otros saberes; e aquellos que entendiere que lo
merezcen, puedeles otorgar, que lean assi como Maestros. E esta misma Dignidad llaman
en algunas Eglesias Canceller.…”
85 Ibid., II, i, 102 f.; Denifle, p. 522 f.
86 Denifle, p. 523; Rashdall, II, I, 102 f.; António de Vasconcelos, Origem et evoluçaõ do fôro
académico privativo da antiga Universidade portuguesa, p. 6.
87 Rashdall, II, i, 103; Denifle, p. 523.
88 Denifle, p. 526; Rashdall, II, i, 105.
conceded only the formality of the conferring of the license. This formality was
of importance not so much in the local ceremonies and examinations leading
to the degree as in the guarantee of universal validity for the license to teach. In
the conferring of the jus ubique docendi it was necessary that the degree should
be given by a representative of the universal Church, and therein, in Spain and
Portugal, the royal compromise with ecclesiastical authority had its real value.
The influence of the papacy on the development of the theory and practice of
the licentia ubique docendi will be considered, however, only after the license-
system in the remaining universities has been studied.
CHAPTER 4
The License-System in Universities of Secular

Origin
The scholastic legislation of Eugenius II, Alexander III and Innocent III affect-
ed the cathedral schools, and on it the popes of the thirteenth century based
their regulation of the chancellor or episcopal license-system in the univer-
sities that grew out of or had their origin in connection with the cathedrals.
Here I wish to consider the means, theory, and causes of the assertion of papal
authority over the universities that developed from secular schools—the uni-
versities of Italy and of Montpellier. How could the popes of the thirteenth
century claim the right to superintend secular corporations of masters and
students? The answer that the nature of all guilds, the element of the oath,
and the presence in them of ecclesiastics, were grounds for papal interference
is not completely satisfactory,1 nor does the answer suffice that the potestas
magisterii2 was the basis of papal authority over all schools. The theory of the
papal control of all learning was only partially developed from the ninth cen-
tury to the Fourth Lateran Council, for the legislation for cathedral schools
was concerned only with the subjects taught in them—the trivium and qua-
drivium, but usually, more specifically, grammar, rhetoric, and theology. Civil
law and medicine were not taught in church schools, and were not yet legally
included among the subjects considered as useful for approaching the highest
science of all—theology.3 Even civil law was eventually subordinated, at least
by ecclesiastics who wanted an excuse to escape the prohibition of its study, to
1 All members of the schools were also members of the Church, and as clerks they enjoyed
the privilegium fori in jurisdiction (infra, Chap. VI). The guilds of students and masters
were subject to the jurisdiction of the Church in a double sense. Cf. Gierke, Das deutsche
Genossenschaftsrecht, III, 249.
2 Hinschius, System des katholischen Kirchenrechts, IV, 432 f., and 472 ff.; Denifle, Universitäten,
p. 779.
3 In theory, of course, the secular sciences could be regulated by the papacy if they taught mat-
ters inimical to the faith; Hinschius, IV, 573. In the Fourth Lateran Council ecclesiastics were
forbidden to practice surgery, because it involved the letting of blood; but surgery was not
forbidden to laymen. At the Council of Tours, 1163, the study of medicine and civil law by the
regular clergy was prohibited (Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no.1). But these examples of ecclesiastical
regulation of medicine and civil law do not concern laymen at Bologna or Montpellier.

The License-System in Universities of Secular Origin 89
canon law and the Church.4 But civil law and medicine were not recognized as
properly ecclesiastical studies.
By the twelfth century these two secular sciences were being taught in Italy
and in southern France in schools that were independent of local episcopal
authority. In the second decade of the following century the papacy began to
establish ecclesiastical control over the universities of law and medicine. But
Honorius III at Bologna and his legate at Montpellier did not express the the-
ory of ecclesiastical authority when they brought the license-systems of these
universities within the sphere of papal legislation, although Honorius’ action
became the practical basis of the theory.
The theory and the legal ground for ecclesiastical supervision were ex-
pressed by Clement IV in 1268. In fact, it is upon his own distinction between
ecclesiastical control over universities of the North and that over the secular
universities of law and medicine that I base my own classification of the uni-
versities according to origin. If my distinction is perhaps somewhat artificial,
I excuse myself by offering the precedent of a legal distinction made by a le-
gally minded pope of the thirteenth century. Clement IV’s theory, at any rate,
is worth noting.
King James of Aragon, feudal lord of Montpellier, on his own initiative li-
censed Guillaume Séguier to lecture in civil law at the university.5 The bishop
of Maguelone, as I shall explain more fully below, claimed the exclusive right to
grant the license. He therefore contested the king’s action by excommunicat-
ing Guillaume Séguier. The king appealed to the pope. In answer to the appeal
Clement IV addressed to the king a bull that explained at length the nature
and theory of ecclesiastical superintendence of the secular faculty of law at
Montpellier and elsewhere, and thereby the pope in effect excused the bish-
op’s refusal to accept the king’s appointee. On the licensing of doctors, said the
pope, canon law prescribes one thing, the laws of princes prescribe something
else. The customs that regulate the granting of the license, however, vary from
one diocese or place to another. The council held (in 826) under Eugenius (II)
ordered all bishops to establish masters and doctors to teach “studia litterarum,
liberalium artium dogmata …, quia in his maxime divina manifestantur atque
mandata declarantur.” Human law (“lex humana”), however, provided that
4 A gloss (thirteenth century) to the decree of the Council of Tours, 1163, is of interest on this
point: “Quidam etiam dicunt quod pro necessitate vel utilitate monasterii licet eis fisicam et
leges audire seculares, et hanc prohibitionem intelligunt in casu ubi sub tali intentioni audire
volunt ut mundanis actionibus rursus involvantur.” With this attitude the glossator is not in
sympathy. MS. Vat. lat. 1377, fol. 62v.
5 Fournier, ed., Statuts et privilèges, II, no. 894, p. 12.
90 CHAPTER 4
“professores civilis sapientie” should not occupy magisterial chairs unless ap-
proved by the members of the municipal senate (“ab ordine decurionum”). But
this law was valid at a time when ecclesiastical law (“censura ecclesiastica”)
did not flourish, and when, moreover, matrimonial cases were tried by laymen.
The situation now is manifestly altered, and if the king (who apparently had
used the argument of secular authority for schools of secular law) would but
open his eyes (“purgatis oculis”) he would see the truth. What was the true
situation at Montpellier? It is well known, continued the pope, that the bishop
of Maguelone has for a long time been granting the license in other faculties,
“consueta forma servata” (that is, according to ecclesiastical usage in cathedral
schools), but has not done so in the faculty of civil law. His failure to license
professors of law has been the result simply of the paucity of students in civil
law, who have been too few to create a demand for degrees. Now that the oc-
casion has arisen, however, it is evident that what is customary or observed in
other faculties should be observed in the faculty of law. And since the bishop
ordains the chancellor, who is the immediate head of the students, the bishop
himself is the chief head of the university (“idem episcopus caput est studii
principale”).6
The rest of the letter needs no detailed examination. After expounding the
customary rights of the bishop, the pope then reassured the king by telling him
that a compromise would be arranged; and a few months later he commanded
the university to admit to its society Guillaume Séguier, who by this time had
been examined at the Roman Court.7 What interests us at this point is the fact
that Clement IV finds that the episcopal authority over the secular school of
law at Montpellier derives from custom and precedent, which have resulted
in increased ecclesiastical control. Formerly, the Church had no jurisdiction
over cases of matrimony, nor, we infer by analogy, over the license to teach
in civil law and—it follows—in medicine. But now, in the thirteenth century,
the Church has authority over secular schools and secular sciences. Strangely
enough, Clement IV does not cite as precedents Honorius III’s subjection of the
license-system at Bologna to the archdeacon, and the papal legate Conrad’s
6 Fournier, op. cit., II, no. 894. Cf. Denifle, Univ., pp. 345 f.; Manacorda, Storia della scuola in
Italia, I, i, 217 ff. Manacorda cites this bull to prove that the bishop’s authority descended
from the legislation of Eugenius II and Leo IV (I, i, 194 f.); yet actually Clement IV admits
that the bishop’s right to grant the license in law at Montpellier has developed by custom
and precedent. The precedent is his licensing power in other faculties; but this power came
not from papal provisions for cathedral schools, but from the special statutes of 1220. The
same legatine statutes of 1220 established the jurisdiction of the chancellor over civil cases
(Fournier, II, no. 882, p. 5); but the chancellor, at first nominated by the bishop and later by
the masters (Rashdall, II, i, 120 f.), was not a cathedral official.
7 Infra., p. 109.
establishment of the bishop of Maguelone’s authority over the University of

Medicine at Montpellier. Neither Honorius III nor his legate stated the theory
or the legality of their action; they evidently proceeded on the general right
of the papacy to regulate guilds and learning, and with the precedent of Paris
in mind. The strict legality of their founding of ecclesiastical authority over
Bologna and Montpellier matters little; the fact alone is of importance. Upon
the fact of the legislation of Honorius III and his legate, Clement IV undoubt-
edly based the right of the Church to regulate all knowledge and all institutions
of learning. Yet it must be observed that Clement IV acknowledges not the
precedent of Bologna, but that of the episcopal authority over schools of eccle-
siastical origin. His chief argument is that by custom the bishop of Maguelone
is the head of the University of Montpellier, not by papal mandate. Legally,
he could advance no other grounds, for Montpellier did not develop from a
cathedral school. It is an admission by an expert in canon and civil law that
the papacy had no direct legal support for its establishment of ecclesiastical
authority over the universities of secular origin.
In 1219 and 1220, when Honorius III and his legate established the cathedral
license-system over Bologna and Montpellier, there was no legal theory justify-
ing the new assertion of papal authority. The theory was not needed; condi-
tions demanded papal regulation of the license, and the papacy acted, thus
establishing the fact upon which Clement IV could found his apology to the
king of Aragon. Episcopal authority, confirmed by the Holy See, was not con-
tested at Bologna, and not until 1268 at Montpellier. By that time ecclesiastical
control of the universities of medicine and law was too strong to be seriously
contested by secular princes. The history of the establishment of ecclesiastical
authority over secular schools will best explain the development of the theory.
I shall begin with Bologna, for Honorius III’s privilege for the archdeacon
precedes by a year the legatine ordinance for the University of Medicine at
Montpellier; and besides, in general the constitution of Bologna influenced
that of Montpellier.
From the twelfth century comes no satisfactory evidence on the organiza-
tion of the professors at Bologna.8 Professors they were, however, and their
importance was indirectly recognized in 1158 by the Authentic Habita, which
gave the professors of law a share of the jurisdiction over students,9 and in
1159 by Alexander III, who, a former student and perhaps teacher of canon law
8 The best works to consult on the University of Bologna are those of Denifle, Univ., I, 40–60
and 132–218; Rashdall, I, chap. iv; Manacorda, Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, i, cap. vii.
9 On the Authentic Habita see Denifle, Univ., I, 47–59; Rashdall, I, 145–147; Manacorda, I, i, 204
f. It is agreed that if the Habita did not name Bologna, it had in view the students and doctors
of Bologna.
92 CHAPTER 4
at Bologna,10 announced his elevation to the pontifical throne to the bishop

and canons of the chapter, and to the doctors of law.11 It is possible that by 1158
the doctors of civil and canon law were sufficiently organized to control the ad-
mission by cooptation of new members to their ranks,12 but of this no definite
proof is at hand.13 Whether or not a vague form of society existed, there was
no exterior authority, secular or ecclesiastical, that supervised the examining
and licensing of candidates for teaching.14
10 Cf. H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders des Drittens, I, 24 f.; Thaner, ed., Summa Magistri
Rolandi, pp. xxii ff.; and Gietl, ed., Die Sentenzen Rolands, pp. v–xx.
11 Migne, PL, CC., col. 73; Denifle, op. cit., p. 48.
12 Rashdall, I, 147f.; Savigny, Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, 2nd ed., III, 206.
13 Odofredo, about 1279, says: “Antiqui doctores … convenissent in ecclesia S. Petri pro qua
dam examinatione.” Malagola, Statuti delle Università e dei Collegi dello studio bolognese,
p. xiii. But this is doubtful evidence of a College of Doctors in the twelfth century.
14 Rashdall, I, 147 and 223. Manacorda, I, i, cap. vii, tries to prove that the law schools of
Bologna were from the earliest times subject to the bishop; that (pp. 196–213) the bishop
of Bologna granted the license in the twelfth century and until 1219, when Honorius III
transferred the privilege to the archdeacon. Most of the evidence cited by Manacorda is
of the vaguest sort, actually offering no tangible proof of the bishop’s control of the law
schools. He thinks (I, i, 205) that Frederick Barbarossa recognized, in granting scholars
the choice of the jurisdiction of the bishop or of the doctors, the traditional authority
of the bishop over all schools in Bologna. While it is true that from the ninth century it
was the duty of cathedral churches to establish schools, not all cathedrals did so; and the
church of Bologna seems not to have possessed an official school in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. Manacorda virtually admits this (I, i, 197 ff.), but argues against the
silence of the evidence. Yet even if the cathedral had a school, it was not one of civil
law—cathedral churches by canon law were obliged to support only schools of grammar
and elementary theology. As for the bishop’s jurisdiction, it seems that the bishop was
designated by the emperor not because of his traditional authority over the law schools,
but because he would be the natural choice for cases concerning ecclesiastics studying at
Bologna.
But if Manacorda fails to find any proof of his thesis from the twelfth century, does he
find it in evidence from the thirteenth? He emphasizes a gloss by Raymond of Peñafort,
written about 1219–1222 (I, i, 212; Denifle, Univ., p. 15, note 76), as proof that the bishop
before 1219 granted the license to teach. I cite the gloss from Denifle, Univ., p. 739, note 232,
and Manacorda, I, i, 212: “Officium examinandi exercebatur olim a sacerdotibus et aliis
jurisprudentibus et in divina lege peritis ab episcopo ad hoc delegatis. xxiiii. dist. quando
[Decretum, distinction xxiv, cap. 5], et idem esset hodie, si archidiaconus esset absens.
Hodie autem de jure pertinet hoc ad officium archidiaconi. extra, iiii. de officio archidia-
coni [This is a reference to a decretal of Innocent III, in Compilatio IV, lib. I, tit. xi, cap. 1
(cf. Friedberg, Quinque compilationes, p. 138)].” From the gloss alone Manacorda might well
judge that the bishop formerly granted the license; but he is wrong in his interpretation
The freedom of the doctors at Bologna in the twelfth century is attributable

to the fact that the schools of law developed at first independently of local
ecclesiastical control.15 Moreover, the teaching of civil law was not affected by
the papal legislation of the ninth century; episcopal schools were to be estab-
lished only for grammar and doctrina.16 Thus there was no provision in canon
law that could be interpreted in favor of the superintendence by the bishop of
the doctors of canon law. Honorius III established ecclesiastical authority over
the university. In 1219 he conferred on Gratia, the archdeacon of the church of
Bologna, the privilege of presiding over examinations and granting the license
to teach.17
of the gloss. It refers to the examination not of candidates for the license to teach, but, as
Denifle rightly points out (Univ., p. 739), of ecclesiastics seeking dignities and benefices.
Raymond of Peñafort refers first to the Decretum, dist. xxiv, cap. 5 (Friedberg, ed., Corpus
juris canonici, I, col. 88), where it is question of the examination of ecclesiastics who are
to be ordained; then to the letter of Innocent III (Friedberg, II, Decr. Greg. IX, lib. I, tit.
xxiii, c. 7), which prescribes that those who are to be provided with benefices shall be
examined by the archdeacon and then presented by him to the bishop (cf. Denifle, Univ.,
p. 739).
Manacorda is wrong, therefore, in his belief that before 1219 the bishop of Bologna
controlled the license-system. Zaccagnini falls into the same error; he asserts, without
offering evidence, that private examinations for the license were held before 1219 in the
episcopal palace, or in the church of San Pietro, in the presence of the bishop, and that
the Church thus in a measure supervised the studium (La vita dei maestri e degli scolari
nello studio di Bologna, p. 80). Odofredo states only that the “antiqui doctores” assembled
in the church of San Pietro “pro quadam examinatione” (Malagola, Statuti, p. xiii; supra,
note 13. His statement seems to have no more significance than that the church was the
most convenient place where the doctors could assemble. Churches in the Middle Ages
were frequently used for secular transactions that had no connection with ecclesiastical
authority (cf. G. G. Coulton, Art and the Reformation, pp. 324 f).
In sum, then, Rashdall’s view must be accepted until better evidence than that offered
by Manacorda is adduced.
15 Cf. Denifle, Univ., pp. 731–742; as I have shown in the preceding note, Manacorda fails to
break down the thesis maintained by Denifle that Bologna was of secular origin.
16 Supra, p. 7.
17 Pressutti, ed., Regesta Papae Honorii III, I, no. 2127; Sarti-Fattorini, De claris Archigymnasii
Bononiensis professoribus, II, 15, no. 4: “… Dilecto filio Archidiacono bononiensi … Cum
sepe contingat ut [in civitati Bononien. (Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. 10, ep. 509, fol. 107v)] minus
docti ad docendi regimen assumuntur, propter quod et doctorum honor minuatur et
profectus impediatur scholarium volentium erudiri, nos, eorundem utilitati et honori
prospicere cupientes, auctoritate presentium duximus statuendum, ut nullus ulterius in
civitate predicta ad docendi regimen assumatur, nisi a te obtenta licentia, examinatione
94 CHAPTER 4
What were the causes of the pope’s action? The immediate cause, according
to Savigny,18 was the desire of Honorius to bestow a personal favor on Gratia;
and although there is no expression of such a motive in the papal letter,19 it
may well be that the pope wished to honor a man held in consideration at
Rome.20 According to Denifle the reason was merely a precedent: the archdea-
con was already in charge of the examinations of ecclesiastics who were to be
beneficed, and Honorius III by extension conferred on him the supervision of
the examinations of candidates for the license.21 Rashdall finds the cause of
the new privilege in the precedent of the chancellor license-system at Paris,
and in the policy of the papacy to subject all schools to the authority of Rome.22
In effect, certainly, the result of Honorius III’s provision was the subordination
of the doctors at Bologna to papal supervision, but Honorius does not proclaim
a general policy of papal control of secular schools. What the pope does as-
sert is the duty of the papacy, by virtue of the potestas magisterii, to protect
students and give them capable professors.23 The establishment of ecclesias-
tical authority over examinations and the license was the means by which a
standard of ability could be maintained in the doctors of law, since—so, per-
haps, thought the pope—the archdeacon, not a member of the University of
Students nor of the College of Doctors, would be—ideally, at least—impartial
in selecting the examiners and in granting the license to candidates of ability.
The old system, in which the doctors licensed their own favorite students, was
prehabita diligenti; tu denique contradictores, si qui fuerint, vel rebelles, per censuram
ecclesiasticam, appellatione remota, compescas.”
18 Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, 2nd. ed., III, 224.
19 Rashdall, I, 223, note 3, therefore concludes that the personal motive could not have
existed.
20 If it could be proved that the Master Gratia who appears in 1206 as a delegate of the
Cardinal-Legate Guala is the same as the archdeacon of 1219–1224, there would be more
reason in the assumption that Honorius III intended the privilege as a personal favor
for a man already known both for his connection with Rome and for his ability in canon
law. But the identification is doubtful. (Cf. Schulte, Geschichte der Quellen und Litteratur
des canonischen Rechts, I, 197). Even so our Gratia was perhaps a papal chaplain in 1218
(Savigny, III, 159), and Honorius III confers the privilege on Gratia (“nisi a te obtenta li-
centia”) more specifically than on the office of the archdeacon; though to be sure the
privilege was thereby permanently attached to the office. The personal motive may have
influenced the pope, but it was not the only reason for the privilege.
21 Denifle, Univ., p. 739.
22 Rashdall, I, i, 223 f.
23 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 15, no. 4: “Cum sepe contingat ut minus docti ad docendi regimen assu-
muntur, propter quod et doctorum honor minuatur et profectus impediatur scholarium
volentium erudiri …”
a loose one, of no promise towards increasing the efficiency of the College of

Doctors. The desire to improve the status of learning, then, was perhaps a mo-
tive back of Honorius III’s privilege to the archdeacon. It was at any rate the
only one expressed by him. It does not, however, exclude the factors suggested
by Savigny, Denifle, and Rashdall. It is possible that favoritism, the precedent
set by Alexander III at Paris, and the need of reforming the license-system all
had their influence on Honorius III.
If Honorius thought that his privilege would result in impartial and free ex-
aminations and licenses on the basis of attainments alone, he was somewhat
too confident, as the history of the license-system in the thirteenth century
clearly shows. Before long, fees were being paid to the examiners and possibly
to the archdeacon. As soon as the archdeacon of Bologna was placed in charge
of the license-system promotions were subject to the papal decrees against
scholastic simony.24 Not until the pontificate of Innocent IV do we find a di-
rect papal condemnation of fees in the case of Bologna, but already Raymond of
Peñafort and Geoffrey of Trani, in their treatises on the Decretals of Gregory IX,
had pronounced their opinion that at Bologna, as well as at Paris, fees for the
license were illegal and inexcusable.25 Nevertheless it became the practice at
Bologna for the doctors to accept fees or gifts for promotions. This custom
was condemned in 1250 by the Cardinal-Legate Octavian, who forbade, in
terms influenced by but far more sweeping than the prohibition of the evil by
Alexander III, the sale of the license to teach, or of the license to approve or
advise or to have cedulae or instruments of any kind drawn up.26 Transgressors
24 Supra, Chap. I, pp. 9–16.

25 Raymond of Peñafort, Summa de poenitentia, MS. Casanaten. lat. 1094, fol. 8v; “Quid de
cancellario parisiensi et bononiensi, vel magistris scolarium seu precentoribus aliarum
ecclesiarum, qui cupiditate vel consuetudine longa nolunt forte alicui dare licentiam
docendi nisi aliquo sibi dato. Ad hoc dico quod nec magister qui petit licentiam debet
aliquid dare vel promittere, nec aliquis supradictorum aliquid exigere.” Cf. Raymond’s
Summa de casibus, lib. i, De magistris; MS. Vat. lat. 10270, fol. 170v.
Similarly Geoffrey of Trani, MS. Vat. lat. 10269. Summa de titulis decretalium, lib. v,
De magistris, fol. 134v. Cf. the opinion of Bernard of Pavia (end of the twelfth century)
in a gloss to the Quanto Gallicana and the Lateran decree of 1179, in MS. Vat. lat. 1377,
fol. 82v: “Consueverunt enim ecclesiarum prelati pro docendi licentia querere pecuniam,
et est ar[gumentum] contra malam consuetudinem, quamvis antiquam … B’[ernadus de
Pavia?].”
26 Denifle edits the letter in Archiv, IV, 243: “Octavianus … doctoribus Bononie commoran-
tibus … Sane cum admiratione audimus quod audire oportuit … quod officium docendi
in civitate Bononie ac approbationis adeptio sub datione ac acceptione munerum usur-
patur. Cum autem hec prava consuetudo a cupiditatis radice processerit, cum sit scientia
96 CHAPTER 4
should be excommunicated, and should not be released from excommu-

nication by the archdeacon or his vicar until they confessed their guilt in
the presence of the doctors, masters and rectors, and had returned the fees
accepted.27 At this time, it seems, it was the examiners who were guilty, not the
archdeacon. Many students of means were willing to pay for the license. But
the University of Students as a whole was opposed to the custom of payment
for promotions, and it petitioned Innocent IV to stop the practice. Accordingly
in 1252 the pope himself granted to the university that no one should exact or
extort anything from students wishing to ascend the magisterial chair,28 and
he appointed the bishop of Modena to execute the prohibition.29
The pope and his legate intended that neither the archdeacon nor the ex-
amining doctors should receive any remuneration for promotions. Yet by the
end of the century certain professors—perhaps all of any renown—were col-
lecting fees from candidates. Franciscus Accursius and his father, the great
Accursius, were guilty; and Franciscus was so conscience-stricken about it—
so the pope says—that he confessed to Pope Nicholas IV, asking indulgence
for himself and for the salvation of his father’s soul.30 The pope condoned
Franciscus’ guilt, and permitted him to keep the money made from fees for lec-
tures and for examinations, if such fees were exacted from clerical students.31
donum dej, que dehonestari non debet nec precio nummario extimarj, ne decorem
confundat scolastice honestatis, nos … precipimus a Bononiensi studio penitus abo-
lerj, … statuentes ut officium examinandi et approbationis adeptio seu collatio procedere
possit lucide atque pure, ac viri litterati et idonei undecumque sint valeant absque ali-
quorum molestia et exactione scolas regere ac docendi licentiam adipisci, cum scriptum
sit gratis accepistis gratis date, sub pena excommunicationis districtius prohibentes, ne
quis de cetero pro licentia docendi et approbandi seu consulandi vel pretextu laboris seu
habendi aliquam cedulam scriptam vel scribendam, aut occasione conficiendi exinde ali-
quod instrumentum, aliquid det vel exiget vel promissionem seu spem faciat et acceptet
de aliquo dando ante vel post occasione predicta.” Cf. ibid., IV, 241.
27 Archiv, IV, 243.
28 Ibid., IV, 244, no. 3: “… Universitati scolarium Bononiensium … vestris iustis postula-
tionibus inclinati ut nullus ab illis Scolaribus Bononiensibus qui Cathedram ascendere
voluerint magistralem aliquid exigere vel extorquere presumat auctoritate vobis presen-
tium indulgemus …”
29 Ibid., IV, 244, no. 4.
30 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 70. no. 44 (an. 1291): Nicholas IV to Franciscus Accursius, “… super eo
preterea, quia tu, ac idem pater pro examinationibus scolarium qui licentiandi erant in
facultate legali, quandoque munera recepistis; tibi ob ista conscientiam habenti, ut as-
seris, remordentem, necnon et saluti anime patris predicti apostolica subveniri providen-
tia suppliciter postulasti …” Cf. Kaufmann, Deutsche Univ., I, 210.
31 Ibid., loc. cit.: “… concedimus, ut ea que per te vel ipsum patrem a scolaribus illis, qui cle
rici existebant de bonis ecclesiasticis predictis modis obtenta fuisse noscuntur, retinere
Strangely enough the pope ordered Accursius to make restitution only to lay
students, if such sums were recorded and the students could be found.32 This
letter of Nicholas IV is almost a recognition of fees for examinations. The uni-
versity itself recognized them in the statutes of 1317. Therein it is provided that
the doctorandus shall pay three lire to the university, ten or twelve ducats to
the doctor under whom he studied, and not more than three lire to each of the
examiners.33 The latter, however, were limited to sixteen, so that the student
would not be unduly burdened.34 Even so the license was costly enough. In
1371 Gregory XI forbade the archdeacon and doctors to collect fees from stu-
dents in the new papal college.35 Thus for the rest of the university the papacy
had finally recognized the practice that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
it had severely condemned.36
The fact, however, that the papacy attempted to restrain the growth of the
custom of fees shows that the popes were willing to favor the students, for it
was for their benefit, and upon their petition, that the Legate and Innocent IV
condemned the pretium for examinations and promotions. It was also for the
sake above all of the students, Honorius III proclaimed, that he appointed the
archdeacon as the presiding officer over the examinations and as the repre-
sentative of the Church in conferring the license to teach. This statement, I
pointed out above, expresses a motive back of the privilege: control of the li-
cense by the archdeacon would improve the state of learning and would ben-
efit the scholars. On the side of increased efficiency in instruction, it has just
been observed that the desired result was not attained. But is it not possible
that another result, again for the sake of the students, was envisaged by the
pope, expressed in the words that on the surface seem only to refer to better
instruction in law, and actually in part achieved? Viewing the whole situation
in 1219, one notes that the Universities of Students were engaged in a struggle
with the podestà and Commune over the question of the right of the students
libere valeas, nec ad illorum restitutionem … tenearis aliquatenus faciendam, ita tamen
quod a scolaribus laicis per te vel dictum patrem, dum viveret, taliter habita et precepta,
si videlicet iidem sciri aut inveniri poterunt, restituere procures …”
A gloss of Accursius reveals that he thought that the sons of doctors should not have
to pay for being examined; Savigny, III, 239.
32 See previous note.
33 Denifle, “Die Statuten der Juristen-Universität Bologna,” Archiv., III, 339, Rubric lix; cf.
p. 328, Rubric liii, where the doctorandus is required to take oath that he will not pay fees
to anyone besides those named in Rubric lix. Cf. Malagola, ed., Statuti, pp. 36–39.
34 Archiv, III, 340.
35 Chartularium Studii Bononiensis, II, 251 f., no. ccxxiv; and p. 260, no. ccxxxiv.
36 The Council of Constance made a sweeping prohibition against fees for the license, but
the universities paid no attention to it; H. von der Hardt, Conc. Const., I, ii, 743.
98 CHAPTER 4
to elect rectors and to take an oath to their officials to transfer themselves

elsewhere.37 The city of Bologna, jealous and suspicious of these guilds of
foreigners, wished to control the universities by forcing the students to swear
obedience to the communal statutes.38 In 1215 most of the students had gone
to Arezzo, and they continued to resist the Commune, to elect rectors, and to
assert their right to leave the city. In 1217–1227 Honorius III repeatedly inter-
vened in behalf of the students.39
In this struggle some of the doctors of law were allied with the city, for they
had been compelled to swear that they would not leave Bologna to teach else-
where, nor aid in dissolving the studium.40 The doctors, furthermore, were
nearly all citizens of Bologna, and they were suspicious of the Universities,
since legally they alone, not the students, had the right to form guilds and elect
officials.41 Afraid or jealous therefore of the de facto corporations of students,
and having sworn not to abet emigrations, the doctors as citizens of Bologna
were naturally sympathetic with efforts to control the students.42 Hence it
may well be conjectured on the ground of probability that a few of the doctors
were attempting to exert pressure on the students by refusing the license to
those who took the oath administered by the rectors of illegal corporations.
If the doctors were indeed employing means of the kind, they furnished an
additional motive for Honorius’ intervention. In 1217 the pope had encouraged
the scholars to leave Bologna if they did not obtain satisfaction from the city,
and in 1219 he was perhaps trying to remove the threat held by the doctors
37 On the struggle between the Commune and the Universities, see Denifle, Univ., pp. 160–
177; Rashdall, I, 168–177; Hessel, Geschichte der Stadt Bologna, pp. 420 ff.
None of the historians of the University of Bologna connects the papal regulation of
the license with the conflict of 1215–1224. The role of Honorius III in the development of
the University of Students I shall treat more fully hereafter; infra, Chap. VI.
38 Denifle, Univ., p. 161; Rashdall, I, 172.
39 See the bulls of 1217, 1220, 1224, and 1227 in Sarti-Fattorini, II, nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, and 23, pp. 13,
14, 15, 16, and 37; Savioli, Ann. Bologn., III, ii, no. 547.
40 For example, an oath of 1189: “Juro ego dominus Lotherius quod ab hoc die in antea non
regam scolas Legum in aliquo loco, nisi Bononie. Nec ero in consilio ut studium hujus
civitatis minuatur …” (Sarti-Fattorini, II, 25, no. 5); and the oaths of 1213: “… dominus
Guido Boncambij et dominus Jacobus Balduini, cives bononienses, et dominus Oddo de
Landriano mediolanensis, omnes legum doctores … juraverunt ad sancta Dei evangelia,
quod de cetero in aliqua terra non legerent scolaribus scientiam legum, nisi bononiensi,
et quod non dabunt operam ut scolares in alia civitate debeant commorari, nec in hoc
consilium vel adjutorium prestabunt …” (ibid., II, 31, no. 13). Cf. Hessel, op. cit., pp. 420 f.
41 Rashdall, I, 165 ff.; Denifle, Univ., p. 170 and notes.
42 Some of the doctors, however, took the side of the students; e.g., the two doctors repre-
senting the universities in their appeal to Rome; Sarti-Fattorini, II, 16. The Commune also
appealed, and sent to Rome Hugo, a doctor of law; Savioli, III, ii, no. 547.
over the students in the magisterial control of the license. With the licensing
power in the hands of the archdeacon, who could not easily be coerced by the
Commune, candidates could be examined by doctors appointed by the arch-
deacon, and could be sure of obtaining the license even if they refused obedi-
ence to the city statutes. The privilege for the archdeacon was therefore an
important step towards making the students not merely independent of the
doctors, but even superior to them. By 1252 the relations between doctors and
students are reversed; now the doctors are fully subordinate to the university,
and Innocent IV, at the request of the students, condemns fees to the examin-
ers and confirms, in 1253, the statutes of the university43—statutes the terms of
which are lost, but which, like those of 1317,44 must have regulated the license-
system, subjecting the doctors to the provisions on fees (probably altogether
forbidden in 1253) and on the qualifications of the candidates. Whatever the
provisions, it is probable that the archdeacon was held to license only the can-
didates approved according to the university rules; although in 1268–1270, as
will be noted shortly, the archdeacon vainly tried to escape student regula-
tions. Both the doctors and the archdeacon, accordingly, directly or indirectly
as a result of the papal activity in favor of the students, were compelled to
submit to the University of Students.
From 1217 to 1227, meanwhile, Honorius III expended several bulls in the
attempt to abrogate the Bolognese statutes that forbade the students to elect
rectors unless they took the oath to remain in the city and abide by the stat-
utes of the Commune. By 1224 the Commune began to realize the value of the
students for the prosperity of the city, but nevertheless retained the statutes
against secessions until 1288.45 Until then, it seems probable, the Commune
had influenced the doctors to deny the license to seceding scholars. At least
the city had compelled the doctors to take an oath not to aid a dissolution
of the studium, and thus before 1219 there must have been some relation
between the city and the license-system. This relation, if it had existed,
Honorius III destroyed by intrusting promotions to the archdeacon. But in
1282 we find the Commune again interfering with the license, presuming, on
its own initiative, to license doctors or to refuse those properly approved by
the university.46 The attempt of the Commune to control promotions was not,
perhaps, unconnected with the contemporaneous payment of the first regular
43 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 174, no. 21.

44 The statutes of 1317 are edited by Denifle, Archiv, III, 196–397, and by Malagola, Statuti.
46 The students in appealing to the pope claimed that the podestà could not “bononiense
Studium impedire, prohibendo doctoribus ne legant, vel precipiendo ut legant contra
voluntatem Scolarium predictorum, vel alio quoque modo.” Sarti-Fattorini, II, 66, no. 40.
100 CHAPTER 4
salaries to the professors.47 If the city instead of the students paid the profes-
sors and at the same time licensed them, the students must lose their right
to regulate the license-system, and the university must be subordinated to
the city. The students saw the danger, appealed to Rome, and received from
Martin IV effective protection against the renewed efforts of the Commune to
govern the university.48
By the help of the papacy, therefore, the University of Students won its
practical autonomy and complete authority, saving the acknowledged source
of its power, the papacy, over the license-system and the College of Doctors.
The latter continued to examine candidates, the archdeacon to license them,
and the city to pay the salaries of some of the professors; but the nature of
the examinations, the requirements for the license, the ceremony of promo-
tion or inception, and the hours and quantity and quality of the teaching itself,
all these matters the University of Students regulated.49 This triumph of the
students may be seen in the statutes of 1317.50 Such a final result Honorius III
could scarcely have intended or foreseen in 1219; but he laid the foundation,
and later papal privileges enabled the university to develop upon that basis to
autonomous internal government.
In the actual functioning of the system as fixed by Honorius III there was no
great alteration of the procedure of the early period.51 A student applying for
the license was presented by his doctor to the archdeacon, who within eight
days summoned the examiners for the private examination. The archdeacon
merely presided over the examination, taking no active part in it.52 He did
announce, however, the decision of the board of examiners. The candidate, if
he passed the private, was now permitted to take the public examination—
corresponding to the inception at Paris—at the cathedral, where the archdea-
con solemnly conferred the license, in the name of the pope, to teach civil or
canon or both laws.53 As the representative of the Church and of the papacy
47 See my section on salaries, infra, p. 197.

49 In 1268 Clement IV ordered the university to admit Guillaume Séguier; Jourdan, Reg. de
Clément IV, I, no. 860.
50 Denifle, “Die Statuten,” Archiv, III, 196–397.
52 On the full ceremony of the system, see Rashdall, I, 226 ff.
53 Rashdall, I, 229. Cf. the gloss to the Clementines, cited in Sarti-Fattorini, I, 633, note 3:
“Et sciendum quod aliqui conferunt (gradum doctoris) auctoritate apostolica, ut
Archidiaconus Bononiae, aliqui de consuetudine, aliqui de jure communi.” Bartolus,
however, in the fourteenth century states that the privilege of the license at Bologna
and Padua proceded from custom (Savigny, 2nd. ed., III, 167, note h): “Dico ergo quod
the archdeacon added to the solemnity of the ceremony; and the license thus
granted carried with it greater prestige than it did when it was conferred by
the doctors alone. But from the start the doctors at Bologna enjoyed a greater
influence in the examinations than the masters at Paris, who, as we have seen,
had to struggle for the right of participation in the promotions.54 Owing to
papal intervention, the masters at Paris obtained rights at the expense of the
traditional prerogatives of the chancellor of the cathedral, while the doctors
at Bologna lost their complete independence from the cathedral, but retained
their original right of examining candidates for the license. The privilege of
Honorius III empowered, it is true, the archdeacon to hold the examinations;55
but in practice the archdeacon made no effort to monopolize the right until
1268–1270. He maintained then that he alone had the right to examine and
promote students.56 The doctors and the university naturally opposed his
habere studium vel licentiam docendi, procedit ex privilegio tantum vel consuetudine
longissima, sicut Paduae, ubi est studium generale ex consuetudine: et sic eadem privile-
gia sunt ibi, quae sunt Bononiae, ubi est studium ex consuetudine et privilegio Lotharii
Imperatoris, ut dicunt quidam.” But if Bologna and Padua were studia generalia ex con-
suetudine, they both certainly had the privilege of the license from the papacy. On Padua,
infra, pp. 111–112.
54 Supra, Chap. II.
55 In his privilege Honorius III says, “duximus statuendum, ut nullus ulterius in civitate pre-
dicta ad docendi regimen assumatur, nisi a te obtenta licentia, examinatione prehabita
diligenti” (Sarti-Fattorini, II, 15, no. 4); more explicit is the Legate Octavian in 1250: “… ad
quem [archidiaconum] officium examinandi et approbandi spectare dignoscitur.” Archiv,
IV, 243.
56 Savioli, ed., Annali Bolognesi, III, ii, 434: “… d. Rogerius Archidiaconus Bon. ex una
parte, d. Franciscus d. Accursii, d. Albertinus de Carrariis [and other doctors named
here] … Legum doctores ex alia parte in solidum promiserunt et compromiserunt in d.
Octavianum Bon. Episc. tanquam in arbitratorem et amicabilem compositorem mode
ratorem et bonum virum super discordia que vertebatur inter eos scilicet quod predicti
doctores dicunt se ius habere in examinationibus faciendis promovendorum ad honorem
Magisterii in Iure Civili tam in scrutiniis et presentationibus ac axignationibus et pro-
motionibus requiruntur … Que omnia dictus Rogerius adnegat dicens ad se solum et ad
officium et dignitatem Archidiaconatus spectare et alia facisse que continentur in instru-
mento dicti compromissi scripto manu … hodie facto in dicto loco et presentibus dictis
testibus …”
Rashdall, I, 223, dates the dispute 1270; but he overlooks the evidence from a bull of
Clement IV that shows that the quarrel had begun in 1268 or earlier. The pope relates
that Guillaume Séguier, whom James II of Aragon had tried to install at Montpellier
against the authority of the bishop (infra, p. 109), had not obtained the license to teach at
Bologna “propter dissensionem inter dilectum filium archidiaconum Bononie, ex parte
una, et scolares inibi studentes, ex alia, super creatione doctorum exortam.” Fournier,
102 CHAPTER 4
full assumption of the prerogatives conferred on him by the papacy. It was

the bishop who effected a compromise, which must have been a victory for
the doctors and students, since the statutes of 1317 reveal the archdeacon as
little more than the president of the board of examiners.57 Yet as a result of
the privilege of Honorius III the archdeacon presided over the whole studium
generale.58 But as a further result of this and other privileges granted by the
Holy See, the archdeacon’s licensing power was exercised in accordance with
the statutes of the university.
The license-system regulated by the papacy in the thirteenth century in-
cluded only civil and canon law. Other subjects were taught by masters who
apparently chose their own successors. One finds, for example, Rolandinus
Passaggieri claiming in 1284 the exclusive right to teach the notarial art.59 In
the arts and in medicine graduation did not need the presence or license of
the archdeacon.60 Nicholas IV, conferring the privilege of the licentia ubique
docendi on the university in 1291, mentions only the license in civil and canon
law as being granted by the archdeacon or his vicar, “prout est ibidem hactenus
observatum.”61
The effect of papal intervention on the constitution of the College of
Doctors seems to have been small. The College was not created by Honorius
III, and the character of its membership was not changed, so far as can be
judged. The archdeacon in granting the license seems to have conformed to
Statuts et privilèges, II, no. 895; the bull is dated 1268. The pope ordered his notary, Berard
of Naples, to examine Guillaume. This Berard and doctors and lawyers of the Roman
Court did; they passed Guillaume and granted him the license. Then Clement ordered the
University of Montpellier to accept him as a professor (ibid., II, no. 895). It is noteworthy
that Clement IV did not intervene to settle the difficulty at Bologna; he knew of it, but
played no part in settling it in 1270.
57 Denifle, Archiv, III, 330, Rubric lvj: “Carissimus nostri collegii scolaris, qui doctorari vol
uerit, iuxta ea quae iamdudum per dominum archidiaconum Bonon. et universitatem
nostri studii ordinata cognovimus, debeat per doctorem suum praedicto archidiacono
praesentari vel eius vicarium, ut non debeat aliquem scolarem admittere ad examinatio-
nem publicam vel privatam, nisi fuerit iuratus suae rectori universitatis … Praesentatus
autem debeat infra octo dies examinari … Doctores autem illos, quos credunt honori
magisterii fore dignos, ad examen admittere debeant …”
58 So Boniface VIII states: “Cum in civitate Bononie Studium, per Dei gratiam, vigeat
generale, cui Archidiaconi bononienses, qui sunt pro tempore, preesse noscuntur …”
(Sarti-Fattorini, II, 274, no. 33).
60 Cf. Rashdall, I, 237 ff.
61 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 19, no. 9. But Boniface VIII says, “quum licentiantur scholares in aliqua
facultate, licentiam hujusmodi ab Archidiaconis recipiant …” (ibid., II, 274, no. 33).
tradition and custom, promoting only the candidates who were correctly ex-
amined by the doctors, who in turn conducted the examinations according
to the will of the universities. The doctors, often citizens of Bologna, were in
fact always more dependent on the Commune or on the students than on the
Church. Had the papacy provided the salaries, probably the doctors would
have become directly subject to the archdeacon. No evidence tangible enough
for such an interpretation exists to prove that Honorius III’s hope was fulfilled
that the archdeacon’s license would result in greater learning among the pro-
fessors and better instruction for the students. This is not to say that in the
thirteenth century canon and civil law were not more highly developed than
in the twelfth. On the contrary; the fact is that knowledge and skill in the two
laws greatly increased and attained to maturity, and great professors taught the
laws after 1219 as before. But this development was consequent more upon the
zest for legal skill, and upon the influence of ecclesiastical and secular uses of
canon and Roman law, than upon the reformation of the system of examina-
tions and promotions. In the twelfth century, when there were no established
rules governing admission to the guild of doctors, the renown for learning was
as necessary as a formal degree or license for a teacher; perhaps more neces-
sary, for then the professor could not depend upon the support of a degree
backed by the authority of the Church.
Upon the origin and constitution of the Universities of Students, the actual
University of Bologna, which was composed of foreign students—that is, of
all students who were not citizens of the Commune—, it is difficult to find
any influence or effect from the papal regulation of the license. As remarked
above, the new system seems to have had little success in improving the state
of learning, and therefore did not by itself assure better professors for the stu-
dents. The students, indeed, had a far more effective means of procuring able
doctors: as a university they were able to prescribe rules forcing the professors
to give them efficient instruction, and they paid the salaries of the teachers
until about 1280, and continued to pay fees for instruction after the Commune
undertook the payment of salaries.62 But if there was no effect on the orga-
nization of the University of Students, it was for the benefit of the university
that the popes instituted the licensing power of the archdeacon and forbade
fees to the examiners. Although of no long success, on the side of fees, the alli-
ance of the university with the papacy against the College of Doctors and the
Commune was one of the numerous instances of the papal policy to favor the
students in the universities of the thirteenth century.
62 See Chap. VIII, section 1.

104 CHAPTER 4
Undoubtedly the privilege granted by Honorius III to Gratia Aretinus was

an important step towards including all the secular universities in the ecclesi-
astical system. But that it was the conscious policy of Honorius III or his suc-
cessors to bring about this result is doubtful. A survey of the Italian universities
that arose in the thirteenth century reveals no uniform policy that the Holy
See was eager to apply the moment a city founded a studium generale. In fact,
such a policy was hardly needed when the papacy could interfere in the af-
fairs of any corporation owing to the ecclesiastical claim of jurisdiction over all
matters in which oaths were involved. Moreover, all learning came within the
sphere of ecclesiastical supervision, though secular laws and medicine were
not in practice included until 1219 and 1220. The papal legislation on promo-
tions was therefore less an expression of a conscious ambition of the popes to
rule the schools than an expression of the desire to settle disputes and confu-
sion arising in the new centers of learning. Certainly the popes had the right
to interfere in the affairs of the universities, a right against which no univer-
sity effectively protested in the thirteenth century. During the conflict with the
Dominicans at Paris, the secular masters did perhaps deny the right of the pa-
pacy to dictate terms; but they had to recognize the jurisdiction of the popes.63
Nevertheless, if the importance of Honorius III’s privilege for the archdea-
con of Bologna must be qualified in the direction of a conscious policy, the
privilege is significant as a precedent for bringing other universities of secular
origin within the ecclesiastical system.64 Precedents, however, should not be
too confidently observed when in the case of the earlier universities influenced
by Bologna the documents reveal no literal acknowledgement of the influence
of the Bolognese license-system; when, moreover, in the case of Montpellier
the legate in 1220 may have been more directly influenced by Paris than by the
privilege of Honorius III for Bologna. Yet the influence of Bologna seems to be
real if unexpressed, and proved by the repetition of similarities in the constitu-
tions and by the papal or legatine provisions for Montpellier in 1220 and later,
for Piacenza in 1248, and for Padua in 1264.
The Medical University of Montpellier had in the twelfth century no con-
nection with the Cathedral Chapter of Maguelone, and there was no ecclesi-
astical authority in control of the license-system.65 In 1220 the papal Legate
Conrad, influenced either by Honorius III’s provision for Bologna or by the
chancellor system at Paris, decreed that no man who had not already taught
63 Supra, p. 73.
65 Supra, pp. 18–20.
at Montpellier66 should henceforth lecture publicly without examination

and approval by the bishop of Maguelone and by regent masters aiding the
bishop.67 This statute was confirmed in 1239 by the papal legate Guido de Sora,68
who added a further provision that no one should be a practicing physician
without being examined by two masters chosen by the bishop from the College
of Masters69—a recognition of the difference between teaching and practice,
expressed in two different licenses initiated at Montpellier by papal authority.70
In the following year statutes regulating the licensing of bachelors were drawn
up by the university with the consent of the bishop. Any master could license
a bachelor of medicine; the candidate being compelled to swear to lecture for
two years as a bachelor, unless released by the bishop from this obligation.71
Thus as a result of the legatine statutes the bishop controlled directly the li-
censing of masters, indirectly that of bachelors, in the University of Medicine.
At Paris the chancellor had no right to regulate the licensing of bachelors in
66 Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, II, 4, no. 882: “Nullus, qui antea non rexerit in
Montepessulano,” in effect a confirmation of those licensed under the old system of li-
censes by the masters.
67 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Nullus … de cetero publice regat, nisi prius examinatus fuerit et approbatus
ab episcopo Magalonensi et quibusdam regentium bona fide sibi adjunctis, juxta sue ar-
bitrium descretionis.” Cf. Cartulaire, I, 180; Rashdall, II, i, 119 f.; Denifle, Univ., pp. 341 f.
68 Fournier, II, no. 884.
69 Ibid., loc. cit., p. 7: “Et quia sepe, per impericiam medicorum, qui, curacionum causas
ignorant[es], vicio nimium accelerate artis assumunt sibi exercicium praticandi, et sic
multociens, unde speratur vita, ejus contrarium subinfertur, statuimus … ut nullus de ce-
tero praticari presumat, nisi prius examinatus fuerit a duobus magistris, quos venerabilis
pater Magalonensis episcopus eliget de collegio magistrorum.” If the applicant for the
license to practice passed this examination, he was to have a certificate from the bish-
op and examiners. But surgeons (cirurgii) should not be subjected to an examination,
probably because of the practical difficulty of holding an examination in surgery in the
thirteenth century (Cf. Cartulaire, I, 185), also because of the ecclesiastical opposition to
clerks being surgeons. See the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council (Labbé-Mansi, XXII,
1007, cap. xviii): “Nullus quoque clericus … nec illam chirurgiae partem subdiaconus, dia-
conus, vel sacerdos exerceant, quae ad ustionem vel incisionem inducit.”
70 But the license to practice medicine had probably for its precedent the provision of
Frederick II for Salerno in 1231; cf. Denifle, Univ., pp. 235 and 342; Huillard-Bréholles, ed.,
Historia diplomatica, IV, 150 f. Frederick’s provision, however, did not intrust the license to
an ecclesiastical authority. Cf. Rashdall, I, 83.
71 Fournier, II, no. 885. This was probably the first attempt of the masters to draw up their
own statutes (Rashdall, II, i, 119, note 2), but obviously the bishop’s authority was not
questioned, for the masters had to obtain the bishop’s consent to appoint “Petrus de
Conchis” and “Hugo Mancii” to revise the statutes of 1220 and 1239.
106 CHAPTER 4
the arts. At Montpellier, however, the papacy on this point allowed the bishop
to extend his control.
The statutes of 1220, confirmed in 1239 by the legate and again in 1258 by
Alexander IV,72 provided for a chancellor; but this official was not a member
of the Chapter of Maguelone, and had no share in granting the license.73 The
bishop alone was in control, choosing the examiners of candidates for either
license. It will be remembered that at Paris in 1237 the masters tried to deny the
right of the bishop to grant the license during a vacancy of the chancellorship.74
For a vacancy of the episcopal chair of Maguelone the statues of 1220 provided
that in such an event the prepositus of Saint-Firmin, the church of Montpellier,
should preside over the examinations.75 Later the prepositus is called the
officialis, or ordinary official of the bishop;76 he could grant the license, it
seems, as the bishop’s representative, and thus in a measure corresponded
to the chancellor at Paris.77 But he tried to usurp unwarranted authority by
presenting to the bishop a clerk who had been failed by the examiners, and
he even excommunicated and imprisoned some of the masters for refusing
to pass the clerk. The masters, who had a clear right by the legatine statutes
to participate in the examinations and therefore to refuse to accept into their
society a student whom they had failed,78 appealed to the pope. Nicholas IV

73 Ibid., II, no. 882. The chancellor was a master, a member of the university, and had juris-
diction over civil cases in which students were involved; see my section on jurisdiction,
pp. 140 f. But in 1260 the chancellor and another master were delegated to draw up the
form of the license; Fournier, ii, no. 891.
74 Supra, pp. 51–53.
75 Fournier, II, no. 882, p. 3.
76 Rashdall, II, i, 120. In 1281 we find two masters in medicine appealing to the official against
John of Cyprus, who was practicing without a license; Fournier, II, no. 898.
77 In 1268 Clement IV relates to the King of Aragon how, in the time of Urban IV, he had
been the bishop of Maguelone’s official and had granted the license and given the book in
the ceremony of promotion: “… scire te volumus, quod, cum minori officio fungeremur,
de felicis memorie Urbane pape … speciali mandato, in aula ejusdem episcopi, doctorum
et scholarium multitudine convocata, nos et dedimus licentiam et librum tradimus solita
solemnitate servata …” (Fournier, II, no. 894). Germain, L’École de droit de Montpellier,
p. 10, states that Clement had conferred the license by the mandate of Urban IV, but it
seems rather that he was appointed official of the bishop by special mandate of Urban IV.
78 The statutes of 1220 provided that the masters should aid the bishop in the examinations,
but not until 1289 and 1309 did the papacy definitely confirm the validity of the decision
of the masters, so that the bishop was compelled to license whoever was passed by the
examiners.
appointed two canons of the church of Avignon to settle the dispute.79 In 1290
the papal judges decided in favor of the masters, condemning the official’s im-
prisonment and excommunication of the masters.80 Apparently the validity
of the magisterial examinations was assured. It was positively assured in 1309,
when Clement V made the approval of two-thirds of the masters in medicine
necessary before the bishop could grant the license.81
Meanwhile the faculties82 of arts, theology, and civil and canon law had
developed, and as they appeared the bishop of Maguelone had extended to
them the control that papal confirmation enabled him to exercise over the
University of Medicine. In 1242 the Bishop Jean de Montlaur II, in statutes that
he himself promulgated, decreed that no one should teach grammar and dia-
lectic without being first examined by the bishop, or by someone delegated by
the bishop, and by adjunct masters; the bishop should then grant the license. If
the candidate had taught at Paris, he should not be examined, but must never-
theless be licensed by the bishop. The candidates, moreover, must swear obedi-
ence to the bishop—a curious contrast to the situation at Paris, where already
the masters had won through papal support their struggle against oaths of fi-
delity to the chancellor.83
The Cistercians established a studium of theology at Montpellier towards
1263.84 Their school of theology was not at first a part of the university, but in
1265 Clement IV gave it relations with the university similar to the relations es-
tablished between the religious masters in theology and the official University
at Paris.85 What Alexander IV had done for the Dominican masters at Paris,
Clement IV seems to have done for the Cistercians at Montpellier. He granted
to the Cistercians in the faculty of theology the same privileges they enjoyed
at Paris.86 This privilege, however, was not the result of a conflict between
the religious and secular masters of theology, for the latter did not teach at
79 Fournier, II, no. 902 (an. 1289). Rashdall, II, i, 120, states that it was the bishop who impris-
oned the masters; more accurately it was the bishop’s official, whose function it was to
present candidates to the bishop.
81 Ibid., II, no. 912; Rashdall, II, i, 121.
82 Rashdall, II, i, 124 and 130, calls them Universities. In a sense the faculties were
Universities, for each faculty was a guild of masters. But I prefer here the word faculty,
for it is employed by Louis IX in 1230 for civil and canon law (Fournier, II, no. 883), and by
Clement IV in 1268 (ibid., II, no. 894).
83 Supra, Chap. II, p. 35.
85 Supra, p. 111; see pp. 68–69.
108 CHAPTER 4
Montpellier. But it marks the inclusion of a faculty of theology in the system

of the university, for the pope’s bull implies that the Cistercian theologians
should be licensed by the bishop of Maguelone.87
The bishop had greater difficulty in establishing his authority over the facul-
ties of the two laws.88 Not the masters of law, but the king of Aragon was the
obstacle. It was the king of France who first, in 1230, granted to the bishop
the right to demand oaths of obedience “a licentiandis et doctorandis” in civil
and canon law,89 though after 1230 no one seems to have been licensed by the
bishop.90 The bishop, however, claimed the right to license students of law. In
1268 James I of Aragon granted the license to Guillaume Séguier to lecture in
civil law. Resenting the encroachment on his prerogative, the bishop excommu-
nicated Guillaume and his students. The king appealed to the pope, Clement
IV, explaining that his choice of Guillaume was based upon the approval of
certain doctors in the faculty of civil law.91 Naturally Clement was politic; he
compromised. He explained how the bishop of Maguelone had the exclu-
sive right to grant the license in law because by custom and by ecclesiastical
authority92 he had long been licensing students in all other faculties. Then
he declared that he would give the king satisfaction by revoking anything the
bishop had done unjustly.93 Having recognized the rights of the bishop, the
pope now discovered that Guillaume Séguier was eminently qualified by his
87 Rashdall, II, i, 130, says that no graduation in the faculty took place before 1421, when
Martin V created a studium generale in theology. But in a footnote (II, i, 130, note 3) he
modifies his statement; he assumes still, however, that the studium generale in theology
of the fourteenth century was only a studium generale of the Cistercian Order. He forgets
that as a result of the conflict at Paris in 1250–59 two Dominicans, and one Franciscan
and one Cistercian, were admitted to the University of Masters, and yet these orders had
studia generalia of their own at Paris. Similarly, I think, at Montpellier the bull of Clement
IV made the Cistercians members of the university in so far as they were licensed by the
bishop; yet the Cistercian faculty of theology was also a studium generale supervised by
the Order. Cf. Denifle, Univ., p. 354.
88 On the history of the University of Law, see Rashdall, II, i, 124–129; Germain, L’École de
Droit de Montpellier.
89 DeVic et Vaissette, Histoire générale de Languedoc, VIII, col. 928; Fournier, II, no. 883. Cf.
Rashdall, II, i, 125; Savigny, III, 377; Denifle, Univ., p. 345; Germain, op. cit., p. 8.
90 Germain, op. cit., p. 9. In his letter to the king of Aragon Clement IV says, “et si dare li-
centiam non consuevit episcopus in ista [civil law], quia nec etiam petebatur, nec pe-
tendi erat occasio, ubi nec studentium vel discentium numerus exigebat …” (Fournier, II,
no. 894).
91 Fournier, II, 12, no. 894.
92 Cf. supra, pp. 89–91.
“donum civilis sapientie” to teach civil law. Guillaume, we learn, had been un-
able to obtain his license at Bologna owing to the trouble that had occurred
between the archdeacon and the students over the creation of doctors.94 He
appealed to the pope, and Clement appointed his subdeacon and notary,
Berard of Naples, to examine Guillaume at Rome. Berard, assisted by several
doctors and lawyers perhaps of the University of the Roman Court,95 conduct-
ed the examination and granted the license and the book, “juxta morem in
hiis hactenus observatum.” The pope therefore commanded the University of
Montpellier to admit Guillaume to the consortium of the doctors and to the of-
fice of teaching, notwithstanding the bishop’s sentence of excommunication
and the statute of the faculty of law that no one could teach law ordinarie at
Montpellier unless he had taught at Bologna or had been examined by the doc-
tors at Montpellier and licensed by the bishop.96
In effect, the papal intervention here in favor of the king’s candidate was
a non obstante interlude, similar to that at Paris some years earlier in favor of
the Dominicans,97 in the normal functioning of the license-system. Again the
pope recognizes existing privileges and statutes, but makes an exception for a
master favored by a king and examined and licensed at Rome.
An interesting revelation is made in the bulls of Clement IV on the licens-
ing of Guillaume.98 The pope himself states that the statutes of the faculty of
law had been drawn up by the doctors and the bishop, and that the statutes
provided that no one should teach ordinarie in Montpellier unless he had pre-
viously taught there or at Bologna, or had been examined by the doctors and
licensed by the bishop or his official.99 The assumption by the bishop of the
control of the license-system in law was not, therefore, initiated by the papacy,
94 Ibid., II, no. 895, supra, note 56.

95 On the University of the Roman Court, founded by Innocent IV in 1244–1245, supra,
pp. 83 f.
96 Fournier, II, no. 895. On the case of Guillaume Séguier see also Fabrège, Histoire de
Maguelone, III, 462 ff.
97 Supra, pp. 70–71.
98 Fournier, II, nos. 894 and 895.
99 Ibid., II, no. 895: Clement IV commanded the university to admit Guillaume Séguier,
“non obstante statuto, juramento, excommunicatione vel quacumque firmitate alia ro-
borata, quo … episcopus Magalonensis et vos, filii doctore[s], statuisse dicimini, quod in
Montepessulano vel ejus suburbiis nullus presumat ordinarie regere, nisi alias ibidem vel
Bononie rexerit aut inibi coram eodem episcopo vel illo cui quoad hec comiserit idem
episcopus vices suas, per doctores Montispessulani qui voluerint interesse seu Bononie,
fuerit examinatus et etiam approbatus …” In the conflict between the friars and the
University of Paris the secular masters and the Popes Innocent IV and Alexander IV all
110 CHAPTER 4
but by the bishop and the doctors themselves, who were influenced—as the
acceptance of doctors from Bologna shows—by the system established in 1219
in the University of Bologna. Papal creation of the license-system in law at
Montpellier was thus indirect, in that the precedent was Honorius III’s priv-
ilege for the archdeacon of Bologna; more indirectly the precedent was the
papal confirmation of the bishop’s power of the license in the University of
Medicine. The papacy itself did not, however, establish the Bolognese system at
Montpellier. It seems that the first doctors of law, appearing by 1230,100 wished
to copy the system of Bologna, and they turned to the bishop for the logical
ecclesiastical authority over promotions. The bishop first secured recognition
of his new function from Louis IX; papal recognition he did not obtain until
1268. Formal papal confirmation of the bishop’s authority over the faculty of
law was issued in 1285, by the Cardinal-Legate John, who added the privilege of
the jus ubique docendi.101 In the case of Montpellier the popes created little di-
rectly; they confirmed institutions of the university as they appeared as a result
of the initiative of the scholars and professors cooperating with the bishop.102
The authority of the bishop of Maguelone over the whole university,
over all faculties except that of theology, was recognized and confirmed in
1289 by Nicholas IV, who decreed that the university should henceforth have
all the privileges of a studium generale.103 The pope provided further that the
license in the faculties of civil and canon law, medicine, and arts should be
conferred gratis by the bishop or his official on all candidates approved by the
examiners.104 In case of the absence of the bishop, the major of the three arch-
deacons of the church of Maguelone should grant the license as the bishop’s
deputy. Those examined and licensed in this manner should have the right to
teach anywhere.105 Neither the bishop nor his official nor the masters should
demand anything for the examinations or the license.106
constantly referred to papal statutes; here the pope refers to statutes made by the bishop
and the university.
100 At the end of the twelfth century Placentinus and Bassianus taught at Montpellier;
Rashdall, ii, I, 124 f.
102 Cf. Germain, Histoire de l’Université de Montpellier, in Cartulaire de l’Université de
Montpellier, I, 2, where he states that the privilege of 1289 merely confirmed the schools
and constitution already existing.
103 Fournier, II, 17, no. 903. Cf. Fabrège, Histoire de Maguelone, III, 603 f., who thinks that
Nicholas IV was influenced by Guillaume Durand.
104 Fournier, II, 17, no. 903.
106 Ibid., loc. cit. On Nicholas IV’s privilege see Germain, La Faculté de Théologie à Montpellier,
p. 5; Savigny, III, 379–381, and 391; Rashdall, II, i, 126.
By 1289, then, the episcopal license-system was firmly established in the

University of Montpellier. The papal influence on its development had been
confirmative rather than directly creative.
Of the Italian universities that developed in the thirteenth century in con-
nection with early secular schools or as a result of emigrations from Bologna,
only those of Reggio, Padua, and Piacenza were, so far as the evidence shows,
subjected in the course of the century to episcopal control of the license-sys-
tem. Reggio was of some importance by 1215 or 1216, since a bull of Innocent III
mentions a canon of Cremona who was recalled by his chapter from his stud-
ies in Reggio.107 Not until 1276 do we find evidence revealing the existence of
a college of professors. A doctoral diploma of that year shows that the bishop
of Reggio was the authority who conferred the license to teach.108 Apparently
it was the influence of the system at Bologna that caused the establishment of
the bishop’s power over Reggio—the bishop, of course, corresponding to the
archdeacon. Nothing indicates that the bishop obtained this right from Rome,
though to be sure the indirect influence of the papacy, through Honorius III’s
provision for Bologna, is evident.
Papal influence, however, is direct in the cases of Padua and Piacenza.
Although there were professors of law at Padua before 1222,109 it was in that
107 Cf. Rashdall, II, i, 6; Denifle, Univ., p. 294. Rashdall, referring to Denifle, strangely gives
the date as 1210. Moreover, he states quite unwarrantably that the schools of Regio were
by 1210 (or 1215) “clearly recognized as a Studium Generale since a Canon of Cremona is
dispenced from residence to study there.” But the connection of the theory of a studium
generale with a school in which canons, given the dispensation of five years from resi-
dence, could study had not yet been made either by the papacy or by the canonists. The
dispensation, first made general in 1219, was for the study of theology, and hence would
not in any case apply to Reggio. See my sections on benefices and on studia generalia,
infra, chaps. IX and X. For the letter of Innocent III to the bishop of Parma, mentioning
the canon from Cremona, see Friedberg, ed., Corpus juris canonici, II, Decr. Greg. IX, lib. I,
tit. vi, cap. 36.
108 Denifle, Univ., p. 295; Rashdall, II, i, 6 f. Reggio was by this time a studium generale; Denifle,
loc. cit.
109 Cf. A. Gloria, Monumenti (1222–1318), pp. 120–126; A. Sorbelli, “Notizie di Professori … in
Padova prima del 1222,” in Studi e memorie … Bol., VII (1922), 119–128. Rashdall notes
evidence that there were doctors at Padua about 1169 (II, i, 10). Sorbelli tries to prove
by evidence from the fifteenth century, and therefore rather doubtful, that there were
several doctors of law immediately before 1222; he cites Friar Girolama Borselli’s (†1497)
Cronica magistrorum generalium ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, who says, speaking
of St. Dominic’s sojourn in Bologna in 1219, (p. 122) “Recepit [S.Dominic] etiam fratrem
Philippum de Carisio Vercellensem, qui Padue in iure docuerat … Item receptus est frater
Stephanus de Rozulo Placentinus qui Paudue fuerat decretorum doctor egregius;” (p. 124)
“Anno eodem [1220] Beatus Dominicus de Bononia ivit Paduam propter studium quod
112 CHAPTER 4
year that the history of Padua as a studium generale begins with a great migra-
tion of students from Bologna.110 In 1226 the bishop of Padua had some connec-
tion with the university,111 but not until about 1260–1262, when the university
was revived, do we hear of the bishop granting the license to teach.112 The stat-
ute of 1261, made by the university itself, was confirmed, on the request of the
bishop, by Pope Urban IV in 1264.113 Again it is clear that, just as it happened
at Montpellier, so here the papacy did not directly create the license-system;
Urban IV merely confirmed the creation of the system by the university in co-
operation with the bishop. Nor did the papacy condemn the custom of fees for
the license, a custom that was legalized by the university statutes of 1331.114
The University of Piacenza, modelled on Bologna,115 was the first Italian
university to obtain the papal privilege of a studium generale.116 Since the uni-
versity was of little renown before, the city of Piacenza thought it would be
of importance after a papal privilege was secured. The reason for this hope
ibi erat.” It cannot be certain that the author of this chronicle knew that a studium was at
Padua before 1222.
110 Rashdall, II, i, 11; Denifle, Univ., p. 277.
111 Boncompagni relates that he read his Rhetorica antiqua in 1226 before the university
and the bishop: “Recitatus fuit hic liber, approbatus, et coronatus lauro Bononiae … Item
datus et in commune deductus fuit Paduae in maiori ecclesia, in praesentia domini
Alatrini, … venerabilis Jordani paduani episcopi, Ciofredi theologi, … professorum iuris
canonici et civilis, et omnium doctorum et scolarium Paduae commorantium anno do-
mini 1226 …” (Rockinger, “De arte dictandi,” in Sitzungsberichte der königl. bayerischen
akademie zu München, 1861, pp. 135f.; cf. Rashdall, II, i, 12, note 1. Cf. L. Thorndike, “Public
Readings of New Works in Mediaeval Universities,” Speculum, I, 101f.
112 In 1260–1262 the university drew up its first statutes; one statute (dating probably 1261;
Denifle, Archiv, VI, 355), provided that students should be examined by the bishop, and
that the bishop should grant the license; edited by Denifle, Archiv, VI, 354 and 416 ff.
Cf. Ibid., III, 230; Rashdall, II, i, 15; Denifle, Univ., p. 285. The statutes of 1331 retained the
provision; Archiv, VI, 416–418, 429 ff.
113 Archiv, VI, 354: Urban IV addresses the bishop, whose request stated, “quod rectores
Universitatis magistrorum scolarium Paduan. deliberatione provida statuerunt quod
scolares ipsius Universitatis, qui debent in magistros assumi, coram episcopo Paduano
presentibus doctoribus Universitatis eiusdem examinari debeant diligenter, et idem epis-
copus eis, si reperiantur ydonei, debet docendi licentiam concedere; et statutum huius-
modi est, ut asseris, inviolabiliter observatum.” The pope proceeds to confirm the statute.
Cf. Savigny, III, 288, who wrongly dates the bull 1263; Rashdall, II, i, 15.
114 Archiv, VI, 435, Rubric 17. The provision is similar to that in the statutes of Bologna of 1317;
supra, pp. 96–97.
115 On Piacenza, see Rashdall, II, i, 35–38; Denifle, Univ., pp. 562–572.
116 Denifle, Univ., p. 567; Rashdall, II, i, 36.
was that by 1248, when the privilege was granted, it was believed that a school
could not be a studium generale unless it possessed the privileges of Paris and
Bologna, the degrees of which were valid everywhere, and where canons could
attend school because of the five-year dispensation from residence accorded
to those who went to studia generalia.117 Since the papacy could grant such
privileges, the bishop and the city asked the pope for a confirmation of a studi-
um generale. Innocent IV at once complied with the request, desiring, he said,
to favor the bishop and to give the city the material advantages resulting from
an influx of students to a university of recognized standing. To all doctors and
students of all faculties in the city the pope granted the privileges, indulgences,
liberties, and immunities that students enjoyed at Paris or other studia gen-
eralia.118 This general privilege, addressed as it was to the bishop and the city,
implies that the bishop already had, or could assume, the control of promo-
tions, but it did not specifically bestow the right upon him.119 The pope himself
in 1250 conferred on Master Hugo, “phisicus de Placentia, in phisica et cirurgia
peritus,” the license to practice medicine;120 but this privilege seems to have
no connection with the university, unless there were a faculty of medicine,
as at Montpellier, which granted both the license to teach and the license to
practice and had not granted it to Master Hugo. But of such a faculty there is
no evidence. If, therefore, Innocent IV had in mind a papal policy of subjecting
all universities to the ecclesiastical license, he failed, except very indirectly, to
express it in his general privilege for Piacenza.
117 Infra, Chap. IX, §1.

118 Campi, Dell’ historia ecclesiastica di Piacenza, II, 399, no. 91: “… Episcopo et dilectis filiis
Clero, et Populo Placentin … Credimus enim, et pro firmo tenemus, quod ex hoc ipsi civi-
tati non modicum honoris accresceret, et sibi possent exinde spiritualiter, et temporali-
ter grata commoda provenire. Propter quod non tam consideratione tui, frater Episcope,
nobis super hoc instanter supplicantis, quam etiam ob ipsius civitatis augmentum,
generale inibi fieri studium cupientes; ut ad ipsam civitatem ad hauriendum aquas cum
gaudio de fontibus salvatoris hominum copiosa confluat multitudo, et ibi turris David
cum suis propugnaculis construatur, ex qua non solum dependent mille clypei, sed etiam
omnis fortium armatura. Omnibus Doctoribus, et Scholaribus in quacumque facultate in
praedicta civitate studentibus, quod eisdem privilegiis, indulgentiis, libertatibus, et im-
munitatibus gaudeant, quibus Parisius, seu in aliis studiis generalibus studentes laetan-
tur; auctoritate praesentium indulgemus. Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat, etc.”
119 Yet Rashdall, II, i, 36, says that the bull did give the bishop this right. I find in it no mention
of the license. Denifle, Univ., p. 567, does not make the privilege extend to promotions.
120 Denifle, Univ., p. 567.
114 CHAPTER 4
In none of the other Italian universities121 that were constituted in the thir-
teenth century was there any papal regulation of the license-system. Arezzo,
appearing about 1215, was not modelled on Bologna;122 the masters themselves
probably examined and licensed candidates for the degree, and even ventured
to grant the licentia ubique docendi without a papal privilege giving them the
right to do so.123 Modena, a doubtful studium generale;124 Vicenza, which had
brief periods of existence as a studium generale from 1204 to 1210 and 1261 to
1264;125 Vercelli, founded in 1228;126 and Siena, which arose about 1246,127 re-
ceived no papal mandates—none at least has survived—on the license; nor do
they seem to have been subject to episcopal authority over promotions.
The University of Naples128 requires particular notice, because it was the
only Italian university founded in the thirteenth century by imperial author-
ity. Founded in 1224 by Frederick II, its existence rendered precarious by the
conflicts between the papacy and the emperor,129 it was never brought within
the ecclesiastical system; it was under the “immediate superintendence of the
Royal Chancellor.”130 It is surprising, if the papacy had a definite policy of con-
trolling all universities, that the popes made no effort to establish their im-
mediate authority over a university founded by a secular ruler who was hostile
to the papacy; though to be sure before the Angevin conquest the popes could
not have applied their authority had they tried. Yet even when Clement IV
aided Charles of Anjou to reform the university he did not change the consti-
121 I do not include the University of the Roman Court among Italian universities, for it was
distinctly ecclesiastical.
122 On Arezzo see Denifle, Univ., pp. 424–428; Rashdall, II, i, 8 f.
123 The statutes of 1255: “Item nullus audeat legere ordinarie in Civitate Aretina, nec in
Grammatica, nec in Dialectica, nec in Medicina, nisi sit legitime et publice, et in generali
conventu examinatus, et approbatus, et licentiatus, quod possit in sua scientia ubique re-
gere.” L. Guazzesi, Dell’ antico dominio del vescovo di Arezzo in Cortona, p. 108, note. But
there is no denial that the bishop granted the license. If he did not, it may be because the
university was not a school of law, as at Bologna.
125 Rashdall, II, i, 7 f.; Denifle, Univ., pp. 298–300.
126 Denifle, Univ., pp. 290–294; Rashdall, II, i, 26 f.
127 Denifle, Univ., pp. 429–452; Rashdall, II, 1, 31–34.
128 On the University of Naples, see Denifle, Univ., pp. 452–461; Rashdall, II, i, 22–25; K. Hampe,
“Zur Gründungsgeschichte der Universität Neapel,” in Heidelberg Sitzungsberichte,
Abh. 10, pp. 3–13; Storia della Università di Napoli: F. Torraca, “Le origini, l’età sveva,”
pp. 1–17 and G. M. Monti, “L’età angioina,” pp. 17–151.
129 Cf. Hampe, op. cit.
130 Rashdall, II, i, 24; cf. Monti, in Storia Univ. Napoli, pp. 53 ff.
tution.131 The Spanish kings had confirmed ecclesiastical control of the univer-
sity license-system,132 but the license-system at Naples was supervised by the
king. If there had been a papal policy, Naples would undoubtedly have been
made aware of it. The university was not interfered with by the popes because
the royal authority assured order and a valid degree.
At Salerno also Frederick II established the royal authority over the license,
forbidding anyone to teach or practice medicine in his dominions without the
royal permission. The royal license was granted after the candidate was exam-
ined by masters of Salerno and by officers of the king.133 With this arrange-
ment again the papacy did not interfere.

132 Supra, pp. 83–87.
133 Huillard-Bréholles, Historia diplomatic, IV, 150; cf. Rashdall, I, 85 f; Denifle, Univ., p. 235.
CHAPTER 5
The License-System, Conclusion: the Licentia

ubique docendi
The survey in the preceding chapters of the papal regulation of the license to
teach has led to several conclusions of interest with regard to the constitution
of the universities. Through its interference in the conflicts at Paris, the papacy
determined that the masters should, in general, control the admission of mem-
bers into their corporation, and thus the chancellor of the cathedral failed to
become the head of the university. This meant that the masters—as we shall
observe again in considering the jurisdiction over the university and its inter-
nal organization—had advanced a step towards autonomy. Indirectly it meant
that, as Rashdall remarks,1 there was room for the growth of the rectorship
into the headship of the University. The same results were assured for Orleans
and Toulouse by the papal grant to them of privileges that Paris enjoyed in its
‘Magna Carta’—the Parens scientiarum.
Of the other universities influenced by the constitution of Paris, Oxford
from the start was fairly independent in its regulation of the license. The mas-
ters succeeded in becoming practically independent of the bishop of Lincoln
in controlling membership in their society; and, far from having to combat a
chancellor belonging to the cathedral of Lincoln, they succeeded in making
the chancellor a member of the university. The license-system at Oxford was
little shaped by papal action. The masters at Cambridge likewise developed
the license-system with little guidance from the papacy. Nevertheless, the prin-
ciple of control established by the popes at Paris influenced the masters at
Oxford and Cambridge in the organization of their societies. And the system
at Paris was the model for that in the University of the Roman Court, in the
University of Angers, and in the universities of Spain. In Spain and Portugal
the kings in founding universities retained the old ecclesiastical system of the
license granted by the scolasticus, and in controlling the schools they obviated
the need of papal statutes.
In the universities, therefore, that were connected in their origin with the
Church, the papacy adjusted the relations between the masters and the chan-
cellor or scholasticus only in the case of quarrels that demanded intervention.
The popes thereby controlled and confirmed the development of, but did not
1 Universities, I, 309.

The License-System, Conclusion 117
create, the license-system, which was characteristic generally in the univer-

sities of France and England. By settling disputes over the license, however,
the popes secured the recognition of the right of the corporations of masters
to exercise one prerogative indispensable for an autonomous corporation, the
control of membership. This was one of the stages of the growth of the societ-
ies of masters to the status of legal corporations, and hence of the rise of the
universities. In fighting for this prerogative the masters at Paris, assisted by the
papacy, won the battle for corporate rights for the other universities in France
and in England.
The societies of masters in Italy were not the essential universities, which
on the contrary were student corporations. On the constitution of the univer-
sities of Bologna, Piacenza, and Padua, therefore, the papacy had little influ-
ence when it established the ecclesiastical license-system. But by the privilege
of the license conferred on the archdeacon or bishop, the colleges of doctors
were subjected to papal control. Thus, with regard to the universities in Italy—
except Naples—the papal regulation of the license is of importance only in
connection with the nature of the degrees, which, as will soon be shown, ac-
quired a new prestige.
Obviously, the influence of the papacy was unequally exerted from univer-
sity to university. It followed the natural trend of development in each place.
Where royal authority founded and made statutes for universities, the popes
did not usually try to alter the license-system. Thus at Naples the license was
granted by the king through his chancellor and was not brought into the eccle-
siastical system.
One general and important result, however, for all the universities—again
except Naples—followed the popes’ regulation of the chancellor’s license in
the North, and their establishment of the archdeacon’s or bishop’s license in
Italy. The universities were compelled to recognize the popes as the source of
all authority over education. The popes actively asserted their potestas magis-
terii, so the license was usually granted in their name. As the superintendents,
so to speak, of education, the popes standardized the system of examinations
and degrees in the mediaeval universities. They did not succeed, however, in
prohibiting the payment of fees2 for the license, although such fees were paid
to the examiners, probably, more than to the chancellor or scholasticus. Nor
2 Robert de Sorbon, De Conscientia (ed. Chambon), p. 5; supra, Chap. II, note 252. Clement V
ordered that a doctorandus should not pay “ultra tria millia turonens. argenteorum” for the
insignia of the doctorate (Ch.U.P., II, no. 709; Friedberg, II, Clem. V Constitutiones, lib. V, tit. i,
c. 2). The Council of Constance prohibited fees (H. von der Hardt, Conc. Constant., I, ii, 743 f.
118 CHAPTER 5
did the popes safeguard orthodoxy in the universities through their represen-
tatives who granted the license.3 It was a papal legate rather than the chancel-
lor who expelled two heretical masters of theology from the faculty at Paris.4
And both at Toulouse and at Paris it was the Dominican theologians who were
the chief guardians of orthodoxy when they had obtained admission into the
faculty of theology at Paris as a result of a temporary abrogation by the papacy
of its privileges for the university. In any case, the Dominicans were bound to
play this role through their control of the Inquisition.
Nevertheless, the papacy’s assertion of its authority over the conferring of
degrees resulted in the development of the universally valid license to teach,5
and of the theory of the nature of a studium generale.
In the examination of the license-systems of the universities in the thir-
teenth century our study has been confined to the problem of the control of
the license in relation to the corporations of masters. The masters, we have
seen, generally obtained the right to regulate, through the examination, mem-
bership in their societies, while the formal conferring of the license to teach
belonged to the chancellor, archdeacon, or scholasticus, as the case might be.
University masters exercised this privilege over applicants for the license who
had studied under them. As universities developed, each conferring degrees, a
new problem arose: should a master who had been examined and licensed at
one university be permitted to teach at another?
This problem could hardly have existed in the twelfth century. Then, any
master could open a classroom and give lectures, provided he had, at Paris for
example, the permission of the chancellor. But when a guild of masters was
formed, it was natural that it should guard its monopoly over teaching and
be careful to admit as new masters only the students trained and passed by
the members of their corporation. Not all graduates, however, could become
teachers in the university, since either a limitation by statute of the number
of masters in a faculty6 or a limitation induced by an insufficient number of
3 G. Bourbon, “La license d’enseigner,” Rev. des Questions Historiques, XIX (1879), 517, states that
the Church protected learning against heresy through the license.
4 Ch.U.P., I, no. 176.
5 On the licentia ubique docendi see Denifle, Universitäten, I, pp. 772–778, 21f.; Rashdall,
Universities, I, 10–17; Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 366–371.
6 For example, Innocent III’s limitation in 1207 of the number of theologians at Paris (Ch.U.P.,
I, no. 5). In 1288–1296 the bishop, scholasticus, and doctors at Orleans limited to ten the num-
ber of professors of law (Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, I, no. 17; idem, Histoire de la science du
droit, III, 10f.); this limitation was removed, however, in 1309 by Clement V, who enforced the
jus ubique docendi for professors from other studia generalia; Fournier, Statuts, I, no. 26.
students7 made it impossible for all graduates to teach where they obtained
their degrees. Hence, some masters had to seek positions elsewhere. At first
it was easy for masters from Paris or Bologna to lecture in other centers of
learning, or establish private schools, owing to the early prestige of these
universities.8 As soon, however, as other schools began to grant degrees to their
own members, it became more difficult for Parisian or Bolognese masters to
secure positions. This competition between rival centers of learning, above all
the desire of newly founded universities to confer licenses that had a validity
equal to that of licenses obtained at Paris, resulted in the development of the
licentia ubique docendi.
By custom, if not by privilege, masters who obtained the license at Bologna
or Paris could, at least in the first part of the thirteenth century, teach any-
where. They were called upon to be professors in new universities,9 but when
they in turn formed new faculties and examined licentiandi, they naturally
wished to claim a prestige for the degrees that custom could not furnish. Hence
a special privilege might be sought from the now recognized head of the uni-
versities—the pope. By 1220 the papacy had regulated matters relating to the
license both at Paris and at Bologna, though the final nature of papal control
was not yet fully developed. When, therefore, Gregory IX in 1233 confirmed
the foundation of the University of Toulouse, he assumed it was his natural
prerogative to grant the privilege of the licentia ubique regendi to masters who
were examined and approved in the new university.10 Such masters should not
be compelled to undergo a further examination in any school in which they
might teach. But the masters at Paris protested, and in 1234 Gregory IX assured
the bishop of Paris that his privilege for Toulouse was not meant to derogate
from the customs and statutes of Paris, which should be inviolably observed.11
In theory, however, the University of Toulouse could now grant licenses that
were universally valid. The same privilege was conferred on Salamanca in
1255 by Alexander IV, but this time it was stated that masters examined and
7 When the masters depended largely on fees, competition for students possibly forced
some to leave; on fees, infra, Chap. VIII.
8 Denifle, op. cit., I, 772 f.
9 Honorius III invited the masters of Paris to go to Toulouse (Ch.U.P., I, no. 25), and it was
masters from Paris who began teaching in the university founded in 1229 and 1223.
10 Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, I, no. 506, p. 441; Ch.U.P., I, no. 99. This privilege was again
granted by Innocent IV in 1245; Fournier, I, no. 518.
11 Ch.U.P., I, no. 101.
120 CHAPTER 5
approved at Salamanca were qualified to teach in any studium generale except

Paris and Bologna.12
By 1255, then, the papal privilege of the licentia ubique docendi was definite-
ly attached to the theory of the studium generale. The result was that universi-
ties that developed without being founded perceived the value of the privilege.
In confirming a studium generale at Montpellier in 1289—in fact, a studium
generale had long existed there in medicine and in law—Nicholas IV granted
the privilege to its graduates.13 Even Bologna and Paris, which had long en-
joyed the privilege in practice, received it from Nicholas IV in 1291 and 1292.14
We have seen that degrees received at Toulouse were not valid at Paris,
and those at Salamanca were not valid either at Paris or at Bologna. Actually,
the privilege was not always observed even when it gave universal validity.
Although in 1242 the bishop of Maguelone’s statutes for the faculty of arts at
Montpellier recognized the right of a master who had been a regent in arts at
Paris to teach at Montpellier without being further examined, several decades
later both Montpellier and Oxford and other studia generalia refused to admit
to magisterial functions masters licensed at Paris.15 Apparently Oxford, by this
refusal, was acting in self-defense, for its own masters were not recognized at
Paris.16 In any case, the bishop of Lincoln in 129617 and King Edward II in 131718
petitioned the papacy for the bestowal of the privilege of the jus ubique do-
cendi on the graduates of Oxford. Oxford did not receive the privilege, but the
petition indicates that in theory the privilege, if granted by the papacy, was
considered to be of some importance. Yet Oxford did not respect the privilege
when it was a matter of graduates from other universities trying to enter any
of its own faculties.
The popes, of course, could by special bull force a university to accept a
master from another school. We have noted elsewhere how Innocent IV and
Alexander IV compelled the faculty of theology at Paris to admit masters from
the religious orders.19 The foundation of the University of the Roman Court
furnished the popes with a body of doctors at the curia who could examine
scholars. Masters approved in this manner enjoyed the right to teach anywhere,
12 Denifle, Archiv., V, 171, no. 6. The limitation on the universality of the privilege was re-
moved in 1333; Rashdall, II, i, 72.
13 Fournier, op. cit., II, no. 903.
14 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 19, no. 9; Ch.U.P., II, no. 578.
15 Ch.U.P., II, nos. 728 and 728a; an. 1292–1316. For examples from the end of the fourteenth
century, see Boyce, The English-German Nation, p. 101, note 2.
16 Anstey, Munimenta Academica, II, 446.
17 Lyte, History of the University of Oxford, pp.96 f.; Rashdall, I, 16.
18 Ch.U.P., II, no. 756; Lyte, op. cit., pp. 96 f.; Rashdall, loc. cit.
19 Supra, Chap. II, pp. 53–70.
and we have instances of popes compelling universities to accept them. Thus,

in 1256, Alexander IV granted the license to an abbot of the Cistercian Order
who had been examined and approved by two cardinals, and he commanded
the masters at Paris to receive the abbot into their consortium.20 Similarly,
Nicholas IV in 1268 caused Guillaume Séguier to be examined in the Roman
Court, and to be received into the universities of Bologna and Montpellier.21
Later, the popes abused their power by licensing men unworthy of the honor,
and the Council of Constance prohibited the papal licenses except to scholars
properly examined in the University of the Roman Court.22
By the exercise of its potestas magisterii the papacy had secured, by 1260,
almost universal recognition of its control over the license-system in both
secular and ecclesiastical universities. The chancellor or scholasticus granted
in the name of the pope the license to teach.23 By 1292 the papacy had been
recognized as the source of the privilege of the licentia ubique docendi. Hence,
the idea of a studium generale had been connected with the privilege, as well
as with that of the dispensation from residence for ecclesiastical students;24 it
was generally believed that no studium generale was legal without the privi-
lege either from the papacy, or from the emperor.25 The papacy, however, was
in France, England, and Spain a more important source of the privilege than
the emperor, for it had directly influenced the development of the jus ubique
docendi from the time when it had conferred it upon Toulouse.26 Thus, it was
owing chiefly to the papacy that, through the privileges of non-residence and
of the license to teach everywhere, the studium generale was distinguished
from the studium particulare.27 But the studium generale, in return for the in-
creased prestige of its degrees, must be subordinate to the papacy and fulfill
its function of giving instruction in the knowledge that directly or indirectly,
from the liberal arts and the secular sciences to theology, led the way to God.
The universities of the Middle Ages, therefore, and Paris in particular, were
strongholds of orthodoxy.
20 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 229 and 265.

21 Supra, Chap. IV, pp. 100, 109.
22 H. von der Hardt, Conc. Constant., I, ii, 605 f.
23 Denifle, Universitäten, I, 773, note 52; Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 360; Du Boulay,
Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, I, 278.
24 Infra, Chap. IX.
25 Denifle, op. cit., I, 428.
26 Cf. Denifle, op. cit., I, 21 f.; 779. St. Thomas, contra impugnantes (Opera omnia, XV, 12):
“Et sic patet quod ordinare de studio pertinet ad eum qui praeest reipublicae, et prae-
cipue ad auctoritatem Apostolicae sedis, … cui per generale studium providetur.”
27 Ibid., I, 22 f.; 773–775; infra, Chap. X.
CHAPTER 6
Jurisdiction
In the study of the license-system in the universities, it was observed how the
consortia of masters or of students were related through the license to ecclesi-
astical and secular authorities, to what extent the papacy influenced this rela-
tion, and how much autonomy the masters and students secured in controlling
admission to the magisterial societies. The amount of control possessed in the
end by the societies of masters measured the degree of their independence
as corporations. The partial victory won by the universities was the result,
however, not only of papal interference in the license-system itself, but also
of privileges of jurisdiction granted to the masters and students by kings and
popes. When the members of the universities were protected from episcopal
and secular courts, they could more freely develop their internal institutions
in spite of opposition from bishops, chancellors, communes, or secular lords,
it is therefore desirable to understand the nature of the jurisdiction over mas-
ters and students, and the role of the papacy in its development, before we
proceed to study the influence of the papacy on the internal organization of
the universities.
“La justice,” says Génestal, “est, au moyen âge surtout, un des aspects les plus
importante de l’autorité publique. Toute autorité est une justice et l’autorité se
mesure à l’étendue de la justice. Les rivalités entre puissances sont des rivalités
de justice. Tout le progrès de l’autorité royale tient en ces deux termes: lutte
victorieuse contre les justices seigneuriales, lutte victorieuse contre la justice
de l’église.”1 In the case of the universities the conflict was one between secular
and ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the one hand, and between ecclesiastical and
magisterial or university jurisdiction on the other.
Wherever students and masters gathered a special problem of jurisdiction
arose. Many students, even in France and England, were laymen.2 Were they to
be subject to secular or to ecclesiastical jurisdiction?
1 Le privilegium fori en France du Décret de Gratien à la fin du XIV e siècle (Bibliothèque de
l’École des Hautes Études: Sciences religieuses, vol. 35), I, introd., p. i.
2 Many of the lay students were doubtless tonsured, and hence came under the protection of
the privilegium fori not as students, but as clerks.

.
Jurisdiction 123
In Italy the Authentic Habita, promulgated by Frederick Barbarossa in 1158,

was the earliest basis of jurisdiction over students.3 According to the Habita
the student as defendant had the choice of being cited either before the bishop
or before his master.4 Clerical students naturally chose the bishop, and were
always subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction.5 Possibly in the early period of the
history of Bologna lay students might choose the bishop’s court,6 but appar-
ently they chose the secular jurisdiction of the doctors of civil law. In theory
the jurisdiction of the professors and the bishop was maintained in Italy, but
“after the rise of the universities the scholar was not allowed by their statutes
to decline the jurisdiction of his own rector. Hence the choice of tribunal prac-
tically passed to the plaintiff, and was lost by the defendant scholar. The juris-
diction of the professors was found difficult to enforce, and that of the bishop
remained only in the case of scholars who were also clerks.”7 When the rector at
Bologna became a clerk, clerical students also were subject to his jurisdiction,8
but his jurisdiction remained for the most part secular in nature.9
On the development of the rectorial jurisdiction the papacy had no influ-
ence, except in so far as Honorius III’s protection of the universities in the
struggle with the Commune assured the position of the rector.10 Nor did the
papacy try to withdraw lay students from communal or rectorial jurisdic-
tion in civil cases. When the Commune prosecuted a student for counterfeit-
ing, or at least for possessing monete false in his room, he was forced by the
3 M .G.H., Legum Sectio IV, Constitutiones et Acta Publica, I, 249, no. 178: “Verumtamen si eis
litem super aliquo negotio quispiam movere presumpserit, huius rei optione scolaribus
data, eos coram domino aut magistro suo vel ipsius civitatis episcopo, quibus hanc iurisdic-
tionem dedimus, conveniant. Quod si vero ad alium iudicem trahere temptaverint eum, et
si iustissima causa fuerit, pro tali conamine a debito cadat.” On the Habita see Denifle, Univ.,
pp. 48–60; Rashdall, I, 146 f.; Génestal, op. cit., I, 59.
4 Rashdall, I, 146.
5 Ibid., I, 183. When the rector became a clerk, he had a limited ecclesiastic jurisdiction over
clerical students.
6 Ibid., loc. cit.
7 Rashdall, I, 147. On the jurisdiction of the rectors at Bologna, ibid., I, 165 ff., and 179 ff.
8 Ibid., I, 183; “the Canon Law forbade the exercise of any jurisdiction by a layman over a
clerk.” Most students became clerks by receiving the tonsure, and thereby enjoyed the
immunities of the clergy. It was probably because of the frequency of the tonsure that
the statutes provided that the rector should be a clerk, in order that the clerical students
should not escape university jurisdiction.
9 According to Odofredo students who were citizens of Bologna were subject only to the
ordinary jurisdiction of the Commune, not to that of the university; Tamassia, “Odofredo,”
Atti e memorie … di Romagna. Serie 3, XII. 68 note 3.
10 Infra, Chap. VII.
124 CHAPTER 6
podestà to renounce the rescritto he had sought from the pope, and to declare
that he would not bring suit even in the Roman Court.11 But in certain cases
all students were subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. If a lay student struck a
clerk, he violated the privilegium canonis, by which anyone guilty of the injectio
manuum in clericos should be excommunicated.12 No bishop could absolve the
guilty person without a special mandate of absolution from the pope.13 Indeed,
it was intended that the offender should go in person to Rome and receive
absolution directly from the pope. The impracticability, however, of requiring
absolution at Rome led to special privileges delegating the power of absolution
to a bishop or some other ecclesiastic.14 Honorius III empowered the archdea-
con of Bologna to release from excommunication any students or doctors “qui
violentas manus in clericos injecissent.”15 Ostensibly the pope desired to save
the members of the university from delays and absence injurious to the pursuit
of learning,16 but if the privilege worked to the advantage of the students, it
was also a help in relieving the Apostolic See from the vexation of such cases.
Papal jurisdiction, furthermore, was recognized in appeals resulting from
disputes over the license, and from conflicts between the city and the univer-
sity. Since examples of this nature have been given in connection with the
license-system and the growth of the corporations of students, it is not neces-
sary to discuss them here.
At Bologna, then, lay students were not withdrawn from secular jurisdiction
except in cases involving attacks on clerks, and the papacy never caused the lay
students to be assimilated to the clergy by granting the privilegium fori.17 But
Innocent IV protected the university from arbitrary excommunication,18 and
11 Chart. Studii Bon., I, no. 43; an. 1233.

12 Génestal, Le Privilegium Fori, I, introd., p. iii.
13 Génestal, op. cit., loc. cit.
14 Alexander III directed the bishop of Exeter not to send to the Apostolic See guilty stu-
dents or clerks who were not of age (Migne, PL, CC, 1335; Friedberg, II, Decr. Greg. IX,
lib. V, tit. 39, c. 1, 2, 3, 4). But this bull does not apply to university students.
15 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 14, no. 3. If the crime were very serious, the guilty student should be sent
to Rome for absolution.
16 Ibid., loc. cit.
17 Cf. Génestal, op. cit., I, 59; Rashdall, I, 292.
18 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 174, no. 21; to the Archdeacon and “fratri Danieli Ordinis Predicatorum”:
the pope commands them to cause to be observed “quod interdici, suspendi vel excom-
municari non possint per literas apostolicas non facientes plenam et expressam de verbo
ad verbum de indulto hujusmodi mentionem.”
Jurisdiction 125
apparently appointed the archdeacon as the papal conservator of the privi-

leges and statutes of the university.19
In the other Italian universities the jurisdiction was like that at Bologna,
except that at Naples royal jurisdiction took the place of the rectorial.20
Everywhere, of course, the pope had jurisdiction over students guilty of the
injectio manuum21 and—except at Naples—over disputes concerning the li-
cense. But nowhere did the papacy guide the development of secular jurisdic-
tion, or grant the privilegium fori to lay students.
In Spain, owing to the origin of the universities in royal establishments based
on the cathedral schools, jurisdiction was more ecclesiastical in nature than in
Italy. Royal authority, following the example of the Authentic Habita, gave the
masters at Salamanca jurisdiction over civil cases between students, but al-
lowed appeals to the bishop.22 In criminal cases the rector had jurisdiction, but
if he failed to punish offenders, jurisdiction was exercised by the king’s judges.23
At Lerida, the king of Aragon provided for rectorial and magisterial jurisdiction
over lay students.24 In Castile and Aragon, lay students were not assimilated to
the clergy,25 and beyond confirmation of royal foundations the papacy did not
influence the development of secular jurisdiction.26
But in the case of the University of Lisbon-Coimbra the influence of Paris,
through Toulouse, is visible. In 1290 Pope Nicholas IV granted to all the stu-
dents and masters of Coimbra, and to their servants, the privilegium fori, or
the exemption from secular criminal jurisdiction until the defendant had been
tried in an ecclesiastical court and then handed over to a secular court.27 This

20 Cf. Rashdall, II, i, 24.
21 An example is found at Modena: Honorius III delegated to the bishop the power of ab-
solving students (cf. Rashdall, II, i, 5, note 1; Solmi, Il breve di Onorio III a favore dell’ antico
studio modenese; Vicini, Profilo storico dell’ antico studio di Modena, pp. 9f.; and Gregory
IX conferred the same faculty in 1234 (Auvray, I, no. 2333; Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 17, fol. 245v,
ep. 383).
22 Las Siete Partidas, Part. segunda, tit. XXXI, ley vii. Cf. Bonilla y San Martin, Vida
Universitaria (1914), pp. 18 and 21 ff.
23 Las Siete Partidas, Part. segunda, tit. XXXI, ley vi; Rashdall, II, I, 74.
24 Ibid., II, I, 88 f.
25 Cf. ibid., II, i, 89.
26 In 1255 Alexander IV confirmed Alfonso X’s foundation of Salamanca; La Fuente, I, 290,
no. 2. Boniface VIII confirmed James II’s foundation of Lerida; Rashdall, II, i, 87.
27 Vasconcelos, Origem et evolução do foro academico privativo da antiga Universidade por-
tuguesa, p. 7 and note 1: “Sancimus insuper, ut nulli magistri scollares, ac servientes ipso-
rum, si, quod absit, contigerit eos in quocumque maleficio deprehendi, ab aliquo laico
126 CHAPTER 6
privilege was recognized by King Denis in 1309, who forbade the alcaldi to take
students before secular judges, except in cases of homicide, the infliction of se-
rious wounds, and theft, rapine, rape, and counterfeiting.28 Royal jurisdiction
was distinguished both from ecclesiastical and from magisterial jurisdiction,
the last being subject to the bishop.29
As for ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Spain and Portugal, it hardly needs saying
that the papacy, by taking the universities under its protection30 by confirm-
ing the royal foundations, could settle cases of general importance involving
conflicts between the members of the universities and the cathedral dignitar-
ies, abuses of the license-system, and infringements of statutes; though the
more direct jurisdiction was in the hands of the kings. As in Italy, moreover,
the popes alone, or ecclesiastics delegated by Rome, could absolve students
guilty of the injectio manuum. This faculty of absolution Alexander IV granted
to the Maestrescuela of Salamanca, in order that doctors or students excom-
municated for the offense might not, in going to Rome to be absolved, lose
time in their work or run the danger of dying on the way without having been
released from excommunication.31 A further privilege granted by Alexander IV
was the protection of the university from corporate excommunication, sus-
pension, or interdict by any papal delegate, executor, or conservator without
an express mandate from the pope.32 This privilege was probably implied for
Palencia in 1263 and for Lerida in 1300, when Urban IV33 and Boniface VIII and
James II of Aragon34 conferred on the two universities the privileges enjoyed
by Paris and Toulouse. The protection from excommunication in Italy and in
Spain, while important in freeing the universities from outside ecclesiastical
judicentur, vel eciam puniantur, nisi forte iudicio ecclesie condepnati, relinquantur curie
seculari.” Cf. Rashdall, II, i, 103.
28 Vasconcelos, op. cit., p. 10, note 1.
29 Ibid., pp. 8 and 10.
30 For example, in 1221 Honorius III took under his protection the masters and students of
Palencia: “Episcopo Palentino … nos … tuis precibus inclinati, scolas ipsas necnon perso-
nas magistrorum et scolarium sub beati Petri et nostra protectione suscipimus …” Reg.
Vat. Hon. III, 1. 5, f. 94, ep. 476; Pressutti, I, no. 3192.
31 Denifle, Archiv, V, 170, no. 4. Cf. Denifle, Univ., p. 485.
32 Denifle, Archiv, V, 169, no. 2: “… indulgemus, ut nullus delegatus vel subdelegatus, ex-
ecutor seu etiam conservator, possit auctoritate sedis apostolice vel legatorum ipsius
in Universitatem vestram excommunicationis suspensionis vel interdicti sententias
promulgare absque speciali mandato sedis eiusdem faciente de indulgentia huiusmodi
mentionem …;” cf. ibid., Bonilla y San Martin, op. cit., p. 19.
33 La Fuente, I, 84; Denifle, Univ., p. 478.
34 La Fuente, I, 300 ff., no. 11; Rashdall, II, i, 87; Denifle, op. cit., p. 500.
Jurisdiction 127
interference with their growth, was not as important as it was in France. In

Spain royal authority was more effective than ecclesiastical, and in Italy the
university jurisdiction developed at the expense of both communal and eccle-
siastical jurisdiction.
I have referred to the influence of Paris on Nicholas IV’s exemption of lay
students and doctors at Coimbra from secular criminal jurisdiction in minor
offenses. Turning now to France, let us observe the development of secular
and ecclesiastical jurisdiction at Paris and in the universities that arose in the
thirteenth century.
In Italy and in Spain, it has been shown, lay students were generally ame-
nable to secular jurisdiction. In France, however, they were assimilated to the
clergy in so far as they came to enjoy the privilegium fori, though never so com-
pletely that the papacy granted them the full privilegium canonis.35 Probably
until 1300 lay students were tried in the royal courts.36 In 1200 a riot37 between
students and citizens of Paris resulted in the first privilege for the students and
masters.38 By this privilege Philip Augustus protected the members of the uni-
versity against the citizens and royal officers and gave them the right to appear
before the ecclesiastical courts.
The royal privilege provided that any layman who struck a student with
weapons, clubs or stones should be handed over to the king’s justice.39 This
provision was renewed, following the riot of the previous winter,40 by Louis IX
in August, 1229, just three months before Gregory IX asked him to enforce the
35 As will be seen, lay students were granted convenient absolution for the injectio manuum,
but never the full protection that clerks enjoyed against violence done to themselves;
infra, pp. 129, 147–149.
36 Rashdall (I, 292) states that “the Parisian scholar’s privilege of trial in the ecclesiastical
courts originates in no explicit grant of any secular or ecclesiastical authority. It existed
long before the rise of the university;” moreover, “in France, all students and still more
all masters in the church schools were assumed as a matter of course to be clerks.” In
this statement too much, I believe, is taken for granted. By 1200, while the majority of
the students and probably all the masters are clerks some students are laymen, and the
privilege of Philip Augustus was primarily, perhaps, intended for their protection. The fact
that some secular jurisdiction remained indicates that lay students were only partially
assimilated to the clerks. Furthermore, burgers of Paris who attacked students were not
excommunicated, but punished by the royal courts.
37 On the riot of 1200 see Rashdall, I, 296 ff.; Denifle, Univ., 88 ff.; Haskins, The Rise of
Universities, p. 22; Luchaire, L’Université de Paris sous Philippe Auguste, pp. 34 ff.
38 See the privilege in Ch.U.P., I, no. 1.
39 Ibid., I, p. 59.
40 Ibid., I, no. 66, p. 121, and no. 67. On the riot, see Rashdall, I, 335 f., and the authorities cited
supra, p. 46, note 94.
128 CHAPTER 6
privilege of his grandfather.41 The queen-regent had been unwilling to punish

the provost and his men,42 and the papal-legate and the bishop of Paris slow to
demand royal justice.43 Hence Gregory IX intervened, scolding the bishop for
his failure to restore peace,44 commanding the bishops of Le Mans and Senlis
to secure royal satisfaction for the university,45 and demanding that the king
and queen punish the offenders.46 The pope did not order the excommunica-
tion of the guilty, but demanded only that the royal justice should punish those
who attacked the students. Certainly, then, the lay students were not yet pro-
tected by the privilegium canonis against violence done them by the citizens of
Paris.47 It is possible that the pope realized that royal justice was more effective
in restraining the citizens of Paris than the bishops’ power of excommunica-
tion. But whether Gregory IX interfered directly or through royal authority, his
efforts, along with the loss to the city through the dispersion, resulted in peace
and the return of the self-exiled masters and students to Paris,48 who now had
ample assurance of protection against the citizens of Paris.49
The popes required not only the citizens of Paris, but the men connected
with the various religious houses in and outside Paris to abide by the terms of
the privilege of 1200. In 1231 Gregory IX warned the abbot of Saint-Germain-
des-Prés to bind his men, “pro pace ac securitate scolarium,” to the things to
which the citizens of Paris were bound by the royal privilege.50 The dean and
“quidam alii” of the suburb of Saint-Marcel had been guilty of attacking the
students in 1238–39;51 Gregory IX ordered an ecclesiastical investigation of the
affair52 and commanded the citizens of the Bourg to observe the provisions
41 Ch.U.P., I, no. 71.

43 Ibid., loc. cit.
44 Ch.U.P., I, no. 69.
45 Ibid., I, no. 70.
46 Ibid., I, no. 71. In 1231 Gregory IX again asked the king to renew and observe the privilege
of 1200; ibid., I, no. 82.
47 But Rashdall (I, 336) thinks that excommunication was not employed because of the hos-
tility of the cathedral dignitaries to the university. He therefore assumes that the students
enjoyed the privilegium canonis; but Gregory IX did not grant this privilege until 1231.
49 In 1251 we find the citizens of Paris and the students and masters all taking oath to pre-
serve peace; Ch.U.P., I, no. 197.
50 Ch.U.P., I, no. 81. A few months later the pope sent to the abbot another bull repeating this
command; ibid., no.94.
51 Rashdall, I, 335; Ch.U.P., I, no. 84. The riot took place in the Bourg of Saint-Marcel.
52 Ch.U.P., I, no. 84.
Jurisdiction 129
of the royal privilege.53 The pope issued similar commands to the bishop of
Paris,54 and Innocent IV likewise to the abbot of Mont-Sainte-Geneviève.55
Papal authority thus reinforced royal authority. It is now, in 1231, when the
dispersion was ended, that the papacy extended to the students a partial privi-
legium canonis. Gregory IX appointed the archbishop of Rheims, the bishop of
Amiens and a former archdeacon of Rheims as apostolic conservators of the
liberties of the masters and students; as conservators they were empowered to
excommunicate all “turbatores” of the university.56 But the fact that royal jus-
tice was more effective than ecclesiastical in punishing laymen who attacked
students, shows that the lay students, at least, were not fully protected by the
privilegium canonis. It is improbable that the excommunication of disturbers
applied to every case of individual violence to a lay scholar. Masters and stu-
dents at Montpellier were ordered by the legatine statutes of 1220 to put off the
clerical tonsure unless they were ordained.57
Also at Orleans58 and Toulouse59 the papacy imposed a distinction between
lay and clerical students, while subjecting both to ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Gregory IX seems to recognize that lay students, while subject to trial before an
ecclesiastical judge, were not fully assimilated to the clergy.60
In all French universities, therefore, since lay students did not possess the
complete privilegium canonis, laymen who attacked them were amenable to
secular jurisdiction, which was supported by papal authority. As at Paris, so at
53 Ibid., I, no. 92.

54 lbid., I, nos. 88 and 93.
55 Ch.U.P., I, no. 159.
56 Ch.U.P., I, no. 85; in 1237 Gregory IX appointed the archbishop of Rheims and the bishop
and dean of Amiens as conservators against disturbers; ibid., no. 112. In 1252 Innocent IV
ordered the archbishop of Rheims and the bishop and dean of Senlis to excommunicate
“molestatores”; ibid., no. 204. These bulls were directed, however, against ecclesiastical
disturbers as well as against laymen who troubled the university.
57 Fournier, II, no. 882, p. 5.
58 Ibid., I, no. 32, p. 14. In 1306 Clement V subjected all doctors and students, lay or clerical, to
ecclesiastical courts. But in 1235 Gregory IX, in delegating the faculty of absolution for the
injectio manuum at Orleans, seems to make little distinction between clerks and students:
“… ac nonnulli eorum injectione manuum in seipsos, et clericos alios temere violenta, fre-
quentius vinculum excommunicationis incurrant …” Fournier, I, no. 3.
59 At Toulouse Gregory IX in 1233 made the distinction: “Sancimus preterea quod nulli ma
gistri et scholares vel clerici ac servientes eorum … ab aliquo laico judicentur, vel etiam
puniantur, nisi forsitan judicio ecclesie condemnati seculari curie relinquantur, et ut laici
teneantur studentibus in causa qualibet coram ecclesiastico judice respondere secun-
dum consuetudinem ecclesie gallicane.” Fournier, I, no. 506.
60 See the preceding note.
130 CHAPTER 6
Orleans citizens were, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, under royal
jurisdiction, although in the thirteenth century they seem to have been subject
to imprisonment or fines at the bidding of the academical authorities.61 Yet
in 1236, when a serious riot between town and town occurred, it was the king
who fined the leader of the attack on the students.62 The bishop of Orleans had
immediately excommunicated the citizens,63 but it was the king who secured
peace.64 At Toulouse papal authority was more prompt than comital author-
ity to protect the members of the university from citizens or any disturbers
of their welfare,65 and Gregory IX even ordered that laymen should answer to
students in ecclesiastical courts.66
In France, then, both secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction protected lay and
clerical students and masters from the laymen living in the university towns.
Against the feudal nobility in the country and against brigands67 additional
protection was given—at least by papal decree—to travelling scholars. In Italy
Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II proclaimed the safety of students travel-
ling and studying in the Lombard kingdom and in the kingdom of Naples and
Sicily.68 Influenced by the imperial precedent, in France the Church under-
took the protection of students and masters passing to and from the schools. A
council at Montpellier, held under the papal legate Michael, decreed as early as
62 On the riot see the account of Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (ed. Luard), III, 370 f. The
chief offender was Hugues le Boutellier, whom the king fined; Fournier, I, nos. 4, 5, and 6.
Cf. Doinel, Hugues le Boutellier et le massacre des clercs à Orléans en 1236 (Orleans, 1887);
Fournier, Hist. de la Science du Droit, III, 7 f.
63 Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., loc. cit.
64 Ibid., loc. cit.
65 In 1245 Innocent IV commanded the count and people of Toulouse to defend the univer-
sity against unjust molestation, Fournier, I, nos. 521 and 522.
66 Fournier, I, no. 506: “et ut laici teneantur studentibus in causa qualibet coram ecclesias-
tico judice respondere secundum consuetudinem ecclesie gallicane.”
67 On the dangers from robbers, see the evidence from student letters, Haskins, Studies in
Mediaeval Culture, pp. 18 f.
68 In 1158 the Authentic Habita took travelling scholars under imperial protection; (M.G.H.,
Legum Sectio IV, I, 249 no. 178: “… omnibus qui studiorum causa peregrinantur scolaribus,
et maxime divinarum atque sacrarum legum professoribus, … indulgemus, ut ad loca, in
quibus litterarum exercentur studia, tam ipsi quam eorum nuncii veniant et habitent in
eis secure;” cf. Denifle, Univ., p. 54, note 48). Similar protection was granted by Frederick II
to students studying at Naples (Huillard-Bréholles, II, 450; Denifle, Univ., p. 454): “schola
res undecumque venerint, secure veniant morando, stando et redeundo, tam in personis
quam in rebus nullam sentientes in aliquo lesionem.” Cf. Torraca in Storia della Univ. di
Napoli, pp. 7 f. and 14 f.
Jurisdiction 131
1195 that all priests, clerks, monks and students, “euntes et redeuntes,” should
enjoy security.69 In 1233 Gregory IX ordered the count of Toulouse and his bail-
lis and barons to promise under oath immunity and security for the scholars
and their messengers; if any student or courier of the students were robbed or
deprived of his goods, the count must punish the offender.70 Both Gregory IX
and Innocent IV, moreover, lest, they said, the studium should be dissolved, for-
bade the exportation of provisions from the city in times of famine (caristie);71
and Clement V in 1306 similarly protected the University of Orleans.72
From a letter of Innocent IV we learn that students on their way to Paris or
returning from the university were frequently compelled to pay “pedagia, vis-
nagia indebita sive alias exactiones” on food and goods that were not merchan-
dise. The pope commanded archbishops and bishops to excommunicate those
guilty of such de facto exactions or local customs duties.73 From the same pope
went forth bulls to Blanche, queen-regent during the absence of Louis IX, and
to the countess of Flanders, asking them to prohibit the collection of duties
(thelonea and pedagia) by the French and Flemish collectors from clerks going
to the Roman Court and from clerical students of the kingdom of Denmark
on their way to the schools.74 To the masters and students of Paris, “euntes
Parisius causa studii aut exinde ad propria redeuntes,” Innocent IV granted the
privilege of exemption from all pedagia.75
69 Labbé-Mansi, XXII, 669.

70 Fournier, I, no. 506: “Necnon et ut te, comes Tolosane ballivi tui, et barones terre secu-
ritatem et immunitatem sub jurejurando promittere compellamini personis et rebus
scholarium ac etiam nunciis et eorundem et a vestris subditis illud idem fieri faciatis, et
si qui eos vel eorum nuncios in terris vestris pecunia vel rebus aliis spoliaverint, vos vel
emendari faciatis, vel etiam emendetis.” Cf. ibid., I, nos. 521 and 522, where Innocent IV
again commands the count, consuls, and people of Toulouse to protect the members of
the university against their enemies. Innocent IV also confirmed and repeated the statute
of Gregory IX; ibid., I, no. 518.
71 Ibid., I, nos. 507 and 519. How scarcities of provisions could arise may be gathered from
student letters complaining of the price of living; see Haskins. Studies in Mediaeval
Culture, pp. 11 ff., and 12, note 1.
72 Fournier, I, no. 22, p. 14. The city must see that a proper food supply was always on hand.
At Angers the King of Naples, Charles II, also duke of Anjou, in 1279 regulated the price of
bread for students; Fournier, I, nos. 365–367.
73 Ch.U.P., I, no. 164. The excommunication was to be valid until satisfaction was obtained,
“non obstante constitutione de duabus dietis edita in Concilio generale.”
74 Ibid., I, nos. 195 and 196.
75 Ibid., I, no. 211. The bishop of Senlis was appointed conservator of this privilege; ibid., I,
no. 212. The conservator should excommunicate violators of the privilege, “non obstante,
132 CHAPTER 6
Here it is not necessary to describe how the popes protected the students
from exorbitant house-rents, nor how—at Toulouse—Gregory IX compelled
Count Raymond to pay the salaries promised to the professors in the new uni-
versity; elsewhere I have pointed out the papal support of the universities in
these matters.76 Violations by laymen of the statutes confirmed by the papacy
naturally were judged by papal conservators, whose function will be noted
presently, in all instances of lay encroachment on the liberties and privileges
of the students and masters, papal authority spurred secular jurisdiction to
notice and action. General protective measures issued from the Roman Court
have been indicated; the protection of individuals connected with the univer-
sities may now be noted. Naturally the secular and ecclesiastical courts took
care of the most ordinary cases of lay attacks on students and masters, but
occasionally the papacy intervened to secure justice from royal authority in
the violation of the persons of university dignitaries. In 1233, for example, the
seneschal of Vermandois maltreated Philip, the chancellor of the University
of Paris.77 In bulls to the king and the bishop of Noyon, Gregory IX ordered
the punishment and excommunication of the seneschal.78 It should be re-
marked, however, that it was more because Philip was an ordained clerk and
was attacked while installing the abbot of Saint-Prix at Saint-Quentin,79 than
because he was chancellor of the university, that the pope condemned the sen-
eschal and his men. Of similar nature was the protection afforded by Gregory IX
to Master Étienne against the count of Nevers.80 These instances illustrate the
difficulty of determining whether—as at Orleans in 1235—the ecclesiastical
authority was protecting all students or only the clerical students. In any case,
the papacy expected secular jurisdiction to participate in punishing laymen
who had been excommunicated for molesting clerical students.
Protected from the violence of the laity, all the students and masters, lay or
clerical, who were themselves guilty of violence against citizens of the towns,
against clerks or against each other, came to enjoy in France a practically
complete benefit of clergy in criminal cases. Obviously, all clerical students,
whether merely tonsured or ordained, enjoyed from the beginning the advan-
tages of the privilegium fori, which exempted them from trial by secular courts
si aliquibus a sede apostolica sit indultum, quod excommunicari aut interdici nequeant
per litteras apostolicas vel suspendi.”
76 On salaries, infra, pp. 182 f.; on house-rents, infra, pp. 227–234.
77 Ch.U.P., I, no. 96.
78 Ibid., I, nos. 96, 97, 98.
79 Delègue, L’Université de Paris: 1224–1244, p. 47.
80 Ch.U.P., I, no. 120; Delègue, op. cit., p. 48.
Jurisdiction 133
unless they were degraded by the Church and then turned over to secular
jurisdiction.81 But since many lay students, some of whom probably never
received the tonsure,82 attended the universities (particularly those of the
South) in which civil law was taught, a special problem of jurisdiction arose.
Riots83 usually resulted in special royal and papal privileges for the students.
Royal privileges preceded and were later supported by papal privileges.
The imperial privilege of 1158, which in Italy gave students the choice of ap-
pearing before the bishop or their masters, had only a very slight influence on
the development of criminal jurisdiction over students in France. To students
at Rheims, it is true, we find Alexander III in 1170–1172 granting exemption
from excommunication or molestation by a certain priest or by any other per-
sons, “quandiu coram magistro suo parati sunt justitie stare.”84 This privilege
has often been cited as evidence of the pope’s acceptance of the validity of
the Authentic Habita as a precedent for France,85 and it is quite possible that
the magisterial as a form of jurisdiction in Italy served as a precedent for its
attempted establishment in France both at Rheims and, in 1215, in Paris.86 In
substance, however, there was no resemblance between the Italian and the
French magisterial jurisdiction of the twelfth century and later. In Italy the
Authentic Habita permitted the choice between civil and ecclesiastical courts,
for most of the masters were civil lawyers and laymen. At Rheims, on the other
hand, Alexander III in effect forbade such a distinction in that students should
be justiciable only in ecclesiastical courts; the master of schools at Rheims, as
in all cathedrals or abbatial schools, was an ecclesiastic.87 The papal decree
implied that the choice of civil jurisdiction was not an option.88
81 Cf. Génestal, Le Privilegium Fori, I, intro., p. ii, p. 3 ff.

82 Many sons of the nobility attended the universities. On evidences of lay students at Paris,
see infra, p. 147.
83 On the riots, brawls, drinking, gambling, and general violence of the students see Haskins,
Studies in Mediaeval Culture, pp. 60 ff.
84 Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no. 5.
85 Rashdall, I, 292; Manacorda, Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, 206; Savigny, Geschichte des
römischen Rechts, 2nd ed., III, 355; Génestal, op. cit., I, 60.
86 In 1215 Robert Curzon decreed, “quilibet magister forum sui scolaris habeat.” Ch.U.P., I,
no. 20.
87 It is highly probable that Alexander III entrusted the jurisdiction at Rheims not to the
master as teacher, but to the master as magister scholarum of the Abbey of Saint-Remi;
therefore to an ecclesiastical dignitary.
88 Rashdall (I, 292, note 1) admits this in saying that the principle asserted by Alexander III
“holds good as against ecclesiastical censure as well as civil justice.”
134 CHAPTER 6
As early as about 1170, then, Alexander III imposed on the students in the
abbatial school of Saint-Remi the jurisdiction that was to be that prevailing
in all French universities: ecclesiastical courts—no matter if the masters lost
their prerogative to episcopal authority—were to be the courts of first instance
in cases in which students were the defendants. Curiously enough—and yet
naturally, since it was the royal officers who roughly handled students at Paris
in 1200—Philip Augustus, not the papacy, conferred on the members of the
University of Paris the first privilege of trial in ecclesiastical courts.89 In that
year the king decreed that a criminous student should be arrested without
violence by the provost and handed over to ecclesiastical justice, “que eum
custodire debet pro satisfaciendo nobis.”90 If the crime were serious, the king’s
justice would determine what was to be done. If the student were arrested
when ecclesiastical justice could not be found, he should be guarded by the
provost in a scholar’s house until he could be handed over to the episcopal
courts. Not the royal, but the ecclesiastical justice should seize the goods
(capitale)91 of the scholar, and the Church should decide what was to be done
with the seized property. The lay servants, moreover, of the students, unless
citizens of Paris or merchants, should be subject to royal jurisdiction only in
cases of serious forisfactum.92
By the privilege of Philip Augustus, then, the assimilation of students to the
status of the clergy was conceded. The assimilation, however, was not com-
plete. The privilege of 1200 shows that the justice of the king participated in the
punishment of serious crimes,93 and that the fines may have gone to the king.94
The role of the papacy at Paris in establishing the privilegium fori was the
confirmation and insistence on the observance of the royal privilege in times of
89 Celestine III, in 1191–1198, ordered that all secular causes of clerks at Paris should be de-
cided by canon law (Ch.U.P., I, introd., no. 15). It is generally accepted that this is not
a privilegium fori for students; cf. Rashdall, I, 293, note 1. Even in the case of criminous
clerks royal justice arrested and imprisoned those guilty of serious crimes, and then
turned them over to the ecclesiastical judge; see the instructions of Philip Augustus to his
officers, Ch.U.P., I, no. 13.
90 Ch.U.P., I, no. 1, p. 60.
91 On the meaning of capitale, see Rashdall, I, 299.
92 See the privilege in Ch.U.P., no. 1, Cf. Rashdall, I, 296–299.
93 Ch.U.P., I, no. 1, p. 60: “Et si forifactum grande visum fuerit, ibit vel mittet justicia nostra ut
videat quid de scolari fiet.”
94 So Génestal, I, 59; but the only evidence that I can find in the privilege is the provision
that the ecclesiastical justice should hold the student “pro satisfaciendo nobis et injuriam
passo”. Opposed to this is the definite statement that in no case should the capitale of a
student be seized by royal officers.
Jurisdiction 135
trouble.95 At Toulouse, however, Gregory IX compelled the count to acknowl-

edge the freedom of the students and clerks and their servants from secular
criminal jurisdiction until the malefactors had been tried by the ecclesiasti-
cal judge and then turned over to the secular court.96 Philip the Fair, in 1292,
strengthened ecclesiastical jurisdiction at Toulouse by forbidding the capitouls
to imprison, torture or throw into the river any clerk or student justiciable by
the bishop.97 As at Paris, the officers of Toulouse assisted in the arresting of
students.98
For the remaining universities in France no specific privileges granting ex-
emption from secular jurisdiction seem to have survived from the thirteenth
century, though in 1306 Clement V decreed that all students and doctors, lay or
clerical, at Orleans should be subject to the ecclesiastical courts,99 yet, as will
be shown, ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all students was the accepted prin-
ciple. The establishment of this principle in France was accomplished as much
by royal as by papal authority, but was permanently assured by the continual
vigilance of the latter. We must now examine the nature of the jurisdiction of
the Church.
In the cathedral schools from which the universities of Paris, Angers, and
Orleans developed, direct jurisdiction was already, in the twelfth century, in
the hands of the chancellor of the magister scholarum. Alexander III’s confir-
mation of the master’s court at Rheims has been noted.100 Probably at Paris
the chancellor had a similar jurisdiction at least over clerical students: after
1200 his justice extended over lay and clerical students and masters, as we shall
see. Similarly at Angers and Orleans, we may be sure, the scholasticus was the
judge of students’ misdemeanors.101 In these schools, of course; the jurisdic-
tion of the magister scholarum was subject to episcopal authority. On this
95 For example, in 1231; Ch.U.P., I, nos. 71, 82.

96 Fournier, I, no. 506; an. 1233.
97 Gadave, Documents sur l’histoire de l’Université de Toulouse, p. 80, no. 28.
98 Fournier, I, no. 526; the bishop’s statute of 1266 provided that students carrying arms
should be arrested by the Consuls and handed over to the bishop’s officialis. In the
fourteenth century the seneschal of Toulouse shares jurisdiction with the Church. Cf.
Rashdall, II, i, 167, and note 3. The pope claimed for the archbishop the justice over lay
students; ibid., loc. cit., Fournier, I, nos. 561, 563, etc.
99 Fournier, I, no. 22, p. 14. Also at Angers, we learn from a bull of Clement V, 1306, the provost
arrested students; ibid., I, no. 371.
100 Supra, note 86.
101 But at Orleans the magister scholarum probably dealt “with each student through his par-
ticular master.” Haskins, “Orleanese Formularies,” Speculum, V, 417 f.; infra, p. 139.
136 CHAPTER 6
foundation the papacy guided the development of ecclesiastical jurisdiction

over the universities when royal authority had acquiesced in the accountabil-
ity of all students to the Church.
Ecclesiastical jurisdiction was, when finally organized, divided among the
masters, the cathedral dignitaries (the magister scholarum, scholasticus. or
chancellor on the one hand, and the bishop and his official on the other), and
the papacy. Beginning with magisterial jurisdiction, let us see if it had any re-
lation with magisterial jurisdiction in Italy. As remarked above, the courts of
the masters at Bologna were secular, owing to the lay character of the doc-
tors referred to in the Authentic Habita; and even when the court of the rec-
tors superseded them, the jurisdiction was still essentially secular in nature,
although the rector became a clerk. In 1215 the Papal-Legate Robert Curzon,
in his statutes for the masters and students at Paris, provided that the master
should have jurisdiction over his pupil,102 and that no one should be counted
a student at Paris who did not have a definite master.103 The latter provision,
repeated in 1231 by Gregory IX,104 was applied in 1220 at Montpellier by the
Cardinal-Legate Conrad105 in 1245 at Toulouse by Innocent IV,106 and in 1306
at Orleans by Clement V.107 According to Génestal108 and Rashdall,109 Robert
Curzon’s statute for Paris recognized the choice of magisterial jurisdiction
granted by the Habita, and hence the imperial privilege influenced the French
system. But actually, it is difficult to see in the Habita an influence, or even
a precedent. The masters at Paris were nearly all beneficed ecclesiastics, and
the jurisdiction granted to them in 1215 was probably already exercised as an
inheritance of the situation in the old cathedral school, in which the master110
102 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20, p. 79: “Quilibet magister forum sui scolaris habeat.”
103 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Nullus sit scolaris Parisius, qui certum magistrum non habeat.”
104 Ibid., I, no. 79, p. 138: “Et illi, qui simulant se scolares, nec tamen scolas frequentant nec
magistrum aliquem profitentur, nequaquam scolarium guadeant libertate.”
105 Fournier, II, no. 882, p. 5: “Nullus sit in Montepessulano nomine scolaris, nisi certi magistri
sit addictus regimini.” The students of the University of Medicine are here involved.
106 Fournier, I, no. 523; it is a repetition of the provision of 1231 in the Parens scientiarum,
above, note 100.
107 Fournier, I, no. 19. Cf. ibid., I, no. 23, p. 22, “quod nullus reputetur scolaris nisi doctorem
proprium habeat, a quo audit ordinarie …”
108 Privilegium Fori, I, 60.
109 I , 292 f.
110 I speak here of the master as a teacher. In some cathedral schools there might be one mas-
ter who was at the same time magister scholarum, or chancellor, and the sole teacher or
one of the teachers. The jurisdiction of such a man in his capacity of magister scholarum
is a different matter, as will be shown.
Jurisdiction 137
possessed a disciplinary jurisdiction over his pupils, punishing them for mis-
demeanors in the classroom.111 In the universities the masters could still disci-
pline students for petty offenses and for the violation of university regulations.
But the chief purpose of the magisterial jurisdiction was the protection of the
students from the miscarriage of justice. Thus, Robert Curzon permitted the
masters and students of Paris to draw up constitutions if justice could not be
obtained for the killing or wounding of scholars.112 In 1251 the University of
Paris arranged that in the faculty of arts the master of a student arrested by the
royal provost could demand custody of the student, apparently so that the pro-
vost might not violate the royal privilege by which he should turn the criminal
student over to the ecclesiastical courts.113 If the provost refused to hand over
the student, the rector and finally the chancellor, bishop, or the official of the
bishop should in turn demand custody of the student.114 In other faculties, the
master must per se demand the student.115 But no master should undertake
this duty for pretended students or those who did not attend the classes of a
“magistri actu regentis” at least twice a week.116 Students thus reclaimed were
apparently to be tried in the courts having jurisdiction, that is, the courts of the
bishop. The masters evidently were responsible for their students in securing
their release from imprisonment and in seeing that they obtained trial in the
proper courts.117 In a legal sense, however, there is no evidence of magisterial
111 Alexander III permits masters to strike their pupils by way of discipline, exempting them
from excommunication for the injectio manuum; so in a bull to the archbishop of Sens,
Friedberg, II, Decr. Greg. IX, lib. V, tit. xxxix cap. 1.
112 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20.
113 Ibid., I, no. 197, p. 223: “Modus autem repetendi scolares captos talis erit apud magistros
artium, quod magister scolaris capti cum duobus magistris regentibus, quibus constet,
quod sit scolaris, accedet ad prepositum, et scolarem suum repetet.…”
114 Ibid., loc. cit.: “… Qui [prepositus] si reddere denegaverit, dictus magister significabit hoc
rectori Universitatis, et tunc rector eum nomine Universitatis repetet. Et si prepositus
eum reddere noluerit rectori, tunc recurret rector ad cancellarium, et postremo ad epis-
copum vel officialem ejusdem.”
115 Ibid., loc. cit.: “In aliis autem facultatibus unusquisque magister scolarem suum repetet
per se, si necesse fuerit.”
116 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Qui etiam auditores legum vel decretalium nec etiam alii, nisi alicujus
magistri actu regentis bis ad minus in septimana scolas intraverint, scolares nullatenus
reputantur, et si eos capi contigerit, nec per aliquem magistrum, nec per Universitatem
repetentur.”
117 Without being enrolled under a master, a student could not obtain the license; cf. the
thirteenth century treatise, De disciplina scholarium, Migne, PL, LXIV, 1226 cap. ii: “Visis
autem scholarium rudimentis et virtutum incrementis, nunc de eorum subjectione
ergo magistros breviter est ordiendum, quoniam qui se non novi subjici, non noscat se
138 CHAPTER 6
courts. The magisterial forum scolaris, then, had even in 1214 no resemblance to
the jurisdiction of the doctors of law in Italy;118 instead it seems to have been a
sort of petty court, if a court at all, for disciplining misdemeanors too slight for
trial in the court of the chancellor or bishop. At Paris the disciplinary jurisdic-
tion possessed by the masters individually or collectively passed to the rector
as the head of the university.119
Just as the abbot and magister scolarum at Rheims in the twelfth century had
criminal and civil jurisdiction over students and masters, so too did the bishop
and chancellor at Paris at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and prob-
ably earlier. The chancellor was the judex ordinarius, and he had, subject to the
authority of the bishop, his own prison and court. Jean de Chandelles abused
these prerogatives by imprisoning students for minor offenses and fining them
as if he were motivated “by cupidity rather than by zeal for justice”120 In 1212
Innocent III directed the bishop, dean and archdeacon of Troyes to compel the
chancellor to stop this injustice,121 and in the following year Jean de Chandelles
agreed not to imprison students unless the enormity of the crime might tempt
the guilty student to flee trial. If a just cause for imprisonment were doubtful,
the bishop or his official should decide whether the offender should be im-
prisoned. Bail should be granted at once if it were offered. In cases judged by
him, the chancellor should not exact money fines from students, lay or clerical,
guilty of assaulting one another.122
magistrari. Miserum est enim eum fore magistrum qui nunquam se novit ease discipu-
lum. De et autem discipuli subjectio in tribus consistere, scilicet in attentione, benevo-
lentia et docilitate.”
118 At Paris, moreover, the bishop and chancellor already had their courts. At the universities
of civil law in France, the Authentic Habita never had any effect, for the ecclesiastical
tradition was too strong even at Montpellier; infra, p. 140.
119 Cf. Rashdall, I, 399 and 411.
120 Ch.U.P., I, no. 14: Innocent III states that he had received complaints from the masters
and students against the chancellor, “pro motu proprio incarcerans delinquentes, ubi non
presumitur, quod pro enormitate delicti examen judicis debeant fuge presidio declinare,
ac exigens pecuniam ab eisdem (cum in personam, non in facultates, vindicari requirat
excessus), in usus proprios convertit eandem, ut videatur vindictam cupiditatis ardore
potius quam zelo justicie exercere.” On the powers of the chancellor, cf. Rashdall, I, 306;
Denifle, Univ., pp. 685 f.
122 Ibid., I, no. 16: “Preterea clericos non incarcerabit, ubi non presumitur, quod pro enor-
mitate delicti examen judicis fuge presidio debeant declinare, vel nisi pro alia justa et
evidenti causa; et si dubium sit, utrum sit justa vel evidens, statim recurratur ad nos vel
officialem nostrum ad determinandum utrum sit justa et evidens …; et si incarceratus
fuerit, per sufficientem cautionem prestitam a carcere liberetur, nec clericos citandos
Jurisdiction 139
In the course of the struggle between the chancellor and the masters over
the license and jurisdiction the chancellor continued to abuse his right of judg-
ing scholars: both he and the bishop excommunicated the masters for making
statutes that weakened their authority,123 and the chancellor unjustly impris-
oned scholars, not because of crimes, but because of their opposition to the
arbitrary conduct of the chancellor in suspending masters.124 These actions
Honorius III severely condemned,125 and in 1222 the pope ordered the destruc-
tion of the chancellor’s prison.126 The bishop alone now possessed a prison,127
and it was to be used only for students guilty of serious crimes. The innocent
should not be seized, and the guilty should be released on bail.128 These provi-
sions of Honorius III were repeated and elaborated by Gregory IX in the Parens
scientiarum: unjust imprisonment was again prohibited, the chancellor’s pris-
on again interdicted; scholars should not be seized for debts, and neither the
chancellor nor the bishop should demand payment for releases from excom-
munication.129 The university, on the other hand, must not defend disturbers
of the peace and of the studium.130 The result of the Parens scientiarium was,
apparently, the disappearance of the chancellor’s criminal jurisdiction, though
until 1280–1290 his civil and spiritual jurisdiction in part remained.131 By 1231,
then, criminal jurisdiction over scholars belonged wholly to the bishop. “The
bishop’s official heard all ordinary criminal or ecclesiastical prosecutions
against a scholar, and might hear civil cases in which he was engaged either as
plaintiff or defendant.”132
nec capiendos capi vel citari faciet per publicos ministros, dum sui ad hoc sufficiant.
Cancellarius etiam in causa, in qua ratione cancellarie judex est, non exiget nec recipiet
pecuniariam emendam pro injuria facta uni scolari ab alio, vel clerico vel laico …” Cf.
Rashdall, I, 310.
123 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 30, 31, 41, 45.
124 Ibid., I, no. 31, p. 89.
125 Ibid., I, nos. 30, 31, 41, 45.
126 Ibid., I, no. 45, p. 103: “Demoliatur precise carcer a cancellario ipso constructus, nec
aliquem incarcerabit cancellarius memoratus, set episcopus si incarceratione opus est
culpabilem honeste in carcere detinebit.”
127 See the preceding note.
128 Ch.U.P., I, no. 45, p. 103: “Non capiantur occasione delinquentium innocentes, set si contra
aliquem suspicio habeatur probabilis, honeste detentus cautione prestita dimittatur.”
129 Ibid., I, no. 79, p. 138.
130 Ibid., I, loc. cit.
131 Rashdall, I, 339 and note 3. Innocent IV conferred on the chancellor the power of absolv-
ing students for the injectio manuum: infra, p. 147.
140 CHAPTER 6
Episcopal jurisdiction at Angers and Orleans was likewise an inheritance

from the earlier cathedral schools, but it had a different history particularly at
Angers. There the scholasticus retained into the fourteenth century his juris-
diction, but delegated some of it to the dean of the college of doctors.133 Both
these jurisdictions, however, were subject to the bishop.134 At Orleans the
scholasticus still had, by papal authority, his prison in the fourteenth centu-
ry.135 His jurisdiction over the students was, in the thirteenth century, exercised
through the master of the student.136 The bishop, of course, had the higher
jurisdiction. As at Paris, neither the bishop nor his official, nor the scholasticus,
Clement V decreed, should release, upon receiving payment of fines, a student
or doctor from excommunication.137 Shortly after, a statute of the university
imitated Paris still further in giving the rector disciplinary jurisdiction and the
protection of students from unjust punishment.138
Although the universities of Toulouse and Montpellier did not have their
origin in cathedral schools, the papacy episcopal jurisdiction over them in the
first half of the thirteenth century. In 1233, we have seen, Gregory IX conferred
on the scholars at Toulouse the privilegium fori. In 1245 Innocent IV defined
the jurisdiction on the basis of the Parens scientiarum, giving the bishop ju-
risdiction over the students and, as at Paris, prohibiting the injustice of im-
prisoning the innocent, or of holding offenders without bail.139 In 1264
Urban IV confirmed to the students and masters of Toulouse all the liberties
that were enjoyed at Paris.140 Montpellier offers a slight variation from the sys-
tem at Toulouse. The Cardinal-Legate Conrad in 1220 established the bishop of
Maguelone’s jurisdiction over the University of Medicine. Criminal cases were
to be judged by the bishop alone,141 but civil cases, whether involving masters
133 Ibid., II, i, 152.

134 Cf. Fournier, I, nos. 21 and 22. Clement V based his regulation of the bishop’s jurisdiction
on that of Gregory IX for Paris in the Parens scientiarum; the provisions of 1306 compare
almost point for point with those of 1231; cf. Ch.U.P., I; no. 79. But the bishop cannot have
a prison; and he shares his jurisdiction with the scholasticus.
135 Fournier, I, no. 21, p. 14; an. 1306; Clement V ordered that students should never be im-
prisoned except in the prison of the scholasticus. To the bishop the right of a prison was
interdicted.
136 Cf. Haskins, “Orleanese Formularies,” Speculum, V, 417 and 418, nos. 10 and 11.
138 Ibid., I, no. 23, p. 21.
139 Fournier, I, no. 523; cf. Ch.U.P., I, no. 79, p. 138; supra, p. 139.
140 Fournier, I, no. 524.
141 Ibid., II. no. 882: “Nam causa criminalis ad predictum Magalonensem episcopum defera-
tur tractanda; cujus erit de ea cognoscere.”
Jurisdiction 141
and students as plaintiffs or as defendants, were to be heard by a master cho-

sen to that end by the bishop and three masters.142 This judge of civil cases was
to bear the title of chancellor.143 But the bishop had the appellate court in all
civil jurisdiction.144 These ordinances of the legate were confirmed in 1258 by
Alexander IV.145 When the University of Law arose, the bishop extended his
jurisdiction over its members.146
Over all the French universities the papacy naturally possessed the superior
jurisdiction. Papal jurisdiction might be direct, indirect, or appellate. We have
seen the popes directly or indirectly interfering to regulate the license-system
and to protect the students from oppression or any injustice, and we shall see
them appointing boards to fix prices of students’ rooms and occasionally com-
pelling the payment of salaries to the professors. Because this study is an il-
lustration of the right of the papacy to jurisdiction over all learning and all
schools—although the right was not often asserted if royal authority protected
and directly controlled the universities—here it is necessary only to describe
how the papacy exercised its authority. The University of Paris offers the best
illustration of its development.
In the twelfth century there was as yet no recognized corporation at Paris,
for the masters and students were subject in all things to the chancellor and
bishop. This situation is reflected in the bulls and decrees of Alexander III
on the license-system, which the pope regulates in letters not to the mas-
ters and students, but to the bishops and archbishops of France.147 When
the Society of Masters began to take form as a corporation, its de facto exis-
tence was recognized by Innocent III’s addressing bulls directly to the mas-
ters and students. In 1205 the pope first wrote to the masters and scholars at
Paris (“universis magistris et scholaribus Parisiensibus”), inviting them to go to
142 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Episcopus Magalonensis, adjuncto sibi antiquiore magistro, et postea aliis
duobus eis adjunctis magistris discretioribus et laudabilioribus, juxta testimonium extrin-
secus et secundum conscientiam propriam, eligat cum predictis sibi adjunctis unum de
magistris sive sit de illis tribus, sive de aliis, qui justitiam exhibeat magistris et scolaribus,
vel aliis contra magistros vel scolares agentibus, querimonia apud eum deposita … Hec
autem dicimus in causa civili tantum.”
143 Ibid., loc cit.: “Ille autem magister electus ad cognoscendum de causis civilibus … appellari
poterit cancellarius Universitatis scolarium.” Cf. Rashdall, II, i, 120.
144 Ibid., loc. cit.: “Quod si fuerit appellandum, ad episcopum Magalonensem appelletur, salva
sedis apostolice in omnibus auctoritate.”
145 Ibid., II, no. 890.
147 Ch.U.P., I, introd., no. 4. The decree of the Third Lateral Council also regulated, through
the bishops and abbots, the license in cathedral and other church schools.
142 CHAPTER 6
Constantinople.148 This letter, of course, was no recognition of a corporation;

but the pope’s permission to the masters at Paris, (“scholaribus Parisiensibus”),
to have a procurator to represent them in causes in which they were defen-
dants or plaintiffs does approach, it seems, such a confirmation of a de facto
universitas.149 At any rate, it is the first direct exercise of papal jurisdiction over
the masters and students without reference to the authority of the bishop and
chancellor, and for that reason marks the first papal recognition of a body that
is rapidly being something different from a cathedral school. Henceforth, the
popes frequently write to the masters and students: Honorius III in 1218 to
three doctors at Paris, ordering them to compel the chancellor to grant the
license to Matthew Scot;150 in 1219 permitting the masters to receive into
their society anyone licensed by a chancellor who died before the licenti-
ate incepted;151 and in 1220 recommending to them the Dominicans;152 and
Gregory IX in 1230, commanding those who had gone to Angers to send repre-
sentatives to the Roman Court for the settlement of matters in dispute,153 and
in 1231 granting them the privileges of the Parens scientiarum.154 Certainly by
1231, if not before, the papacy directly asserts its jurisdiction over a university
or corporation.
In the period of its formation the university and its members had serious
conflicts with the authority of the bishop and chancellor. In settling these
quarrels the papacy frequently appointed judges and executors of agreements,
usually ecclesiastical dignitaries of Troyes,155 of Rouen,156 of Senlis,157 and
even, in one instance, the archbishop of Canterbury.158 Other examples are
numerous.159 From the habit of appointing such judges as the occasion de-
manded, Innocent IV passed to the expedient of designating a committee, con-
sisting of the archbishop of Rheims and the bishop and dean of Senlis, as the
148 Ch.U.P., I, no. 3.

149 Ch.U.P., I, no. 24; an. 1210–1216.
150 Ibid., I, no. 27.
151 Ibid., I, no. 29.
152 Ibid., I, nos. 36, 40.
153 Ibid., I, no. 75.
154 Ibid., I, no. 79.
155 Ibid., I, no. 14; the bishop, dean and archdeacon, who supervised the compromise of 1213.
Cf. ibid., no. 18; in 1219, again, the bishop, dean, and cantor; ibid., no. 31.
156 Ibid., I, no. 30; the archbishop, dean, and cantor.
157 Ibid., I, nos. 58 and 61.
158 Ibid., I, no. 41.
159 Cf. Ibid., I, nos. 45, 56, 58, 61, 69, 70, 83, 84, 85, 112, 114, etc.
Jurisdiction 143
apostolic conservator, with the general power of protecting the masters and
students from molestation and punishing with excommunication violators of
the papal privileges.160 Appointed for seven years, this committee later became
a permanent court, which in the fourteenth century had to be censured by the
papacy for abuses of its power.161 At Toulouse there was also an apostolic conser-
vator in the fourteenth century,162 but at Angers and Orleans apparently there
was none.
There is no need to explain the direct action of papal jurisdiction at Angers,
Orleans, Toulouse, and Montpellier. Let us pass on, then, to a brief notice of the
jurisdiction of the papal legates.163 At Paris the Cardinal-Legate Robert Curzon
in 1215 had a constructive influence,164 and a few years later the Cardinal-
Legate Romano almost a destructive one,165 on the constitution of the univer-
sity. The hostility of the latter to the university in 1229 resulted in his recall by
Gregory IX.166 The same legate, however, was partly responsible for the clause
in the Treaty of Paris, 1229–1330 that forced the count of Toulouse to provide
salaries in the new university.167 Another legate, Conrad, had in 1220 issued
statutes for the University of Medicine at Montpellier,168 statutes confirmed
160 Ch.U.P., I, no. 163, an. 1246: “… archiepiscopo Remensi, episcopo et dilecto filio decano
Silvanectensibus … discretioni vestre … mandamus quatinus, prefatis magistris et sco-
laribus favoris presidio efficaciter assistentes, non permittatis eos contra indulta privi-
legiorum sedis apostolice ab aliquibus indebite molestari, molestatores hujusmodi per
censuram ecclesiasticam appellatione postposita compescendo.” Cf. Rashdall, I, 343 f.
and 412.
162 Ibid., II, i, 167.
163 On the legal position of the papal legates see K. Ruess, Die rechtliche Stellung der päpst
lichen Legaten bis Bonifaz VIII (Görres-Gesellschaft z. Pflege d. Wissenschaft. Sektion f.
Rechts- und Sozial-Wissenschaft. 13. Heft; Paderborn, 1912), pp. 103–142, in particular
pp. 117–124 on the legatus a latere, and p. 145, for the Cardinal-Legate Romano’s decree for
the founding of the University of Toulouse; cf. H. Zimmermann, Die Päpstliche Legation in
der ersten Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn, 1913).
164 See his statutes, Ch.U.P., I, no. 20.
165 The Legate Romano in 1225 broke a seal of the university (Rashdall, I, 318), but Honorius
III had already, in 1222, forbidden its use (Ch.U.P., I, no. 45, p. 103). The legate’s house was
attacked by students (Rashdall, I, 319), and henceforth, until he was recalled in 1229 or
1230, Romano was hostile to the university (ibid., I, 338).
167 Fournier, I, nos. 505 and 506.
168 Ibid., II. no. 882; supra, pp. 104 f.
144 CHAPTER 6
and supplemented by the Legate Guido de Sora in 1239.169 While the legates,
as these examples show, had extensive powers, they were not permitted for
long to depart from the general policy of the papacy.170 When the universities
develop their constitutions and become powerful, the legates’ jurisdiction is
still often exercised.171
Not content with protecting the students and masters both from secular
jurisdiction and from abuses of the local ecclesiastical courts, the papacy
protected them further by granting to the University of Paris, as noted above,
not only magisterial (later becoming rectorial) disciplinary jurisdiction, but
also the corporate right of electing a procurator to represent them at Rome in
causes concerning them.172 Again in 1231, when the masters were contending
with episcopal and royal authority, they were permitted, commanded rather, to
send delegates to Rome.173 In the first two decades of the century both Bologna
and Paris begin to send corporate appeals to the Holy See at Rome, and the fact
that the popes usually gave them particular attention and decided disputes in
favor of the scholars indicates that the papacy recognized the legality of the
de facto corporations of students or of masters. As to the recognition of Paris,
indeed, the proctorship conceded by Innocent III about 1212–1214 seems to
represent a corporation as truly as did that of 1254, when Guillaume de Saint-
Amour was at Rome as procurator for the university of masters and students in
their struggle with the Dominicans.174
A further protection for the students of Paris was the privilege granted by
Innocent IV in 1245, that no master or student should be (through papal let-
ters) called outside the city in order to stand trial for causes arising in Paris
169 Fournier, II, no. 884; supra, p. 105.

170 Cf. Ruess, op. cit., pp. 124 f.
171 See, for examples at Paris. Ch.U.P., I. nos. 123, 176, 409, 460, 470, 490.
172 Ch.U.P., I, no. 24; cf. Rashdall, I, 302.
173 Ch.U.P., I, no. 75. Later, during the Dominican trouble, we find Innocent IV granting a
benefice to the proctor Hugo de Seghuin (ibid., no. 217), and permitting Guillaume de
Saint-Amour, another proctor, to borrow money for his expenses at Rome (ibid., nos. 238
and 239).
174 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 238 and 239, which show Innocent IV aiding the university to raise money
for the expenses of the proctor.
Jurisdiction 145
unless express mention was made of the indulgence.175 The same privilege was
conferred by Clement V in 1306 on the University of Toulouse.176
A more important concession was the gradual subtraction of masters and
students, as individuals or as societies, from the excommunicatory power,
first of the chancellor and the bishop, then of all other ecclesiastics except the
pope. Mention of protection from excommunication has already been made,177
but some repetition is here unavoidable. When the chancellor of Paris had
jurisdiction over the members of the university, he had also the power of ex-
communicating both those who opposed his authority, and those who were
guilty of flagrant violations of the law of the Church. Consequently a tendency
towards the arbitrary employment of ecclesiastical censure was checked in
1208 by the Cardinal-Legate Guala. The cardinal ordained that student trans-
gressores should be first warned and threatened generally, then, if persisting in
their refusal to obey, nominatim by the masters in the schools. On the failure of
admonition, they should be excommunicated by the chancellor and shunned
by all until they ‘made satisfaction’ and were released from the sentence by the
175 Ch.U.P., I, no. 142: “Universis magistris et scolaribus Parisiensibus. Ut eo liberius vacare
litterarum studio valeatis, quo minus fueritis negotiis aliis occupati, nos vestris suppli-
cationibus annuentes … indulgemus, ut extra civitatem Parisiensem super questionibus
intra eam exortis trahi per litteras apostolicas non possitis, nisi expressam de indulgentia
hujusmodi fecerint mentionem.” The editors of this bull call it a privilegium fori, and so
also Rashdall (I, 343, “jus non trahi extra or privilegium fori”); but according to Génestal (I,
introd., p. ii) the privilegium fori “soustrait aux juges séculiers la connaissance des affaires
concernant les clercs”. Innocent IV here merely grants the privilegium non trahi extra,
and has in mind ecclesiastical jurisdiction only, since he means, apparently, that other
papal bulls are not to be used by ecclesiastical authorities to bring masters or students
to trial, say, at Sens, Senlis, or Rheims. There is no indication that secular jurisdiction is
involved. That only ecclesiastical courts are in question is shown by a bull of Clement IV,
1267, permitting the archdeacon of Meaux to call students outside Paris, “non obstante
indulgentia sedis apost., qua scolaribus Parisien. dicitur esse concessum, ut extra civita-
tem Parisiensem trahi non possint in causam per litteras apost. non facientes plenam et
expressam de indulto hujusmodi mentionem.” (Ch.U.P., I, no. 142, note). For the rest, if
the privilegium fori meant the exemption from secular jurisdiction, it had been granted in
1200. The privilegium non trahi extra was again conferred by Innocent IV on the university
in 1252, and the bishop of Senlis was appointed its conservator (Ch.U.P., I, nos. 207 and
208).
176 Fournier, I, no. 541, p. 464.
177 Supra, pp. 139 f.
146 CHAPTER 6
bishop or by the abbot of St. Victor.178 But both the bishop and the chancellor,
during the period of their struggle to defeat the ambitions of the university,
1218–1227, employed excommunication against the masters for—so the cathe-
dral dignitaries claimed—illegal constitutions conspiracies, and usurpations
of their prerogatives. Against such sentences of excommunication Honorius III
decisively protested, declaring them all void pendente lite.179 Nor could the
pope tolerate fines, demanded by the bishop and chancellor, in payment for
release from excommunication;180 he likewise forbade the excommunication
of masters who refused to pass candidates favored by the cathedral.181 Without
the pope’s consent, said Honorius, no member of the university should be ex-
communicated.182 Exemption of all members from excommunication, except
by express papal mandate, was granted in 1231 by Gregory IX for seven years,183
was extended another seven years in 1237 by the same pope,184 and was re-
newed in 1246 by Innocent IV for a like period.185 This privilege was finally
made permanent in 1252.186 At a time when outlawry from the Church might
seriously injure the professional career of a regent master or interfere with the
normal business, even existence of the university, the removal of the threat of
excommunication was of great service in aiding the Society of Masters to gain
recognition as an universitas, and to wrest the administration of its own affairs
from the control of the bishop and chancellor.
In certain matters, however, members of the universities were subject to
immediate excommunication. It was noted in the discussion of jurisdiction
in Italy that lay students guilty of striking a clerk with evil intent were, like
all laymen, immediately to be excommunicated, and that they were granted
the privilege of absolution without having to seek it at Rome from the pope in
person. In France also, students could not with impunity do violence to clerks.
Sometime in the first decade of the thirteenth century the masters and stu-
dents at Paris, offering the plea of the cost of the journey to Rome and of the
interruption of studies, petitioned Innocent III for convenient absolution for
178
Ch.U.P., I, no. 7.
179
Ibid., I, nos. 30, 31 and 45.
180
Ibid., I, no. 45. This abuse was definitely condemned by Gregory IX in 1231; ibid., I, no. 79.
181
Ibid., I, no. 45.
182
Ibid., I, no. 30.
183
Ibid., I, no. 95.
184
Ibid., I, no. 113.
185
Ibid., I, no. 162. The university had petitioned for a “renovatio cum perpetuitate”; ibid., I.
no. 113, note.
186
Ibid., I, no. 209. The bishop of Senlis was made conservator of the privilege; ibid., no. 210.
Jurisdiction 147
those guilty of laying violent hands on each other.187 The pope thereupon en-
trusted absolution in cases of minor violence against clerks to the abbot of St.
Victor.188 But the abbot proceeded to absolve students even if they had been
outside Paris when committing the offence. His faculty of absolution was con-
sequently limited by Innocent III to students in Paris.189 As a special privilege
to the university, however, Innocent IV in 1252 granted to the chancellor the
power to absolve students for the injectio manuum immediately outside Paris.190
This privilege was valid for ten years and, of course, was limited to the less seri-
ous crimes. In the same bull Innocent IV refers to a privilege that he had con-
ferred on the chancellor, and that permitted him to absolve students within
the walls of Paris.191 A year later, in 1253, the pope granted the power of absolu-
tion to the bishop of Paris, but only for two years.192 Absolution of students
187
Ch.U.P., I, no. 15, an. 1212: Innocent III “Abbati S. Victoris Parisiensis. Sicut ex litteris tuis
nuper accepimus, cum olim ex parte dilectorum filiorum scolarium Parisiensium nobis
fuerit humiliter supplicatum, ut cum interdum eorum aliqui ex mutua injectione man
uum in canonem incidant sententie promulgate, pro qua sine gravi dispendio et preser-
tim sine scolastici studii detrimento non possent ad apostolicam sedem accedere, super
hoc dignaremur eisdem misericorditer providere”.
188
Ibid., loc. cit. Absolution could be obtained only at the Roman Court if the offense were
serious.
189
Ibid., loc. cit. But ca. 1218 a papal penitentiary explains that the abbot may absolve stu-
dents, if they live in Paris (“dummodo ipsi injectores Parisius faciant mansionem”), who
strike each other while going to Saint-Denis or other holy places. Ibid., I, no. 28, p. 86.
190
Ch.U.P., I, no. 215: “… indulgemus ut cancellarius Parisiensis … tales [scolares pro manu-
um violenta injectione in clericos] usque ad decennium absolvere valeat, etiam si factum
extra civitatem Parisiensem infra miliare fuerit perpetratum, dummodo passis injuriam
satisfaciant competenter, et adeo non fuerit gravis et enormis excessus, propter quem
ad sedem apostolicam merito sint mittendi.” The words “infra miliare” (according to
Cartellieri, Philipp August II. IV, ii, 606, a milliarium measured, ca. 1200, about two and
one-half kilometers) are probably inserted to include the Pré-aux-Clercs or the lands of
the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and the lands of the abbeys of St. Victor and Saint-
Marcel. In the 1190’s the masters and students had been attacked by the men of the mon-
astery of S.-Germain-des-Prés (Cf. Luchaire. L’Univ. de Paris sous Philippe-Auguste, p. 33)
and doubtless feeling ran high enough later on to incite the students to retaliate. In 1228–
29 the riot that led to the dispersion started in the Bourg of Saint-Marcel. The taverns
outside the walls and the recreation ground of the Pré-aux-Clercs offered opportunities
enough for fights in which students injured each other or attacked clerks not connected
with the university. Cf. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture p. 60, on the students’ riotous
habits.
191
Ibid., loc. cit. The editors of the Chartularium failed to find the privilege; nor have I en-
countered it.
192
Ibid., I, no. 218.
148 CHAPTER 6
was thus greatly facilitated, although cases of particular violence193 demanded

still the direct absolving power of the papacy.
Were both lay194 and clerical students affected in the same manner by these
regulations? Innocent III speaks of the students as if there were no distinc-
tion between them when they laid violent hands on each other—“cum inter-
dum eorum aliqui ex mutua injectione manuum in canonem incidant sententie
promulgate.”195 From this letter one would infer that all students, whether lay
or clerical, were excommunicated for striking each other and must receive ab-
solution from the abbot of St. Victor. Forty years later, however, Innocent IV
distinguishes between the offenses of lay and clerical students, permitting the
bishop to absolve the former, but to dispense “cum illis ex ipsis scolaribus, qui
clerici fuerint, super irregularitate.”196 If lay students injured each other, they
were sufficiently assimilated to the clergy, it seems, that they could be excom-
municated and receive absolution in the manner described; though it may be
that it is they, rather than clerical students, who were subject to trials in the
bishop’s court for offenses of this kind. But if a layman not connected with the
university attacked lay students, he was subject not to excommunication, but
to royal jurisdiction.197 Hence, lay students were protected by the privilegium
canonis only if struck by other lay students, but not if injured by the burghers
of Paris. In another way also they were not completely assimilated to clerks,
although by this distinction they enjoyed a privilege not granted to the latter:
both lay and clerical students, “qui clericos percutiunt non scolares,” could be
absolved by the abbot of St. Victor; but clerici non scolares at Paris could be
absolved only by the pope, “cum nolit dominus papa clericos non scolares in
hac parte scolarium privilegio gaudere.”198 Clerical students enjoyed both the
special privilege of dispensation and absolution given to all scholars, and, at
the same time, protection from lay students or other laymen by the privilegium
193 About 1218 the papal paenitentiarius, Radulphus, explained to a dignitary of the Abbey
of St. Victor what Innocent III meant in reserving serious crimes against the clergy to
be absolved by the Apostolic See: “dicitur tamen vulnus grave vel enorme alicujus gravis
vel honeste persone lesio, licet parva, vel in aliis personis minimis membrorum lesio vel
mutilatio gravis.” Ch.U.P., I. no. 28, p. 86.
194 Besides the evidences noted below of the distinction between lay and clerical students,
the presence of lay students at Paris is shown by a clause in the compromise of 1213:
“Cancellarius … non exiget nec recipiet pecuniariam emendam pro injuria facta uni sco-
lari ab alio, vel clerico vel laico.” Ch.U.P., I, no. 16, p. 75.
195 Ch.U.P., I, no. 15.
196 Ibid., I, no. 218.
197 Supra, p. 128.
198 This is the opinion given by the papal penitentiary about 1218; Ch.U.P., I, no. 28, p. 86.
Jurisdiction 149
canonis. It seems evident, therefore, that if lay students were given special im-
munities from secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, they were still thought of
as laymen, but laymen favored by the papacy with many of the clerical privi-
leges. Yet in many points the distinction between lay scholars and clerks is not
clear, and in the thirteenth century it probably caused much confusion.
These considerations apply likewise to the students in the other French uni-
versities. Evidence, however, is even less abundant than for Paris.199 In any case
the papacy readily granted absolution for students’ violence against each other
or against clerks. Innocent IV entrusted to the bishop, when the papal legate
was absent, the power of absolving students at Toulouse,200 and Alexander IV
delegated the same function to the bishop of Maguelone, who, in this case, was
to absolve students at Montpellier for the injectio manuum “in seipsos.”201
When the students in France enjoyed the privilege of trial in ecclesiastical
courts in civil and criminal cases, and easily obtained absolution for offenses
against the clergy, they had, one would think, little fear of justice while the
urge to riot was upon them. Indeed, it is probable that the licentiousness and
turbulence denounced by indignant preachers in their sermons,202 described
by the chroniclers203 and reflected in the royal and papal privileges and in the
statutes of the universities, received little discouragement from the judicial
advantages granted to the scholars. Possibly, however, royal authority was in
any case unable by 1200 to curb the students even if it retained jurisdiction
over them. The majority of the members of the university were clerks, and it
199 The case of a clerk who, attacked by students at Orleans, killed one of these and had
to flee, reveals that clerks guilty of such offenses had to do penance at least; but this
would be necessary whether the clerk shed the blood of another clerk or of a layman
among the students. See the letter of Gregory IX discovered by Prof. Haskins, “Two Roman
Formularies in Philadelphia.” Miscellanea Francesco Ehrle, IV, 284 f.
200 Berger, Les Registres d’Innocent IV, I, no. 544, an. 1244: “.… Episcopo Tholosano. Tue coram
nobis devotio fraternitatis exposuit quod per gratie divine subsidium in civitate tua viget
studium litterarum, cujus intuitu illuc scolares diversarum confluunt nationum, quorum
aliqui dum in clericos ex seipsis manus violentas iniciunt vinculum excommunicationis
incurrunt.… Nos itaque tuis supplicationibus inclinati, ut illis ex eisdem scolaribus hujus-
modi excommunicatione ligatis qui ad te recurrendum duxerint absolutionis beneficium
juxta formam Ecclesie absente legato Sedis Apostolice impertiri valeas, dummodo passis
injuriam satisfaciant competenter, nisi adea gravis fuerit et enormis excessus quod prop-
ter hoc merito sint ad Sedem Apostolicam destinandi, fraternitati tue auctoritate presen-
tium concedimus facultatem.”
201 Fournier, II, no. 889; an. 1256.
202 Cf. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, pp. 57–70.
203 For example, Matthew Paris’ account of the riot of 1228–29, Chron. Majora (ed. Luard), III,
166–168.
150 CHAPTER 6
were better—so Philip Augustus may have thought—to avoid confusion by

permitting all of them to be justiciable by the Church. In fact, it is doubtful if
any other solution were possible, considering the ecclesiastical nature of the
university. But the Church had jurisdiction over all students, and consequently
was responsible not only for punishing offenses, but also for trying to prevent
offenses by warning students what to expect if they were guilty of certain acts
of immorality or of general disturbance of the peace. The papacy therefore
from time to time assumed the responsibility for restraining the worst habits
of the students.
It was, even for the clergy, a turbulent age. Naturally the students—many of
them, whether lay or clerical, coming from noble families—partook of the tur-
bulence of a still feudal France, and found it natural enough to carry weapons,
which were an asset for defense or offense in brawls and conflicts with irate
burghers or hostile clergy.204 The popes of the thirteenth century severely con-
demned this habit of carrying weapons, while making absolution for violence
against hostile clergy easily obtainable. The students were thereby once more
recognized as possessing something of the status of clerks, to whom the carry-
ing of arms and the shedding of blood was forbidden.205 But, if students were
to be condemned in this matter, Honorius III would leave them the weapons
necessary for defense,206 though Gregory IX, warned by the riot of 1228–29,
apparently would not tolerate that students should be armed for any purpose.207
Innocent IV ordered the chancellor, after warning the offenders three times, to
deprive of the privileges of the university those students who, with no excuse
of necessity, bore arms in public.208 At Orleans in 1251–1252 ‘necessity’ excused
Bertholdus, a canon of Speyer studying there, for taking up arms against the
204 Cf. Haskins, op. cit., pp. 60 f.

205 Cf. the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, Labbé Mansi, XXII, 1006 f.
206 Ch.U.P., I, no. 45, p. 103: “… qui [scolares] etiam arma non portent, nisi ob tutelam sui ex
causa necessaria compellantur …”
207 Ibid., I, no. 79, p. 138: “Inhibemus autem expressius, ut scolares per civitatem armati non
vadant, et turbatores pacis et studii Universitas non defendat.”
208 Ibid., I, no. 213: “Ad aures nostras pervenit, quod nonnulli scolares Parisius commoran-
tes licentie laxatis habenis publice, licet id privata vel publica non exposcat necessitas,
arma ferunt, ex quo Deus et homines offenduntur, cetus scolarium notatur infamia, et
frequenter turbatur studium et etiam impeditur. Volentes igitur huic morbo salubrem
adhibere medelam, discretioni tue per apostolica scripta mandamus, quatinus si tales
secundo tertiove commoniti se non correxerint, beneficio privilegiorum universitatis
scolarium auctoritate nostra prives eosdem ac denunties ipsis nequaquam hujusmodi
beneficium suffragari.”
Jurisdiction 151
Pastoureaux.209 The latter attacked the students, who armed themselves and
gave battle in such earnest that several of the Pastoureaux as well as of the
clerks were killed.210 Since Bertholdus merely looked on and struck no one,
Innocent IV asked the bishop of Orleans not to denounce him.211 The pope says
nothing about the punishment or absolution of the other students. In 1306,
however, Clement V, in his privileges for the University of Orleans, decreed
that students or their servants carrying weapons should be excommunicated.212
At Toulouse the bishop in 1266 provided that clerks or students carrying arms
should be arrested by the consuls of Toulouse and given up to the bishop’s
official for trial.213
Less violent, but to the preachers almost equally offensive, were the forms
of recreation in which students freely indulged, as if not in the least embar-
rassed by the tonsure or, if laymen, by clerical privileges. Gambling with dice,
censured by Robert de Sorbon,214 was officially condemned by a papal legate
in 1276, who excommunicated the devotees of the taxillus.215 Not only gam-
bling, but feasting,216 drinking, dancing, and “alia … ludibria” were denounced
by the legate.217 But ecclesiastical censure did not easily tame the wild blood
of the students at Paris. They continued to roam the streets, to carry arms, and
to gamble; and in 1269 the bishop’s official was excommunicating them for
wounding people, violating women, and breaking into and robbing houses, all
while they were guilty of carrying weapons.218 Students were excommunicated
in 1276 by the legate just as much for the less as for the more serious crimes
209 On this episode in the history of Orleans, see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (ed. Luard),
V, 250; Rashdall, II, xi, 141, note 1; cf., for references in formularies to this riot, Lea, A
Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary in the Thirteenth Century, p. 23.
210 See the accounts given by Innocent IV in a letter to the bishop of Orleans (Fournier, I,
no. 9), and by the Prior of the Franciscans at Paris (Ch.U.P., I, no. 198 p. 225); cf. Lea, A
Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary, p. 23, for a letter that relates the story and asks absolu-
tion for a layman who killed a clerk.
211 Fournier, I, no. 9.
212 Ibid., I, no. 19, p. 12; “… nulli scolares vel eorum familie incedant per civitatem armati …”
213 lbid., I, nos. 526 and 527.
214 Cf. Haskins, op. cit., p. 58 and note 6.
215 Ch.U.P., I, no. 470. On dice at Orleans cf. Haskins, “Orleanese Formularies,” Speculum, V,
418, no. 8; for the enactments on this subject, see Miss Helen Waddell, The Wandering
Scholars, app.
216 In 1215 the Legate Robert Curzon had forbidden convivia “in principiis et conventibus
magistrorum, et in responsionibus vel oppositionibus puerorum vel juvenum.” Ch U.P., I,
no. 20, p. 79.
217 lbid., I, no. 470.
218 Ibid., I, no. 426.
152 CHAPTER 6
of violence,.219 In the fourteenth century “a comprehensive form of the papal

penitentiary, or letter of ‘Licet non credas’, covering acts that may have been
committed by a clerk when a student and have afterward been forgotten,”220
reveals the usual offenses of students: the injectio manuum “usque et citra san-
guinis effusionem,” carrying arms, playing at dice or “alios illicitos ludos,” and
entering taverns, gardens, vineyards, meadows and other forbidden places.221
Yet if the threat and practice of excommunication were weakened by the facili-
ty of absolution and failed to prevent crimes, it is probable that excommunica-
tion and the action of the bishops’ courts were as effective as royal jurisdiction
would have been if exercised over the comparatively few lay students.
In England the development of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over students, who
again were for the most part clerks, resembled that in France. Just as at Paris, a
town and gown riot at Oxford in 1208–9222 led to the settlement of the conflict
between secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The privilegium fori for Oxford,
however, was issued by papal, not by royal, authority. “To a papal legate and
the power behind him Oxford owes her earliest Charter, and the beginning of
those imperious immunities that were to make a society of teachers almost
supreme within the city walls.”223 In settling the dispute between the town and
the masters and students, the Papal Legate Nicholas ordained in 1214 that any
clerk seized by laymen should at once be handed over to the jurisdiction of
the Church on the demand of “the bishop of Lincoln or of the archdeacon of
the place or his official, or of the chancellor or whoever was deputed to this
office by the bishop.”224 The chancellor, appointed as head of the university by
219 Ibid., I, no. 470, p. 540: “… arma sumunt et armati incedunt nocturno tempore catervatim,
perturbantes tumultuosis ac inhonestis vocibus civitatem …”
220 Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, p. 59, note 1.
221 Ibid., loc. cit.; for a different text of this formulary, see Denifle, Archiv. IV, 207.
222 Cf. Rashdall, II; ii, 348 f.; Mallet, History of the University of Oxford, I, 31; Lyte, History of the
University of Oxford, p. 17.
223 Mallet, op. cit., I, 25 f.
224 Salter, University Archives, I, no. 20: “Si vero contingat aliquem clericum a laicis capi, sta
tim cum fuerint super eo requisiti ab episcopo Lincolniensi vel archidiacono loci seu eius
officiali vel a cancellario seu ab eo quem episcopus Lincolniensis huic offitio deputaverit,
captum ei reddent, nec aliquo modo machinabuntur in his vel in aliis per quod prefati
Lincolniensis episcopi iurisdiccio eludatur vel ius suum vel ecclesie sue in aliquo min
uatur.” On the legatine ordinance of 1214, see Denifle, Univ., pp. 242 f; Rashdall, II, ii, 350
ff.; Mallet, I, 27 ff.; Lyte, pp. 19 f. See the ordinance of Henry III, 1255, providing for the
cooperation of the town with the chancellor in cases of clerks guilty of crimes; Anstey,
Mun. Acad., II, 775 f., and 777–779 (1264).
Jurisdiction 153
the bishop,225 thus had the ordinary jurisdiction over the university. Although
he later became independent of the bishop of Lincoln,226 and his functions
passed to the control of the university itself,227 his jurisdiction remained eccle-
siastical in nature. This development was confirmed by Innocent IV in 1254.228
The chancellor used the town prison,229 since the bishop did not have one at
Oxford,230 and had jurisdiction not only over spiritual231 and criminal cases,
but over the Jews, debts, disputes about rents or prices, and all “ ‘contracts of
moveables’ ”.232 Magisterial jurisdiction at Oxford consisted, just as at Paris, in
defending students from injustice.233
As additional protection for the students and masters Innocent IV granted
that for five years they should not be summoned outside Oxford by papal or
legatine letters for contracts undertaken by any of them within the town,234
and he ordered the excommunication of molestatores.235 Usually the local ec-
clesiastical authorities were more prompt than at Paris to protect the univer-
sity.236 The Papal-Legate Otho had a quarrel with scholars at Oseney in 1238237
225 Salter, op. cit., I, no. 2; the fine levied on the town was to be paid, the legate ordered, “per
manus abbatis de Osen’ & Prioris sancte Fritheswide … vel archidiaconi loci seu eius of-
ficialis aut cancellarii quem episcopus Lincolniensis ibidem scolaribus preficiet …”
226 In 1300 Boniface VIII exempted the university from the jurisdiction of archbishops, leg-
ates, and bishops within the territory of the jurisdiction of the chancellor; Anstey, Mun.
Acad., I, 78–81.
227 Cf. Rashdall, II, ii, 35 ff.
228 The pope confirmed the university and its “immunitates, libertates et laudabiles, antiquas
et rationabiles consuetudines …, necnon constitutiones approbatas et honestas.” Anstey,
Munimenta Academica, I, 26; cf. Bliss, Calendar of Entries, I, 306.
229 Henry III granted the use of the town prison in 1231; Shirley, ed., Letters of Henry III, I, 399.
230 Rashdall, II, ii, 393.
231 In 1281, by an agreement between the bishop and the university, the correction of spiritual
offences was left in the hands of the chancellor; Salter, Med. Archives, I, 37, no. 27.
232 Ibid., loc cit. The chancellor’s jurisdiction was confirmed by Boniface VIII in 1300; Anstey,
Mun. Acad., I, 80.
233 At least in the faculty of arts. But no student should be defended who was not enrolled
under a regent master; Leach, Educational Charters and Documents, p. 188. Cf. the statute
of 1250, which provided that every student should have his own master, on whose roll his
name must be entered, and from whom he should hear daily “unam lectionem ordina-
riam.” Anstey, Mun. Acad., I, 17.
234 Bliss, op. cit., I, 306; repeated by Martin IV in 1281, ibid., I, 464.
235 Anstey, op. cit., I, 27 and 29; to the bishops of London and Salisbury.
236 Rashdall, II, ii, 392.
237 Ibid., II, ii, 396; Anstey, op. cit., I, 5 and 7.
154 CHAPTER 6
and excommunicated them, though he soon withdrew the sentence.238 But

in 1214 the Legate Nicholas thoroughly protected the scholars from the town’s
hostility by imposing a fine on the burghers, appointing a board to fix house-
rents, and compelling the citizens to sell food and other necessities at a rea-
sonable price.239 On the whole, then, legatine authority naturally followed the
liberal policy towards students that marked the general attitude of the papacy
in the thirteenth century. In 1300 Boniface VIII exempted the university from
the jurisdiction of the legates,240 and in the fourteenth century the university
secured a measure of independence from the Roman Court in the matter of
appeals from the chancellor’s court.241
At Cambridge royal authority was more active than papal in establishing
jurisdiction, and secular justice reinforced and cooperated with ecclesiastical
more, it seems, than it did in France. It was Henry III who in 1231, while recog-
nizing ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ordered the sheriff to execute the justice of
the chancellor and masters. When the chancellor and masters were troubled
by incorrigible clerks or students who refused to be arrested and punished by
them, they were to signify this to the bishop, and the bishop was to signify it
to the sheriff. Obeying the mandate of the bishop, the sheriff thereupon must
go in person to Cambridge, arrest the malefactors, and imprison them or expel
them from Cambridge according to the advice of the masters and chancellor.242
Clerks pretending to be students and not under the guardianship of some
master must leave Cambridge within fifteen days or go to prison.243 The king,
moreover, appointed the judges to settle disputes between the university and
the town,244 and, following the example set by the papal legate at Oxford and
by the popes in France, condemned exorbitant rents, which were to be fixed by
the usual board of assessors composed of two burghers and two members of
the university.245 As a result of these provisions, the chancellor, while subject
238 Anstey, op. cit., I, 5–8.

239 Salter, op. cit., I, no. 2; Anstey, op. cit., I, 1; on house-rents, infra, pp. 227–234.
240 In 1367 Edward III forbade such appeals (Salter, op.cit., I, 190 f.) and in the fifteenth cen-
tury the university decided that an aggrieved party might appeal to the pope, but mean-
while must submit to the punishment awarded by the university (Anstey, Mun. Acad., II,
461).
241 Supra, note 226; Anstey, I, 78–81.
242 Documents Relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge, I, i, no. 1; Leach,
Educational Charters and Documents, pp. 148 f. The king also commanded the bishop to
signify rebellious clerks to the sheriff; Documents, I, i, no. 3.
243 Documents, I, i, no. 2; Leach, op. cit., p. 150.
244 Ibid., I, i, no. 4.
245 Leach, op. cit., p. 152; cf. infra, pp. 232–234.
Jurisdiction 155
to the bishop of Ely, presided in his own court to hear and decide all causes in
which a scholar was concerned, unless the “facti atrocitas vel publicae quietis
perturbatio” required the assent or cognizance of the public magistrates or jus-
tices of the realm.246 In the thirteenth century the bishop had jurisdiction over
the license, though it was granted by the chancellor, decided internal disputes
between the faculties, and heard appeals from the chancellor’s decisions.247
But in the fourteenth century the university emancipated itself from the bish-
op’s authority.248 On the establishment of this jurisdiction at Cambridge, the
papacy had no direct influence until 1318. Gregory IX, however, in 1233 granted
to the bishop of Ely for three years the faculty of absolving students for the “in-
jectio levis manuum in seipsos vel alios clericos,”249 and prohibited the sum-
moning of scholars to any court outside the diocese of Ely.250 It was John XXII
who in 1318 granted exemption from the ecclesiastical and spiritual power of
the bishop.251
In England, then, jurisdiction was fundamentally ecclesiastical, but in the
case of Cambridge was set up and enforced by royal authority. We do not find
the papacy very often concerning itself with the English schools. They are dis-
tant from Rome, and are not as famed for theology as Paris. Hence it was left to
legates and to the English kings to let the universities assume what direction
of development they wished. The results of these conditions the papacy was
content to confirm. It is probable, however, that had the local ecclesiastical
authorities seriously opposed the comparative independence of Oxford and
Cambridge and had the universities been, like Paris, more populous in stu-
dents or situated in large towns, conflicts would have drawn from the Holy See
a more active and direct guidance of scholastic matters.
246 Peacock, Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge, p. 16.

247 Rashdall, II, ii, 548. In 1276 we find the bishop defining the jurisdiction over students in
grammar; Leach op. cit., pp. 202–208.
248 Ibid., II, ii, 549 f.
249 Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 17, f. 52v, cap. 174: “Episcopo Eliensi … concedimus, ut eisdem scolaribus
pro levi iniectione manuum in seipsos vel alios clericos incidentibus in canonem senten-
tie promulgate, ne veniendo pro absolutione ad sedem apostolicam studium intermittere
compellantur, possis iuxta formam ecclesie in talibus consuetam absolutionis benefici-
um impertiri. Presentibus post triennium minime valituris.” Cf. Bliss, Calendar of Entries,
I, 135.
250 Auvray, Les Registres de Grésoire IX. I, no. 1389. This applied to cases that were under pure-
ly ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Bliss, op. cit., I, 135. Cf. Rashdall, II, ii, 547.
251 Mullinger, The University of Cambridge, I, 146; Kaufmann, Die Geschichte der deutschen
Universitäten, I, 321; Rashdall, II, ii, 551.
156 CHAPTER 6
In the development of jurisdiction over the universities the papacy usually,

so far as secular jurisdiction is concerned, confirmed royal concessions of the
privilegium fori for lay and clerical students in Portugal, France, and England,
and—in Spain—confirmed the royal claims of jurisdiction over lay scholars.
But in some instances papal authority was creative, compelling local secular
jurisdiction at Montpellier, Toulouse, and Oxford to give up the right to judge
students either in criminal or in civil cases. In England and in France most
of the students were clerks; in Spain and Italy they were laymen, interested
above all in civil law. If at Angers, Orleans, and Montpellier civil law and medi-
cine were studied, these universities were influenced by Paris in that the stu-
dents were partially assimilated to clerks. Thus, in general the natural growth
resulting from those conditions produced a papal policy adapted to the local
needs, but one broad enough to be generally protective. Indeed, it is not so
much the machinery itself of jurisdiction that is of interest relative to the rise
of the universities, as it is the protection it afforded masters and students in
their efforts to attain some measure of autonomy and in their natural desire
to teach and study without being disturbed by the hostility of townsmen or of
non-academic clergy, and troubled by the material concerns of food and lodg-
ing. Against the efforts of the Commune of Bologna to make the corporations
of foreign students dependent on the city, Honorius III interposed to defend
the universities. Against the hostility of the chancellor and bishop of Paris, the
popes intervened to assure the development of the Society of Masters, and
succeeded chiefly by forbidding the excommunication of any of its members
by local ecclesiastics, and by granting the University of Paris definite privileges
that were adequately defended by papal conservators. Against lay attacks and
lay jurisdiction in France and England, the papacy protected the students by
prodding secular justice to action against the former and by withdrawing them
from the scope of the latter. And against profiteering townsmen, the popes es-
tablished committees for the regulation of rents, and tried to control the pric-
es of provisions. Without the papal interference in jurisdiction there would
still have been schools, for the zest for learning and the need of the degree for
the clerical professions were powerful motives in the thirteenth century. But
it is doubtful if they would have achieved the position of international studia
generalia—in Italy and Spain the schools founded by royal authority remained
regional—without the frequent exercise by the papacy of its supreme juris-
diction. Episodes in the history of Bologna and Paris illustrate the efficacy of
the papal support. At Bologna the universities, composed of foreign students,
could hardly have thrived without the protection against the Commune af-
forded by the organization into corporations. Honorius III protected the new
societies by releasing them from oaths to the Commune, by permitting them to
Jurisdiction 157
dissolve the stadium—a serious threat to the city—, and by limiting the juris-
diction of the podestà. At Paris the papacy, by granting immunities to foreign
students as it did to all students, by ordering royal authority to punish laymen
for molestation, and by granting specific privileges of dispersion, effectively
controlled conditions, so that students from all western Europe, and even from
Denmark, were induced to attend the famed university. With both royal and
local ecclesiastical authorities hostile in 1228–1231, it may be doubted if the
university as an international studium generale could have survived at Paris
itself. It may be true that if the papacy had not intervened, the city of Paris
would have compromised in order to bring back the wealth of a large student
body. But in such an event it is probable that the local authorities would have
secured a more direct control of the university, and reduced it to the position
of a national one—an evolution that was to begin in any event in the reign of
Philip the Fair. But subject to the papacy in the thirteenth century, the univer-
sity partook of the international character of papal jurisdiction, and, provided
with immunities and privileges, became the greatest international center of
learning in Europe.
CHAPTER 7
The Papacy and the Internal Development of the

Universities
While the popes were adjusting differences between the universities and local
ecclesiastical and secular authorities, they were at the same time granting the
privilege of corporate control over matters pertaining to the internal organiza-
tion and the particular affairs of the new societies of masters and students. On
the whole, however, the first type of the relations of the papacy with the uni-
versities, in freeing the masters and students from a destructive control or from
the abuses of the control left to local authorities, had to precede the effective
grant of privileges of autonomy. The societies of masters and students of Paris
and Bologna by the end of the twelfth century were beginning to take the form
of de facto corporations, and were aspiring to the position of legal universita-
tes, with the right of controlling membership, of acting as corporations, and
of managing their own internal business. In this ambition they ran counter to
the traditional episcopal authority at Paris, and to the Commune of Bologna,
where most of the students, being foreigners, might well be considered a dis-
cordant element in the city state. We have observed the papacy’s activity in
effecting compromises in the conflicts between the masters and students on
the one hand and the local authorities on the other. The result of papal in-
tervention was the recognition of the corporations of masters at Paris and of
students at Bologna. These corporations, although still subject to a nominal
episcopal control, became autonomous in so far as they were on equality with
other corporations within the Church. It remains now to study the role of the
papacy in the development of their internal organization before we consider
the date of the recognition of their full legality as corporations. Our attention
will be confined largely to Paris and Bologna, since these two universities il-
lustrate the development in the others.
With the increase of the number of masters teaching at Paris, the problem
of organizing the defense of common interests and ambitions rather than
the aims of the cathedral dignitaries created the friction over the license and
jurisdiction, which we have now studied. It was not only the question of the
license and the control of membership in the Society of Masters that was in-
volved in the struggle. There was also in dispute the right of the masters to draw
up their own statutes for the regulation of their particular affairs and for the

The Papacy and the Internal Development of the Universities 159
necessary discipline in the schools. Protected by the popes from the abuse of
the jurisdiction of the chancellor and bishop—a protection, however, that
developed alongside other privileges of internal government—masters were
able to obtain the right to make constitutiones on certain matters other than
the license.
About 1208–1209 the masters of theology, canon law, and the liberal arts had
elected eight of their body to draw up statutes regulating dress, the order to
be followed in lectures and disputations, and the ceremony to be observed in
holding funerals of clerks. This action, states Innocent III, had been taken be-
cause of the shocking behavior in these matters of certain “moderni doctores
liberalium artium.”1 Innocent III’s bull was a tacit recognition of the right
of the masters to regulate their internal affairs; but owing to the hostility of
the bishop and chancellor to the new corporation,2 the papacy had finally to
grant explicit privileges. The Legate Robert Curzon in 1215, by special mandate
from the pope, reformed the studium, and decreed that the masters and schol-
ars could make constitutiones for the protection of students, for the control of
house-rents, and for the regulation of costume, funeral obsequies, and lectures
and disputations.3 The bishop, however, excommunicated the scholars for
drawing up statutes without the consent of the Chapter of Notre-Dame, but
in 1219 Honorius III declared such sentences of excommunication to be void.4
At the same time Honorius reprimanded the bishop and chancellor for pre-
venting the masters from collecting money to pay the expenses of a nuntius
sent to the Roman Court to defend the rights of the university.5 The bishop
and chancellor remained stubborn,6 and it was not until 1228 and 1231 that
the papacy succeeded in definitely securing for the university its privilege of
making statutes. In 1228 Gregory IX confirmed a compromise effected by the
Cardinal-Legate Romano,7 and in 1231, by the Parens scientiarum, granted
to the masters the privilege of regulating, by constitutions or ordinances,
the method and hours of lectures and disputations, dress, funeral obsequies,
the lectures of bachelors, the assessment of houses for rental rates, and the
1 Ch.U.P., I, no. 8.
3 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20, p.79.
4 Ibid., I, nos. 30, 31.
5 Ibid., I, no. 31, p. 89.
6 Ibid., I, nos. 41 and 45.
7 Ch.U.P., I, no. 58.
160 CHAPTER 7
punishment of rebels against their statutes.8 Moreover, the pope granted the
masters and students the right to suspend lectures in case of injuries to mem-
bers of the university.9
Naturally the right to make statutes did not extend beyond the limits fixed
by the compromises effected in the license-system and in the powers of juris-
diction, but the privilege of 1231 was definitive for normal internal affairs. Thus
in 1245 we find statutes of the university and of the faculty of arts on lecture-
halls, rents, and on disputations and lectures.10 The popes, however, often in-
tervened to reform statutes or enforce their observance,11 or to abrogate them
in favor of the Dominicans.12
The bishop and chancellor were defeated in this struggle; they failed like-
wise to prevent the masters from assuming the prerogative of the seal. The
chancellor of the cathedral had a seal,13 and naturally wished to retain its use
for matters pertaining to the university. As a corporation, however, the mas-
ters desired to have their own seal, which they did have shortly before 1221.14
Owing to complaints, as usual from the chancellor and bishop, of the abuse of
the seal by the masters, Honorius III commanded Stephen Langton, archbish-
op of Canterbury, and the bishops of Troyes and Lisieux to break it.15 In the
following year, 1222, Honorius modified this prohibition by suspending the use
of the seal except in those matters that pertained to the office of procuration
in the dispute now in process of settlement at the Roman Court.16 Strangely
enough, not even in 1231 did Gregory IX restore to the university the full use of
the seal. In 1246 we find the masters petitioning for the privilege of a seal to
be used not in contracting loans, but in causes in which they were involved.17
Innocent IV therefore granted to the University of Masters the use of a com-
mon seal for seven years “pro negotiis in quibus causa vestre utilitatis vel hono-
ris agitur.”18 This privilege was extended in 1252 for a period of ten years, when
8
Ibid., I, no. 79, p. 137.
9
Ibid., loc. cit., p. 138.
10
lbid., I, nos. 136 and 137.
11
Ch.U.P., I, nos. 169, 237.
12
Supra., Chap. II, pp. 53–70.
13
Ch.U.P., I, no. 21.
14
Ch.U.P., I, no. 41.
15
Ibid., I, no. 41.
16
Ibid., I, no. 45, p. 103.
17
Ibid., I, no. 113, note.
18
Ibid., I, no. 165.
the period of seven years should have expired,19 and the pope appointed the
bishop of Senlis as the conservator of the privilege.20
The relations between the cathedral and the University of Paris were gen-
erally defined, as we have seen, by Gregory IX in 1231, both with regard to the
control of the license and with regard to jurisdiction. In the same year, and in
the same group of privileges, Gregory definitely confirmed the statute-making
power of the masters; and now, in 1246, Innocent IV granted the privilege of the
seal. Is it in 1246 or in 1251 or even earlier, that the university became a corpora-
tion of the masters of the four faculties?21 M. Louis Halphen maintains that it
was not a legal corporation, privileged by the papacy, until 1231.22 Denifle, on
the other hand, thinks it was constituted by 1208–1209.23 But what was a cor-
poration in the thirteenth century? At the beginning of the century it seems
to have been merely any organized group of men who by custom possessed
privileges and duties distinct from those of Individual members.24 A voluntary
association of scholars made “pro conservanda cuique sua justitia” was legal in
common law.25 By the middle of the century, however, for the corporation to be
legal, it must have its privileges confirmed by a prince or pope.26 The canonists,
Sinibaldo Fieschi in particular, developed the theory of the corporation as a
persona ficta.27 Nevertheless, no absolute definition of a corporation was made
then or could be made now. It might be called indiscriminately universitas,
corpus, collegium, or societas;28 but it was at least, to cite a glossator, Pillius, of
the end of the twelfth century, a conjunctio or collectio of many persons in one
19 Ibid., I, no. 205.

20 Ibid., I, no. 206. At Salamanca the bishop perhaps refused the university the right to use a
common seal, and therefore Alexander IV in 1255 granted the privilege of the seal to the
university; Archiv, V, 170, no. 3; cf. Rashdall, II, i, 71.
21 The university was composed of the masters of the different faculties; cf. Denifle,
Universitäten, I, 68 f.
22 “Débuts de l’Université de Paris,” Studi Medievali (nuova serie, 1929); pp. 134–139.
23 Op. cit., I, 68. He bases his opinion on the bull of Innocent III, 1209, concerning the read-
mission of Master G. to the consortium (Ch.U.P., I, no. 8).
24 Cf. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, 2nd ed., I, 488.
25 Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht. III, 208: Hugolinus. Azo held that masters (as
at Paris) “possunt eligere, quia ipsi exercent professionem.” Ibid., III, 208, n. 60. Hence the
students of Bologna could not elect rectors. But Honorius III did compel the recognition
of this right of the students, as will be shown.
26 Cf. Gierke, op. cit., III, 208.
27 Gierke, op. cit., III, 279 f.
28 Gierke, op. cit., III, 193.
162 CHAPTER 7
corpus29—or, says Hugolinus, “plurium corporum collectio inter se distantium,

uno nomine specialiter eis deputato”30—which as a fictitious person could
possess property, could sue or be sued, could be represented by a head elected
by the major et sanior pars of the members, could formulate rules or statutes,
and could not be excommunicated.31 The Society of Masters at Paris secured
papal recognition of these privileges by about 1220. As I have attempted to
show elsewhere,32 it does seem that Innocent III recognized, and thus tacitly
confirmed, a corporation when in 1208–1209 he ordered the masters to readmit
Master G. to their society,33 and when about 1214–1216, he granted to the ‘schol-
ars’ the right of procuration.34 In 1213–1215 the masters secured a provisional
right to examine licentiandi, and they had statutes, mentioned by Innocent III,
as early as 1208–1209,35 while the right of drawing up statutes was confirmed
by Robert Curzon in 1215.36 In 1219 Honorius III forbade the excommunica-
tion of the masters,37 and in 1231 and 1237 Gregory IX made this prohibition
apply to corporate excommunication.38 Nevertheless, owing to the opposition
of the bishop and chancellor to the ambitions of the masters, Gregory IX in 1231
granted privileges as if before then the masters had no recognition as a corpo-
ration. Is it not possible to explain this apparent contradiction?
We may safely assume, following Denifle and Rashdall,39 that a de facto
corporation was in existence by 1200. This corporation is recognized, therefore
indirectly confirmed, by Innocent III in the two bulls just mentioned. But not
yet had the lawyers and canonists arrived at a clear conception of all the at-
tributes and privileges of corporations. Hence it is possible that Innocent III
himself did not foresee that the consortium of masters must, as a corporation
of any independence, assert prerogatives that the bishop and chancellor natu-
rally claimed for themselves. Proud of their learning and prestige, the masters
at Paris attempted to escape the authority of the cathedral dignitaries. If the
tacit confirmation of their society by Innocent III was to be more than a for-
mality, they must actively regulate their own affairs. As we have seen, they at
29 Ibid., loc. cit.

30 Ibid., loc. cit.
31 Ibid., III, 209–235, 348.
32 Supra, Chap. II, p. 30, notes 6 and 7.
33 Ch.U.P., I, no. 8.
34 Supra, Chap. VI, p. 142.
35 Ch.U.P., I, no. 8.
36 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20.
37 Ibid., I, no. 31.
38 Ibid., I, nos. 95 and 113.
39 Denifle, Universitäten, I, 68; Rashdall, Universities, I, 294.
once clashed with the chancellor and bishop, who clearly showed that they
did not recognize a corporation. The interference of the papacy from 1212 to
1231—and again in 123740—was needed to compel the bishop and chancellor
to respect the privileges of a real corporation. The papacy had, through Robert
Curzon, definitely legalized the corporation, in so far as the rights of making
statutes and examining licentiandi were granted, in 1215.41 The Parens scien-
tiarum of 1231 was required to end the opposition of the bishop and chancel-
lor to the privileges already granted. It merely amplified these privileges, and
again confirmed Innocent III’s approval of the right of the masters to expel
rebellious members of the corporation.42 We may conclude, then, that by 1215
the papacy had itself confirmed, and by 1231 had compelled the bishop and
chancellor to recognize, the corporation or University of Masters.
At no time, however, did the papacy grant a formal confirmation of a cor-
poration; it confirmed to the masters the right of procuration, the right of
controlling membership, and the right of making statutes or constitutions on
certain matters. But the papacy confirmed these rights in such terms that one
cannot help inferring a corporation to which such prerogatives should belong.
At no time, again, not even in 1231, did the popes grant complete autonomy.43
The bishop retained certain rights of jurisdiction,44 the chancellor a formal
40 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 115 and 117; supra, Chap. II, pp. 51–53.
41 Ibid., I, no. 20, p. 79.
42 The statute-making privilege of Robert Curzon and that of Gregory IX should be
compared:
Ch.U.P., I, no. 20, p. 79: Ch.U.P., I, no. 79, p. 137:
“Item facere possunt magistri et scolares “… constitutiones seu ordinationes
tam per se quam cum aliis obligationes providas faciendi de modo et hora
et constitutiones fide vel pena vel legendi et disputandi, de habitu
juramento vallatas in hiis casibus, scilicet ordinato, de mortuorum exequiis necnon
in interfectione vel mutilatione scolaris, de bachellariis, qui et qua hora et quid
vel in atroci injuria illata scolari, si defuerit legere debeant, ac hospitiorum taxatione
justicia, pro taxandis pretiis hospitiorum, seu etiam interdicto, et rebelles ipsis
de habitu, de sepultura, de lectionibus constitutionibus vel ordinationibus
et disputationibus, ita tamen, quod per subtractionem societatis congrue
propter hoc studium non dissolvatur aut castigandi, vobis concedimus facultatem.”
destruatur.” Now follow the provisions on the right
of cessation, on jurisdiction, and other
matters.
43 Halphen, op. cit., p. 139, goes perhaps a little too far in asserting that by 1231 the university
“a définitivement gain de cause à Rome et que son existence autonome est assurée.”
44 Supra, Chap. VI, pp. 138–139.
164 CHAPTER 7
control of the license.45 Practically, however, when the years of conflict had
ended, the papal support of the masters had resulted in a large measure of
independence for the corporation.
Within the university, meanwhile, smaller consortia of masters were in pro-
cess of formation. It was natural that those masters who were interested in
or taught the same scientia should unite for their common protection. Such
masters formed what came to be known, by 1219, as a faculty.46 The faculties,
like the university, were not created at once, but appeared gradually. On their
development the papacy exercised indirect influence only. Naturally it was
the faculty of theology that received most attention from the popes. To im-
prove the faculty—it is not yet called a faculty, however—Innocent III lim-
ited its membership to eight,47 a number which, with one exception, was to be
changed only in favor of the religious five decades later.48 The masters of theol-
ogy, moreover, as well as the students, profited from Honorius III’s privilege of
the dispensation from residence.49 But all the faculties—arts, theology, medi-
cine, and law—were affected by the compromises between the chancellor and
the masters in the control of the license-system. It will be remembered that
the compromise of 1213, which was effected as a result of papal intervention,
provided for the participation of the masters in the examinations; the chancel-
lor was compelled to license any student who was approved by the major pars
of the masters in theology, canon and civil law, medicine, or arts.50 As papal
legate Robert Curzon in 1215 prescribed the years of study for students in arts
and theology;51 and Gregory IX in 1231 fixed the rules for granting the license in
each faculty.52 Meanwhile, in 1219, Honorius III prohibited the teaching of civil
law at Paris, and thus turned the faculty of the two laws into one of canon law.53
After 1231 the faculties—with the exception of the faculty of theology, which
was compelled by Alexander IV to admit the religious—usually regulated
their own affairs, including the manner and hours of lecturing. Alexander IV,
however, provided rules for the license in the faculty of arts granted by the

46 On the development of the faculties at Paris see Denlfle, Univ., I, 71–73; Rashdall, I,
322–334.
47 Ch.U.P., I, no. 5.
49 Ch.U.P., I, no. 32; infra, Chap. VIII, pp. 180–182.
50 Ch.U.P., 16; supra, Chap. II, pp. 34–35.
51 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20; supra, Chap. II, p. 38 f.
52 Ch.U.P., I, no. 79, p. 137; supra, Chap. II, pp. 48–50.
53 Ch.U.P., I, no. 32, p. 92.
chancellor of Mont-Sainte-Geneviève.54 The general congregation, moreover,

which “was composed of the united masters of all the faculties,”55 received
some stimulation in Innocent IV’s command that the masters should attend
when it was convoked.56
The faculties, then, were not created, but were merely regulated by the pa-
pacy. The subject matter taught in the faculties also came under the supervi-
sion of the papacy. Heresy must not flourish in the schools of Christendom. As
early as 1170 and 1177 Alexander III prohibited the teaching of Peter Lombard’s
sentence, “quod Christus secundum quod est homo non est aliquid.”57 A
council at Paris in 1210 and the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 condemned the
heretical doctrines of Amaury de Bène,58 and the former council forbade the
teaching of David of Dinant’s Quaternuli.59 John the Scot’s De divisione naturae
was condemned by Honorius III in 1225.60 Innocent IV ordered copies of the
Talmud to be burned.61 But the most interesting condemnation was that of
certain books of Aristotle.62 The Council of Paris in 1210 decreed that his “libri
de naturali philosophia” and commentaries thereon should not be the subject
of lectures,63 and Robert Curzon prohibited lectures on the “libri Aristotelis de
methafisica et de naturali philosophia.64 But the interest in the ‘new’ Aristotle
was strong, and therefore Gregory IX in 1231 ordered the condemned books to
be examined by experts, who were to delete what was erroneous, so that the
54 Ch.U.P., I, no. 346.

56 Ch.U.P., I, no. 144.
57 Ibid., I, Introd., nos. 3 and 9; Jaffé-Löwenfeld, nos. 11806 and 11809; cf. Annales
Reicherspergenses, an. 1164 (M.G.H., SS., XVII, 471), for Alexander III’s condemnation at
Sens of “omnes tropos et indisciplinatas quaestiones in theologia”. Cf. Petri Lombardi Libri
IV Sententiarum (Quaracchi, 1916), I, Prolegomena, pp. xlviii–liii; Ghellinck, Le mouve-
ment théologique, pp. 150–163; Grabmann, Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, II, 398–
402; Denifle, “Die Sentenzen Abaelards und die Bearbeitungen seiner Theologia vor Mitte
des 12. Jhs.,” Archiv, I, 404–407.
58 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 11, 12, and 22; cf. G. Théry, David de Dinant, pp. 7–12.
59 Ch.U.P., I, no. 11. Robert Curzon in 1220 renewed the prohibition, applying it specifically to
Paris; ibid., I, no. 20; cf. Théry, op. cit., p. 7.
60 Ibid., I, no. 50.
61 Ibid., I, nos. 131, 172, 173.
62 On the opposition to Aristotle and its failure, see Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant, 2nd edn.,
pp. 16–26, 27–44; Luquet, “Aristote et l’Université de Paris pendant le XIIIe siècle,” Bibl. de
l’École des Hautes Études (Sciences Religieuses, XVI, fasc. 2), pp. 19–33.
63 Ch.U.P., I, no. 17.
64 Ibid., I, no. 20. At Toulouse, strangely enough, these books were not condemned; ibid., I,
no. 72. p. 131.
166 CHAPTER 7
remainder might be taught and studied safely.65 No action, however, seems to

have been taken, and all of the books of Aristotle known in the thirteenth cen-
tury were studied. After St. Thomas finished his Summa Theologica no attempt
was made by the papacy to condemn Aristotle, although the decrees against
him were not removed.
If some books and doctrines were condemned, other books were prescribed
for the faculty of arts by Robert Curzon. Lectures were to be given ordinarie on
the ‘Two Priscians’, and on festive days on rhetoric and philosophy.66 For rhet-
oric Boethius’s Topics and Donatus’s Barbarismus, for philosophy probably the
Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, are specified.67 On this basis the faculty of
arts expanded the curriculum in 1252 and 1254.68 In the faculty of canon law—
not only at Paris, but also at Bologna, Oxford, Orleans, and Salamanca—a not
unimportant addition to the curriculum from time to time was the collections
of decretals, which Honorius III, Gregory IX, and Boniface VIII ordered to be
used in the schools.69
With this brief consideration of the papal influence on the faculties at Paris
our study of the relation of the papacy with the internal organization of the
University of Paris is practically at its close. The four nations of masters in the
arts70 remain to be considered. The right of electing a proctor was granted
by Innocent III,71 but in 1222 Honorius III forbade the election of officers to
avenge the wrongs of the nations.72 In 1237, however, Gregory IX granted to
the procuratores and the rector immunity from sentences of excommunication
65 Ch.U.P., I, no. 87.

66 Cf. Paetow, The Arts Course at Medieval Universities, p. 39.
67 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20; Rashdall, I, 433 f.
68 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 201 and 246.
69 Honorius III in 1226 sent to Tancred, archdeacon of Bologna, his collection (Quinta
Compilatio) of decretals for use in the schools (Friedberg, Quinque Compilationes, p. 151;
Potthast, I, no. 7684); Gregory IX sent his Decretals, compiled by Raymond of Peñafort,
to Paris and Bologna (Potthast, I, nos. 9693 and 9694; Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici,
II, l f.); Boniface VIII sent the Liber Sextus to the Universities of Bologna (Potthast, II,
no. 24632), Paris (Ch.U.P., II. no. 608), Salamanca (La Fuente, Universidades, I, 299),
Oxford (Ch.U.P., II, no. 608, note) and Orleans (Fournier, Statuts et privilegès, I, 9, no. 16).
70 On the nations see Denifle, Universitäten, I, 84–105; Rashdall, I, 300–321; G. C. Boyce, The
English-German Nation in the University of Paris, pp. 25–72.
71 Ch.U.P., I, no. 24. Denifle assumes that the privilege was granted to the students. But it was
the masters who were chiefly involved in the struggle with the chancellor in 1210–1213, and
hence it was they who chiefly needed the right of procuration. Moreover, this procurator
was an agent, not the later head of the nation.
72 Ch.U.P., I, no. 45, p. 103.
for seven years’.73 The procuratores became the representatives,74 and the
rector the head, of the nations.75 These offices were not created by the pope,
although they may have been confirmed by him as early as 1231,76 certainly by
1237, through the privilege of immunity from excommunication. The develop-
ment of the position of the rector to one of presiding officer over the whole
university need not be pursued,77 since this development was not consciously
influenced by the papacy.
The internal organization of the other French universities may be treated
briefly, since it has been discussed in so far as it was affected by the settle-
ment of the relations between the members and the outside authorities. At
Montpellier the election of the chancellor of the faculty of medicine—whose
office was instituted by the apostolic Legate Conrad in 122078—was regu-
lated by Clement V in 1309.79 The faculties of medicine and law and arts, the
first two of which were practically separate universities as controlled by the
statutes of 1220 and 1242,80 became faculties in the truer sense by the privi-
lege of Nicholas IV, 1289, which erected them into a university.81 At Toulouse
Gregory IX, by granting it the privileges of the University of Paris,82 and
Innocent IV, by applying the provisions of the Parens scientiarum,83 conferred
on the masters the right to make statutes on the same matters permitted at Paris.
In 1306 Clement V granted to the masters at Orleans privileges similar to those
granted to Toulouse: the masters and students should have a university and col-
lege; the doctors should have the right to make constitutions and statutes on the
method of electing a rector who would preside over the college and university,
on the hours of lectures and disputations, on the subject-matter of lectures by
73 Ch.U.P., I, no. 113; cf. Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 270; Rashdall, I, 314, note 1;
Denifle, Archiv, III, 627.
74 The title of proctor is not applied to the heads of the four nations until 1237 and 1245;
Rashdall, I, 314 f.; Boyce, op. cit., p. 42.
75 Rashdall, I, 314–316.
76 Ch.U.P., I, no. 95; cf. Rashdall, I, 313 f., 314, note 1.
77 Cf. Rashdall, I, 328–333.
78 Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, II, no. 882.
79 Ibid., II, no. 911. The chancellor was to be elected by a two-thirds majority of the votes of
the professors, and by the bishop of Maguelone.
80 Ibid., II, nos. 882 and 886.
81 Ibid., II, no. 903.
82 Ch.U.P., I, no. 99.
83 Fournier, I, nos. 523 and 524.
168 CHAPTER 7
the bachelors, and on those who rebelled against the statutes of the university.84
Not the least important privilege was that of cessation of lectures until inju-
ries to members of the universities were repaired.85 It is at once evident how
closely these privileges for Toulouse and Orleans resemble those granted to
Paris in 1231 by Gregory IX.
In Italy we need note only the relations of the papacy with the University of
Bologna. At Bologna the ‘foreign’ students had formed corporations and elect-
ed rectors by the end of the twelfth century.86 But the student Universities at
Bologna were not yet legally confirmed. Some jurists even doubted that the
students had the right to elect rectors.87 The Commune wished to subject the
foreigners to its statutes and government, and tried to prevent the election of
officers by the guilds of students. It first compelled the professors to take an
oath to teach nowhere but at Bologna,88 and about 1215 it tried to prevent
secessions of the students by binding them with an oath that they would obey
the statute that prohibited agreements to secede.89 Honorius III in 1217 or-
dered the podestà to revoke the statute threatening expulsion of scholars (the
rectors) who administered oaths to students binding them to leave the city,90
and urged the students to leave Bologna rather than violate their oaths.91 The
pope commanded the Commune to abrogate the statutes,92 and, repeating
this command in 1224, ordered the podestà and people of Bologna to permit
the students to elect rectores and consiliarii.93 While the papacy did not create
the corporations of students and their officers, Honorius III confirmed them
by his intervention. The Commune did not abrogate the statute that caused
trouble, but on the other hand it no longer disputed the right of the students
84 Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, I, no. 19. The university at once proceeded to elect the rector
and proctors of the nations, and to draw up statutes; ibid., I, no. 23.
85 Ibid., I, no. 19 (Orleans); I, no. 523 (Toulouse). On the privileges granted by Clement V see
Fournier, Histoire de la science du droit, III, 11–13, 69–75.
86 Cf. Rashdall, I, 163 f; Denifle, Univ., I, 158–160.
87 Rashdall, I, 163, 166; Denifle, I, 144, 150 f., 170.
88 Supra, Chap. IV, p. 98.
89 Frati, Statuti, II, 25.
91 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 14, no. 2; Rashdall, I, 172 f.
92 Sarti-Fattorini, II, nos. 5 and 6.
93 Savioli, Annales, III, ii, 56, no. 547. I have not tried to trace in detail the history of the
conflict between the students and the Commune. This has been done by Denifle, I, 160–
175; Rashdall, I, 170–175; Hessel, Geschichte der Stadt Bologna, pp. 420–423; C. Malagola,
Monografìe storiche sullo Studio Bolognese, pp. 7–10.
to elect rectors for the two universities.94 A privilege of making statutes was,
in effect, granted by Innocent IV in 1253 when he confirmed the statutes
that the rectors and students had drawn up and to which they had sworn
obedience.95 Thus through the protection of the papacy, the students at
Bologna achieved virtual independence from the Commune for their corpora-
tions, or universities.
Except for the general protection granted to the universities, and noted in
connection with the license-systems and the jurisdiction over the students,
the papacy had no tangible influence on the development of the internal or-
ganization of the universities of Spain and England. These universities usually
imitated the constitutions of Bologna or Paris, or, occasionally, of both.
The papal role, then, in the organization of corporations, faculties, and na-
tions was largely one of confirming each phase of development as it became
manifest through conflict with outside authorities. The struggle for autono-
mous control was most pronounced at Paris and Bologna. By 1231 the papacy
had compelled the bishop and chancellor of Paris, and by 1224 or shortly after
the Commune of Bologna, to recognize the legality and independence of the
corporations of masters or of students. Once the papacy had secured, through
its protection of the masters and students, recognition of these new corpora-
tions, the practical independence as a corporation of any studium generale was
henceforth normally conceded by local authorities.
Part 2
The Papacy and the Members of the Universities
⸪
Introduction to Part 2
It was not only in the confirmation of the development of the corporations

that the papacy influenced the rise of the universities. The popes also, to a
slight extent, hastened and guided the process of growth, or at the least aided
numerous members of the universities by granting to ecclesiastics material
support for teaching or studying. Benefices, the dispensation from residence
for many professors and students, and an alleviation of the high cost of living
through the control of house-rents and prices were the means of papal patron-
age. This section, therefore, will treat the relation of the papacy with the ques-
tion of salaries and student fees, with the provision of ecclesiastical benefices
for masters and students, and with the living-conditions in university towns.
CHAPTER 8
The Papacy and the Masters
§1 Masters’ Salaries in the Mediaeval Universities
With the development of the new centers of learning at Bologna, Paris,

Montpellier, and Oxford in the twelfth century and the constitution of these
and other schools as studia generalia in the following century, the problem of
a livelihood from teaching became a vital concern of the masters and doctors
devoted to imparting scientia to all who were eager to acquire knowledge. Even
theologians must consider the material foundation of divina doctrina when the
high cost of living in university towns1 demanded some source of income. But
knowledge was a gift of God, said popes and canonists, and should be taught
freely.2 Did the masters, then, contrary to the theory of gratuity, receive their
principal income from their students, or were they given salaries that obviated
the students’ payment of fees for lectures? And did the papacy attempt to pro-
vide free education for the students by granting ecclesiastical benefices to the
masters in the universities? These questions, considered in relation to the rise
of the universities,3 state the essential problem of this study.
The nature and sources of masters’ salaries, it may be said in advance, varied
from one place to another, depending on the conditions governing the origin
and growth of each university. In studia generalia of secular origin, fees paid
by the students and—later—stipends fixed by communes and secular princes
1 Cf. C. H. Haskins, “The Life of Mediaeval Students as Illustrated by their Letters,” Studies in
Mediaeval Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), pp. 11 ff.
2 So states Alexander III: “… quoniam, cum donum Dei sit scientia litterarum, liberum debet
esse cuique talentum gratis cui voluerit erogare … Non enim debet venale exponi, quod
munere gratiae coelestis acquiritur: sed gratis debet omnibus exhiberi, ut impleatur quod
scriptum est: Gratis accepistis, gratis date.” Migne, PL, CC, 840. See Alexander’s letter to the
bishop of Winchester; Friedberg, ed., Corpus Iuris Canonici, II, Decretales Gregorii Papae IX,
lib. V, tit. v, cap. ii. The canonists of the following century similarly express the theory; for ex-
ample, Raymond of Peñafort, ‘quia scientia donum Dei est, unde vendi non potest;’ MS. Vat,
lat. 10270, Summa de Casibus, lib. I, tit. iii, De Magistris, fol. 170r; cf. G. Manacorda, Storia della
Scuola in Italia, I, i, 88 f.
3 The period of the rise of the universities may be considered as extending, for Paris and
Bologna, from about 1150 to 1250. But I shall use some evidence from a later time, when it
reflects earlier conditions or when it applies to other universities that developed or were
founded in the thirteenth century.

176 CHAPTER 8
were the usual solution of the cost of higher instruction. In universities of ec-
clesiastical, and sometimes in those of secular, origin, many of the masters en-
joyed the rents from benefices. These sources of income, student fees, stipends,
and benefices, have been recognized by historians of mediaeval schools, and
have been adequately treated in the case of the Italian universities and of a few
others of a more or less secular nature. But the whole problem of stipends or
benefices as opposed to fees, of the success or the failure of papal legislation in
establishing free instruction by granting benefices and the dispensation from
residence, has received at best only perfunctory consideration. This neglect
has been natural. The general historians of the universities4 have been inter-
ested more in the origin and constitution of the universities than in the life of
the professors, except when the evidence for salaries was obvious, as in Italy
and Spain. Manacorda has pointed out the contradiction between the practice
of accepting fees and the theory of gratuity, but only with regard to the schools
of Italy;5 and he failed to distinguish clearly between the cathedral schools
and the universities, since he assumes that the decrees providing benefices
for masters in the former applied as directly to masters who held benefices
and collected fees while teaching in the latter.6 As for the universities originat-
ing directly or indirectly in cathedral schools, notably Paris, Angers, Orleans,
Oxford and Cambridge,7 the problem of benefices and fees has been almost
completely neglected. It is true that G. Robert8 has noted a few instances of
student fees at Paris when the schools were not yet recognized as a university;
but so far as I am aware no one has made use of the scattered and often indirect
evidence on the matter of salaries at Paris in the thirteenth century.9 Angers,
4 Savigny, Geschichte des Römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, III; Denifle, Universitäten, I:

Kaufmann, Deutschen Universitäten, I; Rashdall, Universities, I, ii.
5 Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, i, 88 f., 222 ff. and I, ii, cap. i, passim.
6 Ibid., I, i, 88 f., 165.
7 Toulouse, founded by the papacy and of ecclesiastical origin, is an exception, for peculiar
circumstances resulted in the payment of salaries by the count of Toulouse; infra, p. 317; see
p. 182.
8 Les Écoles et l’Enseignement de la Théologie pendant la première moitié du xiie siècle, pp. 33 ff.
9 Kaufmann, op. cit., I, 211, asserts that the professors at Paris lived on the rents from prebends
and benefices alone, and fails to consider student fees as a source of income. G. Périés, La
Faculté de Droit dans l’Ancienne Université de Paris (Paris, 1890), p. 20, notes that students
made gifts to their masters, but overlooks the possibility of collectae, quite different in nature
from dona.
The Papacy and the Masters 177
Orleans, Oxford,10 and Cambridge have been similarly neglected. It is because

of this general omission of a detail in the history of the rise of the universities
that it seems advisable to review the evidence I have encountered while study-
ing the broader question of the relation of the papacy with the constitution of
the studia generalia.11
The background of papal legislation affecting the gratuity of teaching
is to be found in the decline of the cathedral schools in the twelfth century.
In Italy the private schools of lay masters12 and the secular schools of law at
10 The payment of fees at Oxford has been noted, however, by H. C. M. Lyte, A History
of the University of Oxford from the Earliest Times to the Year 1530, pp. 98, 218 f.; and by
C. E. Mallet, A History of the University of Oxford, I, 199.
11 For the Italian universities the material is abundant and since it is well known from the
work of the historians already cited, Savigny, Denifle, and Manacorda, and from that
of Tamassia and others (infra, pp. 194–197), it need not be described here. But for the
French and English universities, in particular Paris and Orleans, the material is sparse;
the evidence is usually indirect, to be found here and there in the satire and sermons of
the reforming clergy or else in glosses on the papal decretals. For extracts from the mor-
alists and preachers I have relied chiefly on B. Hauréau, Notices et Extraits de Quelques
Manuscrits Latins, I–VI. As for the glosses and commentaries on the papal decretals,
many of them, particularly on the decretals in the Quinque Compilationes, remain un-
published; and all of the glosses of canonists of the middle thirteenth century have by
no means been published, although some of them appear in sixteenth century editions
of the Decretals of Gregory IX. I have cited several glosses that heretofore have not been
used. These I read in Vatican and other manuscripts containing the first compilations of
decretals and the compilation made by Raymond of Peñafort. On the Compilations see
E. Friedberg, ed., Quinque Compilationes Antiquae, necnon Collectio Canonum Lipsiensis
(Leipzig, 1882); and on the canonists, Schulte, Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des
Canonischen Rechts, I, ii. Of the early commentators on the Compilations, Bernard of
Pavia may be consulted in print: E. A. T. Laspeyres, Bernardi Papiensis Faventini Episcopi
Summa Decretalium (Ratisbon, 1860). For commentators on the Decretals of Gregory IX
I have relied chiefly on Raymond of Peñafort and Geoffrey of Trani, whose works have
been edited: O. V. Laget, S. Raymundi de Pennafort Summa de Casibus (Verona, 1744); Io.
Bap. Zilleto, Gaufredi Tranensis Summa de Titulis Decretalium (Venice, 1564). But, unable
to consult the printed editions, I had recourse to the MSS. Vat. lat. 10269 and 10270, which
contain the best texts.
In addition to these sources, several models of letters in formularies are valuable as
evidence for Orleans and Paris. For these letters I am indebted to Professor C. H. Haskins’
discoveries in mediaeval formularies: Studies in Mediaeval Culture, pp. 23 and 186;
‘Orleanese Formularies in a Manuscript at Tarragona,’ Speculum, V (1930), 414 f.
12 Cf. Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, cap. v.
178 CHAPTER 8
Bologna were flourishing at the expense of ecclesiastical education. In France,

Montpellier (secular at this time), Paris (rapidly outgrowing the limitations of
a cathedral school), and Orleans (famous for the classics) were more popular
than the local episcopal schools. Everywhere, resulting from and accompany-
ing the renaissance of the twelfth century, there was a movement of students
to the well located and large centers of learning, for in these life was pleas-
ant and famous professors were to be heard. The teachers themselves pros-
pered in schools frequented by numerous students willing to pay fees for the
lectures, and probably, if at all ambitious, were not eager to teach in the ca-
thedral schools, in which students were fewer and, doubtless, poorer. These
conditions, along with a decline of learning among the clergy, caused a serious
decay of the old centers of learning established by the Church.13 It was large-
ly to restore the vigor of cathedral and monastic schools that Alexander III,
Innocent III, and Honorius III attempted to provide free instruction in them.14
If learning was to be free to all students, provision had to be made for the
teachers. In two ways Alexander III aided the masters in church schools: on
the one hand, he endeavored to abolish the payment of fees for the license to
teach;15 and on the other, he ordered salaries to be paid to the teachers. The
provision of salaries was made by the Third Lateran Council, 1179, which de-
creed that every cathedral church should provide an adequate benefice for a
master who was to teach gratis the clerks of the Church and poor students.16
13 Cf. P. Mandonnet, “La Crise scolaire au début du xiiie siècle et la fondation de l’Ordre des
Frères-Prêcheurs,” Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, XV (1914), 35 f.
14 The policy of these popes was in accord with the idea of free teaching in schools that had
their origin for the training of priests (see the decrees of the Councils of Rome of 826 and
853; Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Leges, Sectio III, II, ii, 581, and Labbé-Mansi, XIV,
1014. Cf. Manacorda, Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, i, 60 ff.) In such schools teaching for
money was simony and was therefore frequently condemned; cf. A. F. Leach, Educational
Charters and Documents 598–1909 (Cambridge, 1911), p. 36; Manacorda, op. cit., I, ii, 22 ff.,
44. But it is clear that students in the cathedral and monastic schools of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries often paid collectae or fees. For examples, see Manacorda, op. cit., I, ii,
9 f., 22–24, 26, 44; Leach, op. cit., pp. 82, 130; idem, The Schools of Medieval England
(London, 1915), pp. 97 f.; Robert, Les Écoles et l’Enseignement de la Théologie, pp. 34–36;
L. Maître, Les Écoles Episcopales et Monastiques de l’Occident depuis Charlemagne jusqu’à
Philippe-Auguste (Paris, 1866), pp. 203 f.; A. Clerval, Les Écoles de Chartres au Moyen-Age
(Paris, 1895), pp. 106 f.
15 Supra, pp. 9–16.
16 Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no. 12. On this decree and those of 1215 and 1219, cf. F. A. Specht,
Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Mitte
des Dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1885), pp. 175–177; Denifle, Universitäten, I, 721;
A. Luchaire, L’Université de Paris sous Philippe-Auguste (Paris, 1899), pp. 7 f.; Manacorda,
This decree was not universally observed, and in the Fourth Lateran Council,
1215, Innocent III ordained that in cathedral and all other churches that could
provide the means, a master should be employed to give free instruction in
grammar and other subjects to the clerks of these churches and, apparently,
to poor students. In addition there was to be in every metropolitan church
a theologian for the purpose of teaching priests and others ‘in sacra pagina’,
and especially in those things that pertain to the cure of souls.17 It is evident
that these schools were intended primarily for the training of parish priests,
and secondarily for ‘opening the way to doctrine’ to the laity.18 Grammar and
theology, the knowledge useful for orders, were emphasized; besides grammar,
other subjects from the liberal arts might be taught, but they were subordi-
nated to the principal studies.19 The salary for each grammarian was to be pro-
vided by the cathedral chapter, and was fixed as the yield of one prebend; the
theologian was to receive a like salary from the metropolitan church, even if
this church had likewise to support a grammaticus.20 The beneficium in the
decree of 1179 and the ‘unius prebende proventus’ in that of 1215 were salaries in
a real sense, for the masters thus paid were not canons in the churches where
they taught.21
op. cit., I, i, 71 f.; Mandonnet, op. cit., Rev. d’Hist. Ecclés., XV, 37 ff.; Leach, The Schools of
Medieval England, pp. 112, 132 f., 156.
17 Ch.U.P., I, no. 22.
18 Bartholomew of Brescia, referring to this decree, says that the Master of Arts was estab-
lished, “quod in his [plebibus] cognoscuntur divina mandata.” Questiones Dominicales et
Veneriales, MS. Casanatense lat. 1094, fol. 165v.
19 Grammar and the liberal arts were regarded as the proper foundation for theology; cf.
Denifle, Universitäten, I, 98–100.
20 Ch.U.P., I, no. 22. The metropolitan church must also provide for a grammarian in another
church of its immediate city or diocese.
21 Ibid., I no. 22: “ ‘… non quod per hoc efficiatur canonicus, sed tamdiu redditus ipsos
percipiat, quamdiu perstiterit in docendo;’ cf. the opinion of the canonist Tancred:
‘Archiepiscopalis ecclesia debet habere magistrum in theologia docentem, alia in aliis
facultatibus, et debet magister habere prebendam unius canonici. Sed propter hoc non
erit canonicus, ut in constitutione domini Innocentii, Quia nonnullis’”(MS. Vat. lat.
1377, fol. 138v). The canons of a cathedral chapter automatically received prebends for
their support; “prebenda est ius percipiendi proveniens in ecclesia competens alicui,
tanquam uni de collegio, quod ius ex canonia descendit …” (Geoffrey of Trani, Summa
de Titulis Decretalium, MS. Vat. lat. 10269, fol. 82r, col. 2). Cf. O. Gierke, Das Deutsche
Genossenschaftsrecht, III, 296 f., and 297, note 153.
Since canons or holders of benefices in a cathedral church were usually incapable of
teaching, the master was an outsider, called in for the special purpose of teaching; hence
the provision authorizing the chapter to grant a benefice to the master even if he could
180 CHAPTER 8
It was one thing to establish the machinery of cathedral schools, another to

find theologians to teach in them at a time when canon law for churchmen and
civil law and medicine for laymen were more profitable studies than grammar
and theology.22 Because of the scarcity of theologians—which, besides being
actual, was sometimes offered as an excuse by metropolitan churches for not
employing them as teachers—Honorius III, in the famous bull Super specu-
lam, 1219, decreed that promising clerks should be destined by the prelates and
chapters of cathedral churches to the study of theology. To these students the
rents from their prebends and benefices were to be paid for five years. To teach-
ers in the faculty of theology a similar income was assigned, but only if they
were actively teaching.23
Clearly these provisions of 1179, 1215, and 1219 related chiefly to local church
schools; they represent a serious attempt to build up a system of education for
priests. It is not necessary to follow the development of these schools,24 which,
not be made a canon, and to give him the dispensation from attending the divine office.
Sometimes, however, a chapter would make one of its own canons master, so that an extra
benefice would not have to be given to a teacher; Manacorda, Storia della Scuola in Italia,
I, ii, 16, 31; infra, note 26.
22 On the popularity of the lucrative sciences, see Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture,
pp. 47–49.
23 Ch.U.P., no. 32: “… volumus et mandamus ut statutum in Concilio generali de magistris
theologis per singulas metropoles statuendis inviolabiliter observetur, descernentes in-
super de concilio fratrum nostrorum ac districte precipiendo mandantes, ut quia super
hoc propter raritatem magistrorum se possent aliqui forsitan excusare, ab ecclesiarum
prelatis et capitulis ad theologice professionis studium aliqui docibiles destinentur, qui
cum docti fuerint, in Dei ecclesia velut splendor fulgeant firmamenti, ex quibus post-
modum copia possit haberi doctorum qui velut stelle in perpetuas eternitates mansuri
ad justitiam valeant plurimos erudire; quibus si proprii proventus ecclesiastici non suf-
ficiunt, predicti necessaria subministrent; docentes vero in theologica facultate, dum in
scolis docuerint, et studentes in ipsa integre per annos quinque percipiant de licentia
sedis apostolice proventus prebendarum et beneficiorum suorum, non obstante aliqua
contraria consuetudine vel statuto, cum denario fraudari non debeant in vinea Domini
operantes.” Cf Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, 73, and in general, on papal legislation for church
schools, cap. iii, in which Manacorda emphasizes—too strongly—the desire of the popes
to create an educational monopoly. For the value of Honorius’ bull for students see the
following chapter.
24 Not all the cathedral and metropolitan churches of Western Europe immediately—many
never—employed teachers. From 1179 on we find examples of papal confirmations of
local statutes establishing schools, and examples also of churches that delayed action on
the matter; see, for Alexander III, Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 13504; for Honorius III, P. Pressutti
ed., Regesta Honorii Papae III, no. 1065, for Gregory IX, a letter ordering the Chapter of
Vercelli to observe an earlier statute of that church that provided salaries for a theologian,
in thirteenth century thought, were merely studia particularia. What is of in-

terest here is the effect of the papal decrees for church schools on the studia ge
neralia, or the universities. To what extent, on the basis of the papal legislation,
did the Church provide salaries for masters or professors in the universities?
In the bull of Honorius III it was provided that students in theology should
receive the yield of their prebends for five years, during which time they were
released from the obligation of residence at their churches. By the middle of
the thirteenth century practice resulted in the interpretation that the clause
applied only to students of theology at a studium generale.25 Was the bull simi-
larly interpreted as applying to the teachers of theology at a university that
possessed a faculty of theology? To be sure the phrase ‘docentes vero in theo-
logica facultate’ is used by the pope, but faculties existed in cathedral schools
as well as in the universities.26 As for the words ‘in scolis’27 one cannot say that
they apply exclusively either to church schools or to any other schools, for sco-
lae was the word still commonly used to designate places or institutions of
learning without distinguishing their nature.28 To what schools, then, in which
beneficed theologians were to teach, does Honorius refer? One might at first
suppose that he had in mind any university where there was a faculty of theol-
ogy, in order that such theologians might teach the special students sent to the
studia generalia. But this does not seem to have been the plan of the papacy.
The students in question were to study theology in a higher theological school
(the faculty of theology at Paris particularly benefitted from Honorius III’s
a grammarian, and a scriptor (L. Auvray, ed., Les Registres de Grégoire IX, no. 2450); for
Innocent IV, E. Berger, ed., Les Registres d’Innocent IV, nos. 6160 and 7482. In 1227 the
Cardinal-Legate Romano established a theologian “qui legat apud Avenionem in theo-
logica facultate;” Avignon, however, was not a metropolitan see: Fournier, ed., Statuts et
Privilèges, II, no. 1236.
On the failure of the papal decrees to restore the vigor of cathedral schools, see
Mandonnet, “La Crise scolaire,” Rev. d’Hist. Ecclés., XV, 39, 41, and his citations of Bernard
of Parma (?), Henry of Susa, and St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 41.
25 Cf. the following chapter on the papacy and the students; and Denifle, Universitäten, I, 19.
26 Honorus III, in a letter to the Chapter of Como says, “Cum … magister E. concanonicus
vester assidue in ecclesia vestra doceat in theologica facultate” (Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. 2,
fol. 280, ep. 1254; Pressutti, Reg. Hon. III, no. 1065); similarly, Gregory IX to the Chapter of
Vercelli, concerning salaries for teachers, each of whom ‘gratis in sua facultate doceret’
(Auvray, Reg. de Greg. IX, no. 2450); and Innocent IV to the bishop of Castello d’Olivolo,
‘eidem magistro ibidem in eadem [grammatica] facultate docenti provideas’ (Reg. Vat.
Inn. IV, 23, fol. 87v, ep. 627; Berger, Reg. d’Inn. IV, no. 7482). On the meaning of the word
facultas in the Super speculam and later, see Denifle, op. cit., I, 71.
27 Ch.U.P., I, no. 32: ‘docentes … dum in scholis docuerint.’
28 Cf. Denifle, op. cit., I, 9; Powicke, Stephen Langton, p. 27.
182 CHAPTER 8
decree), so that they might become teachers in the lower theological schools at
the metropolitan churches.29 As teachers in the latter, rather than in the uni-
versities, they were to receive for five years the income from their benefices.30
At Paris, however, professors of theology were possibly similarly to be remu-
nerated for teaching the non-resident students.31 But their benefices were
not established by the decree of 1215, since Paris was not a metropolitan see.
For the masters in Paris, the Super speculam was simply a privilege of non-
residence, granting the right of absence from the churches in which the mas-
ters happened to hold benefices.
In support of this conclusion may be offered later instances of special
privileges—not contingent upon, though finding their precedent in, the
Super speculam—conferred by Innocent IV upon the masters and scholars at
Narbonne and Toulouse. In 1345 this pope granted to the scholars at Narbonne
the same privileges and immunities as those enjoyed by students in the uni-
versities in receiving their redditus from the churches in which they were ben-
eficed.32 The masters of theology are not expressly mentioned except in the
address, but they also probably were to enjoy the dispensation from residence.
The case of Toulouse, the first university founded by the papacy,33 is of par-
ticular interest. There the first salaries were paid by the count of Toulouse to
professors in theology as well as to professors in other faculties; the Church
itself did not provide the salaries in this university of its own creation,
29 A glossator, referring to the Super speculam, says, “docibiles, id est, habiles ad docendum,
et isti a capitulis debent eligi ut mittantur ut postmodum doceant.” MS. Borghes. lat. 237,
Decret. Greg. IX, fol. 181v.
30 I should like to read the provision in the Super speculam as meaning that the teachers
should have their income so long as they were actively teaching (‘dum in scolis docu-
erint’), and students theirs for five years; but the canonist Tancred states that the period
of five years applied to both teachers and students: “Hodie generaliter concessum est om-
nibus docentibus et studentibus in theologia ut integraliter recipiant omnes redditus suos
usque ad quinquennium … ut in constitutione Honorii pape.…” MS. Vat. lat. 1377, fol. 221v.
31 In 1343 Clement VI ordered the fruits of their benefices, in whatever churches held, to
be given to the masters and students in theology, ‘juxta constitutionem Honorii III’.
Chartularium, II, 537.
32 “Nos igitur … cum denario fraudari non debeant operarii in agro studii laborantes pro
acquirenda scientie margarita, universitati vestre auctoritate presentium indulgemus ut
eisdem privilegiis et immunitatibus in percipiendis vestrarum ecclesiarum redditibus
gaudeatis, quibus gaudeant scolares in studiis generalibus commorantes.” Reg. Vat. Inn. IV,
21, fol. 393v, ep. 719; Berger, Reg. d’Inn. IV, I, no. 2717.
33 Rashdall, Universities, II, i, 158.
although it did force the count to pay them.34 The secular salaries, however,
were not all that the masters at Toulouse received, for Gregory IX in 1233 and
Innocent IV in 1245 granted them the privilege of non-residence.35 Neither at
Narbonne nor at Toulouse, then, was the Lateran decree of 1215 applied for
the provision of benefices even for theologians. This was natural, for Toulouse
was not a metropolitan see; and although there was a metropolitan church
at Narbonne, it was not compelled to provide for more than one theologian.
Nor were the professors directly salaried by the churches in which they held
their benefices; they were beneficed in these churches not as teachers, but
as ecclesiastics. It was as professors that they enjoyed the dispensation from
residence,36 and this not by the Super speculam, but by special privileges for
studia founded for the purpose of combating heresy.37
This conclusion is supported again by the opinions of the canonists of the
thirteenth century, who throw some light on the effect and scope of the papal
decretals and conciliar decrees. The canonist Tancred, archdeacon of Bologna
in the 1220’s,38 in a gloss to the Third and Fourth Lateran decrees and the
Super speculam, implies that those of the masters at Bologna and Paris who
were ecclesiastics were not, as teachers, provided with benefices.39 Raymond
34 See Fournier, Statuts et Privilèges, I, no. 505, for the treaty of 1229, by the terms of which
the count must pay during ten years 4000 marks of silver to four theologians, two decre-
tists, two grammarians, and six masters of arts; ibid., I, no. 506, for Gregory IX’s confirma-
tion in 1233 of the provisions of the treaty relative to the university; and nos. 510, 512,
515, 516 for Count Raymond’s futile attempt to avoid payment and Gregory IX’s activity
in compelling him to pay. Cf. Denifle, Universitäten, I, 325 f.; and Rashdall, op. cit., II, i,
160–162.
35 Fournier, op. cit., I, nos. 506 and 518; ‘universi magistri’ shall receive the revenue from
their prebends and benefices; meanwhile the count of Toulouse shall continue to pay the
regular salaries.
36 The same conclusion may be applied to the situation in the University of the Roman
Court, founded in 1244–45 by Innocent IV. Here the masters probably received in absence
their ecclesiastical revenues, although the foundation bull grants non-residence, as in
the case of Narbonne, explicitly only to the students. Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, II,
Liber Sextus Decret., lib. v, tit. vii, cap. 2; Fournier, op. cit., II, no. 1559; Denifle, op. cit., I, 302,
note 326; Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 28.
37 In his privilege for Narbonne Innocent IV says: “ut cum tanquam lucernas super cande-
labrum in ecclesia Dei viri refulgeant litterati per quos hereticorum perversum dogma
confunditur,” Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 293v, ep. 710; Fournier, op. cit., II, no. 1564, who reads
‘vivi’ for ‘viri’.
38 Cf. Schulte, Quellen und Literatur des Canonischen Rechts, I, 201.
39 “Patet ex hoc capite et duobus sequentibus quod magister cui certum beneficium est con-
stitutum pretium pro doctrina vel docendi licentia petere non debet. Sed quid dicemus
184 CHAPTER 8
of Peñafort in the same way distinguishes between the purely ecclesiasti-

cal schools of papal legislation and the universities of Paris and Bologna.40
Similarly, Geoffrey of Trani and a certain Johannes (Andrea?) except mas-
ters of Bologna and Paris (the former adds Naples) from the obligation to
teach gratis, since they did not hold benefices through the force of the papal
decrees.41 Of these opinions of the canonists two interpretations are possible,
either that no benefices at all, or benefices to certain masters at Bologna, Paris,
and Naples, were provided by the Church. To what masters in the universi-
ties could the Church, on the basis of the papal decrees, have regularly given
benefices? Apparently to none, for not a university in England, France, Spain,
or Italy fulfilled the conditions for classification as a metropolitan cathedral
school,42 and thus the decrees of 1179 and 1215 could hardly apply to ecclesi-
astics teaching in the studia generalia. A definite conclusion, however, must
await further consideration.
Doubt arises concerning theologians at universities where theology was
taught. The glosses cited above are vague on this point, since they say simply
that masters to whom no benefices were given might collect fees from their
students. They leave the impression that the masters of theology at Paris or
Naples (Bologna is out of the question, for no faculty of theology existed there
until 1352)43 may have been regularly beneficed by the Quia nonnullis of 1215
and the Super speculam. But this impression is not supported by Tancred, who
de magistris qui docent Bononie vel Parisius, numquid licet eis collectam vel pretium
accipere, utique cum non habeant beneficium ad hoc deputatum.…” MS. Vat. lat. 1377, fol.
82v; MS. Borghes. lat. 264, at the same decretals.
40 M S. Vat. lat. 10270, Summa de Casibus, lib. I, tit. iii, De magistris, fol. 170r: after referring
to the cathedral schools directly affected by the papal decrees, Raymond asks whether
masters in the schools of Bologna and Paris could collect fees, as if they were not given
benefices by the provisions for masters in church schools, “Sed … numquid magister in
scolis Parisius vel Bononie potest licite facere collectam?” For the full text, infra, note 76.
41 M S. Vat. lat. 10269, Summa Gaufredi de Trano de Titulis Decretalium, lib. V, tit., De magistris,
cols. 529–530 (fol. 134r). The gloss of Johannes is in MS. Casanatense lat. 223, fol. 277v, and
in MS. Borghes. lat. 257, Decret. Greg. IX, lib. V, tit., De Magistris (the folios are unnum-
bered). Cf. infra, notes 76–84, for the full texts of these glosses.
42 The University of Naples was located in a metropolitan city, but it was by no means
a church school. It had a faculty of theology, but the faculty was controlled by the
Dominicans, and royal authority was providing salaries about 1270; infra, p. 195 f.
43 Rashdall, Universities, I, 252; Denifle, Universitäten, I, 207, gives the date 1360. For a
long time many other universities had no faculty of theology: Montpellier, Salamanca,
Orleans, Coimbra, Lerida; cf. Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 7. Theology was taught
at Oxford and Toulouse; Paris will explain the situation at Oxford; Toulouse has been
considered.
says, commenting on a letter of Innocent III to the bishop of Auxerre, that all
students and teachers of theology could in his day receive all their rents for
five years.44 Tancred has in mind only the papal privilege of dispensation from
residence.
For the rest, as remarked above, the universities existed apart from the ca-
thedral schools, and none of the universities was located in a metropolitan city.
Metropolitan chapters, moreover, would hardly have consented to support sev-
eral masters of theology45 in each of the universities, when each chapter was
ordered to provide for only one master in its own school.46 Hence the glossa-
tors evidently refer only to those masters who taught in local church schools as
beneficed or salaried by the conciliar decrees. The papal legislation for church
schools from Alexander III to Honorius III related to ecclesiastical studia par-
ticularia, not to the studia generalia, and was not intended to provide benefices
as salaries for grammarians and theologians in the universities.47
If, however, papal legislation did not provide salaries, Honorius III by the
Super speculam may have granted the dispensation from residence to the mas-
ters of theology in the University of Paris, and the popes frequently conferred
benefices on them and even on other professors in the universities.48 As we
have seen, all the masters at Toulouse by the privilege of Innocent IV enjoyed
the use, in absence, of their ecclesiastical revenues, and the professors of the
University of the Roman Court also received their rents.49 Theologians at Paris
44 “Hodie generaliter concessum est omnibus docentibus et studentibus in theologia ut

integraliter recipiant omnes redditus suos usque ad quinquennium.” MS. Vat. lat. 1377,
fol. 221v; MS. Borghes. lat. 264, at the same decretal. Innocent III’s letter, on non-residence
for study, may be consulted in Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, II, Decr. Greg. IX, lib. III,
tit. iv, c. 12.
45 There were eight secular masters of theology at Paris in the thirteenth century; that num-
ber was fixed by Innocent III in 1207; Ch.U.P., I, no. 5.
46 Even for masters in the cathedral and metropolitan schools few benefices were actually
provided; the papal decrees were not enforced. See Mandonnet, “La Crise Scolaire,” Rev.
d’Hist. Ecclés., XV, 41–47.
47 Manacorda, on the contrary, thinks that the papal provisions on benefices and gratuitous
teaching directly affected the masters, who collected fees; Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, i,
222 ff.
48 I shall refer only to the masters who were actually teaching when they received benefic-
es. Many other masters, however, some of whom may have been teaching, although the
papal letters may not say so, received benefices from the popes. Cf. H. Baier, Päpstliche
Provisionen für Niedere Pfründen bis zum Jahre 1304 (Munster, i, w., 1911), pp. 70, 75.
49 Supra, note 36; Denifle, Universitäten, I, 302, and 303, note 327.
186 CHAPTER 8
were particularly favored in this respect. In the twelfth century Alexander III
permitted Gerardus Puella to enjoy, in non-residence, his rents for four years
if actively teaching.50 To one S., dean of the Chapter of Sens, Innocent III gave
permission to absent himself for three years to teach theology at Paris.51 The
same pope, desirous of favoring his master at Paris,52 ordered the Chapter of
York to admit Peter of Corbeil to a prebend and archdeaconate.53 Honorius III
commanded the church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois at Paris to pay to Jean
de Barastre, dean of Saint-Quentin, his rents as a professor of theology.54 Such
individual favors55 seem to have increased and become collective by the end
of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth. About 1322 the
University of Oxford petitioned John XXII for the same favors that he had con-
ferred upon ‘doctores tam philosophos quam theologos’ at Paris, who had been
promoted to benefices and elevated to other dignities by the pope.56 Provisions
by papal authority reached their climax a few years later when deputations of
50 Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no. 10. In another letter the pope restored to Gerardus the rents he had
forfeited because of supporting the anti-pope; ibid., I, Introd., no. 11. Jaffé-Löwenfeld, nos.
13023 and 13032.
51 Migne, PL, CCXV, col. 1277, ep. 185 (Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, no. 3272):
“Archiepiscopo et capitulo Senonensi … cum dilectus filius S. decanus vester, litteratura
et moribus merito commendamus, disponat per triennium Parisius commorari, ut infra
idem spatium scholas in theologica facultate regendo et aliis et sibi proficiat …’
52 Innocent III had been a student at Paris; A. Luchaire, Innocent III. Rome et l’Italie, 3rd.
edn., p. 3; see also the letters cited in the following note.
53 Potthast, no. 479; Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no. 17; Migne, PL., CCXIV, ep. 478, col. 442: “… cum
tamen ad memoriam nostram reducimus nos aliquando sub ipsius magisterio exstitisse
et ab eo divinarum audisse paginam scripturarum, quod utique non pudet nos dicere,
immo reputare volumus gloriosum, … mandamus, quatinus … faciatis eundem vel procu-
ratorem suum praebendam et archidiaconatum pacifice possidere.…” Cf. Innocent’s let-
ter to King Richard, asking him to interfere for Peter of Corbeil; Potthast, no. 481; Migne,
PL, CCXIV, col. 443, ep. 480.
54 Ch.U.P., I, no. 44, and note 1. This was in 1221, two years after the Super speculam was
issued.
55 A further possible example is that of Jean d’Abbeville; in 1217 Honorius III ordered the
dignitaries of the church of Arras to elect him dean, though this was never done. Jean
was at the time a regent in theology at Paris, and probably would have continued to teach
while enjoying the fruits of his new dignity. Ch.U.P., I, no. 26, and note 1.
56 Ibid., II, no. 818; Rashdall, Universities, I, 533. In 1316–1317 John XXII had commanded the
prelates of the Church to provide the students and masters of Paris with benefices, in
order to counteract the decline of the studium—“nimium est illa scolarium multitudo
contracta et Parisiense studium incredibiliter diminutum” (Ch.U.P., II, no. 729, p. 185;
cf. nos. 728, 728a, 738, 739).
masters from Paris began to carry to the Roman Court a rotulus nominandorum
containing ‘the names of graduates to whom the pope was invited to give pro-
visions or expectative graces to benefices in ecclesiastical collation.’57 But this
system of provisions developed after the University had long been flourishing,
and not all the graduates thus beneficed were teachers.
For other universities in Italy, Spain, France and England evidence from
the first half of the thirteenth century of papal provisions for teachers is not
abundant. The Oxford petition mentioned above indicates that even theolo-
gians there had been without special attention from the papacy, although they
probably all had benefices in different churches. From this period I find no
evidence for Cambridge, Angers, Orleans, and Montpellier.58 One instance of
a dignity for a master of canon law at Bologna may be cited.59 The situation in
the Spanish universities was somewhat different from that elsewhere. It was
the kings of Castile who took the initiative in founding universities, and like-
wise in providing salaries. The Church cooperated in the payment of the teach-
ers, as we learn from a letter of Honorius III in 1220 confirming the statute of
King Ferdinand for Palencia. This statute assigned ‘ad fabricam pro magistro-
rum salario’ a ‘quarta tertiarum’ of the property of each church in the diocese
of Palencia for five years. The salary was to be paid to a theologian, a decretist,
a logicus, and an auctorista.60 In 1225 Honorius extended this provision for an-
other period of five years,61 and in 1228 the Cardinal-Legate Jean d’Abbeville
at the Council of Valladolid ordained that all masters at Palencia should enjoy
57 Rashdall, op. cit., I, 533 f.

58 Evidence from the fourteenth century is abundant. Most of the universities in England,
France, and Spain sent their rotuli of masters to the Holy See. On the nomination of mem-
bers of the University of Cambridge for papal benefices, see W. H. Bliss, ed., Calendar of
Entries in the Papal Registers (London, 1893–1921), II, 423. For other examples see Denifle,
Universitäten, I, 269 (Orleans), 274 (Angers), 338 (Toulouse), 355 (Montpellier), 379
(Valladolid), 493 (Salamanca), 506 (Lerida), 532 f. (Lisbon-Coimbra).
59 Gregory IX granted to Master Zoën, archipresbyter of Bologna and a professor of canon
law, the lectoratus of the church of ‘Bacien.’, Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 17, fol. 247r, ep. 393; Auvray,
Reg. de Grég. IX, no. 2343. Towards the end of the century Nicholas IV made concessions
to professors at Bologna in regard to fees for the license to teach; Sarti-Fattorini, De Claris
Archigymnasii Bononiensis Professoribus, II, 70, no. 44. In 1371 Gregory XI granted to all
ecclesiastical persons in the university the right to receive the rents from their benefices,
but emphasized students; Chartularium Studii Bononiensis. II, 241, no. 214.
60 Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. V, fol. 32r, ep. 153; Pressutti, Reg. Hon. P. III, no. 2742; cf. Rashdall,
Universities, II, i, 67.
61 Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. IX, fol. 40, ep. 227. On these bulls see also Denifle, op. cit., I, 475 f.
188 CHAPTER 8
for five years the revenue of their benefices.62 In 1245 Innocent IV granted
to the masters at Valencia the right to their prebends and benefices while
teaching.63 These privileges of the papal legate for Palencia and of Innocent IV
for Valencia are of the same nature as that of Innocent IV for Toulouse; that
is, they amount to a dispensation from residence, for which the precedent
is the Super speculam, to all teachers who were at the same time beneficed.
Such privileges did not constitute salaries, but simply special favors in addi-
tion to the regular salaries paid, in the case of Toulouse, by the count, and in
the cases of Palencia and Valladolid,64 by the dioceses as ordered by the king.
At Salamanca the king of Castile furnished the salaries.65 Indeed, in Castile the
Crown paid the masters in any studium generale,66 but often used the tertia
ecclesiarum for that purpose, which the kings collected with or without the
permission of the papacy.67 Thus in Spain the king directly or indirectly pro-
vided the salaries. In Portugal, the abbot of Alcobaça and other prelates in 1288
petitioned the pope for permission to use the rents and other revenues of their
monasteries and churches for paying the salaries of the masters in the pro-
jected studium generale of Lisbon-Coimbra.68 Nicholas IV in 1290 confirmed
the new university and the ecclesiastical provision of salaries.69
62 V. de la Fuente, Historia de las Universidades, Colegios, y demás Establecimentos de

Enseñanza en España, I, 83.
63 “Regi Aragonum illustri … ut magistri regnorum tuorum qui in predicta civitate rexerint
suorum beneficiorum ecclesiasticorum proventus dum hujusmodi regimini duxerint
insistendum integre percipere valeant ac si personaliter in ecclesiis in quibus prefata
beneficia obtinent residerent.…” Berger, Reg. d’Inn. IV, no. 1375; La Fuente, op. cit., I, 293,
no. 4; cf. Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 100.
64 In the fifteenth century here; Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 84.
65 Denifle, “Urkunden zur Geschichte der Mittelalterlichen Universitäten,” Archiv, V, 172,
no. 7; cf. Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 74 ff.
66 Los Codigos Españoles, II. Codigo de las Siete Partidas (Madrid, 1848), Partida Segunda, tit.
XXXI, ley iii: “Et los salarios de los maestros deben seer establescidos por el rey.” In 1304
Ferdinand IV provided salaries at Valladolid; Denifle, Universitäten, I, 376. In Aragon the
city of Lerida paid the salaries in the University founded in 1300; Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 89.
67 In 1301 Boniface VIII granted the right to collect the tertia ecclesiarum to Ferdinand IV,
who decreed that the salaries at Salamanca should be paid from this source; Denifle,
op. cit., I, 488 f.; La Fuente, op. cit., I, 312–314.
68 F. Brandâo, ed., Monarchia Lusytana (Lisbon, 1650), V, 317, Escritura XXI; M. E. da Motta
Veiga, Esboço Historico-Litterario da Faculdade de Theologia da Universidade de Coimbra
(Coimbra, 1872), pp. 17–19.
69 Monarchia Lusytana, V, 320 f., Escritura XXIV; “Statuimus praeterea ut universi Magistri
actu regentes in Civitate praedicta proventus praebendarum, et beneficiorum suorum,
etiam si personatus et dignitates existant … integre percipere valeant, et habere.” This was
It is evident, in sum, that the papal legislation establishing benefices for

masters in church schools was not extended, except in the form of dispensa-
tions from residence, to the masters in the universities. We find secular rulers
providing masters of theology with salaries that would hardly have been forth-
coming had the cathedral chapters been obliged to pay them. Theologians at
Paris, and all the masters at Toulouse, the Roman Court, Palencia, and Valencia
were granted the dispensation from residence; they did not, however, hold
their benefices by papal decree, but by virtue of their position in the Church
as ecclesiastics. Indeed, wherever canonists and theologians taught, we may
be sure that they held benefices, often pluralities, in various churches, but not
usually by papal provision. Such was the situation in the thirteenth century.
In the following century the papacy made provisions for the masters in most
of the universities of England, France and Spain; but this development came
after the universities had reached maturity, and it is doubtful if the churches
were able to give benefices in the quantity commanded by the popes. In any
case, whether the benefices were held directly or indirectly from the papacy,
they did not, as we shall see when we consider the question of fees, constitute
salaries, although they might be the only source of livelihood of masters until
their reputation was established.70 Nevertheless, these benefices and above all
the dispensation from residence71 were of great value to the masters, and the
prospect of them was an incentive to teaching.
But what was the nature of the livelihood of these masters at the more
famous universities for whom no benefices or salaries were provided? Or if
really a dispensation from residence to men who were already beneficed. Cf. da Motta
Veiga, op. cit., pp. 21 f.; Denifle, op. cit., I, 523; T. Braga, Historia da Universidade de Coimbra
(Lisbon, 1892), I, 80 f.
70 Cf. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, p. 74, who cites the Pseudo-Boethius’ De discip-
lina scholarium on the advisability of a young master’s being sure that he has ‘sufficient
means to support himself throughout the first year,’ or until he has enough students; cf.
Manacorda, Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, ii, 90; Migne, PL, LXIV, 1236.
71 The dispensation from residence was at first granted, except in the case of Paris, to the
universities that were in need of some artificial encouragement, and it was granted to the
theologians at Paris in order to stimulate the study of theology. In the fourteenth cen-
tury the papacy granted it to still other universities: to Orleans, 1339 (Fournier, Statuts
et Privilèges, I, no. 147); to Angers. 1363 and 1366 (ibid., 1. nos. 387 and 389); to Siena, 1408
(Denifle, op. cit., I, 450). In Italy the canonists at Bologna or Naples probably all held bene-
fices and of course lived in absence from their churches; on Bologna see G. Zaccagnini, La
Vita dei Maestri e degli Scolari nello Studio di Bologna, p. 49. Johannes Hispanus held a ben-
efice in Portugal while teaching canon law at Bologna 1247–1253; H. Hurter, Nomenclator
Literarius (2nd ed., Innsbruck, 1902), II, 371.
190 CHAPTER 8
theologians and canonists or other masters held benefices, did they have a fur-
ther source of income from their students?
It has been observed that the papacy, in theory, believed in the gratuity of
teaching, and in practice tried to provide free instruction for poor students in
cathedral schools. The reformers among the clergy held the same ideal to be
desirable in the University of Paris. When the schools of Paris were developing
in the twelfth century, John of Salisbury, attacking the champions of the dia-
lectic movement, scorned the Cornifician who ‘credulos auditores suos, multo
mercede conductus, et multo tempore aerem verberans, docuit nihil scire.’72 To
St. Bernard and some of the preachers, teaching for money was shameful.73
Examples of this attitude need not be multiplied, for the reforming clergy
could but indirectly influence the situation. When, however, the papacy de-
creed free instruction for cathedral and metropolitan schools, there were those
who felt that teaching in the studia generalia should likewise be gratuitous,
although the Quia nonnullis and the Super speculam were not intended for
the universities.74 So serious, apparently, was the belief that university mas-
ters who had benefices and salaries should not accept fees, that the canonists
spent some effort in defining and interpreting the papal decretals relative to
free instruction. It will be well to state their opinion, and then to observe the
actual practice in the universities themselves.
72 J. A. Giles, ed., Opera Omnia Joannis Sarisberiensis (Oxford, 1848), V, Metalogicus, p. 15;
C. C. I. Webb, ed., Joannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Metalogicon (Oxford, 1929),
p. 9; on the Cornificians see Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge;
Harvard University Press, 1927), pp. 98, 356.
73 St. Bernard, In Canticum Sermo XXXVI (Migne, PL, CLXXXIII, 968): “Et sunt item qui scire
volunt ut scientiam suam vendant; verbi causa, pro pecunia, pro honoribus; et turpis
quaestus est.” In one of his sermons Maurice of St. Victor says, “… sapientiam quaerunt
non propter sapientiam, sed ut venalem prostituant, vel pro laude humana, vel pro pecu-
nia. Unde, sapientia indigni, ipsam in veritate non inveniunt.” Hauréau, Notices et Extraits,
III, 39.
74 Manacorda, whose thesis is that the Italian universities had their origin in cathe-
dral schools, naturally finds one of the “anelli di congiunzione fra scuola vescovile ed
Università” in the “gratuità dell’ insegnamento per gli allievi della diocesi.” (Op. cit., I, i,
165.) And, although he qualifies this gratuity at Bologna by pointing out that fees were
collected from the ‘scolari forestieri’ (p. 226), he assumes that the papal legislation for
church schools applied to Bologna and other universities. But there is nothing to show
that instruction in Bologna was free for students living in the diocese because of the papal
regulation of cathedral schools, although it was sometimes argued that students who
were citizens of Bologna should be exempted from the payment of fees.
It was not questioned that masters should have some means of a living.75
But, whether or not a benefice or salary was provided, could not a master col-
lect fees from his students? Referring to the decrees of 1179 and 1215, and to the
Super speculam, Tancred, about 1220, states that masters at Paris and Bologna
could, when not beneficed, accept collectae.76 He distinguishes between the
cathedral schools and the two most important universities of his time. Since he
makes no distinction between theologians and other masters at Paris, one may
well infer that in his own opinion no benefices were held in the universities
(the privilege of non-residence is not in question here) by the papal decrees.
Hence these masters were under no obligation to teach gratis. Later glossators
continued to discuss the question, always distinguishing between the church
schools on the one hand and Paris and Bologna on the other. For the most
part canonists and those trained in civil law are at pains to decide whether
professors of law in particular, and others in general, may demand fees. Ideally,
they all say, the true philosopher, ‘exemplo Socratis,’ should reject money, for
‘knowledge is a gift of God, and therefore cannot be sold.’77 But at Bologna,
Paris, and Naples,78 or at any studium generale, the professors evidently were
not expected to be as careless of wealth as Socrates. For, asks one glossator,
75 Vincentius Hispanus, in a gloss to the Lateran decree of 1179: “… et quilibet debet habere
salarium secundum dignitatem et scientiam suam, sicut advocati …” MS Vat. lat. 1377,
fol. 82v.
76 “Patet ex hoc capite et duobus sequentibus quod magister cui certum beneficium est con-
stitutum pretium pro doctrina vel docendi licentia petere non debet. Sed quid dicemus
de magistris qui docent bononie vel parisius numquid licet eis collectam vel pretium ac-
cipere, utique cum non habeant beneficium ad hoc deputatum.” MS. Vat. lat. 1377, fol. 82v;
MS. Borghes. lat. 264, at the same place.
77 So a gloss in the Fourth Compilation, MSS. Vat. lat. 1377, fol. 309v, and Borghes. lat. 237,
fol. 181v; “… numquid ergo de divitibus licite possunt petere colletas? Videtur quod non,
quia si vult dici phylosophus prohibiat peccuniam exemplo Socratis … Item scientia
donum Dei est, ergo vendi non potest;” and Raymond of Peñafort relates that Socrates
“magnum pondus auri abiecit videns se non posse simul virtutes et divicias possidere.”
MS. Vat. lat. 10270, Summa de Casibus, lib. I, tit. iii, fol. 170r; cf. supra, note 2, for his state-
ment that knowledge is a gift of God. Geoffrey of Trani likewise is familiar with the idea of
the gift of God and with the example set by Socrates; Summa de Titulis Decretalium, lib. V,
tit. De magistris, MS. Vat. lat. 10269, fol. 134r.
78 Raymond of Peñafort, in the gloss cited in the preceding note, like Tancred asks if a mas-
ter in the schools of Bologna or Paris may not collect fees; MS. Vat. lat. 10270, fol. 170r.
Geoffrey adds Naples and other studia generalia to Paris and Bologna: “queritur autem
de magistris aliis [he has been discussing the masters in cathedral schools] regentibus
Parisius vel Bononie seu Neapolim vel aliis locis, an licite collectam exigant a scolaribus,”
MS. Vat. lat. 10269, fol. 134r.
192 CHAPTER 8
do not lawyers sell their advice; do not witnesses freely give their testimony,
bishops freely consecrate churches, and judges freely decide cases, and yet
demand their expenses?79 Why, then, should not all ‘philosophantes’, among
whom are to be counted professors of civil law, even though an exaction of
money be contrary to their profession,80 demand fees for their livelihood? The
example of Sabinus, professor of law,81 prevailed over the example of Socrates.
But the general practice of accepting fees must be in some measure reconciled
with the theory of gratuity; therefore, the canonists agree, professors already
provided with benefices or salaries must not exact, they may only accept, fees
from their auditors. Professors, however, who lack sufficient means, may le-
gally exact collectae. Such is the opinion of the decretalists of the thirteenth
century, of Raymond of Peñafort, of Geoffrey of Trani, and of Henry of Susa.82
79 “Item cum iuris peritus potest vendere iustum consilium, … quare non potest magister
vendere iustam doctrinam? Nec obstat si dicas quod gratis debet docere; et tamen potest
petere peccuniam. Nonne testis gratis fert testimonium, et tamen petit sumptus …; nonne
episcopus gratis consecrabit ecclesiam, et tamen petit sumptus …; et iudex gratis iudicat
et tamen petit sumptus?” MS. Vat. lat. 1377, Fourth Compilation, lib. V, tit. De magistris,
fol. 309v. The examples of the advocatus, witness and judge are repeated by ‘Jo.’ (Hispanus
or Andrea?), MS. Casanatense lat. 223. fol. 277v; after “Nec obstat … docere” this gloss
reads, “quia nichilominus potest petere laboris sui mercedem, sicut testis.…”
80 Geoffrey of Trani: “Item doctores philosophantes, inter quos iuris civilis professores, si
pecuniam exigerint, contraria erit professioni eorum exactio,” MS. Vat. lat. 10269, fol. 134r.
But Geoffrey proceeds to refute this; infra, note 82.
81 Tancred: “Et etiam Sabinus legis doctor a suis auditoribus sustentabatur” (MS. Borghes. lat.
264, Third Compilation, lib. V, tit. De magistris; MS. Vat. lat. 1377, fol. 82v); Sinibaldo Fieschi
(later Innocent IV): ‘Sabinus legum doctor a suis scolaribus sustentabatur’ [Apparatus
(Venice, 1481), lib. V, tit. De magistris]; Henry of Susa (Hostiensis): “… quod cum Sabinus
non haberet amplissimas facultates ab auditoribus suis plurimum sustentatur” [Summa
Domini Henrici Cardinalis Hostiensis (Lyons, 1542), lib. V, tit. De magistris, p. 235, col. 2].
82 Raymond of Peñafort: ‘Item professores iuris, etsi honeste sponte oblata recipiant, tamen
inhoneste petunt…. Item potest magister vendere doctrinam sicut et iuris peritus con-
silium;’ MS. Vat. lat. 10270, fol. 170r (cf. Manacorda, Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, i 89); idem,
Summa de Penitentia: “Solutio. Dico cum Lau. et Io. quod si sua non sufficiunt ei com-
petenter et honeste, potest licite exigere moderate, alias nichil debet exigere sed sponte
oblata poterit recipere …,” MS. Casanat. lat. 1094, fol. 8r. Geoffrey of Trani: “Scolares etiam,
non quas minimas possunt, sed pro facultatibus et dignitate natalium mercedes precep-
toribus suis constituant. Circa hoc dico quod si doctori sua [in the MS. suo] non sufficiunt,
licite et honeste potest [doctor] a scolaribus exigere pro expensis. Si vero sufficiunt, non
exiget, sed sponte oblata recipere potest … et hoc intelligo in hiis qui apti sunt et ydonei
ad docendum,” MS. Vat. lat. 10269, fol. 134r; Henry of Susa, loc. cit.: “Dico si magister pauper
sit vel obligatus sive percipiat salarium sive non licite recipit collectam … Si vero magistro
nulla necessitas immineat et habet salarium quod sufficit ad victum et vestitum nihil
Geoffrey of Poitiers, one of the two masters who represented the University of
Paris at the Roman Court during the settlement of the troubles of 1229–1231,83
decides that masters may receive from their students—but not from the sons
of thieves and usurers, if such are among the students—remuneration for
teaching anything but matters related to morals.84
From these opinions we may conclude that the regent masters at Bologna,
Naples, Paris, or any studium generale could demand fees if no adequate ben-
efices or salaries were provided, and could, even if salaried or beneficed, ac-
cept spontaneous offerings from their students. By the interpretation of the
canonists, then, the papal legislation of 1179, 1215, and 1219, did not apply, in the
matter of the provision of benefices for theologians, to the studia generalia. If
the papal decrees affected directly only the ecclesiastical studia particularia,85
they were also of indirect value for the universities in influencing the general
agreement that teaching should be made free for the poor. From the wealth-
debet exigere. Idem dico si percipiat beneficium de quo debeat sustentari et possit po
terit tamen gratis oblatum recipere.…” A gloss earlier than these opinions is also positive:
“magister licite petit collectam cum ei sua plenissime non sufficiunt;’ MS. Vat. lat. 1377,
Fourth Compilation, lib. V, tit. De magistris, fol. 309v. One final gloss may be cited: “Si vero
beneficium nullum super hoc constitutum est doctoribus sicut Bononie, licite exigunt
collectam, quia suis sumptibus hoc facere non coguntur,” MS. Casant. lat. 223, fol. 277r.
83 See Gregory IX’s bull, May 6, 1231, recommending Geoffrey of Poitiers and William of
Auxerre to King Louis IX, Ch.U.P., I, no. 90; on the conflict of 1229–1231, cf. Rashdall,
Universities, I, 335–341.
84 Geoffrey refers chiefly, it seems, to masters in cathedral schools; but if he grants them as
much latitude, he would probably grant masters—even of theology—in the University
of Paris more: “… magistri autem qui legunt bene possunt operas suas locare quantum
ad ea quae de moribus non agunt; sed quantum ad ea quae de moribus agunt, non; sed
tamen a filiis foeneratorum vel raptorum caveant ne aliquid percipiant, quoniam tenen-
tur restituere.” B. Hauréau “Notice sur le Numéro 3143 des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque
Nationale,’ Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, XXXIV, ii (Paris,
1895), p. 196; cf. pp. 191 and 197.
85 Even in cathedral schools, it was admitted, the beneficed masters could accept, but not
exact, fees; so Innocent IV, Apparatus, lib. V, tit. De magistris, on the decree of 1179: “sed et
si habeat beneficium potest recipere sed non exigere.” In practice such masters accepted
payment from the rich, and sometimes from the poor students; cf. Specht, Geschichte des
Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland, p. 180; Hauréau, Notices et Extraits, I, 360 f., and IV, 267–
274. The canonists assert that benefices for masters in cathedral schools were founded for
the poor; hence the masters could always collect from the rich: Innocent IV, Apparatus,
loc. cit., on the decree of 1215, “A divitibus enim licet accipere cum propter eos non habeat
prebendam;” and Henry of Susa, Summa, p. 235, col. 2, “Et tales magistri clericos eiusdem
ecclesie et etiam pauperes extraneos gratis docere debent; sed ab aliis id est extraneis
divitibus possunt collectam levare.”
194 CHAPTER 8
ier students even masters in theology could accept fees, although they were
beneficed either as canons given leave of absence from their churches, or as
learned men specially favored by the popes. Could they, and other masters sim-
ilarly beneficed, demand fees? If their income sufficed they could not, though
in any case they could receive gifts. But who was to judge whether they had
sufficient means of livelihood, and who was to define sufficiency? And if, as
Geoffrey of Trani states, students were expected to donate according to their
rank and wealth, how poor must a student be to escape the obligation of pay-
ment? Custom, not the papacy, determined the solution of these questions,
and we shall find that custom decided for collectae.
The evidence furnished by the canonists is more or less indirect and fails
to distinguish clearly between theologians and lay masters in medicine and
civil law, but their resolution of the question of gratuity accurately reflects the
situation in the universities. In the case of the Italian schools we have ample
proof of the prevalence of fees until—and to some extent after—salaries were
provided by the communes or by royal authority.86 For Bologna, Odofredo is
an excellent witness.87 He complains of students who are ‘mali pagatores’,88
86 When salaries were paid by public authority fees in theory could not be collected. Besides
the statements of the canonists on this matter (supra, note 82), cf. Savigny, Geschichte
des Römischen Rechts, III, 257, and his citation, p. 257, note i, of Henry of Susa: “Utrum a
scholaribus collectam facere vel levare possit? Distinguunt doctores, et dicunt indistincte
quod sic, si non percipiat salarium de publico.” In 1274 the Commune of Padua decreed
that no professor salaried by the city should collect fees; A. Gloria, ed., Monumenti della
Università di Padova, 1222–1318 (Venice, 1884), p. 170. But gifts could be made, and by cus-
tom were almost obligatory, to salaried masters. Master Terrisio of Atina, a professor at
Naples, where the king paid the salaries ( infra, p. 195), suggests in a letter that he should
receive gifts in Lent:
‘Est honestum et est bonum.
Ut magistro fiat donum.
In hoc carniprivio,
Qui nos pascit et repascit.
In suo convivio.’
These verses are cited by F. Torraca, ‘Maestro Terriaio di Atina,’ Archivio Storico per le
Province Napoletane, XXXVI (1911), 250; cf. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, p. 135;
Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, 228.
87 On Odofredo see N. Tammasia, ‘Odofredo,’ Atti e Memorie della Reale Deputazione di
Storia Patria per le Provincie di Romagna, Serie 3, XI (1894), 183–225, and XII (1895), 1–83,
330–390.
88 Id., Atti e memorie, XI, 216 f.; cf. XII, 82, note 7: “Scholares non sunt boni pagatores, quia
volunt scire sed nolunt solvere iuxta illud: ‘Scire volunt omnes, mercedem solvere nemo.’ ”.
envies professors who gain twice the amount of his own income,89 and, ex-
plaining how two scholars collect the fees for the professor,90 protests against
the students’ habit of refusing to pay the lecturer through these procuratores.91
Examples of fees and contracts on fees drawn up between students and mas-
ters at Bologna are numerous, and need not be cited in detail.92 In the statutes
of 1317–1347 a rubric was devoted to the fixing of the amount of each student’s
fee.93 At other secular universities in which professors were not at first sala-
ried, at Arezzo94 and at Padua,95 fees were by custom, later by statute, collected
from the students.
The schools of Bologna developed without being founded, and at first the
masters depended on student fees. But when a commune, envious of the mate-
rial advantages a great center of learning brought to Bologna, or a king, desir-
ous of founding a state university, established a studium, liberal stipends were
often promised to attract famous professors. Thus in 1224 Frederick II prom-
ised dignities and donaria for learned men who came to his new foundation at
Naples,96 and later the Angevine kings were liberal in providing salaries for the
professors.97 The Italian communes were not far behind the Emperor in treat-
ing with famous masters. Salaries are offered by Vercelli in 1228 (among the
89 Atti e Memorie, XI, 217, note 3.

90 Later it was the bedels who collected the fees; cf. Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, 226; G. Zaccagnini,
“L’Insegnamento privato a Bologna e altrove nei Secc. XIII e XIV,” Atti e Memorie … di
Romagna, Serie 4, XIV (1924), 257; id., La Vita dei Maestri e degli Scolari, pp. 28, 131.
91 Atti e Memorie, Serie 3, XII, 82, note 8.
92 Cf. Savigny, op. cit., III, 238, 240, 254–261, 263; Denifle, Universitäten, I, 197–199; Kaufmann,
Deutsche Universitäten, I, 204 ff.; Rashdall, Universities, I, 210 f.; Zaccagnini, La Vita dei
Maestri e degli Scolari, p. 52, and p. 206, for a student’s letter to his father asking for money
with which to pay his master; Manacorda, op. cit., I, i, 228.
93 Denifle, “Die Statuten der Juristen-Universität Bologna von Jahre 1317–1347,” Archiv, III
(1887), 385 f., Rub. ciiij, De collectis doctorum.
94 L. Guazzesi, Dell’ Antico Dominio del Vescovo di Arezzo in Cortona (Pisa, 1760), p. 107;
Savigny. op. cit., III, 314.
95 Gloria, Monumenti … 1222–1318, p. 170; Savigny, op. cit., III, 296–299; Denifle, “Die Statuten
der Juristen-Universität Padua vom Jahre 1331,” Archiv, VI (1892), 472.
96 J. L. A. Huillard-Bréholles, Historia Diplomatica Friderici II (Paris, 1852–61), II, 450;
F. Torraca, “Le Origini. L’Età Sveva,” Storia della Università di Napoli (Naples, 1924), pp. 4,
5, 14.
97 See the list of professors, 1267–1428, and their salaries, G. M. Monti, “L’Età Angioina,” Storia
della Università di Napoli, pp. 78–87. Charles of Anjou ordered the payment of twelve
ounces of gold annually to the Prior of the Dominican Convent to be used as a ‘subsidium
expensis’ for St. Thomas Aquinas, who lectured in theology at Naples in 1272–1274; ibid.,
pp. 88 f.
196 CHAPTER 8
masters is a theologian),98 by Siena in 1250 (to Petrus Hispanus—later Pope

John XXI—doctor ‘in fisica’)99 and in 1262,100 by Modena in 1250–1260,101 by
Padua in 1260–1262,102 and by Vicenza in 1261.103 Bologna itself had finally to
offer stipends to some of the professors,104 either because the Commune must
counter the competition from other communes employing famous masters, or
because the city wished to make the university more dependent on itself than
on the foreign student.105 These salaries, however, did not supplant fees, which
98 Rashdall, Universities, II, xi, 12 f.; Denifle, Universitäten, I, 278 f.

99 D. Barduzzi, “Di un Maestro dello Studio Senese nel Paradiso Dantesco,” Bullettino Senese di
Storia Patria, XXVIII (1921), 419. Cf. R. Stapper, Papst Johannes XXI (Kirchengeschichtliche
Studien, IV, iv), p. 9.
100 L. Zdekauer, Il Constituto del Comune di Siena dell’ Anno 1262 (Milan, 1897), p. 410, note a;
cf. E. Armstrong, “The Sienese Statutes of 1262,” English Historical Review, XV (1900), p. 15.
101 Gloria, Monumenti … di Padova, 1222–1318, p. 169 (for Azzo, 1350); L. Frati, “L’Epistola
De Regimine et Modo studendi di Martino da Fano,” Studi e Memorie per la Storia dell’
Università di Bologna (Bologna, 1907 ff.), VI (1921), 21 (for Martino de Fano in 1255); cf., for
another salary in 1260, Vicini, “Profilo Storico dell’ Antico Studio di Modena,” Pubblicazioni
d. Facoltà di Giurisprudenze … di Modena, Num. 10 (1926), p. 15; Denifle, op. cit., I, 297.
102 Gloria, Statuti de Comune di Padova dal Secolo XII all’ Anno 1285 (Padua, 1873), p. 378,
nos. 1251 and 1252; Denifle, op. cit., I, 285, 805; id., Archiv, VI, 424 f.; Savigny, Geschichte des
Römischen Rechts, III, 291 f. 296–298, who holds, however, that the salaries at Padua were
paid by the students. But the communes salaried only the more famous professors.
103 Denifle, Universitäten, I, 299.
104 Before 1219 Raymond of Peñafort was given a salary by the city because he refused to
accept fees from his auditors, and because the city wished to retain such a famous mas-
ter (Denifle, op. cit., I, 198, note 534). The communal statutes of about 1270–1280 refer to
salaries; A. Gaudenzi, “Gli Antichi Statuti del Comune di Bologna intorno allo Studio,”
Bullettino dell’ Istituto Storico Italiano, No. 6 (1888), pp. 134 f., Rub. xvi and xvii. From 1279
examples occur of contracts at first between the students, then between the commune,
and a few professors of civil or canon law (cf. Savigny, op. cit., III, 240; Sarti-Fattorini, De
Claris Archigymnasii Bononiensis Professoribus, II, 191, 200; Zaccagnini, La Vita dei Maestri
e degli Scolari, p. 29; Manacorda, La Storia della Scuola in Italia, I, i, 169, who dates the
first communal salary in 1282); and by 1289 the city of Bologna was generally provid-
ing the salaries of illustrious professors (Zaccagnini, op. cit., p. 29; Kaufmann, Deutsche
Universitäten, I, 205; for salaries in the fourteenth century, see C. Malagola, Statuti pp. xi,
36–38; Denifle, Archiv, III, 304). It is interesting to note that in 1371 Gregory XI provided
two hundred florins for a professor of civil law; Chartularium Studii Bononiensi, II, 249, no.
ccxxi.
105 In 1282 the podestà was trying to control the license to teach and thereby the professors
(Sarti-Fattorini, op. cit., II, 66, no. 40), and about the same time the commune began to
pay salaries. But one must not insist upon this coincidence.
were sometimes paid even to salaried masters, as the statutes of the fourteenth
century clearly show.106
In the Italian universities, then, student fees and salaries paid by secular au-
thorities, or both, were the principal sources of the masters’ income. Looking
elsewhere, we find that fees were customary in the French and Spanish uni-
versities that were secular or half-secular, half-ecclesiastical, and in which
the masters enjoyed the dispensation from residence or received their sala-
ries from the king or local ruler. At Montpellier as early as 1220 the statutes
of the faculty of medicine provide for cases of disputes between masters and
students over the payment of salaries,107 but here no outside authority was
responsible for supporting the professors. At Toulouse, however, where the
masters were salaried by the count and given the dispensation from residence
by Innocent IV, fees were paid at the beginning of the fourteenth century,
and probably earlier, since the statutes usually confirm usage.108 In Castile,
where the king paid the salaries from the tertia ecclesiarum, the opinion of the
canonists—that masters might receive fees when they had no benefices, or
accept gifts if they already had a sufficient income—passed into the Siete
Partidas.109 Thus, in Spain the papal legislation seems to have had some influ-
ence, while at Toulouse the holding of benefices seems to have been no ob-
stacle to fees.
Most of the universities of England and France had their origin more or
less directly in cathedral schools. Yet, in them also the custom of fees was
the basis of the opinions of the canonists. At Oxford, in the faculty of arts,
fees were compulsory in the fourteenth century, and doubtless had been
106 Supra, note 86; Zaccagnini, op. cit., p. 28; Denifle, Archiv, III, 386, note; Sarti-Fattorini, op.
cit., II, 191, no. 34.
107 Fournier, Statuts et Privilèges, II, no. 882, p. 5: “Si magister habeat causam adversus dis-
cipulum suum super salario … nulliis alius magistrorum ipsum recipiat … in scolis suis,
donec discipulus ille certa caverit cautione magistro conquerenti, quod vel satisfa-
ciet ei vel quod juri parebit.” In 1242 a similar provision was decreed by the bishop of
Maguelone—the above provision was confirmed by the Cardinal-Legate Conrad—for
masters and students in grammar and logic; ibid., no. 886, p. 9. Cf. Savigny, op. cit., III, 396 f.;
Denifle, Archiv, III, 385, note 1.
108 Fournier, Statuts et Privilèges, I, no. 542, pp. 465 f.: Statutes of the faculty of arts, 1309.
109 Los Codigos Espanole, II. Las Siete Partidas, Partida I, ley x, tit. xvii: “… mas los Maestros
que non rescibiessen Beneficios de las Eglesias, bien pueden tomar soldada de los
Scholares, que demostrassen, si las rentas que ouieren de otra parte, non les complieren
para beuir honestamente; mas si les complieren les dieren algo de su grado, non lo de-
mandando ellos, bien lo pueden tomar sin mala estancia.”
198 CHAPTER 8
customary in the thirteenth.110 In France, Orleans and Paris are of particular

interest because of their development from cathedral schools. Orleans, famous
for the classics in the twelfth century, a studium generale of civil law after about
1235, remained under the jurisdiction of the bishop. In a model of a letter ad-
dressed to the students of Orleans, the bishop notes the complaint that the
masters have been extorting money from the scholars ‘pro discendi licentia,’
and thus depriving poor clerks of the opportunity of learning. He decides that
he cannot and ought not to force the masters to teach freely, but absolves poor
students from the payment of the fees demanded by the masters.111 Evidence
of fees is again at hand in a model of a letter dating to about the beginning of
the thirteenth century, when Orleans was still renowned for classical studies.
Students from Flanders, wishing to hear lectures on the ‘actores,’ assert their
disappointment in their masters, who were not properly instructing them.
They therefore had contracted ‘sub certo precio’ with a certain scholar for lec-
tures on Ovid; but this lecturer failed to satisfy the zealous Flemings, and a
‘contentio’ ensued. Accordingly, the students request ‘talis magister’ (perhaps
the magister scholarum of Orleans) to decide the case in their favor.112 These
two letters again reveal the prevalence of fees and the influence of the papal
decrees on the bishop’s attempt to help the poor students, but offer no proof
that the Church provided benefices as salaries.113
110 H. Anstey, Munimenta Academica (London, 1868) I, 86, 128; for the fifteenth century,
ibid., I, 256 f., 303, 427 f. All masters, except princes and nobles, were obliged to collect
their salary, for otherwise poor masters would have no students; ibid., I, 427. Cf. Rashdall,
Universities, II, ii, 460; Lyte, History of the University of Oxford, p. 98; Mallet, History of the
University of Oxford, I, 199.
111 Haskins, “Orleanese Formularies in a Manuscript at Tarragona,” Speculum, V, 414 f.:
‘… Peticioni igitur vestre in quantum possumus annuentes vobis benigniter respondemus
quod magistros ad hoc [teaching gratis] faciendum cogere non possumus nec debemus,
cum a labore suo nullum aliud commodum consequantur. Secure siquidem dicere pos-
sumus quod ex ista scientia cum sit temporalis numquam temporalia petere vel recipere
prohibentur. Ne tamen possitis contra iusticiam aggravari vobis mandamus quatinus
siquis vestrum paupertatem sive aliam quamlibet rationem allegare poterit quare pe-
cuniam a magistris impositam ipsis solvere non valeant, … ab impetitione magistrorum
penitus absolvantur ac ab imposita pecunia quod iustum fuerit relaxetur.” The bishop
seems to refer to students and masters in civil law, since he speaks of a temporal science
and of the lack of any other source of income except from student fees; yet the form of
this letter dates 1216–1223 (ibid., V, 413).
112 Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, p. 186.
113 In the statutes of 1307 there is a provision on the bedels’ procedure “contra scolares, pro de-
fectu solutionis talliarium et collectarum quarumcumque.” (Fournier, Statuts et Privilèges,
I, no. 23, 25.) At the same time the masters seem to have enjoyed the dispensation
On the problem of gratuity as opposed to fees, the University of Paris in the

thirteenth century offers the best example. It was the most famous studium
generale for the liberal arts and theology, and more than any other university it
was favored and protected by the popes. Did the papacy enforce the gratuity of
teaching? Robert has noted examples of fees in the twelfth century,114 and the
custom of collectae is reflected in the passages cited above from St. Bernard and
John of Salisbury.115 But the evidence from the end of the twelfth and the thir-
teenth century, however, has been neglected. In the last quarter of the twelfth
century Stephen of Tournai advises that a certain youth should not be sent ‘ad
Parisienses secularium scolas et venditores verborum.’116 Stephen probably re-
fers to the masters of arts. Theologians, however, also are condemned for learn-
ing in order to sell their knowledge, condemned by Praepositinus of Cremona,
who was chancellor of the University in 1206–1209.117 Several decades later,
about 1270, Robert of Sorbon asserts that the students pay their masters, among
whom, probably, were the secular masters of theology, that is, secular priests,
as opposed to the theologians belonging to the religious orders.118 In 1283–1284
from residence; in 1306 Clement V granted to them all the privileges possessed by
Toulouse, and one of these privileges, it will be remembered, was the dispensation from
residence. (Ibid., I, no. 19, pp. 12 f.).
114 Les Écoles et l’Enseignement de la Théologie, pp. 34 f.; cf. Hauréau, Notices et Extraits, III,
218.
115 Supra, notes 72 and 73. Yet Luchaire states that the masters taught freely; La Societé
Française au Temps de Philippe-Auguste (Paris, 1909), p. 68.
116 Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no. 2, p. 43.
117 Hauréau, op. cit., III, 166: “Quid dicam de theologis, quorum plures discunt ut sciant, quod
est curiositas …, vel ut vendant, quod est simoniaca pravitas, et, quod deterius est, ut ve-
niant ad magnos honores … ” 0n Praepositinus, see G. Lacombe, Prepositini Cancellarii
Parisiensis (1206–1210) Opera Omnia. I. La Vie et les Oeuvres de Prévostin (Bibliothèque
Thomiste, XI; Kain, 1927), pp. 36–46.
118 Chambon, ed., Robert de Sorbon, De Conscientia et De Tribus Dietis (Paris, 1902), p. 26:
“Item, nota quod scolares dant precium, et, aliquando, expensas et vestes magistris suis.
Dominus, autem, tanquam magister optimus, cibum dat scolaribus suis.”
A further indication of fees paid to theologians comes from the complaints of the
secular masters of theology during their struggle with the Dominicans over the number
of chairs in theology possessed by the latter. (On this struggle, 1252–1259, see Rashdall,
Universities, I, 345–392; Mandonnet, “De l’Incorporation des Dominicains dans l’Université
de Paris,” Revue Thomiste, IV [1896], 133–170; P. Mortier, Histoire des Maîtres Généraux
de l’Ordre des Frères-Prêcheurs, I [Paris, 1903], 435–475; M. Bierbaum, Bettelorden und
Weltgeistlichkeit an der Universität Paris [Munster i.W., 1920].) The secular masters based
their fear of an increased number of chairs for the Dominicans and other religious partly
on the belief that twelve chairs or more—the secular theologians had eight (Ch.U.P.,
200 CHAPTER 8
we find the masters of arts apologizing to the pope, in defense of themselves

against the accusations of the chancellor, for demanding money for lectures.119
From the fourteenth century, to note a last bit of evidence, a letter of ‘Licet
non credas’ perhaps applies to Paris in including the non-payment of salaries
among the offences committed by student clerks.120 Taking into consideration
the passages from the sermons and the statutes, and other scattered material,
we may safely conclude that student fees were a principal source of income for
all the masters,121 including, though possibly to a lesser extent, the secular mas-
ters in theology.122 Whether all the students paid fees cannot be determined.
I, 65), later nine—could hardly be maintained “propter scolarium apud nos in theologia
studentium raritatem” (Ibid., I, 253 f.). To prevent the loss of their students and, probably,
income they had forbidden scholars to attend the lectures of the Dominicans (so states
Innocent IV, ibid., I, no. 222; cf. Rashdall, op. cit., I, 379). Thomas de Cantimpré, Bonum
Universale de Apibus (Douai, 1627), p. 182, speaks as if the secular theologians taught for
money: “et id quod per se non poterant, non sufficiente pecunia, in evacatione bursarum
innocentiae puerilis, multorum copijs obtinerent.”
119 Ch.U.P., I, 609: “Et dico quod nostri magistri pro lectura nichil plus recipiunt quam de hoc
recipiebatur in retroactis temporibus.” Cf. the statute of the faculty of arts, 1289, “ut solum
studium [scolares] insequentes et erga magistros tam pro lectionibus ordinariis quam
cursoriis, ut moris est et statutum, debite se habentes et eisdem condignam recompen-
sationem facientes si super hoc a suis propriis magistris fuerint requisiti, … privilegiis et
libertatibus facultatis et Universitatis gaudere valeant … ” (ibid., II, 36); and the statute of
the French Nation, 1306 (ibid., II, 119).
120 In the Formulary of Benedict XII; Haskins, op. cit., p. 59, note 1: “Quod olim in diversis ter-
ris, locis et studiis generalibus vel aliis fuisti … nec non doctoribus, magistris, bedellis et
bacallariis salaria statutis terminis non solvendo.” Denifle, Archiv, IV, 207, edits a slightly
different text in which Paris is named as the studium generale, but only the failure of the
clerk to pay salaries to the bedels. The bedels, however, probably collected the fees for the
masters, as they did at Bologna. See the statutes of the faculty of arts of 1245 (the masters
agree to forbid competition in renting lecture halls, as if some were competing for more
students and higher profits; Ch.U.P., I, 177); of the English Nation, 1252 (ibid., I, 230); and
the complaint of the masters of arts in 1259 that the faculty is suffering “propter defectum
pecunie” because of the superfluous distribution of money to the bedels and other “su-
pervenientibus” (ibid., I, 376 f.).
121 Rashdall, Universities, I, 509, notes that the students paid fees to their masters, but con-
cludes that the masters who received fees were not beneficed. But even beneficed masters
could collect from students of means. Haskins, op. cit., p. 23, cites a model of a letter in
which the father of a student sends a master his pay.
122 The Dominican professors of theology were salaried or given their livelihood by the Order;
B. Jarrett, “The Dominicans and their University Education,” Miscellanea Dominicana
(Rome, 1923), pp. 172, 179. The theologians of the other religious orders were similarly
salaried.
Probably poor students were given free instruction, but they may have paid
collectae, since the canons studying in theology enjoyed the dispensation from
residence, and many of the poor students in the faculty of arts were cared for
through colleges and other foundations.123
The University of Paris, finally, reflects the results already obtained from
the examination of the other universities of the thirteenth century. This study,
then, has led to the general conclusion that the papal legislation for church
schools, on the matter of benefices as salaries, applied neither to the secular
nor to the ecclesiastically-controlled universities. If special benefices were
occasionally, or at a later time frequently124 conferred by the popes on the
masters, such benefices did not constitute salaries in accordance with the pro-
visions of the Third and Fourth Lateran decrees and of the bull Super speculam,
nor did they obviate the payment of collectae by the students. In two partic-
ulars, however, the papal decrees did exercise some influence. The theory of
gratuitous teaching for poor students was everywhere recognized, though how
far it was practiced is a question impossible to determine. The interpretation
of the canonists, that beneficed masters could accept, but should not demand,
gifts, seems to be reflected in the Italian theory that fees should not be taken by
salaried masters. But in spite of the theory, little distinction was made between
dona and collectae, and the ideal that knowledge, as a gift of God, should be
imparted freely was not completely nor consistently realized in practice.
Yet if the students were not given free instruction through the provision of
benefices for the masters, the masters themselves, above all the theologians
at Paris, enjoyed an invaluable privilege in the dispensation from residence.
Owing to this privilege they did not have to depend entirely on fees, and in
France and England they were never controlled by the students as they were
at Bologna. Their benefices were probably often the sole means of support
until they obtained enough students for an adequate income. Where, then, no
secular salaries were provided, ecclesiastical benefices, whether provided by
churches or by the popes, along with the dispensation from residence, offered
some security to the professors, and were an incentive to teaching.
Papal provisions and dispensation from residence had a varying effect on
the rise and constitution of the universities. In the development of the purely
secular universities of Bologna, Naples, Padua, and Montpellier no tangible in-
fluence is discernible, for few of the masters, except the canon lawyers, had
123 On the colleges see Rashdall, I, 478–514. The college students had to pay fees; ibid., I, 510.
124 The mass provision of benefices by John XXII for the masters at Paris has little connection
with the decree of 1215 (cf. Ch.U.P., II, nos. 729, 738, 739), and anyhow such provisions were
usually expectancies.
202 CHAPTER 8
benefices as ecclesiastics. On the other hand, when a university was founded

to combat heresy (Toulouse) or to carry Christian theology into a province re-
gained from the Moors (Valencia),125 the dispensation from residence was of
real importance. In founded universities of this kind the masters could not at
first depend on a large number of students, and hence, as Denifle says, though
too positively, such universities would have been still-born had the papacy not
provided benefices and prebends.126 In Castile the cooperation of the papacy
with the king in the provision of salaries from the tertia ecclesiarum perhaps
assured the continuous growth of Salamanca, and in Portugal the use of ben-
efices, confirmed by the pope, was necessary for the foundation of Lisbon-
Coimbra. So great a value, however, cannot be attached to papal provisions for
masters in the original ecclesiastical universities of France and England that
developed spontaneously out of the circumstances of location and intellectual
movements. At Paris, students were numerous in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, and the masters could depend on fees after a short time of teaching;
benefices, therefore, and the dispensation from residence, although desirable,
were not indispensable. Free instruction scarcely existed, and could hardly
have been a significant factor in an increase of the number of students and,
consequently, in a more rapid development of the university.127 The studium
generale at Paris developed to maturity without the aid of special salaries for
the masters; even the faculty of theology was formed before the papacy pro-
vided benefices for theologians in metropolitan schools. The same is true of
Oxford, Cambridge, Angers, and Orleans.128 Not until the following century did
125 Berger, Reg. d’Inn. IV, I, no. 1375. But even with this artificial stimulation the foundation of
Valencia was not successful until the fourteenth century (Rashdall, op. cit., II, i, 100); the
same is true of Palencia (ibid., II, i, 68 f.). At Toulouse the provision of salaries by the count
was more vital, but it was enforced by the papacy.
126 Universitäten, I, 793; actually these universities were favored only with the dispensation
from residence, which, however, was practically equivalent to the provision of benefices,
since a benefice was useless for a professor if he could not be absent from his church.
Lisbon-Coimbra falls into this category.
127 But in the fourteenth century, owing to a decline of the studium, the masters petitioned to
John XXII for benefices for the deserving masters and students, as a measure for restoring
the vigor of the university; Ch.U.P., II, 185.
128 The lack of material did not permit a separate consideration of Cambridge and Angers.
One may safely, however, draw the same conclusions for them. On Cambridge cf. J. B.
Mullinger, The University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1873), I, 358 f., who says fees were
paid to the masters of arts; but I have found no evidence from the thirteenth century; for
fees in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries see the statutes, in Documents Relating to the
University and Colleges of Cambridge (London, 1852), I, 353–359.
the papacy command the provision of a few salaries at Oxford, Paris, Bologna,
the Roman Court, and Salamanca,129 and of benefices to all the worthy masters
in the universities of ecclesiastical origin.
§2 Patronage of Masters
It was not teachers alone, out of the swarm of graduates from the universi-
ties, whom the Church favored with benefices and dignities. Many of the other
graduates, hoping their degrees would attract material reward for the years
spent in attending lectures, went out into the ecclesiastical or secular world
more confident because they had procured a living in the form of benefices.
The expectation of benefices was an incentive to study, for the policy of the
popes, as early as the middle of the twelfth century, had encouraged men in
the hope of benefices if they had proved themselves capable students; and by
the middle of the fourteenth century, as we have seen, the students graduated
at Paris could count strongly on papal favor.130 The masters of arts might teach
at once in the faculty of arts, or begin the study of theology, or do both at the
same time; or they might go directly into the world as secretaries or notaries.
The theologians, if they did not intend to teach, usually hoped to become ec-
clesiastics, and were given ecclesiastical dignities. Canon lawyers in particular
could expect rapid advancement at a time when expert knowledge of canon
law and the decretals was in great demand for the handling of an enormous
mass of litigation between lords spiritual and temporal, or even within the
Church itself, whose representatives were not above fraternal strife over things
material. Whatever the masters in arts, theology, or canon law intended to do
with their degrees, they looked for, and usually obtained, benefices. The liber-
ality of the popes, at first choosing out the masters noted for their learning, and
becoming less discriminating towards the middle of the thirteenth century,
met their hopes halfway.
From the twelfth century, a notable example of masters rewarded for
their learning is that of Peter Lombard, whom Eugenius III recommended to
129 These salaries, ordained by the Council of Vienne in 1311, were for six professors of
Hebrew, Arabic, and ‘Chaldee’ in each of these universities. Only the professors in the
Roman Court were paid directly by the papacy; at Paris they were to be paid by the king,
at Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca by prelates, monasteries, chapters, and convents.
Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, II. Clement V, Constitutiones, lib. V, tit. i, cap. 1; Hefele-
Hergenröther, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd ed., VI, 545; Denifle, op. cit., I, 306 f.
130 Supra, pp. 186 f.
204 CHAPTER 8
St. Bernard and favored with a benefice, and who was soon to be elected to
the episcopal see at Paris.131 But the desire to honor learning was sometimes
accompanied by the political necessity of recognizing men in the service of
secular princes. Thus Alexander III, in a series of letters, ordered benefices to
be conferred on Master David of London, who, formerly a student at Bologna,
was now at the Roman Court in the service of Henry II.132 Kinsmen of learned
men might also be noticed by the papacy. Thus Innocent III, writing to the
Chapter of Dinant, requested a prebend and canonry for a nephew of David
of Dinant, who was then (ca. 1206) a papal chaplain and a few years later won
renown by being condemned as a heretic in 1210 and 1215.133
Although the books of Aristotle on natural philosophy and metaphysics
had been condemned at Paris in 1210 and 1215,134 Honorius III deemed trans-
lators of Aristotle’s works from the Arabic worthy of benefices. Michael Scot,
because of his “remarkable gift of science,” was given first by Honorius a ben-
efice and then the privilege of holding two benefices,135 and was elevated to
the archbishopric of Cashel, which, however, he refused.136 Honorius asked
Henry III to protect him,137 and in 1225 permitted Michael to hold three more
benefices.138 In 1227 Gregory IX commanded the archbishop of Canterbury
to see that Michael Scot be provided for according to the previous letters of
Honorius III, and to add yet another benefice. In this letter Gregory praises
131 Migne, CLXXX, col. 1498.

132 Cf. Jaffé-Löwenfeld, nos. 11716, 11718, 11915–11918; Migne, CC, 643, 737; Spicilegium
Liberianum, ed. F. Liverani (Florence, 1863), pp. 544, 545, 547. For Master David’s career in
the service of Henry II see Brooke, “The Register of Master David of London,” in Essays in
History presented to R. Lane-Poole, (Oxford, 1927).
There exist numerous examples of papal benefices for masters who were royal clerks,
whose learning, however, is usually recommended; I cite examples from the Register of
Honorius III: Pressutti, I, 852, a prebend for Master B., clerk of Philip Augustus; ibid., I,
1516, a prebend and canonry for Master William, clerk of the king of Cyprus; ibid., I, 2311,
for Radulphus de Nevillis, vice-chancellor of the king of England; cf. ibid., II, 4126.
133 For Innocent III’s letter see Migne, CCXV, 901–903; for the condemnation of David’s
Quaternuli and heretical doctrine, Ch.U.P., I, nos. 11, 12, and 20. Cf. G. Thery, David de
Dinant, pp. 7–12.
134 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 11 and 20; cf. Luquet, “Aristote et l’Université de Paris pendant le xiiie siècle,”
Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuses, XVI, (1904), pp. 19 ff.; Théry,
David de Dinant, pp. 7–12.
135 Pressutti, nos. 4682 and 4871; Ch.U.P., I, no. 48.
136 Pressutti, nos. 5025 and 5052.
137 Haskins, “Two Roman Formularies,” Miscellanea Ehrle, IV, 281; this bull is not in Pressutti.
138 Pressutti, no. 5470.
Michael for his proficiency in Hebrew and Arabic.139 Honorius III granted to
a Jew, Master Andrew, a canon of Palencia, who, besides being learned in the
seven liberal arts, had full “intelligentiam diversorum idiomatum ebraici et
chaldei, arabici et latini,” the right to hold benefices and ecclesiastical digni-
ties, with the exception of the episcopate.140 It is possible that this Andrew is
the same Andrew or Abuteus who acted as an interpreter for Michael Scot.141
The papacy forbade to regular canons, monks, and priests the study of
medicine, but we find Gregory IX and Innocent IV honoring physicians who
were canons or monks.142 Gregory IX and Innocent IV also granted benefices or
dignities particularly to lawyers. Honorius III appointed Roffredus Epiphanii
Beneventanus, a great canon and civil lawyer in the service of Frederick II,
iudex ordinarius at Benevento.143 In a letter to the abbot of St. Mary of York
Gregory IX refers to a ‘personate’ he had conferred on “magistro G. de Trano,”
evidently Geoffrey of Trani, the canonist.144 Innocent IV granted a benefice
to Raymund Peroneti, “legum doctori”;145 the “castellaniam Radicophani,
Aquaependentis et Preceni” to Master Berard of Naples, subdeacon and chap-
lain of the pope, and professor of civil law;146 a benefice to Master Gervalcus
139 Auvray I, no. 61; Ch.U.P., I, no. 54. Cf. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science,
pp. 274–275, on these benefices for Michael Scot.
140 Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. 9, ep. 267, fol. 48v; Pressutti, II, no. 5445.
141 Cf. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science, pp. 18, 283; Grabmann, Forschungen
über die lateinischen Aristotelesübersetzungen des XIII Jahrhunderts (Beiträge zur
Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Band XVII, Heft 5–6), pp. 60–61. Honorius’
first letter for Michael Scot is dated 1224; the letter to Master Andrew, 1225. One may con-
jecture that Michael Scot recommended Andrew to the pope.
142 Examples are fairly numerous: to “Magistro Guidoni, physico, canonico Aretino,” Gregory
IX gave the right to have vicars to represent him in a church in the diocese of Lincoln,
which church he may retain along with his canonry in the church of Arezzo (Auvray, III, no.
5957); Innocent IV honored a monk, phisicus of the Queen of Navarre (Berger, I, no. 2847),
endowed with a plurality of benefices “Magistro Iohanni, clerico exonien [Exeter], in
phisicali scientia erudito” (Berger, I, no. 3527). For other examples see Berger, I, nos. 195
(proventus for “Magistro Pelagio canonico Zamoren,” [Zamora]), 448, 1021, 1855, 3933,
3982, 4047; ibid., II, nos. 458 (a prebend for Master “Beneventum de Perusio [Perugia],
curiae apostolicae physicum”), and 4762. But the canons in question were probably secu-
lar canons.
143 Pressutti, I, nos. 1303 and 1304; cf. Schulte, II, 75 ff.
144 Auvray, III, 5250; Schulte, II, 88–91, Gregory IX made Geoffrey subdeacon and chaplain,
and Innocent IV made him a cardinal-deacon in 1245 (Schulte, II, 88).
145 Berger, III, no. 7691; Innocent had already granted him the right to hold an extra benefice
in the province of Narbonne, ibid., III, 7304.
146 Berger, III, nos. 7146 and 7147. Innocent IV also ordered the Chapter and archbishop of
Tours to release Berard from his obligation of residence in the church of Tours (ibid., III,
206 CHAPTER 8
of Strasbourg, “in canonico et civili jure peritus;”147 and he confirmed Master

“Jacobus Vulturus, juris civilis professor, civis Salernitanus” (Salerno) in the of-
fice of prothojudicatus “in Salerno et per totum principatum Salerni et terram
Beneventanam,” which had been given to Jacobus by King Conrad.148
Many of these masters were provided with plural benefices. Michael Scot
is a notable example. Pluralities were contrary to canon law,149 but the popes
could readily grant dispensations to hold several benefices. Throughout the
thirteenth century the popes granted several dignities, churches, or benefices
to individual masters. One has only to glance through the papal registers to
find numerous cases.150
All the cases just cited of benefices for learned men are chosen examples of
papal patronage. They are only a small percent of the large number of masters,
who may or may not have been noted for learning, who were given benefices
or dignities of various kinds by the popes.151 As it is not necessary to multi-
ply examples, I refer to the papal registers, in which one cannot miss them.152
Their great number is evidence enough for the complaints of moralists against
masters and students who too obviously pursued ecclesiastical, yet very mate-
rial, remuneration for their long years of study.153 The evil—I assume for the
moment the point of view of conservative churchmen—had already been
condemned in the twelfth century by John of Salisbury.154 A sermon of the
same century informs us that they are treasurers of the demons, those theo-
logians who strive for several prebends and thus pile up more wealth than is
no. 7920). But the dispensation from residence was involved in nearly all cases of ben-
efices conferred on teachers or on masters engaged in the professions of civil or canon
law. The places mentioned are Radicofani, province of Siena; and Acquapendente and
Proceno, both in the province of Rome, district of Viterbo.
147 Ibid., I, no. 3800; Master Gervalcus enjoyed a plurality of benefices, for he was permitted
by the pope to receive other provisions; ibid., I, nos. 3601 and 3683.
148 Berger, III, 8117; cf. ibid., no. 8118, on a nephew of Jacobus Vulturus.
149 See the decrees of the Third Lateran Council, Labbé-Mansi, XXII, col. 225, cap. xii and xiv.
Cf. W. T. Waugh, “Archbishop Peckham and Pluralities,” Eng. Hist. Rev., XXVIII (1913), 625.
150 For Honorius III see Pressutti, nos. 1410, 2804, 2916, 2930, 2661, 3128, 3143, 3158, 3317, 3320,
3400, 3861, and so on; for Gregory IX, Auvray, nos. 604, 1119, 1904, 2296, 2440, 3176, 3634,
4118, 4044, 4406, 4543, 4805, 4900, 6083; for Innocent IV, Berger, nos. 1022, 1326, 1614, 1647,
3243, 3527, 3683, 4210. I have not attempted to list all the cases of pluralities, nor have I
gone through the Registers of later popes.
151 Cf. Rashdall, op. cit., II, ii, pp. 695 ff.
152 Cf. Baier, Päpstliche Provisionen für niedere Pfründen, for the papal system of giving
benefices.
153 Cf. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, pp. 47–49.
154 Policraticus, ed. Webb, lib. 7, cap. 19, p. 179.
necessary for books and normal expenses.155 Another sermon at the begin-
ning of the next century, by Robert Curzon or Simon of Tournai, points out
the moral that a master would more surely win eternal bliss if he died holding
only one benefice, and the example is cited of certain masters, including Peter
Cantor of Paris, who feared to die while holding several benefices.156 It was
recognized by John of Salisbury that the papacy, as the authority responsible,
was guilty of encouraging the growth of the evil.157 The conferring of plurali-
ties, continues John, was resulting in opprobrium to religion and doctrine, and
in inordinate ambition among the clergy. The rate for preference was won by
the swift, by the first to arrive at the Roman Court.158 At Paris a disputation
on pluralities was even held in 1235 before the bishop, and all the masters but
two—Philippe de Grève, the chancellor, and Master Arnulphus—decided that
the holding of two benefices was dangerous to the soul.159 It would be interest-
ing to know how many masters at this time held pluralities! Certainly the deci-
sion at Paris did not abate the evil.160
From the point of view of laymen, the indiscriminate abuse of plural ben-
efices, above all when they were conferred on foreigners, was an evil. But from
the point of view of the students and masters, benefices were highly desirable.
The policy of the popes was one of the causes, after the first fire of enthusiasm
for learning in the twelfth century, of the increase in the number of students
and consequently graduate masters. Not all students expected to teach. Many
might never have gone to the universities had they not expected, as graduates,
to receive benefices or dignities from the Church.
155 “Non enim sufficit eis una prebenda, et utinam contenti essent duabus, dummodo se
non extenderent ad plures! Nec sufficit eis habere libros et sufficientes expensas, nisi
thesauros congregent magnos, quos erogare nolunt etiam in tempore famis. Unde timeo
ne theologi ignorent cui congregent ea; imo, quod deterius est, ipsi speciales thesaurarii
daemonum efficiuntur; et etiam quidam claustrales.” Hauréau, Notices et extraits, III, 228.
This sermon was delivered at Paris, ibid., 229.
156 Hauréau, op. cit., I, 177.
157 Policraticus, ed. Webb, p. 171: “Non reprehendo clementiam Apostolicae Sedis sed hanc
indulgentiam eius Ecclesiae Dei non arbitror expedire.”
158 Policraticus, p. 171: “… unde religioni et doctrinae Christianae grave opprobrium nascitur,
quod sacerdotia vel ministeria ambitione potius et ad gratiam quam meritorum iudicio
deferuntur. Omnes itaque currunt, sed, cum eo ventum est, unus accipit bravium ille qui
in cursu ambitionis aliis velocior extitit et qui praecucurrit citius Petro et quovis discipu-
lorum Christi.”
159 Thomas de Cantimpré, Bonum universale de apibus (Douai, 1627), p. 67; Ch.U.P., I, no. 108
and notes. Cf. Guillaume d’Auvergne, Tractatus de collatione beneficiorum. Opera omnia
(Orleans, 1674), II, 248–260.
160 On pluralities see also Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, II, 695–697.
CHAPTER 9
The Papacy and the Students
Already we have several times had occasion to refer, in connection with the
patronage of masters, to the students as recipients of benefices. We have seen
that the students were protected by special privileges of jurisdiction, and to a
slight extent favored by the development of the theory of the gratuity of in-
struction. We must now consider how the popes directly aided them in the
solution of the problem of a livelihood in university towns, and how the papal
support in the form of the dispensation from residence reacted on the theory
of the studium generale.
§1 Ecclesiastical Benefices
A clerk ther was of Oxenford also,

That un-to logik hadde longe y-go.
As lene was his hors as is a rake,
And he was not right fat, I undertake;
But loked holwe, and ther-to soberly.
Ful thredbar was his overest courtepy;
For he had geten him yet no benefyce,
Ne was so worldly for to have offyce.
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Prologue.
The displacement of monasteries as centers of learning by the cathedral

schools marked an increase in the cost of learning. In the former the oblates
were supported by the monasteries, although the sons of laymen, if they at-
tended monastic schools, perhaps paid for their nourishment.1 Similarly in ca-
thedral schools the clerks of the cathedral were given their lodging and food,
1 Cf. Manacorda, I, i, pp. 108–112. G. Robert believes that no schools for laymen existed in mon-
asteries, Les écoles et l’enseignement de la théologie, pp. 16–20. For a contrary opinion, see D. U.
Berlière, “Les écoles abbatiales au moyen âge.—Écoles externe,” Revue Bénédictine, VI (1889),
499–511; and Specht, Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland, p. 151; and p. 156, ibid.,
for evidence of payment by lay-students in Germany; supra, chap. VIII, note 14.

The Papacy and the Students 209
while lay students were expected to pay for such necessities.2 When, however,
the cathedral school expanded, the number of lay students increased, whom
the chapter could not support. With the rise of groups of masters in the twelfth
century at Paris, Bologna, Montpellier, and Oxford who demanded fees from
their students, both clerks and lay students usually had to pay collectae to the
lecturers. More costly than the instruction itself was the life in the towns, in
which the crowding of students and teachers resulted in a stimulation of pric-
es, and consequently in the disputes between Town and Gown over the price
of food and house-rents.3
In general, the students of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in order to
meet the expenses of university life, depended on their parents or relatives or
on the Church for the means of pursuing learning.4 It is the latter source of
income that I wish here to discuss. While many students, particularly at the
secular universities, were laymen, many of them were ecclesiastics (even in
Italian universities there was a large number of beneficed ecclesiastics).5 Of
the students of the latter class many again were probably canons. Holding pre-
bends and benefices at the cathedrals, they owed service to their churches.6
When, therefore, they set out for school, the problem of absence and service
became important. The resolution of the difficulty came from the papacy, and
it was favorable to the students in the universities.
In aiding students the papacy was ostensibly desirous of advancing the
cause of learning. Papal munificence, said Honorius III, ought to reward
those who labor in the schools day and night in order to acquire the trea-
sure of knowledge.7 But a good character, as well as proficiency in ‘scholastic
2 Cf. Manacorda, I, ii, cap. ii.

3 See the student letters, e.g., in Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, pp. 11, 21. Cf. the univer-
sity prospectuses, e.g., that of Toulouse, Ch.U.P., I, no. 72. On rents, infra, pp. 227–234. For the
control of food-prices, supra, Chap. VI, p. 131.
4 “En effet, beaucoup d’entre eux sont venus à Paris ayant reçu le denier, les uns de leurs par-
ents, les autres de leurs églises …” From a sermon by Gautier de Château-Thiery, Chancellor
of Paris from 1246 to 1249; Histoire littéraire, XXVI, p. 392. Cf. G. Robert, Les écoles et
l’enseignement de la théologie, p. 37, for the early 12th century.
5 Rashdall estimates that about one half of the students of the German Nation at Bologna were
beneficed ecclesiastics; Universities, I, 126, note 1; cf. pp. 126 and 151. Perhaps the majority of
students from Italy itself were laymen.
6 Cf. Hinschius, System des kathol. Kirchenrechts, II, 364–69; Sägmüller, Lehrbuch des
Kirchenrechts, pp. 244 f.
7 Horoy, Honorii III opera omnia, II, p. 769, no. 260.
210 CHAPTER 9
disciplines,’ was considered desirable in a student honored with a benefice.8

Patronage of students by the papacy, still infrequent in the twelfth century,
had become so common in the thirteenth that Innocent IV could say that the
Apostolic See was accustomed to aid those who sweated in the acquisition of
the pearl of knowledge.9
Examples of students favored by the popes because of learning per se, in so
far as no mention is given of theology, begin about the middle of the twelfth
century, when the centers of learning soon to be known as universities were
rising to prominence. From that time there is a letter of Eugenius III recom-
mending a certain subdeacon, who was intending to study.10 Alexander III was
the first pope to be active in recommending students for ecclesiastic provi-
sions. He asked the abbot of Saint-Rémi at Rheims to provide for Walandus,
a clerk studying at Paris, by giving him a benefice for two years,11 and asked
the bishop of Soissons to favor Rainaldus, archdeacon of Salisbury, who was
planning to study at Paris.12 Similarly Innocent III demanded a prebend and
canonry for a Master Ph(ilip?), who “diutius desudavit in scholis, et laud-
abiliter profecit in eis,”13 and the promotion of “I. scholaris” to the dignity of
subdeacon.14 Such aids and promotions became more frequent during the
pontificates of Honorius III, Gregory IX, and Innocent IV. Of these, only typi-
cal cases need be cited: Honorius III commanded the bishop of Chichester to
make “B(lasius), insistens studiis litterarum,” a canon in his church, assigning
8 So Gregory IX, granting a benefice to “H. de Grai, clerico”: “Cum itaque … amore scientie
scolasticis disciplinis insistens laudabiliter profeceris in artibus, bonisque moribus te red-
das idoneum ad specialem gratiam obtinendam …” (Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 18, fol. 283; Auvray,
no. 3637). But ‘good morals’ is frequently used by the popes.
9 “Illos consuevit sedis apostolica beneficientie sue gratia prevenire qui libenter disciplinis
insudant scolasticis pro acquirenda scientie margarita …” (Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 346v,
ep. 274, an. 1246. In another letter Innocent says, “Cupientibus disciplinis scolasticis in-
formari libenter provisionis ecclesiastice gratiam impertimur, ut per eam studio avidius
insistentes consequantur facilius quod intendunt” (Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 376v, ep. 557,
an. 1247). Cf. Berger, I, nos. 2270 and 2554, for these letters.
10 Migne PL, CLXXX, 1441. At the same time patronage of masters noted for learning began;
the same pope honored Peter Lombard; supra, p. 203.
11 But Walandus had apparently been a clerk to the pope; thus he procured his benefice
the more easily. “Unde quia dilectus filius Valandus clericus noster inseparabili nobis et
firmissima devotione adhaesit, et tanta est litteratura et morum honestate ornatus …”
(Migne, CC, 539; Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 11519.).
12 Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no. 2; Migne, PL, CC, 299.
13 Migne, CCXV, 1021, “Episcopo et capitulo Morinensibus [Thérouanne].”
14 Migne, CCXV, 1250; Potthast, I, no. 3230. Nothing, however, is said about the nature of the
studies of “I”.
to him the usual “stallum in choro et locum in capitulo”;15 Gregory IX granted

to “H. de Grai, clerico,” a benefice having a cure of souls, which he might hold
along with one he already had, because of his diligent study in the liberal arts.16
In the theory of the scholastic philosophers and theologians the study of the
liberal arts was merely a foundation for theology, and all learning was valuable,
not for itself, but only in so far as it was of service to the Church and to God.17
Such was the theory also of the popes, who provided above all for students
in theology. More than the ordinary clerks of the Church, said Honorius III,
should those be given ecclesiastical benefices who would be useful because
of their learning to the churches from which they had their living.18 In the
words of Gregory IX, such clerks are not merely useful to the Church; they also
decorate it with their learning,19 and therefore should be promoted to holy
15 Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. 7, fol. 57, ep. 186; Pressutti, II; no. 4342. Honorius also provided a ben-
efice and canonry to P. Guillouduns, “qui, sicut dicitur, litterarum studio diutius insudavit
et laudabiliter noscitur profecisse” (Horcy, II, p. 239, no. 193; Pressutti, I, no. 302); and a
canonry for Raimundus, “clericus,” “qui’pro comparanda incomparabili scientie margarita
que donum Domini decorat, et labores multos subiit et expensas” (Pressutti, I, no. 343);
and a canonry for Aymericus de Fonte, “qui per annos plures in agro scholastico labo-
rando pretiosam ibidem scientie margaritam distractis fere omnibus bonis suis dicitur
comparasse” (Horoy II, p. 769, no. 260; Pressutti, I, no. 1348). These provisions seem to
be for men who have already completed their studies. But Honorius granted a canonry
to “Thom. canonico ecclesie sancte Maioris Marie de Urbe”, who was about to depart for
the schools, “profecturus ad scolas” (Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. 6, fol. 194, ep. 207; Pressutti,
no. 3769). Cf. Pressutti, no. 2237.
16 Supra, note 7. For other cases see, for Innocent III, Potthast I, no. 3289 (Migne, CCXV,
1304); for Honorius III, Pressutti, I, nos. 302 (Horoy, II, no. 193), 343, 1270, 1348, 2237, 3769,
and 4786 (in the last example the student was given three years’ absence); for Gregory IX,
Auvray, nos. 126, 2570, 3768; for Innocent IV, Berger, nos. 271, 509, 2270, 2554, 3079, 6690.
The words “scolasticis disciplinis” are used most frequently, and may apply to theology
or other studies as well as to the liberal arts. See Berger, I, no. 509; Innocent granted a
five year dispensation to the “thesaurario tripolitano”, with the permission to receive his
“redditus et proventus”, “integre percipere citra mare litterarum insistens studio”. In this
case theology is apparently intended.
17 Cf. Denifle, Universitäten, pp. 98–101.
18 “Etsi quilibet ascripti militiae clericali de Christi sunt patrimonio sustentandi, eis tamen
qui disciplinis litteralibus insistentes noscuntur laudabiliter profecisse, tanto debet ab
ecclesiarum praelatis libentius provideri, quanto iidem per hoc ecclesiis a quibus benefi-
cia obtinuerint, sciunt et possunt utilius deservire …” Horoy, II, 239, no. 193. The utility of
learning, then, was a legitimate motive of the papacy; it is seen also in the constant papal
recommendation to chapters that they elect learned men as bishops.
19 “Cupientibus in agro studij querere scientie margaritam eo libentius impertimur gratiam
et favorem, quo per eos ecclesia decentius decoratur …” Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 17, fol. 103v,
212 CHAPTER 9
orders.20 With slight variation Innocent IV likewise excuses the policy of pro-
viding for students who would later serve their churches.21
Naturally those who could best serve the Church were the choir-boys and
secular canons, and clerks in holy orders. As students they would study gram-
mar and theology. These subjects were to be taught in cathedral and metro-
politan churches, where the clerks of the churches, by the Third and Fourth
Lateran decrees, enjoyed free instruction.22 But the study of grammar and the-
ology was elementary in these schools at a time when the universities were
offering the higher learning and specialization in medicine, civil law, canon
law, and theology. Early on the papacy saw the need for ecclesiastics skilled
in canon law and theology,23 and the utility of sending clerks of promise to
the great centers of learning so that they would be more suitable for holy or-
ders after being trained as canon lawyers or theologians. But by the law of the
Church, holders of benefices had to reside at the churches in which they were
beneficed, so that they might the better perform their duties.24 The popes,
ep. 365 (Auvray, no. 1600). Again, “querentibus in agro studii scientie margaritam, que
domum Domini multipliciter decorat, libenter nos favorabiles exhibemus, et annuimus,
quantum cum Deo possumus, supplicationibus eorundem …” Monumenta Germaniae
historica, Epistolae selectae, ed. Rodenberg,” I, no. 732. Gregory also compares learning
with the sun: “Quia sicut sol orbem illuminat, sic ecclesiam Dei prudentia litterarum
illustrat, in litterarum scientia studere volentibus eo providendum esse dignius iudica-
mus, quo magis ecclesie perniciosum existeret si litteratos per quos resisteret fidei hos-
tibus non haberet” (Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 18, fol. 304v, ep. 152; Auvray, no. 3768). Cf. Auvray, I,
nos. 1548 and 1310.
20 “… eis clericis tamen qui dederunt operam studio litterarum ut ad hoc idonei habeantur
maxime in sacris ordinibus constitutis specialem debemus favorem …” Reg. Vat. Greg. IX,
17, fol. 20, ep. 86 (Auvray, no. 1287).
21 “Nos igitur cupientes et animarum obviare periculis et in agro studii querentibus scientie
margaritam, eo libentius impendere gratiam et favorem, quo per eos ecclesia decentius
decoratur …” Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 146. “Cupientes ut in sortem domini evocati moribus
et scientia informentur, affectum eorum qui honestatis intendentes cultui proficere in
studio desiderant litterarum, benivolo favore prosequimur, et ut obtatum sue affectionis
in hac parte consequatur effectum libenter eis apostolicum prout expedit auxilium im-
pertimur …” Bibl. Nat., MS. lat. 4039 (Reg. Inn. IV, an. VI), fol. 43, ep. 500 (Berger, no. 4490).
22 See the chapter on salaries, pp. 178–180.
23 In the thirteenth century the popes gave various bishops permission to retain in their
service two or more clerks (who were to hold one or more benefices) trained in canon law.
See Pressutti, nos. 3128, 3317, 3861; Auvray, nos. 3176, 3388, 3634, 4503, 4563, 4564.
24 The chapters sometimes opposed the absence of a canon for study in a university, on
the principle that “qui non laborat, non manducet”; Summa magistri Rolandi, ed. Thaner,
however, held that they were of more service to their churches if they re-
mained absent long enough to become proficient in theology; they could then
return to their churches to teach the clerks and poor students in grammar and
theology, or they could be advanced in orders.25
Dispensation from residence for students was granted before the uni-
versities as such were recognized.26 By the middle of the century one finds
papal confirmations of chapter statutes permitting canon-students to retain
their rents while away studying. In 1143 Innocent II confirmed a statute of the
Chapter of Sens that bestowed on canons absent for study or pilgrimage the
enjoyment of their rents.27Alexander III ratified several local statutes: the stat-
ute of the Chapter of Tortona, limiting canon-students to one-half their full
portion of grain and flour;28 of the Chapter of Modena, providing that no pre-
bends should be conferred on canons not residing at the church, unless they
were in the schools;29 of the Chapter of Amiens, granting to student-canons
their prebends “cum integritate”.30 Similar confirmations occur in the letters
p. 268; the passage cited is in the Incerti auctoris quaestiones, where the case of a canon
is discussed who went without the permission of his chapter to study theology at Paris.
So Honorius III: “Quum qui non laborat, non debet secundum apostolum manducare,”
therefore the bishop of Segovia should deprive absentee canons of their prebends, unless
they were absent for the study of theology. Reg. Vat. Hon. III, 10, fol. 101, ep. 133; cf. infra,
p. 215.
25 Cf. the bull Super speculam, Ch.U.P., I, no. 32. It had been found that there were not
enough masters to teach in the cathedral and metropolitan schools.
26 For early examples of the dispensation from residence see Leach, Educational Charters
and Documents, pp. 72, 146.
27 Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 8365.
28 Pflugk-Harttung, ed., Acta pontificum romanorum, III, no. 265; “medietatem integrae por-
tionis de frumento et siligine.” If the student received his whole portion during a given
year, he should receive nothing the following year.
29 Migne PL, CC, 1117: “nulli canonicorum extra morantium, nisi forte in scholis fuerit,
praebenda de caetero conferatur.” Cf. Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 12853.
30 Pflugk-Harttung, Acta, I, no. 266. Cf. the letter of Innocent IV, 1245, settling a difficulty
that arose in the Chapter of Amiens over the dispensation from residence given by the
statute confirmed by Alexander III; Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 146, ep. 236, (Berger, I, no.
986). But these canons must have the permission of the chapter to be absent. Still another
example is Alexander’s privilege granted to the archbishop of York, that he might deprive
all absentee-canons of their benefices, “nisi forte scholasticis disciplinis invigilaverint”
(Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 13879). Stephen Langton held that a canon at the schools could be
recalled by his bishop, if he were useful to the chapter (Powicke, Stephen Langton, p. 33).
214 CHAPTER 9
of Urban III,31 Celestine III,32 and Honorius III.33 Thus it is likely that a fairly
large number of chapters, on their own initiative, granted the dispensation
from residence to those of their canons who desired to study. I have noted
only such statutes as were confirmed by the papacy, but here the decree of the
bishop of Gerona may be cited. In 1173 he provided that to each canon absent
for study should be paid every month “unum optimum aureum boni auri.”34 At
the beginning of the thirteenth century Bishop Odo of Sully and the Chapter of
Paris also decided to permit the canons of St. Marcel wishing to study to absent
themselves.35
These statutes are not uniform in fixing the amount of the revenue student-
canons were to receive, and they do not specify the subjects that the absentees
should study, nor, in general, how long the canons might remain at school.36 It
remained for Honorius III to establish the rules for the chapters, although the
papal policy was already influential in stimulating the liberality of the chap-
ters.37 Observing that if the Lateran decrees of 1179 and 1215 were to be effec-
tive, ecclesiastics should be encouraged to study theology in order that they
might teach it in the metropolitan schools, and in 1219 he decreed that teachers
and clerks absent from their chapters for the study of theology should receive
31 Migne PL, CCII, 1485: the statute of the Chapter of Piacenza, “ut canonici ecclesiae ves-
trae dum honeste in scholis permanserint, tertiam partem proventionum omnium, quas
perciperent in ecclesia ipsa praesentes, debeant ad sustentationem suam habere.” It will
be noted that here is an intimation that only bona fide students should be entitled to
their prebends. More restrictions on absentee canons will appear at the beginning of the
thirteenth century; infra, pp. 215–217.
32 Pflugk-Harttung, Acta, III, p. 384; Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 16680.
33 Horoy, Hon. III opera omnia, III, p. 584, no. 119; Pressutti, no. 2825; for examples of the
dispensation decreed by local councils or churches see Labbé-Mansi, XXII, 845, cap. iv;
928; XXIII, 189, cap. v; 212, cap. ix; 217, cap. xxix; 320, 728; Gousset, Actes de la province ec-
clésiastique de Reims, II, 340; Freidberg, II, Decret.Greg.IX, lib. III, tit.iv, cap. 15.
34 La Fuente, I, 288, no. 1. This statute is referred to in a letter of Innocent IV of 1243, who asks
the archbishop of Tarragona to settle a dispute within the Chapter of Gerona. Berger, I, no.
271; Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 44v. ep. 270. Cf. Denifle, Univ., pp. 746–747, note 2.
35 Ch.U.P., I, no. 4. Cf. Powicke, Stephen Langton, p. 32. But sometimes a bishop was unwilling
to grant a leave of absence; Lea, A Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary, p. 81, lxvi, cites the
case of a canon who, granted the dispensation of five years by the pope, was disobedient
to the bishop; the penitentiary absolves him for this disobedience.
36 Moreover, at the end of the twelfth century it was held that a church, poor both in means
and in clerks serving it, did not have to support even student-canons; so the opinion of
Rufinus, cited by Stephen of Tournai, Summa, ed. Schulte, cap. 12, p. 57.
37 Cf. the words of Odo of Sully, bishop of Paris; “de speciali voluntate summi pontificis,” the
Chapter of Paris granted leave of absence to student-canons. Ch.U.P., I, no. 4, an.1205.
the proventus of their prebends and benefices for five years.38 This decretal,
the well-known Super speculam, at once became the legal basis for all dispen-
sations from residence to students in theology.39 But if local statutes of the
twelfth century had failed to specify theology, the papacy had already begun
to do so, though sometimes limiting the period of study to less than five years.
Thus Alexander III ordered the canons of the church of Notre-Dame at Blois
to turn over to canons “in sacra pagina studentium” the rents that had been
for the use of poor students studying at Paris.40 For a Master Theobald the
same pope requested of the Chapter of Tours a prebend for two years to sustain
him while studying (perhaps also teaching) theology at Paris.41 As a result of
the bull Super speculam theology and a term of five years were usually stated,
whether the provision came from the pope or from a chapter.42
Later papal intervention or confirmation of statutes strengthened the decre-
tal of 1219. Honorius III ordered the bishop of Segovia to deprive non-resident
38 “… ab ecclesiarum prelatis et capitulis ad theologice professionis studium aliqui docibiles

destinentur, … quibus si proprii proventus ecclesiastici non sufficiunt, predicti necessaria
subministrent; docentes vero in theologica facultate, dum in scolis docuerint, et studen-
tes in ipsa integre per annos quinque percipiant de licentia sedis apostolice proventus
prebendarum et beneficiorum suorum, non obstante aliqua contraria consuetudine vel
statuto, cum denario fraudari non debeant in vinea Domini operantes.” Ch.U.P., I, no. 32.
Cf. a gloss to this bull: “ ‘docibiles,’ id est, habiles ad docendum, et isti a capitulis debent
eligi ut mittantur, ut postmodum doceant …” MS. Borghes. lat. 237, fol. 181v.
39 Cf. Denifle, Univ., pp. 505 and 747.
40 Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 13792; cf. Auvray, “Notice sur le ms. Ottobonien. 2966,” Mélanges
d’archéologie et d’histoire, VI, p. 25.
41 Ch.U.P., I, Introd., no. 13, and note. Cf. Löwenfeld, Epist. Pont. Roman., nos. 334 and 335.
Alexander also ordered the Chapter of Soissons not to withhold from Peter, a canon of
Soissons, the fruits of his prebend, “quamdiu fuerit in servitio ecclesiae, vel episcopi, aut
in scolis …” (Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 11786; cf. also nos. 11773, 11780, and 11750, where it appears
that Peter was a clerk of Louis VII).
An example from Innocent III does not fix the term or the nature of study in a provi-
sion for a canon P., “donec erit in scolis” (Potthast, I, no. 3289).
42 But the time might vary; for example, Honorius III granted a three year dispensation
from residence to “Gerardo de Burgo canonico Xantonense”, “ad triennium in scolis”
(Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. 8, fol. 165, ep. 300; Pressutti, no. 4786); Innocent IV asked for a
Master Johannes, archpriest of Lucca, his proventus for one year, that he might study
theology at Milan. At Milan, however, there was no studium generale, which perhaps ex-
plains why the provision was not for five years. For the conception of a studium generale
and the dispensation from residence, see infra, pp. 220–223. Cf. Berger, I, no. 3079:
Innocent IV, “praeposito ecclesiae ‘Torhaltensis’ (Thourout), Tornacensis dioecesis, in-
dulget quod proventus … per biennium disciplinae scholasticae studio insistendo … per-
cipere valeat.”
216 CHAPTER 9
canons of his church of their benefices, unless the absentees were on business
at the Roman Court, or were students in the faculty of theology.43 Innocent IV
confirmed a statute of the church at Goslar, “ita tamen quod si predicti canon-
ici de vestra licentia ad studium se transferre voluerint, anti-quarum preben-
darum, dum in studio manserint, percipiant cum integritate proventus.”44 The
Chapter of Florence found that too much absence caused the Church to suffer
for lack of clerks, and it decided that no canon should receive a benefice or
prebend unless he were absent for the study of theology, “iuxta constitutionem
bone memorie Honorii pape”; this statute was confirmed by Innocent IV.45
Unfortunately, the dispensation from residence led to abuses of the privi-
lege. Some canons used the constitution of Honorius III as an excuse for ab-
sence when they had no serious intention of studying theology. We find the
bishop of Dol complaining to Gregory IX that certain clerks of his diocese, old
and “indocibiles,” deprived the Church of their “obsequio” by receiving their
rents while absent ostensibly to study theology. Gregory therefore ordered the
bishop to refuse leave of absence to all canons except those who were known
to be competent “docentes et docibiles.”46 Innocent IV, condemning the same
43 “Nolumus tamen quod per hoc clericis in Romana Curia existentibus aut etiam studenti-
bus in theologica facultate contra constitutionem a nobis ‘editam’ super hoc preiudicium
generetur.” Reg. Vat. Hon. III, 10, fol. 101, ep. 133 (Pressutti, II, noi 5755). Gregory IX reaf-
firmed this injunction in 1234 in letters to the bishop of Segovia, “exceptis clericis in ipsius
papae et cardinalium servitio apud sedem apostolicam existentibus vel studentibus in
theologica facultate” (Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 17, fol. 193v, ep. 152; Auvray, I, no. 2006), and to the
bishops of Osma and Cuenca. (Reg. Vat. 17, fol. 194v, ep. 161; Auvray, I, no. 2015).
44 Berger, II, no. 5080.
45 “Desiderantes cultum divini nominis in ecclesiis non minui sed augeri …,” the pope con-
firms the statute, “ut nullus eiusdem ecclesie canonicus aliquid beneficium percipiat
vel prebendam nisi dum studio theologie, iuxta constitutionem bone memorie Honorii
papae predecessoris nostri super hoc editam, forsitan institerit,” or unless absent by per-
mission of the chapter. Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 23, fol. 62v, ep. 484; Berger, III, 7320.
46 “… Episcopo Dolensi. Significasti nobis quod nonnulli clerici tue civitatis et diocesis
senes et alias indocibiles, se ad theologice facultatis studium transferentes, ab eccle-
siarum suarum obsequio pro sua se subtrahunt voluntate, beneficiorum suorum nichilo-
minus integre percipiendo proventus, pretextu constitutionis a bone memorie Honorio
papa … promulgate, qua statuit ab ecclesiarum prelatis et capitulis ad theologice facul-
tatis studium aliqui docibiles destinentur,” with rents for teachers and students for five
years. Therefore, at the request of the bishop, “mandamus quatenus, docentes et doci-
biles qui ad hoc idonei dinoscuntur, in facultate predicta beneficiatos in tua civitate vel
diocesi eadem indulgentia gaudere permittens, reliquos ad debitam residentiam in ipsis
ecclesiis faciendam, occasione hujusmodi non obstante, per subtractionem proventuum
compellas.” Auvray, I, no. 1454. Cf. Rashdall, II, ii, p. 696.
abuse, in a general letter to the archbishops in France required that the chap-
ters should permit absence for study only to canons who were “dociles” and
had “animum ad studendum.”47 From another letter of Innocent IV we learn
that other canons, pretending to study theology, were actually enrolled in
other faculties, which was a violation of the constitution of 1219;48 at any rate
they did not go to a studium generale, but rather elsewhere to live dissolutely.49
Other canons again, did not complete the term of five years at school, and yet
remained absent from their churches while enjoying their revenues;50 or they
might refuse to return to their churches during periods of vacation.51
47 “… mandamus quatinus singuli in vestris civitatibus et diocesibus sollicite providere cu-
retis, ut nullis deinceps in scolis prebendarum seu beneficiorum suorum proventus, nisi
qui … obtenta licentia [of their chapters] sintque dociles et habeant animum ad studen-
tum.” Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, an. II, no. 660; Curiales, no. 12, fol. 608 (Berger, I, no. 1366).
48 “Priori de Leproso Bituricensis diocesis … Cum sicut accepimus quidam ecclesie tue ca
nonici fingentes ad theologice facultatis studium transferre, licet dociles non existant,
nec habeant animum ad studendum, et in aliis facultatibus principaliter studeant,” and
who receive their rents by the constitution of Honorius III, “et ob hoc eadem eccle-
sia debitis obsequiis defraudetur.” Such canons should be recalled. Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21,
fol. 478, ep. 357: Berger, no. 3407.
49 Cf. the letter of Alexander IV, Fournier, Statuts et privileges, II, no. 1558, “ad loca sollemp-
nis studii”; canons, moreover, attending Dominican or Franciscan schools, could not use
the privilege of dispensation from residence.
50 ln a sermon Gilbert of Tournai tells students not to be like those “qui in hyeme sunt … in
scolis et in estate recedunt. Alii vagando in agros mutant de scolis ad scolas transeunt,
numquam libros integros vel certas audiunt lectiones. Immo aliqui tam ut scolares re-
putentur et redditus quos ab ecclesiis debitis defraudant officiis hac occasione recipiant,
vel [once or twice] in ebdomada scolas intrant.” MS. Borghes. lat. 217, fol. 57v.
51 See the following letters of Innocent IV: to the bishop of Senlis, concerning canons who
refused to return from school “infra tempus studii” (Berger, I, no. 932); to the bishop of
Amiens, permitting him to make less harsh a statute of the chapter ordering canon-
students to reside at the church if absent from school (Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 146, ep. 236;
Berger, I, no. 986; cf. Hauréau, Quelques lettres, p. 30). It should be noted that dispensation
from residence required the permission of the chapters; the phrase “obtenta licentia” is
usual in the papal letters; cf. also the letter of Innocent IV to the archbishop of Rouen,
commanding him to deprive of their rents canons absent without permission to study
at Paris or elsewhere (Berger, I, no. 1777). Sometimes, indeed, a bishop might refuse to let
canons absent themselves to study theology, or demand a fee from them for the license
to leave. Was such a bishop guilty of simony, asks Raymond of Peñafort? No, but his gain
is “turpe lucrum”; “Quid de episcopo qui clerico suo noluit dare licentiam eundi ad scolas
nisi data sibi primo pecunia? Respondo cum Laurentio, stricte non est symonia, sed turpe
lucrum” (Summa de poenitentia, De magistris; MS. Casanaten. lat. 1094, fol. 8). Cf. Stephen
of Tournai, Summa, ed. Schulte, p. 57.
218 CHAPTER 9
Notwithstanding such violations of the spirit and of the letter of the provi-
sion of Honorius III, the papacy, rather than rescind the privilege, preferred
by the regulation of the chapter statutes to attempt the correction of the
abuses. The popes went still further in their policy of encouraging the study
of theology in that they occasionally granted to individuals, usually officials
in the diocese, the dispensation from residence. Honorius III asked the abbot
of Sainte-Geneviève to give to Richard of York, desiring to study theology, his
rents.52 Gregory IX granted to a certain W. the five year dispensation to study
theology at Paris,53 and the same privilege to the provost of Furnes, who also
wished to study at Paris, provided he appointed a vicar as deacon in his place.54
Innocent IV was also an encourager of absence for the study of theology.55
Whether, therefore, by special dispensation given to individuals, by confir-
mation of chapter statutes already in existence, or by a general provision as in
the Super speculam, the papacy encouraged the study of theology, and con-
sequently, as we shall see, the development of faculties of theology in certain
universities. Thus the papal theory of learning, that it should serve the Church,
was in practice carried out. But if theology was the most important subject for
canons and other ecclesiastics, other studies were sometimes encouraged by
the popes. Canon law, closely allied to theology, and from the practical point
of view more important for the Church as an institution, received attention in
the form of papal letters granting dispensation from residence to ecclesiastics
engaged in its study. That examples of this kind are not numerous is no doubt
owing to the fact that canon law was ‘lucrative’ and no particular encourage-
ment was needed to attract clerks to it. Gregory IX granted the five-year dis-
pensation from residence to a certain Antoninus, a canon at Piacenza, for the
study of canon law;56 and Innocent IV favored with a like dispensation, but
52 Ch.U.P., I, no. 46; Pressutti, II, no. 4154, Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, II, Decret. Greg.
IX, lib. III, tit. V, c. 32 (here it is Master N. instead of Richard).
53 To the dean and chapter “Sicliniensibus”; the special dispensation was necessary because
a statute of that church provided that no one could leave it without the permission of the
chapter; evidently leave of absence had not been given to W., and papal intervention was
necessary (Auvray, I; no. 1548; cf. ibid., I, no. 1310, for an earlier letter of the pope to this
chapter).
54 Auvray, II, no. 2950. For other examples from the letters of Gregory IX see Auvray I,
no. 982 (Reg. Vat. 16, fol. 57, ep. 188), and III, no. 4875 (this letter is not a dispensation from
residence, but a special dignity for Master Richard of Amiens, studying theology at Paris).
55 See Berger, nos. 173 (four years of study), 1914, 1918, 2162 (one year), 3782, and 7258.
56 “Cum igitur sicut ex parte tua fuit propositum coram nobis iuris canonici studio desideres
insudare, … tibi … indulgemus, ut fructus prebende, quam in ecclesia Sancti Antonini
de Placentia te habere proponis, integre usque ad quinquennium percipere valeas
for three years only, Berardus, rector of the church of Magny, in the diocese
of Nevers.57
In their desire to encourage learning the popes naturally favored the knowl-
edge suitable to churchmen. Yet even civil law, prohibited by the papacy itself
to canons, regular monks, and priests, was sometimes permitted by special dis-
pensation.58 Honorius III released from excommunication a canon guilty of
studying civil law.59 The same pope conferred on the Cardinal-Legate Romano
the right of “dispensandi … cum illis qui contra prohibitionem apostolicam
secularum legum studio vacaverint,”60 and Gregory IX renewed the privilege.61
An excuse generally advanced was that an acquaintance with civil law was nec-
essary for a thorough mastery of canon law, and this pretext was recognized by
Honorius III when he removed the obstacle of civil law to advancement in the
Church from a canon regular who had studied at Bologna.62 Innocent IV even
granted a benefice to “Guidoni de Verneto, clerico,” a student in canon and civil
law at Paris,63 and a benefice likewise to Master Hugo, a canon at Dunkeld,
studying canon and civil law.64 Nicholas, rector of a church at Novo, in the
diocese of Turin, was honored with a five year dispensation from residence to
study in civil law, “constitutione bone memorie Honorii pape predecessoris
nostri super hoc edita non obstante.”65 More than a century later Gregory XI
granted to all ecclesiastical persons studying canon and civil law the right to
receive their revenues for five years.66
huiusmodi studio insistendo, exceptis dumtaxat cotidianis distributionibus …” Reg. Vat.

Greg. IX, 17, fol. 163v, ep. 365 (Auvray, I, no. 1600).
57 Berger, I, no. 2332. Innocent also granted the five years to a Master Nicolas, who was study-
ing both in canon law and in theology (Berger, III, no. 7258; Reg. Vat. 23, fol. 54v, ep. 428).
58 Ch.U.P., I, no. 32, Super speculam.
59 Horoy, III, p. 563, no. 91, “G. Bertulli Magalonensi (Maguelone) canonico.” The canon had
probably been studying at Montpellier; but his chief offense seems to have been not the
mere study of civil law, but his attempt to escape notice by not wearing the “regularem
habitum”.
60 Reg. Vat. Hon. III, lib. 9, fol. 34, ep. 179.
61 Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 17, fol. 89v, ep. 55; Auvray, I, no. 239; the study of medicine is included.
62 Reg. Vat. Hon. III, 2, fol. 183 (vol. 9), ep. 762 (Pressuiti, I, no. 926): “B. regulari canonico
Nemausensi (Nimes) … Presentata … nobis ex parte tua petitio continebat quod cum
Bononie diu decretorum studiis insudesses, ut per notitiam juris civilis plenius proficere
in canonico iure valeres, scolas legum per aliquantulum temporis frequentasti.”
63 Berger, I, no. 2525.
64 Master Hugo already had benefices; Theiner, Monumenta Hibern., p. 44, no. 115 (Berger, I,
no. 1397).
65 Bibliothèque Nat., MS. lat. 4039, Reg. Inn. IV, an. 6, fol. 43, ep. 500 (Berger, II, no. 4490).
66 Chartularium Studii Bononiensis, II, 241, no. CCXIV.
220 CHAPTER 9
Although these few examples exist of papal encouragement of students

in canon and civil law, the papacy did not in the thirteenth century make a
sweeping provision for them as it did for theologians. The bull Super speculam
of Honorius III became the law of the Church on the question of dispensation
from residence to students in theology; but as it did not define the nature of
the faculty of theology to which clerks should go, the canonists found it nec-
essary to interpret its application. The interpretation that developed resulted
partly from the abuse of the privilege by canons who did not enter a higher
faculty of theology, and partly from the implication of the Super speculam,
which obviously intended that the canons should study in a faculty of theol-
ogy in a university; and that university was Paris, which alone in 1219 possessed
a renowned faculty of theology. It was not, however, until towards the middle
of the century that the theory was fully recognized that the dispensation was
valid only for ecclesiastics in the studia generalia.67 The growth of this inter-
pretation can be traced from the opinions of the canonists in their glosses to
the bull of Innocent III, Tue fraternitatis. In this bull, addressed to the bishop of
Auxerre, Innocent III explains that the privilege of non-residence should not
be granted to canons who “se ad villas transferunt vel castella in quibus nullum
est vel minus competens studiorum exercitium.”68 While Tancred in his gloss
to the Super speculam states only that it applied to all students in theology,
another glossator, commenting about the same time on the provision in the
bull relating to civil law, seems to think that a “meliore studium” was intended
by the pope.69 Glossators of the Decretals of Gregory IX do not leave us long
in doubt. A decretalist states expressly, referring to the bull of Gregory IX that
commanded the University of Bologna to use his collection of decretals, that
those who study “in castris” should not have rents or benefices by any privilege
67 On the origin and meaning of studium generale see Denifle, Univ., pp. 2–19. Denifle
(p. 2) finds the first use of studium generale in statutes of 1233–34, where it is applied to
the schools at Vercelli. I found another example of its use in 1233, in a statute decreed by
the archbishop of Tours for the church of Brieuc; here it is question of the residence duty
of canons, who are required to reside for six months in the church, “vel in schola ubi sit
studium generale.” Labbé-Mansi, XXIII, 320.
68 Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici, II, Decret. Greg. IX, lib. III, tit. iv, c. 12.
69 Tancred says, “Hodie generaliter concessum est omnibus docentibus et studentibus in
theologia, ut integraliter percipiant omnes redditus suos usque ad quinquennium …”
Then follows immediately after the gloss to the provision on civil law: “In regiis civitati-
bus, non in parvis, iura docenda sunt … Licet indeterminate dixerit studium, tamen intel-
ligendum est de meliori studio” (MS. Borghes. lat. 264; MS. Vat. lat. 1377, fol. 221v). It is safe
to conclude that a “meliore studium” was also understood for ecclesiastical students.
conferred on canon-students.70 A similar opinion is stated in glosses to the bull

of Innocent III by Master Vincentius and Master Johannes Andrea at the end
of the century,71 and Henry of Susa clinches the theory that the privilege of
Honorius III applied only to canons studying in a studium generale.72
It is possible to trace the development of this interpretation of the Super
speculam in the letters of the popes. If the Super speculam failed to name Paris
as the studium for ecclesiastics, it evidently intended, as I have remarked, that
they should go there for the study of theology. Moreover, papal letters had al-
ready been naming Paris in granting the dispensation or benefices to students.
Alexander III ordered a chapter of canons at Blois to give to canons study-
ing in theology at Paris ecclesiastical rents.73 In the letters of Gregory IX and
Innocent IV one finds the idea developing that canons should go to Paris or
another studium generale, else their dispensation from residence would not
be valid. Thus Gregory IX, giving the five year dispensation to the provost
of the church of Furnes, recommends as the place of study Paris or some
other place “ubi … frequens esset studium.”74 The frequent use of the phrase
70 “Et ita non in castris; quum si in castris studeant, beneficia ex privilegio sibi concessa
occasione studii habere non debent; de clericis non residentibus, tue fraternitatis.” The
meaning is clear from what follows: “omnes enim tenentur ad observationem huius com-
pilationis; sed propter studium, quod est Bononie communis et generalis precipue in
iure utroque et ibi quasi de omnibus partibus mundi sunt studentes, ideo potius Bononie
diriguntur” (MS. Casanaten. lat. 223, fol. 1). Cf. Decretal. Greg. IX (ed. of 1494), fol. 2.
71 Magistri Vincentii tractatus super decretalibus Gregorii IX: “Cap. ‘Tue fraternitatis.’ Casus,
canonici quibus est indultum ut habeant fructus prebendarum suarum in studio. Non
ideo debent illos habere, si se transferant ad castella vel villas, in quibus studia tepida
sunt” (MS. Casanaten. lat. 1094, fol. 131v.); and Johannes Andrea, on the same decretal:
“privilegatus fructus prebendarum percipiat in absentia causa studii. Studens in studio
particulari privilegio non utetur.” MS. Casanaten. lat. 223, fol. 177v.
72 “Si cui indultum fuerit, ut in studio fructus suarum percipiat prebendarum, de studio ge
nerali intelligendum est, non de studio speciali alicuius castri vel ville, cum hoc in fraude
fiat,” Summa super titulis decretalium, De Magistris (cited by Denifle, Univ., p. 19, note 94).
73 Jaffé-Löwenfeld, no. 13792; supra, note 40. For other examples specifying Paris, supra,
notes 51 and 54.
74 The bishop and chapter had provided that a praepositus of the church might be absent
for three years, “ita tamen quod, si studere vellet et foret docilis, posset Parisius, vel in
alio loco majori spatio non distante, ubi provisionem non haberet et frequens esset sta-
dium … per triennium in studio commorari …” Gregory extended the term of study to
five years. Auvray, II, no. 2950. A letter of Innocent IV reveals that the praepositus did
not proceed to study theology; for his negligence, and for his failure to enter orders, the
praepositus is reprimanded. Berger, I, no. 181.
222 CHAPTER 9
“ad theologice facultatis studium”75 does not carry with it the idea of a studium
generale, for there might be faculties in studia particularia.76 Since, however,
most of the papal letters on the dispensation from residence are directed to
chapters and individuals in France, and since Paris is mentioned more often
than any other university, the popes definitely had in mind the University of
Paris, the most famous theological school in Europe. It was the policy and the
practice of the popes in providing for students in theology and favoring par-
ticularly those who planned to study at Paris, which influenced the develop-
ment of the theory that benefices could be given only to students in a studium
generale. By the time of Innocent IV and Alexander IV the papacy fully ac-
cepted the university interpretation of the Super speculam. This is evident in
a letter of Innocent IV to the students and doctors at Narbonne, bestowing
on the students the same privileges and immunities that “scolares in studiis
generalibus commorantes” enjoyed in receiving their ecclesiastical revenues.77
In a letter to the dean and chapter at Rheims, Alexander IV laments that many
canons, given the dispensation from residence, did not go to places of “sol-
lempnis studii,” but went instead to the schools of Dominicans or Franciscans.78
The pope goes on to relate how the abbot of Ile-Barbare, in the diocese of Lyon,
had provided “Petrus cantor” with rents for five years for studying theology.
This Peter Cantor, however, did not wish to study at “Parisius vel in alio loco
studii generalis,” but preferred to learn theology in the church where he was
beneficed. The pope forbade Peter to receive his rents unless he should study
at Rheims or Paris, or at any other place where there was a studium generale
in theology.79 In this letter, moreover, Alexander states that it was the policy of
the papacy to grant the dispensation from residence to students in theology,
and even on occasion (he implies) to ecclesiastics studying in other subjects.80
Obviously the words “in scolis” mean the studia generalia. Thus, by the middle
of the century the conception of the studium generale had become almost in-
separable from the practice of dispensations from residence for canons,81 and
the papacy might declare a school to be a studium generale in order to enable
75 Supra, notes 38, 43, 46, 48; other examples are numerous.
76 See Chap. VIII, p. 181.
77 Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 393v, ep. 719; Berger, I, no. 2717; Fournier, II, no. 1564.
79 Ibid., II, no. 1558. But Rheims was probably itself not a studium generale, although
Alexander IV seems to place it on a level with Paris; cf. Denifle, Universitäten, pp. 225–227.
80 “… frequenter hiis quos dociles credimus et habere animum ad studendum, mandamus
in scolis, et maxime theologice facultatis, proventus suos ecclesiasticos exhiberi, vel quod
ipsos percipere valeant per nostras litteras indulgemus.” Fournier, loc. cit.
81 Cf. Rashdall, II, i, 4–6; I, p. 11; Denifle, Univ., p. 793.
its beneficed students to obtain the dispensation from residence. Such was the
purpose of Innocent IV when he founded in 1244 or 1245 the University of the
Roman Court.82 A weak studium, moreover, could be invigorated by the grant
of the privilege, as in the case of Narbonne.83
The popes were anxious to encourage the study of theology in order that the
Church might have more capable priests and prelates, and that the cathedral
schools might not lack of teachers. Canons were to be sent to the renowned
schools of theology, that is, to a faculty of theology in a university or studium
generale. This policy had its origin in local chapter statutes of the twelfth cen-
tury, and was perfected in the Super speculam and in the canonist and papal
interpretation of that bull. Many benefices, it is true, were granted to students
“in scolasticis disciplinis,” but the liberal arts were a foundation for theology.
Only a few, so far as the extant papal letters reveal, were given to students in
canon law, and still fewer in civil law. It was, in short, theology that was par-
ticularly favored.
The universities, therefore, that profited from the presence of ecclesiastical-
ly beneficed students were those above all in which there was a faculty of the-
ology. In the thirteenth century, of the universities under direct ecclesiastical
supervision only Paris, Toulouse, Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of the
Roman Court had faculties of theology, and of these Paris was far and beyond
the most famous for higher theological training. While canon-students un-
doubtedly enjoyed the dispensation from residence while studying at Toulouse
or Oxford, and even at Narbonne for a short time, it was Paris in particular that
benefited from the papal legislation in favor of theologians. As a result, the
prestige of Paris, already great by the beginning of the thirteenth century, was
further enhanced, and its importance as a theological school increased.
Thus, the evident desire of the papacy to encourage the learning that was
useful to the Church had a considerable effect on the growth of theological
schools. The universities in general, however, in all faculties also experienced
an increase in the number of students enrolled in the thirteenth century as a
result of the papal policy of providing not only for theological students, but for
many other students as well. Above I have pointed out how the popes, moved
by the desire to encourage learning, granted benefices to individuals studying
in the arts, theology, canon and even civil law. In most cases of the kind the fact
of special ability or serious intent to study is emphasized by the papal letters.
But the popes were not always careful to require studiousness as a recommen-
dation for the applicant for a provision, except as a matter of formality. Hence
82 Rashdall, II, i, 28, note 1.

83 Supra, pp. 182, 222.
224 CHAPTER 9
many persons, called scholares, obtained favors not only as students but also
as clerks of eminent ecclesiastics or secular princes, or as relatives of men who
had influence at Rome.84 Nevertheless they were at one time or another stu-
dents, and as such swelled the enrollment at the universities. Indirectly, there-
fore, this complaisance of the papacy, although without the intent to aid the
growth of the studia generalia, played its part in the history of the mediaeval
universities.
Relatives, to repeat, of high ecclesiastics,85 clerks of lay lords and princes,86
sons of nobles,87 and any clerk who had sufficient influence through the
84 On the system of papal provisions, see, for a general discussion, Baier, Päpstliche
Provisionen für niedere Pfründen.
85 Innocent III commanded the Chapter of Nevers to pay in full the fruits of a prebend
to “P. puero concanonico nepoti Turritani episcopi … donec erit in scolis” (Potthast, I,
no. 3289). Honorius III granted a canonry to “B. scolari nepoti Magistri Obizonis nota-
rii et subdiaconi” of the pope (Pressutti, I, no. 182); Gregory IX, a benefice for Deodatus,
“disciplinis scolasticis insudante,” a nephew of a papal chaplain (Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 18,
fol. 156, ep. 81; Auvray, II, no. 3153); cf. Auvray, I, no. 1417; for examples from Innocent IV,
see Berger, nos. 3374, 4461, 4615, 5411, 6749, 7665. Cardinals also frequently provided for
students; for example, in the twelfth century Pierre de Celles asked of Peter, Cardinal
of St. Chrysogono (1173–79), “gratiam, non pecuniam,” for a student (Ch.U.P., I, Introd.,
no. 23); cf. Baier, Päpstliche Provisionen, p. 10.
86 For example, Honorius III gave to Master “Petrus Prepositus”, rector of a church in the
diocese of Caen, the right to appoint a vicar, “dum in scolis vel servitis B(erengariae)
quondam Anglorum reginae fuerit” (Pressutti, I, no. 1270). Gregory IX, to “Willelmo cano-
nico ecclesie monasterii Villaris, clerico karissimi in Christo filii nostri regis Francorum
illustris”, grants the privilege of having a vicar to represent him in the “ecclesia de Reulle”,
“sive Willelmus resideat in eadem ecclesia seu in ecclesia Baiocense sive insistat obse-
quiis regis predicti vel scolasticis disciplinis” (Reg. Vat. Greg. IX, 18, fol. 229, ep. 365; cf. ibid.,
ep. 366 and 367; Auvray, II, nos. 3506, 3507, 3508). Innocent IV gave a church to “Johanni,
scholari Wratislaviensi, obtentu Henrici ducis Zlesiae” (Berger, III, no. 8165), and the dis-
pensation from residence to Guarnerus, papal subdeacon, and clerk of the countess of
Montfort, “immorando obsequiis comitissae vel in scholis” (Berger, I, no. 2570). Cf. Baier,
p. 79, for other examples.
87 Honorius III provides a prebend for “A., clerico, nato nobilis viri Andreae Miliari civis
Romani, cuius fidem et devotionem in multis sumus experti, disciplinis scholasticis in-
sistenti” (Pressutti, i, no. 84). Innocent IV, writing to the king of Castile and Leon, ex-
cused himself for not promoting “Ph.”, a son of the king and abbot “secularis ecclesie” of
Vallodolid, on the ground that the said Ph. “desudet Parisius scientie litterarum” and is
proficient in his studies (Reg. Vat. Inn. IV, 21, fol. 339v, ep. 220; Berger, I, no. 2216). Innocent
granted a prebend to “W., preposito ecclesie Furnensis, Morinensis diocesis”: “Non est
mirum si apostolice sedis consueta benignitas erga illos filios tanquam mater honorificata
per ipsus uberius gratiam sue liberalitatis extendit, qui honestate morum conversatione
ecclesiastics at the Roman Court, procured provisions by papal mandates to

local churches. Moreover, church politics, as reflected in the quarrel between
Thomas à Becket and Henry II88 and in the struggle between Innocent IV and
Frederick II, is reflected in the provisions for students.89
Undoubtedly many of these provisions were owing not so much to the learn-
ing of the recipients as to the influence that they enjoyed. Perhaps it was partly
the failure of the papacy to consider properly the merits of individual students
in making provisions that aroused the criticism of conservative ecclesiastics.
But the chief cause of criticism was the fact that most of the students beneficed
were of the secular clergy, whereas the reformers were usually of the regular
clergy (for example, St. Bernard, Barthélemy of Tours, and Guillaume de Lexi,
whose sermons I cite below) and may have been jealous of the worldliness of
the former.90 In the twelfth century St. Bernard condemned the practice of
providing for immature scholars,91 and John of Salisbury blamed the papacy
for encouraging the rush for benefices and preferments.92 The sermons of the
thirteenth century are particularly rich in condemnations of the race for provi-
sions, which was certainly encouraged by the popes.93 Phillippe (de Grève?),
laudabili ac nobilitate generis adornantur. Cum igitur tibi qui de nobilibus es ortus natali-
bus, … et morandi in scolis per quinquennium et retinendi una cum prepositura tua quo
adiuxeris unam prebendam … concesserimus … potestatem” (Reg. Vat. 21, fol. 30v, ep. 181;
Berger, I, no. 181; cf. Berger, II, no. 2950). Other examples are numerous; see Berger, nos.
2625, 3663, 3676, 4109, 4640 (a benefice for “Mattheo scolare, nato Oddonis Brancaleonis
junioris”), and 7703.
In the Registers of Gregory IX and Innocent IV one finds a large number of provi-
sions made for sons, called “scolares”, of citizens of Rome and Genoa, and of other Italian
towns: Gregory IX, for “P. scolari nato Sixti civis Romani” (Ch.U.P., I, no. 103); for Innocent
IV, see Berger, nos. 1419, 2085, 2263 2626, 3075, 3095, 3152, 3249, 3269, 3503, 3516, 3663, 3678,
3833, 3878, 3900, 4042, 4273, 4461, 4563, 4611, 5101, 5430–5434, 6750, 7665, 7703, 8292.
88 Gilbert, a nephew of St. Thomas, received support as a student at Bologna (Jaffé-
Löwenfeld, no. 11420; cf. Baier, p. 71).
89 For example, Innocent provided for “Eidium … [discipli-]nis Bononie scolasticis in-
sistentem,” who had apparently been exiled “propter fau[tores Frederici quondam
Imperatoris]?” (Berger, II, nos. 4124 and 4128); and for the expenses of a monk, Artusius,
studying at Bologna, who fled from his monastery “pro timore Ezelini” (Berger, I, no. 798);
see also Berger, I, no. 2625, a provision of a canonry for “Tisone scholari”, who had been
despoiled of his goods by the adherents of Frederick.
90 Hauréau, IV, 28; IV, 62.
91 Migne, PL, CLXXXII, Col. 826.
92 See Chap. VIII, p. 207.
93 On the evidence from the sermons, cf. Haskins, “Paris in the Sermons,” American Historical
Review, X (1904), pp. 10f. On the papal encouragement, cf. the words of Guillaume de
226 CHAPTER 9
chancellor of the University of Paris, censured the conferring of ecclesiastical

dignities on clerks who were young and lacking in learning and morals, and
who tarried in the schools on the pretense of equipping themselves for pre-
ferment.94 Highly culpable was the student who studied in order to become a
bishop;95 the student who, not studying for the sake of learning itself and “con-
versatio honesta,” strove rather to rise in the world and dominate the clergy;96
or the less ambitious one who had a greater appetite for prebends than for
knowledge.97 To obtain a prebend, says Master Gilbert de Breban ironically, a
student need only imitate the fox while posing before the world as devout and
studious.98 Robert of Sorbon, however, commended the clerk who could apply
himself so well that he would be sure of remembering the word on which hung
his chance for obtaining a prebend, and condemned students who were too
lazy to make the effort.99 Whatever the attitude of churchmen, the papacy
continued to grant the dispensation from residence. In 1414–1418 the Council
of Constance even decreed that an absence of seven years should be granted
to ecclesiastical students in the studia generalia.100
Discounting, as one must, the exaggeration in the sermons, one sees never-
theless that from the point of view of the reformers too many students were
less interested in learning than in advancement. This situation was a natural
result of the demand for learned men in holy orders, or for experts in canon
law, and in principle the papacy was justified in trying to improve the Church
by patronizing students who were later to be preferred. The papal policy thus
Lexi: “Ita multi clerici sudant et laborant in artibus et decretis, currunt Roman pro aliqua
praebenda habenda, et statim ut habent moriuntur.” Hauréau, IV, p. 62.
94 “… et interim qui aetatem, et qui sensum non habet dilationem impetrat donec per studi-
um in scolis efficiatur magis idoneus; et sic interim ecclesia mercenariis committitur …”
(Hauréau, Notices et extraits, VI, p. 58).
95 The story is related in a sermon by Barthélemy of Tours of such a student, who “tantum
studuerat ut esset episcopus”, that he was found “in lecto suo mortuus” (Hauŕau, IV, p. 37).
96 Says Jean de Montlhéry, “Quot sunt hodie qui cruciant se in studio Parisius et Bononiae
non quomodo possint bene et honeste conversari, sed quomodo possint dominari in
clero et honorari in mundo!” Hauréau, IV, p. 38; Histoire littéraire, XXVI, p. 436; and ibid., a
sermon of Cardinal Eudes de Châteauroux.
97 Sermon of Barthélemy of Tours: “Certa multi plus hodie volunt quiescere quam minis-
trare, plus appetunt praebendas quam scientiam …” (Hauréau, IV, 28).
98 “Quaerit aliquis scolaris a magistro aliquo in theologia: ‘Magister, quomodo unam bonam
praebendam habere potero?’ Forte diceret magister: ‘Pone capucium tuum ex trans-
verso et simula te vulpem; solum ostendas aliis conversationem religiosam; sic habere
praebendam.’ ” Hauréau, IV, 51.
99 Hauréau, IV, p. 70; Haskins, “Paris in the Sermons,” AHR, X, p. 10.
100 H. von. der Hardt, Conc. Constant., I, ii, 695 f.
led the majority of the students to look to the Church for employment or at
least for a living.101 An effect on the universities in which theology was taught,
was that they might become primarily schools of theology for the Church. Such
was the result at Paris. There theology was already important in the twelfth
century, and it became more so in the thirteenth when theologians and canon-
ists could be sure of provisions and advancement in the Church.
Students, of course, were as necessary for a flourishing university as a strong
faculty. The provisions by the papacy and the dispensation from residence
granted to students were therefore a logical and necessary complement to
the policy of providing certain teachers with benefices. Neither all students
nor all teachers were ecclesiastically beneficed, but a large enough number of
both were aided by the Church and the papacy to make sure the continuous
existence of certain universities (Toulouse, Palencia, Valencia) that otherwise
might have failed to develop after they were founded.102 Of equal importance
was the influence of these provisions by the popes upon the development of
the idea of a studium generale. Along with the privilege of the licentia ubique
docendi, that of the dispensation from residence came to be essential for the
constitution of a studium generale when a new university was founded.
§2 House-Rents
Only a portion of the masters and students in the universities received stipends
for teaching or studying through papal provisions. Some of the students may
have been indirectly helped by a limitation of the amount of fees collected by
the masters in French and English universities, though relief in this form was
probably not important. Both masters and students, however, whether or not
holding ecclesiastical benefices, were aided by papal intervention in defend-
ing themselves against profiteering landlords. When, in the twelfth century,
masters and students invaded Bologna, Paris, and Oxford in large numbers,
101 Rashdall, II, ii, 696. For ecclesiastical preferment for students after they had obtained
their degrees, see my section on the papal patronage of masters, Chap. VIII, §2.
102 Cf. Denifle, Universitäten, p.793. In 1245 Innocent IV granted the privilege of dispensation
from residence to the masters and students at Toulouse (Fournier, I, no. 518); Narbonne
received the privilege in 1247 (supra, p. 182); Palencia in 1228 (La Fuente, Historia de las
Universidades, I, 83); Valencia in 1245 (Berger, no. 1375; La Fuente, I, 293; Rashdall, II, i,
100); Orleans in 1339 (Fournier, I, no. 147); Angers in 1363 and 1366 (ibid., I, no. 387).
228 CHAPTER 9
landlords responded to the increased demand for lodgings with higher

rents.103 Moreover, the housing problem was aggravated by those members of
the university who were wealthy enough to rent rooms at prices too high for
poorer students to meet, and who might even cause tenants to be turned out.
Regulation of rents was achieved by the interference of the papacy in support
of the universities. How it was accomplished may be clearly traced at Paris and
Oxford, less clearly at Bologna.
To consider Bologna first (for the earliest evidence relates to it), we find the
notice of a decree issued in 1176–1177 by the Legate William, forbidding stu-
dents to rent the rooms of others by promising to pay a higher price.104 This
statute was confirmed about 1182 by Peter, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum,105 and
again in the years 1187–1191 by Clement III.106 From the letter of Clement III we
learn that the Cardinal-Bishop Peter had ordered that no master or student
should rent a room at a higher price than that paid by the actual tenants, who
were probably also students.107 Apparently the statute of Peter, confirmed by
Clement III, was intended to help the poorer students.108 It provided, however,
no arbitrators or taxors.109 It was left to the university to regulate the matter,
103 On the rental “problem see, for evidence in student letters, Haskins, Mediaeval Culture,
pp. 10 f., 21.
104 P. F. Kehr, ed., Regesta pontifcum Romanorum, V, 270, no. 7: “W(illelmus) Portuen. ep.,
apost. sedis legatus, statuit et sub excommunncatione prohibet, ne aliqui scholares alio
rum hospitia maioris mercedis promissione conducant, ut ea sibi vel maioris gloriae
studio quasi potentiores in expensis aparere volentes vel privatae utilitatis commodo
vindicent.” Cf. Sarti-Fattorini, ed., De claris archigymnasii Bononiensis professoribus, 2nd
ed., I, pref., p. xxxiii. Cf. Hessel, Geschichte der Stadt Bologna, p. 419; Cavazza, “Le Scuole
dell’antico studio di Bologna,” Atti e memorie … di Romagna, Serie 3, XII (1895), p. 436.
105 Kehr, op. cit., V, 270, no. 8.
106 Ibid., V, 253, no. 40; Friedberg, ed., Corpus juris canonici, II, Decret. Greg. IX, l. iii, tit. xviii,
c. 1; Migne P.L., CCIV, 1502.
107 Cf. Rashdall, I, 149; Migne, P.L., loc. cit.: “Ex rescripto litterarum piae recordationis P. (Petri)
quondam Tusculani episcopi nobis innotuit, quod cum civitatem Bononiensem … in-
trans invenit fuisse ibi a … W. quondam Portuensi episcopo constitutum, et sub excom-
municatione prohibitum, ne aliqui scolares … (see above, note l). Unde ipse sollicita
provisione considerans, … praedictam constitutionem legatione qua fungebatur sedis
apostolicae confirmavit, … ut nullus magistrorum, sive scholarium super ducendis hos-
pitiis, in laesionem et praejudicium habitantium audeat hospitem convenire, nisi prius
constiterit tempus conductionis elapsum, vel inquilini in hoc suum praestiterint placido
favore consensum.”
108 This intention is implied, not expressed; see Migne, P.L., loc. cit.
109 Rashdall, I, 149, note 3, thinks that the bull of Clement III may have implied a system
already in existence for the regulation of rents.
and by the fourteenth century “the university had acquired jurisdiction over
the landlords of students’ houses in matters affecting their relations with the
students”.110 The bull of Clement III, however, was still of influence, for under
it “disputes about lodgings might be taken before the spiritual courts.”111 But
the university would not permit an interdicted landlord to seek the help of
ecclesiastical justice.112 Papal authority, therefore, sanctioned the arrangement
made by the university to fix house-rents through a committee of taxors, who
were university officials, cooperating with arbitrators appointed by the city.113
Papal authority was more active and more specific in settling difficulties
relating to students’ lodgings at Paris.114 There, as at Bologna, students and
masters were not, in the absence of university rules, properly observant of the
rights of those already occupying rooms or houses, and in 1215 the papal leg-
ate Robert Curzon forbade the renting of lecture halls or of houses before the
consent of the tenants in possession was obtained.115 At the same time the
legate, obeying, he says, a special mandate of the pope, recognized the right
of the masters and students to regulate the problem of rents, or at least to or-
ganize themselves to that end, as well as for other purposes.116 But the making
of constitutiones did not please the bishop of Paris and his chancellor. The for-
mer complained to Honorius III that by their regulations the masters and stu-
dents were abusing their recently won privilege of the seal, and, contrary to a
royal ordinance accepted by the previous bishop and the masters and students
110 Ibid., I, 181.

111 Rashdall, I, 181, n. 3. Migne, CCIV, col. 1502–3: Clement, confirming the legatine statutes,
says, “studentes ut a te, frater episcope, et tuorum omnium successorum singulis annis in
communi audientia magistrorum atque scholarium praesens pagina recitetur, et praeta
xata pravae condictionis improbitas innovata per annos singulos excommunicationis
sententia reprimatur.” Sarti-Fattorini, I, p. xxxiii.
112 Rashdall, loc. cit.
113 Cf. the statutes of the Commune, ca. 1270–1280; Gaudenzi, Bullett. Ist. Stor. Ital., p. 126; for
the statutes of 1317, Denifle, Archiv., III, 346–349.
114 After 1127, at least, students had to secure lodgings in houses of the burghers of Paris; see
G. Robert, Les écoles et l’enseignement de la théologie pendant la première moitié du XII e
siècle, pp. 36 f.
115 “Nullus irrequisito consensu inquilini vel scolas accipiat vel domum, dum facultatem ha-
beat requirendi,” Ch.U.P., I, no.20, p.79.
116 “Item facere possunt magistri et scolares tam per se quam cum aliis obligationes et consti-
tutiones fide vel pena vel juramento vallatas in hiis casibus, scilicet [injuries to scholars,
and so on] … pro taxandis pretiis hospitorum …, ita tamen quod propter hec studium
non dissolvatur aut destruatur.” Ibid., loc. cit. Cf. Rashdall, I, 310. This privilege perhaps
confirms attempts already made by the university to cooperate with the citizens of Paris
in fixing rents.
230 CHAPTER 9
themselves, were taxing the price of houses, thereby infringing on the

prerogatives of the bishop and the chancellor.117 Honorius thereupon asked
the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of Troyes and Lisieux to exam-
ine the complaints of the bishop of Paris and to settle the disputes by statutes.118
It was the Cardinal-Legate Romano, however, who effected an agreement be-
tween the bishop and the university. If we do not know its exact nature, we
do know from a letter of Gregory IX of 1228 that it settled in general points
of dispute concerning the license, lectures, and rents, and the right of the
masters and students to organize themselves for protection in these matters.119
Whatever the provisions of it, Gregory confirmed the agreement.120 In 1231, in
the famous bull Parens scientiarum, the pope himself granted to the university
the definite privilege of “constitutiones seu ordinationes … faciendi” for taxing
houses.121 A papal letter to Louis IX immediately followed, asking the king to
grant to the university a board of two masters and two citizens of Paris. If the
citizens of Paris did not wish to cooperate, two masters were to appraise hous-
es.122 It appears from the pope’s letter that it had previously been the custom to
tax rents through a board of two masters, without representatives of the City of
Paris on the board;123 and probably this was the board of taxors confirmed or
implied in 1215 by Robert Curzon.124
117 “… et taxantes domorum pretium contra ordinationem auctoritate regia olim factam et
ab eo, qui tunc presidebat Parisiensi ecclesie necnon a magistris et scolaribus accepta-
tam, et in ipsius episcopi et Parisiensis cancellarii prejudicium constituentes sibi pro sue
voluntatis arbitrio judices, qui causas eorum audiant et decidant.” Ch.U.P., I, no. 41.
118 Ibid., I, no. 41, an. 1221.
119 “Dilecti filii magistri et universitas scolarium Parisiensium nobis humiliter supplicarunt,
ut compositionem … super danda licentia … et faciendis constitutionibus de ordinandis
lectionibus et disputationibus … et taxandis hospitiis …, apostolico dignaremur muni-
mine roborare.” Ch.U.P., i, 1, no. 58. The settlement of the disputes was still pending in 1222
(ibid., no. 45).
120 Ibid., I, no. 58.
121 Ibid., I, no. 79, p. 137; “de … hospitiorum taxatione seu etiam interdicto …”
122 Hospitorum quoque taxationem per duos magistros et duos burgenses ad hoc de con-
sensu magistrorum electos juramento prestito fideliter faciendam, sive, si burgenses non
curaverint interesse, per duos magistros, sicut fieri consuevit, eis sine difficultate conce-
das, cum alias nimis cara hospitia conducere cogerentur.” Ibid., I, no. 82, p. 141. Cf. Delègue,
L’Université de Paris 1224–1244, p. 44 and note 1.
123 Loc. cit., “per duos magistros, sicut fieri consuevit.”
124 But Rashdall (I, 311) thinks that the provision of 1215 “shows that the custom of fixing the
rents of houses in the occupation of scholars by a joint board of scholars and burghers
was already in existence”. In another place, however, Rashdall (I, 479, note 1) italicizes the
words “sicut fieri consuevit” in Gregory’s letter to the king, as indicating the difference
between the method of appraisal implied in 1215 and that prescribed in 1231.
By 1231, then, the university was by royal and papal privilege in control of the
regulation of house-rents.125 But papal intervention, direct or through legates,
was still occasionally necessary to guarantee the observance of the university
regulations. In 1239 the papal legate had to repeat the injunction of Robert
Curzon against masters and students who tried to dispossess tenants by paying
higher rents,126 and in 1245 Innocent IV forbade masters and students to rent
schools or houses without the permission of the tenant, or to rent those pro-
hibited by the masters or the official of Paris.127 The pope thereby strengthened
the statutes of the same year made by the university regulating the taxing of
lecture halls and lodgings.128 A further difficulty was that the board of taxors,
in appraising rentals, encountered the resistance of “nonnulli religiosi et clerici
seculares,” who owned houses in Paris and refused to let them be assessed for
rent. Gregory IX in 1237 ordered the archbishop of Sens to appoint suitable
taxors to fix the rents of these houses.129 Again in 1245 and in 1252 Innocent IV
directed the chancellor of Paris to force the religious and secular clerks to sub-
mit to the taxation of their houses, even if they were “Templarii, Hospitalarii,
Cistercienses aut Premonstratenses aut cujusque ordinis.”130 For these houses
special taxors were to be appointed.
If at Bologna there was papal interference to restrain unfair competition in
renting houses, the popes did not try to regulate the actual taxation of lodgings,
which was left to the university. Even in the case of Paris the papacy apparently
125 It appears from a letter of Gregory IX in 1237 that the king heeded the papal request of
1231. Ch.U.P., I, no. 114.
126 “Quia non omnes, qui Parisius ad studendum veniunt, moribus qui scientiam efferunt se
exercent, immo unus ad alterius aspirans hospicium ipsum sibi reddit interdum pretii
carioris: nos … mandamus, quatinus inhibitonem facias generalem in scolis singulis pub-
licandam, ut nullus magistrorum seu scolarium Parisiensium alterius conducat hospi-
cium, quamdiu ipsum absque manifesta malicia retinere voluerit inquilinus.” Ch.U.P., I,
no. 123.
127 Ch.U.P., I, no. 143: “Universitati vestre … inhibemus, ne aliquis vestrum alterius scolas aut
hospitium absque illius consensu vel scolas aut hospitia a magistris vel officiali Parisiensi,
qui pro tempore fuerint, interdicta conducere vel retinere presumat.” This was in May. In
March of 1245 the pope had repeated the prohibition of the legate in 1237 (ibid., no. 123),
adding, that no one who rented several “Hospitia vel scolas” should rent them in turn at a
higher price; ibid., I, no. 139.
128 Ibid., I, no. 136, February, 1245. These statutes prohibited the renting of several scolas and
paying a higher rental than that fixed by the board of taxors, and interdicted the houses of
landlords who refused to rent them at the price fixed, ordering the expulsion of members
of the university who rented such houses.
129 Ibid., I, no. 114.
130 Ibid., I, nos. 138 and 203. Urban IV in 1263 tried to correct ecclesiastical landlords; ibid.,
no. 380.
232 CHAPTER 9
only confirmed the system of two masters and two burghers as a board of tax-
ors; there is no evidence that a pope invented the system. Whether invention
or confirmation, the papal interference enabled the University of Paris to con-
trol effectively prices of lodgings, and in particular against ecclesiastical land-
lords who could not be coerced by royal authority. Papal supervision of rents
was of importance if only as one of the several provisions for the university
that gave it stability and the power to resist forces of disintegration.
A board of taxors consisting of two members of the university and two
citizens seems to have been imitated in all French universities. Possibly exist-
ing earlier, a board of four, like that at Paris, was provided in 1306 for Orleans
by Clement V,131 who also ordered vacant houses to be rented to doctors and
students.132 In 1233 Gregory IX provided for Toulouse a board consisting of
two clerks and two laymen, a provision that seems to have been inspired di-
rectly by the system confirmed for Paris two years earlier.133 Twelve years later
Innocent IV confirmed the statute of Gregory IX,134 and granted to the uni-
versity masters and students the right to regulate rents and their assessment.135
Innocent also ordered the bishop of Toulouse to receive destitute students “in
hospitalibus de Tolosa, extra viam publicam positis,” and to provide them with
the necessities of the poor.136
Turning to the English universities, we find that the system for the appraisal
of rents at Oxford had, as a result of legatine intervention, a slightly different
development than that which arose at Paris. By 1209, when there was a seces-
sion of the masters and students, there was an arrangement between the uni-
versity and the town for the regulation of rents—so the legatine ordinance of
131 Fournier, I, no. 22, p. 14: “pensiones ipsis taxari debeant per quatuor taxatores, quorum
duo per ipsos doctores et scolares, et alii duo pro parte Universitatis ceterorum hominum
Aurelianensium eligantur.”
132 Ibid., I, no. 22, p. 14.
133 Ibid., I, no. 506: “Statuimus nihilominus ut cives Tolosani domos vacantes ad inhabitan-
dum scholaribus pro compententi pretio taxando a duobus clericis et totidem laicis, viris
discretis, catholicis et juratis communiter electis ab ipsis locare cogantur.”
134 Ibid., I, no. 518.
135 Ibid., I, no. 523: “… constitutiones seu ordinationes providas faciendi de … hospitiorum
taxatione seu etiam interdicto … vobis concedimus facultatem.” This is the same provi-
sion as that for Paris made by Gregory IX in 1231, in the Parens scientiarum; Ch.U.P., I,
no. 79.
136 Ibid., I, no. 520: “… mandamus, quatinus scholares pauperes, qui desiderio discipline, et a
propriis domibus logius recedentes, et vigiliis et laboribus pluribus macerantur, in hospi-
talibus de Tolosa, extra viam publicam positis, egenorum necessitatibus deputatis, recipi
facias, et prout eorum requirit paupertas, caritative tractari …”
1214 reveals.137 In the latter year the Cardinal-Legate Nicholas, in penalizing

the town for its treatment of the students, ordered the burghers of Oxford to
remit to the students for ten years one-half of the rent of existing halls and
schools, and to leave unchanged for ten years longer the rents, as assessed be-
fore the secession, by the town and the masters.138 Other halls, not yet taxed
or constructed, were to be appraised every ten years for rent by a board of four
masters and four burghers.139 The authority of this board of taxors was con-
firmed by Henry III in 1256, who granted that henceforth the board might ap-
praise the rents every five years;140 in 1269 the king commanded the mayor and
bailiffs of Oxford to have the appraisal made whenever they were asked to do
so by the university.141 The eagerness of the board to exercise its authority of
1214 had to be restrained in 1217 or 1218 by the Papal Legate Guala. The masters
and students had tried to extend the penalty of the remission of one-half the
rent to religious orders owning houses. Guala forbade the university to apply
the provisions of 1214 to ecclesiastical landlords.142 At Paris the papacy was
favorable, as we have seen, to the university as opposed to the religious orders,
which refused to abide by the regulations of the board of taxors.
No evidence survives of any papal regulation of rents at Cambridge, or at
any of the universities, besides those discussed above, that arose by the middle
of the thirteenth century. As for those that experienced papal intervention, it
may be said that the popes with regard to lodgings, just as to other matters,
137 Salter, Mediaeval Archives, I, no. 2, p. 2: “… mercedis inquam taxate communi consilio
clericorum et burgensium ante recessum scolarium.” On the quarrel between the students
and the town, see Rashdall, II, ii, 348 ff; cf. pp. 360–361, and p. 467.
138 Salter, Med. Archives, I, no. 2: “Universitati vestre notum facimus quod cum Burgenses
Oxon’ pro suspendio clericorum quod commiserant mandatis ecclesie per omnia stare
iurassent, nos volentes agere misericorditer cum eisdem statuimus quod a festo sancti
Michaelis anno ab incarnatione domini MCCXIIII usque in decem annos sequentes sco-
laribus Oxon’ studentibus condonetur medietas mercedis hospitiorum omnium locan-
dorum clericis in eadem villa, mercedis inquam taxate communi consilio clericorum et
burgensium ante recessum scolarium propter predictum suspendium clericorum. Finitis
vero predictis decem annis, aliis decem annis proximo sequentibus locabuntur hospitia
sub mercede olim ut predictum est taxata. Hec de hospitiis constructis et taxatis ante
prefatum recessum clericorum.” Cf. Anstey, ed., Munimenta Academica, I, p. 1 f.
139 Salter, Med. Archives, loc. cit.: “Constructa vero postmodum vel construenda aliaque prius
constructa sed non taxata arbitratu quatuor magistrorum et quatuor burgensium tax-
abuntur, et predicto modo per utrumque decennium locabuntur.” Anstey, Munimenta
Academica, I, p. 1; cf. Rashdall, II, ii, p. 360.
140 Med. Archives, I, no. 12.
141 Ibid., I, no. 21.
142 Ibid., I, 16.
234 CHAPTER 9
acted to confirm and define a system that had already loosely developed,
rather than to create the machinery for the administration of the universities.
Nevertheless, when confirmation clinches and reinforces, it in some measure
acts creatively. So it was that the system of taxors was established and made ef-
fective by papal confirmation and strengthened further by royal authority. This
system was generally adopted by contemporary as well as later universities.143
§3 Colleges
It was a natural transition that the hospitia, the rents in which were regulated
by boards of taxors, should, when endowed, become colleges.144 “The object of
the earliest college founders was simply to secure board and lodging for poor
scholars who could not pay for it themselves.’145 In the foundation of the col-
leges at Paris the papacy participated indirectly.
In 1186–1187 Urban III confirmed Count Robert of Clermont’s foundation
of a hospital, which became the College of St. Thomas of the Louvre;146 and
in 1210 Innocent III ordered the bishop of Paris to permit the construction of
a chapel for the “domus pauperum scholarium” of St. Thomas.147 Indiscipline148
compelled Gregory IX to command an examination of the college.149 Another
college, that of the ‘Good Children of St. Victor,’ was permitted by Innocent IV
(1248) to have a chapel,150 and was subjected—though not by the pope—to
the chancellor of the cathedral.151 The religious colleges also received the pro-
tection of the papacy. Honorius III granted privileges and protection to the
Dominicans,152 who established themselves in Paris in 1217; and, as we have
143 For example, Vercelli in 1228 (Rashdall, II, i, 12); Padua in 1260 (Gloria, Statuti del Comune
di Padova, p. 375, no. 1221; idem, Monumenti d. Univ. di Padova, 1222–1318, pt. ii, p. 17); cf.,
for Padua in the fourteenth century, Denifle, Archiv, VI, 498.
144 Cf. Rashdall, I, 481 f.
145 Ibid., I, 482.
146 Ch.U.P., I, Introd., nos. 14 and 18; Rashdall, I, 484.
147 Ibid., I, no. 10.
148 Ibid., I, no. 60.
149 Ibid., I, no. 83.
150 Ibid., I, no. 184.
151 Ibid., I, nos. 184 and 323.
152 They were privileged to celebrate divine offices (Ch.U.P., I, no. 34); they were protected
against the Chapter of Paris (ibid., I, no. 37); and the masters and students were com-
mended for their favorable attitude towards the friars (no. 36; cf. no. 40). Cf. nos. 35, 36, 38,
39, 42–44.
seen, Innocent IV and Alexander IV compelled the masters to admit members

of the religious colleges into the university.153 The possessions, in particular
the house at Paris, of the Order of the Val des Écoliers were confirmed by
Gregory IX.154 This house developed into a college for monks.155 The
Franciscans, who came to Paris in 1230, may have received land from the mon-
astery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, by order of Gregory IX, for the construction
of their house.156 In 1245 Innocent IV confirmed the Cistercian College,157 or-
dered the abbots of the Cistercian Order to support it,158 and—in 1246—took
its students under papal protection.159
The College of the Sorbonne, founded in 1257 “for men who had already
taken the degree of Master of Arts and were desirous of entering upon the long
and laborious career that led to the Theological Doctorate,”160 also received en-
couragement from the papacy. Alexander IV, probably ignorant of the name of
the true founder, Robert de Sorbon, praised Louis IX for founding the college,161
and commanded the prelates of France to provide for the masters of arts study-
ing theology in the new foundation.162
As at Paris, so at Oxford in the thirteenth century the papacy did not found,
but confirmed the foundation of colleges. Thus in 1280 Clement III, relating
how Walter of Merton had founded a college for poor students, confirmed the
foundation.163
The popes themselves, however, although they did not found colleges in this
period, sometimes took it upon themselves to encourage provisions for poor
students not in the colleges. Indirectly, possibly, such students were aided by
their theoretical exemption from the payment of fees to the lecturers.164 An
occasional student, again, might receive a benefice; but such a student was

154 Ch.U.P., I, no. 65.
155 The first regent master is mentioned in 1259; ibid., I, no. 340.
156 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 109, 110.
157 Ch.U.P., I, no. 133.
158 Ibid., I, no. 146; the pope also asked the Dominicans to send a master to the college (no.
151).
159 Ibid., I, no. 157. Cf. ibid., I, no. 3, 161, 192, 227, and 228 for additional privileges granted by
Innocent IV.
160 Rashdall, I, 488 f.
161 Ch.U.P., I, no. 347.
162 Ibid., I, no. 348; cf. Tenckhoff, Alexander IV, pp. 318 f.
163 Allen and Garrod, Merton Muniments, pp. 10 f. There is also a mandate of the same pope,
ordering the Prior of Abingdon to hear a suit of the college; ibid., p. 28. Cf. Lyle, p. 77.
164 Supra, p. 201.
236 CHAPTER 9
perhaps not often poor, for his family or relatives probably had to be influen-
tial in order to ask the pope to confer a benefice upon him. The principal class
of students aided by the papacy was the clerks given the dispensation from
residence to study theology. All these cases of papal favor have been noted. I
refer here more specifically to poor students who perhaps were not benefitted
by any of the above methods of patronage, but who were provided for from
special funds. For example, when the Cardinal-Legate Nicholas in 1214 settled
the town-gown struggle at Oxford he imposed a fine on the burghers: the town
must pay annually fifty-two shillings (solidi) as a fund for poor students, and
on St. Nicholas’ Day must provide a banquet for one hundred poor students.165
One near approach to the foundation of a college was made by Innocent IV.
In 1248 he ordered the chancellor of Paris to provide for ten boys, acquaint-
ed with Arabic and other oriental languages, whom the pope was sending to
Paris to study theology in order that later they might become missionaries.166
But when the chancellor attempted to raise money and ordered the monas-
teries in France to contribute ten pounds annually, the pope exempted the
Monastery of Saint-Père at Chartres from payment except for three years.167 In
1258 Alexander IV repeated the mandate of Innocent IV, and permitted the
chancellor to collect the money from the monasteries in spite of exemptions
claimed by them.168 In still more sweeping terms Honorius IV, in 1286, com-
manded that these provisions continue.169 These attempts to provide for clerks
learned in Arabic are particularly interesting in view of the provisions made in
1311 by the Council of Vienne for professors in several universities who were to
teach the ‘oriental’ languages.170
Far more important, obviously, than the very indirect influence of the pa-
pacy on the colleges, was the popes’ policy of controlling living conditions in
university towns and giving masters and students material support in the form
of ecclesiastical benefices or the dispensation from residence.
165 Salter, Archives, I, 3, 4; Rashdall, II, ii, 350 f. This fund became a loan fund; Anstey, Mun.
Acad., I, 8 f. Robert Grosseteste in 1240 perhaps indirectly defined the limits of poverty
when he provided that students who had benefices worth as much as ten marks or more
could not borrow money from the fund (ibid., loc. cit.).
166 Ch.U.P., I, no. 180; cf. Ch. Jourdain, “Un collège oriental à Paris au treizième siècle,” Revue
des Sociétes savantes, 2e série, VI (1861), 66–73.
167 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 181, 182.
168 Ibid., I, no. 324.
169 Ibid., i, no. 527.
170 Supra, pp. 202–203.
CHAPTER 10
Conclusion: The Papacy and the Founding of the

Universities
Corporations of masters and students were a new phenomenon in the twelfth

and thirteenth centuries. When the renaissance of the twelfth century ex-
pressed itself in a visible increase in the number of scholars, there was no prec-
edent for the organization and control of learning except in local communal
and cathedral or monastic schools. In these there were no societies of scholars
desiring to obtain self-government by becoming independent of local authori-
ties. But the new movement, receiving an impetus from the practical value of
the study of dialectic, medicine, and canon and civil law, resulted in such an
increase in the number of students and masters from every country at Bologna,
Paris, Oxford, and Montpellier, that the local school systems could not control
the zeal and ambitions of the scholars. The end of the twelfth century was a
period of guild formation, and the masters at Paris and the students at Bologna
began to group themselves together for protection. They encountered the op-
position of the chancellor of Paris and of the Commune of Bologna.
This, roughly, was the situation when the papacy undertook to guide the
development of the new centers of learning. By their potestas magisterii and
potestas jurisdictionis, the popes successfully protected the masters at Paris
and enabled them to secure privileges of autonomy in managing their inter-
nal affairs and in controlling membership in their corporation. It was these
privileges, indeed, that assured the attainment of the legal status of a corpora-
tion. Similarly, the popes obtained for the corporations of students at Bologna
recognition by the Commune. The privileges of incorporation, which were
thus won by the Universities of Paris and Bologna, were generally conceded to
Oxford and Montpellier, and to the later universities. Besides securing the cor-
porate legality of the universities, the popes frequently aided the ecclesiasti-
cal masters and students by granting them benefices or the dispensation from
residence, and by protecting them from secular jurisdiction and profiteering
townsmen.
Through its confirmation of constitutional developments, its protection
of scholars from abuses of secular jurisdiction, its provisions of benefices for
many masters and students, and its establishment of a representative of the

238 CHAPTER 10
Holy See1—in the chancellor, scholasticus, or archdeacon—to confer the li-

cense to teach in most of the secular universities, the papacy effectively be-
came the superintendent of education in Western Europe in the thirteenth
century. St. Thomas Aquinas could therefore reasonably assert that “ordinare
de studio pertinet ad eum qui praeest reipublicae, et praecipue ad auctorita-
tem Apostolicae Sedis, qua universalis Ecclesia gubernatur, cui per generale
studium providetur.”2
It was this universal authority of the papacy that lent significance to the
privileges of the licentia ubique docendi and the dispensation from residence.
The first great ecclesiastical university was recognized as having these two
privileges before it was called a studium generale. The degrees of Paris were,
by custom, valid everywhere, and after 1219 all ecclesiastics who studied at
Paris in theology enjoyed, through the Super speculam, the dispensation from
residence. Bologna possessed the first privilege by custom, but did not have
the latter owing to the fact that comparatively few ecclesiastics studied there
and no faculty of theology existed. It was Gregory IX in his confirmation of
the new foundation of Toulouse, not Frederick II in his foundation of Naples,
who made the two privileges indispensable prerequisites for a new studium to
be classed as a studium generale. In 1233 Gregory IX granted to the University
of Toulouse, founded in 1229 by the Legate Romano, the privilege of the li-
centia ubique docendi3 and, to all ecclesiastics who were masters or students,
the right to receive in absence from their churches the income from their
benefices.4 It is in 1233 that we first find the term studium generale used in
connection with the dispensation from residence,5 and we may conclude that
it was between 1219 and 1233 that the term became current for studia enjoying
this privilege. To repeat, the attachment of the jus ubique docendi to the idea of
a studium generale was first made in 1233.
In 1245 Innocent IV, founding the University of the Roman Court, decreed
that the students should enjoy the privileges, immunities, and liberties,
“quibus gaudeant studentes in scholis, ubi generale regitur studium,” and
1 Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisien., I, 278: the chancellor at Paris granted the license
with the formula, “Ego N. auctoritate apostolica qua fungor in hac parte do tibi potestatem
docendi, regendi, interpretandi, omnesque actus scholasticos exercendi hic et ubique ter-
rarum.” And Baldus says that no school could grant the doctorate “sine dignitate imperiale
vel apostolica.” Denifle, Universitäten, I, 428.
2 Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem, cap. ii. Opera omnia, XV, 12, col. 1.
3 Supra, p. 119.
4 Supra, p. 183.
5 Supra, p. 220, note 67.
Conclusion 239
should receive, like these students, their ecclesiastical revenues.6 Here students
in both canon and civil law enjoyed that dispensation from residence that only
the theologians had at Paris.7 The jus ubique docendi is not expressly granted,
but a few years later we find that scholars are licensed at the Roman Court
to teach at Paris, Bologna, and Montpellier,8 and it is probable that the privi-
lege is assumed among the general privileges granted by Innocent IV. Similarly
Innocent IV raised the schools of Piacenza to the rank of a studium generale
by conferring upon the doctors and students all privileges, indulgences, liber-
ties, and immunities, “quibus Parisiis, seu in aliis studiis generalibus studen-
tes laetantur.”9 But in the case of Narbonne and Valencia only the privilege of
the dispensation from residence was granted.10 These two schools, however,
were not recognized as studia generalia. On the other hand the school of medi-
cine at Montpellier was already famous, though the school of law was barely
existing, when Nicholas IV in 1289 granted that there should henceforth be a
“studium generale, in quo magistri doceant et scholares libere studeant et au-
diant in quavis licita facultate.”11 This was not a real foundation, but simply the
creation, by a definite papal privilege, of the status of a studium generale. The
pope conferred upon the studium the jus ubique docendi,12 but not the privilege
of non-residence. By the end of the century it was generally recognized that
the licentia ubique docendi, and sometimes the dispensation from residence,
were necessary for the constitution of a studium generale. The really essential
privilege was that of the universal license, which even Paris and Bologna ob-
tained from the papacy in 1291 and 1292.13
In the fourteenth century the emperor sometimes confirmed the founda-
tion of studia generalia, but it was the popes who had developed the theory
and applied it. The popes directly founded in the thirteenth century only the
universities of Toulouse and the Roman Court. It was not, then, so much in the
founding as it was in the development of the schools as corporations and of
the idea of a studium generale that the papacy exercised its universal authority.
6 Friedberg, II, Liber Sextus Decret., lib. V, tit. vii, c. 2.

7 Ibid., loc. cit.: “… Providimus, quod ibidem de cetero regatur et vigeat studium iuris divini
et humani, canonici videlicet et civilis.”
8 Supra, pp. 83, 120.
9 Campi, Dell’ historia ecclesiastica di Piacenza, II, 399, no. 91.
10 Berger, Reg. d’Inn. IV, I, no. 2717; Fournier, Statuts et privilèges, II, no. 1564. La Fuente,
Universidades, I, 293, no. 4; Berger, I, no. 1375.
11 Fournier, II, no. 903. This privilege, thinks Denifle (Univ., I, 352 f.), was intended to
strengthen the weak school of civil law.
12 Fournier, II, no. 903; so also for Avignon in 1303; ibid.
13 Supra, p. 120. Cf. Rashdall, I, 12; Denifle, Univ., I, 21 f.
240 CHAPTER 10
Much of the papal influence was at first unconscious; it was usually exerted
only when a group of masters or students, or local authorities, asked the popes
to intervene to settle difficulties or to grant privileges that would give a studium
an international position. The popes did not oppose similar privileges that
were granted by secular rulers, and did not call into question the legality of
universities that were founded by secular princes or that arose without papal
control. Nevertheless the papal privilege of the jus ubique docendi was of great-
er weight than the imperial or royal privilege,14 for the papacy had developed
the idea for Toulouse in 1233, and even conferred the privilege in 1255 on the
University of Salamanca,15 which was founded by the king of Castile.
What, then, was a studium generale? The definition given by Father Denifle
remains essentially correct:
Indessen die Bedeutung ‘Lehranstalt’, ‘Unterricht für Alle’ war nichts

weniger als der letzte, volle Begriff des Ausdruckes ‘studium generale’.
Gerade die zwei ältesten und grössten General-studien, Bologna und
Paris, waren privilegierte Studienanstalten. Keine neue Lehranstalt
konnte neben ihnen aufkommen, wenn sie nicht etwa an den Privilegien
derselben Theil hatte. Das Studium generale wurde ein Studium privile-
giatum zum Unterschiede von Particularstudien, die die Privilegien an
sich nicht besassen. Die ‘Lehranstalt für Alle’ ist zugleich mit Privilegien
für Lehrer und Schüler versehen.16
To repeat, the privileges that were chiefly involved were those of the jus ubique
docendi and the dispensation from residence. First granted by the popes,
they resulted in the idea that foundation charters should be obtained from
the popes as the highest authority in Christendom.17 Thus the popes cre-
ated, whether intentionally or not, the conception of the studium generale.
Moreover, in applying this conception in privileges, they sometimes strength-
ened and assured the existence of a newly founded university (Toulouse), or
restored to vigor universities that developed spontaneously but threatened to
succumb to inanition (for example, the school of law at Montpellier in 1289,
and the University of Cambridge in 1318).18
14 Denifle, Univ., I, 22.

15 Supra, pp. 84–85.
16 Universitäten, I, 19.
17 Cf. Denifle, Universitäten, I, 780.
18 Cf. Rashdall, II, ii, 551.
Conclusion 241
It must not be forgotten, however, that the real basis of the studium generale
was the corporation of masters, which through papal aid obtained practical
control of the license-system, and which, again with papal support, secured
the privileges that were indispensable to the legality of the corporation.
The development of the guilds of the masters at Paris and of the students at
Bologna (who controlled the professors and thereby the license-system) under
the supervision of the papacy was their first real claim, apart from custom,
to ‘internationality’, and a major step towards the privilege of the jus ubique
docendi. Essentially, then, the greatest service of the popes was the establish-
ment, by the gradual confirmation of the process of growth, of the scholastic
corporation. Hardly less important in this service was the papal patronage of
students and masters. It is true that at first theological students and masters
alone, and consequently the faculty of theology at Paris, profited from the
dispensation from residence. But in new foundations that originated in the
policy of crushing heresy, and in which most of the masters and students were
ecclesiastics, nearly all members received the privilege of non-residence. Such
a university as Toulouse was thereby assured of continuous growth, though
such an artificial foundation as that of Valencia might not survive even with
papal privileges.
If the popes were not always consciously exerting a uniform policy (and
their policy was often one of expediency), their achievement in guiding along
a resultant, fixed line the development of the organized expression of the in-
tellectual movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was hardly the
less notable. In a period when their energies were chiefly engaged in secular
conflicts, the popes protected and confirmed the new schools, which might
otherwise have become local or ‘national’ centers of learning through their
subjection to local authorities. As it was, the universities became strongholds
of the formal orthodoxy of the Universal Church; and the University of Paris,
favored beyond all others by the papacy, through its ecclesiastical character
and organization, may as a result have been less amenable to the influences of
the new learning of the Italian renaissance.
The rôle of the papacy, finally, in the rise of the universities, was not one of
founding universities19 or faculties or nations, or even establishing the chan-
cellor license-system. It was rather a rôle of guiding new developments along
traditional lines, but in such a manner that while traditional external authority
19 Even in the case of Toulouse Gregory IX confirmed a legatine foundation. Whether the
Legate Romano had instructions from Rome to found a university, it is impossible to say.
Honorius III, however, had in 1217 invited masters from Paris to go to Toulouse, and this
may have influenced the papal legate (Ch.U.P., I, no. 25).
242 CHAPTER 10
was retained locally, it was subjected to the papacy and represented the popes
in the supervision of new corporations that won recognition at the expense of
older corporations. Sometimes the popes established an ecclesiastical digni-
tary over secular schools, or extended to lay students the clerical privilegium
fori. Beyond this there was little innovation in papal privileges. Instead, a new
movement, a new organization, a new officer appears; and the popes confirm,
whether tacitly or explicitly, the new development. Such confirmations, how-
ever, were in turn often creative, and were indispensable for the corporate or-
ganization of the original universities.
Bibliography
In this bibliography are listed only the sources and modern works actually cited in
the notes. I have made no attempt to compile a bibliography of all the works I have
consulted, since it seemed expedient to omit those which did not furnish material that
could be used as evidence. Nor have I attempted to multiply references to numerous
editions in which many of the papal letters appear; I have instead limited myself to the
citation of the most convenient or best edited collections of documents.
Sources and Collections of Sources
The principal sources are, of course, the papal bulls. Most of these are summarized
conveniently in the Registers. I did not regularly consult the published Registers of
the papal letters after Innocent IV’s pontificate, since by 1254 the main lines of uni-
versity development were fairly complete. For papal letters after 1254 I depended
chiefly on those published in the collections of documents relating to the universities.
Contemporary interpretations by canonists of the papal bulls are found in the glosses
in manuscripts containing collections of decretals. The full texts of the bulls were con-
sulted in modern editions, or, if unpublished, in the Registers in the Archives of the
Vatican (the Register for the sixth year of the pontificate of Innocent IV, however, is in
the Bibliothèque Nationale).
Manuscript Sources
Paris, Bibl. Nationale, MS. lat. 4039: Reg. Innocentii IV, an. vi.
Rome, Bibl. Casanatense:
MS lat. 223: Decretales Greg. IX; glosses; thirteenth century MS.
MS lat. 1094: Raymond of Peñafort, Summa de poenitentia; Bartholomew of Brescia,
Questiones dominicales et veneriales; thirteenth century MS.
Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano:
Reg. Vat. 9–13: Reg. Honorii III
Reg. Vat. 14–20: Reg. Gregorii IX
Reg. Vat. 21–23: Reg. Innocentii IV
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana:
MS. Borghese lat. 217: Sermons of Gilbert of Tournai; thirteenth century MS.
MS. Borghese lat. 237: Decretales Greg. IX; glosses; thirteenth century MS.
MS. Borghese lat. 257: Decretales Greg. IX cum apparatu; thirteenth century MS.
MS. Borghese lat. 264: The first four Compilations; glosses; thirteenth century MS.
MS. Vat. lat. 1377: The first four Compilations; glosses; thirteenth century MS.
244 Bibliography
MS. Vat. lat. 10269: Geoffrey of Trani, Summa de titulis decretalium.

MS. Vat. lat. 10270: Raymond of Peñafort, Summa de casibus.
Printed Sources
1 Papal Documents
1.1 Twelfth Century or Earlier

P. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum
natum 1198. 2nd. edn., W. Wattenbach, S. Löwenfeld, F. Kaltenbrunner, P. Ewald.
2 vols. Leipzig, 1885–88.
P. F. Kehr, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum. Berlin, 1906. Italia Pontificia. Ed. Kehr.
Vol. V. Aemilia.
S. Löwenfeld, Epistolae Pontificum Romanorum ineditae. Leipzig, 1885.
J. v. Pflugk-Harttung, Acta Pontificum Romanorum inedita. 3 vols. Stuttgart, 1881–86.
Alexandri III Romani Pontificis opera omnia. Migne, J. P., Patrologiae cursus completus.
Series latina. Vol. CC (1855).
F. Liverani, ed., Spicilegium Liberianum, Florence, 1864. (Contains a few bulls of
Alexander III.)
Clementis Papae III epistolae. Migne PL, CCIV, 1275–1478.
1.2 Thirteenth Century

A. Potthast, ed., Regesta Pontificum Romanorum inde ab anno 1198 ad annum 1304.
2 vols. Berlin, 1874–75.
P. Pressutti, ed., Regesta Honorii Papae III. 2 vols. Rome, 1888–95.
L. Auvray, ed., Les Registres de Grégoire IX. (Bibliothèque dea Écoles françaises
d’Athènes et de Rome). 2 vols. Paris, 1896–1907.
E. Berger. ed., Les Registres d’Innocent IV. (B. Éc. fr. A. R.) 4 vols. Paris, 1884–1921.
E. Jordan, ed., Les Registres de Clément IV. (B. Éc. fr. A. R.). Paris, 1893–1904.
W. H. Bliss, ed., Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers. 11 vols. (Vols. I and II). London,
1893–1921.
C. Rodenberg, ed., Epistolae saeculi XIII, e regestis Pontificum Romanorum selectae.
2 vols. Berlin, 1883–87. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, section Epistolae).
A. Theiner, ed., Vetera monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum historiam illustrantia, … ab
Honorio pp. III. usque ad Paulum pp. III, 1216–1547. Rome, 1864.
Innocentii III epistolae. Migne, PL, CCXIV–CCXVI.
Honorii III Romani Pontificis opera omnia. Ed. C. A. Horoy. 5 vols. Paris, 1879–1882:
(Medii aevi bibliotheca patristica seu ejusdem temporis patrologia ab anno MCCXVI
usque ad concilii tridentini tempora)
Bibliography 245
C. H. Haskins, “Two Roman Formularies in Philadelphia,” Miscellanea Francesco Ehrle

(Rome, 1924), IV, 275–286. (Here Prof. Haskins publishes a letter of Honorius III,
pertaining to Michael Scot, not contained in Pressutti, Regesta Honorii Papae III.)
B. Hauréau, “Quelques lettres d’Innocent IV,” Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la
Bibliothèque Nationale, XXIV, ii (1876), 157–247.
1.3 Collections of Decretals

E. Friedberg, ed., Corpus iuris canonici. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1879–81.
E. Friedberg, ed., Quinque compilationes antiquae, necnon collectio Lipsiensis. Leipzig,
1882.
W. Holtzmann, “Beiträge zu den Dekretalensammlungen des zwöften Jahrhunderts,”
Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtswissenschaft, XLVII. Kanonistische
Abteilung, XVI (1927), 37–115.
1.4 Conciliar Decrees

Mansi. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio. Ed. P. Labbé and G. Cossart.
1759–1798.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Legum sectio III. Concilia, II, ii. Hannover, 1906.
H. von der Hardt, Canones reformationis ecclesiae in Concilio Constantiensi. Vol. I.
Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1696 ff.
1.5 Glosses and Commentaries of the Canonists on the Papal Decretals

F. Thaner, ed., Summa Magistri Rolandi (Pope Alexander III). Innsbruck, 1874.
J. F. v. Schulte, ed., Die Summa des Stephanus Tornacensis über das Decretum Gratiani.
Giessen, 1891.
H. Singer, ed., Die Summa Decretorum des Magister Rufinus. Paderborn, 1902.
E. A. T. Laspeyres, ed., Bernardi Papiensis Episcopi Faventini Summa Decretalium.
Ratisbon, 1860.
Henry of Susa (Hostiensis), Summa. Lyons, 1542.
Sinibaldo Fieschi (Innocent IV), Apparatus in libros quinque decretalium. Venice, 1481.
2 Documents on Schools and Universities
2.1 Schools
A. F. Leach, Educational Charters and Documents 598–1909. Cambridge, 1911.
2.2 French Universities

M. Fournier, ed., Les Statuts et privilèges des Universités françaises depuis leur fondation
jusqu’en 1789. Vols. I and II. Paris, 1890–94.
246 Bibliography
H. Denifle and E. Chatelain, eds., Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis. Vols. I and II.
Paris, 1889–1891.
H. Denifle, “Quellen zur Gelehrtengeschichte des Predigerordens im 13. und 14. Jh.,”
Archiv für Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, II (Berlin, 1886),
165–248.
C. de Vic et J. J. Vaissette, Histoire générale de Languedoc. New edn. E. Dulaurier. 16 vols.
Toulouse, 1872–1904.
R. Gadave, ed., Documents sur l’histoire de l’Université de Toulouse. (Bibliothèque
Méridionale, 2e série, XIII). Toulouse, 1910.
A. Germain, ed., Cartulaire de l’Université de Montpellier. Vol. I (1181–1400). Montpellier,
1890.
C. H. Haskins, “Orleanese Formularies in a Manuscript at Tarragona,” Speculum, V
(1930), 411–420.
H. C. Lea, ed., A Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary of the Thirteenth Century.
Philadelphia, 1892.
H. Denifle, “Die ältaste Taxrolle der apostolisches Pönitentiare”, Archiv, IV (1888),
201–238.
2.3 English Universities

P. S. Allen and H. W. Garrod, Merton Muniments. (Oxford Historical Society). Oxford,
1928.
H. Anstey, Munimenta Academica. 2 vols. (Rolls Series). London, 1868.
H. E. Salter, Mediaeval Archives of the University of Oxford. 2 vols. Oxford, 1920–21.
W. W. Shirley, Royal and Other Historical Letters Illustrative of Henry III. 2 vols. (Rolls
Series). London, 1862–66.
Documents Relating to the University and Colleges of Cambridge. 3 vols. London, 1852.
2.4 Italian Universities

P. M. Campi, Dell’ historia ecclesiastica di Piacenza. 3 vols. Piacenza, 1651–62.
Chartularium, Studii Bononiensis. Documenti per la storia dell’ Università di Bologna
dalle origini fino al seculo XV. Ed. L. Nordi and E. Orioli. Bologna and Imola,
1909–1919.
Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum. M.G.H., Legum Sectio IV. I, 1893.
(Contains Authentic Habita.)
H. Denifle, “Die Statuten der Juristen-Universität Bologna vom Jahre 1317–1347,” Archiv,
III (1887), 196–253, 254–397.
H. Denifle, “Die Statuten der Juristen-Universität Padua vom Jahre 1331,” Archiv, VI
(1892), 309–561.
H. Denifle, “Urkunden zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Universitäten. Urkunden
zur Universität Bologna,” Archiv, IV (1888), 239–246.
Bibliography 247
A. Gaudenzi, “Gli antichi statuti del Comune di Bologna intorno allo Studio,” Bullettino
dell’ Istituto Storico Italiano. No. 6 (1888), 117–137.
A. Gloria, ed., Monumenti della Università di Padova (1222–1318). Venice, 1884.
A. Gloria, ed., Statuti de Comuni di Padova dal Secolo XII all’ anno 1285. Padua, 1873.
J. L. A. Huillard-Bréholles, ed., Historia diplomatica Frederici II. 6 vols. Paris, 1802–61.
C. Malagola, ed., Statuti delle Università e dei Collegi dello Studio Bolognese. Bologna, 1888.
M. Sarti (continued by M. Fattorini), De claris Archigymnasii Bononiensis professoribus.
New edn., C. Albicini and C. Malagola. 2 vols. Bologna, 1888–96.
L. V. Savioli, Annali Bolognesi. 3 vols. Bassano, 1784–95.
L. Zdekauer, Il constituto del Comune di Siena dell’anno 1262. Milan, 1897.
2.5 Spanish and Portuguese Universities

Los Codigos Españoles. Vols. I and II, Codigo de las Siete Partidas. Madrid, 1848–49.
Las Siete Partidas del Rey Alfonso el Sabio. 3 vols. Madrid, 1807.
A. Brandão, ed., Monarchia Lusytana. Vol. V. Lisbon, 1650.
H. Denifle, “Urkunden zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Universitäten. V. Die
päpstlichen Documento für die Universität Salamanca,” Archiv, V (1889), 167–226.
3 Literary Sources: Chronicles, Treatises, Sermons, Polemics, Poems,

etc.
Galvanus de la Flamma, Cronica. Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica,

II. Ed. B. M. Reichert. Rome, 1897.
Guillaume d’Auvergne, Tractatus de collatione beneficiorum. Opera Omnia, II, 248–260.
2 vols. Orleans, 1674.
Guillaume de Nangis, Gesta Sancti Ludovici. Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la
France, XX, 310–465. Paris, 1840.
Matthew Paris, Chronica majora. Ed. H. R. Luard. 3 vols. (Rolls Series). London, 1876–80.
Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum. Ed. Sir F. H. Madden. 5 vols. (Rolls Series). London,
1866–69.
H. F. Délaborde, ed., Oeuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume le Breton: Rigord, Gesta Philippi
Augusti; Guillaume le Breton, Gesta Philippi regis. 2 vols. (Société de l’Histoire de
France). Paris, 1882.
Richerius, Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae. Ed. G. Waitz. M.G.H., Scriptores, XXV, 249–345.
Hannover, 1880.
B. Hauréau, Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits latins de la Bibliothèque Nationale.
6 vols. Paris, 1890–93.
B. Hauréau “Notice sur le numéro 3143 des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale,”
Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, XXXIV, ii (Paris, 1895),
189–199.
248 Bibliography
St. Bernard, In Canticum Sermo XXXVI. Migne, PL, CLXXXIII, 967–971.

Robert de Sorbon, De conscientia et De tribus dietis. Ed. F. Chambon. Paris, 1902.
J. A. Giles, ed., Opera omnia Joannis Sarisberiensis. V. Oxford, 1848.
C. C. J. Webb, ed., Ioannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Metalogicon. Oxford, 1929.
John of Salisbury, Policraticus. Ed. C. C. J. Webb, 2 vols. Oxford, 1909.
A. M. Gietl, ed., Die Sentenzen Rolands nachmals Papstes Alexander III. Freiburg i.B., 1891.
Thomas de Cantimpré, Bonum universale de apibus. Douai, 1627.
Pseudo-Boethius, De disciplina scholarium. Migne, PL, LXIV, 1223–1238.
E. du Méril, Poésies populaires du moyen âge. Paris, 1847.
J. A. Schmeller, ed., Carmina Burana. Breslau, 1883.
A. Jubinal, ed., Oeuvres complètes de Rutebeuf. 2 vols. Paris, 1839.
Modern Works
1 The Popes
H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders des Dritten und der Kirche seiner Zeit, 3 vols. Leipzig,
1860–64.
A. Luchaire, Innocent III. Rome et l’Italie, 3rd edn. Paris, 1917.
T. J. Clausen, Papst Honorius III (1216–1227). Bonn, 1895.
J. Felten, Papst Gregor IX. Freiburg i.B., 1886.
F. Tenckhoff, Papst Alexander IV. Paderborn, 1907.
R. Stapper, Papst Johannes XXI. (Kirchengeschichtliche Studien. IV. Band; IV. Heft).
Münster i.W., 1898.
(These lives of the popes, with the exception of Stapper, contain disappointingly little
about their relation with learning and the Universities.)
2 Justice and Administration
H. Baier, Päpstliche Provisionen für niedere Pfründen bis zum Jahre 1304. Münster i.W.,
1911.
O. Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, Vol. III. Die Staats- und Korporationslehre
des Altertums und des Mittelalters. Berlin, 1881.
R. Génestal, Le privilegium fori en France du Décret de Gratien à la fin du XIVe siècle,
Vol. I. (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études: Sciences Religieuses. XXXV).
Paris, 1921.
C. J. v. Hefele and J. A. G. Hergenröther, Conciliengeschichte. 2nd. edn. 9 vols. Freiburg
i.B., 1873 ff.
Bibliography 249
P. Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und Protestanten in Deutschland. Part I.

System des katholischen Kirchenrechts, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Deutschland.
6 vols. Berlin, 1869–97.
K. Ruess, Die rechtliche Stellung der päpstlichen Legaten bis Bonifaz VIII. (Görres-
Gesellschaft zur Pflege der Wissenschaft im katholischen Deutschland. Sektion für
Rechts- und Sozial-wissenschaft. 13. Heft). Paderborn, 1912.
J. Sägmuller, Lehrbuch des katholischen Kirchenrechts. 4th edn. Freiburg i.B., 1925.
J. F. v. Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des Canonischen Rechts von
Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart. 3 vols. Stuttgart, 1875–80.
H. Zimmermann, Die päpstliche Legation in der ersten Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts
von Regierungsantritt Innocenz’ III. bis zum Tode Gregors IX (1198–1241). (Görres-
Gesellschaft. Rechts- u. Sozial-wissenschaft. 17. Heft). Paderborn, 1913.
3 Schools and Universities
3.1 Monastic and Cathedral Schools

U. Berlière, “Les écoles abbatiales au moyen âge. – Écoles externes,” Revue Bénédictine,
VI (1889), 499–511.
G. Bourbon, “La license d’enseigner et le rôle de l’écolâtre au moyen âge,” Revue des
questions historiques, XIX (1876), 513–533.
A. Clerval, Les écoles de Chartres au moyen âge. Paris, 1895.
M. J. C. Douais, Essai sur l’organisation des études dans l’ordre de Frères Prêcheurs au
treizième et au quatorzième siècle. Paris et Toulouse, 1884.
L. Maître, Les écoles épiscopales et monastiques de l’Occident depuis Charlemagne
jusqu’a Philippe-Auguste. Paris, 1866.
P. Mandonnet, “La crise scolaire au début du xiiie siècle et la fondation de l’Ordre des
Frères-Prêcheurs.” Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, XV (1914), 34–49.
G. Robert, Les écoles et l’enseignement de la théologie pendant la première moitié du
XII e siècle. Paris, 1909.
F. A. Specht, Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland von den ältesten Zeiten bis
zur Mitte des Dreizehnten Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart, 1885.
3.2 Universities, General Works

H. Denifle, Die Universitäten des Mittelalters. Vol. I. Die Entstehung der Universitäten des
Mittelalters bis 1400. Berlin, 1885.
M. Fournier, Histoire de la Science du Droit en France. Vol. III. Paris, 1892.
C. H. Haskins, The Rise of Universities. New York, 1923.
G. Kaufmann, Die Geschichte der Deutschen Universitäten. Vol. I: Vorgeschichte.
Stuttgart, 1888.
G. Manacorda, Storia della scuola in Italia. Vol I, i, ii. Milan, Palermo, Naples, 1914.
250 Bibliography
H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages. 2 vols. Oxford, 1895.
F. C. v. Savigny, Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter. 2nd edn. 7 vols.
Heidelberg, 1834–51.
3.3 English Universities

A. F. Leach, The Schools of Mediaeval England. London, 1915.
A. G. Little, The Grey Friars in Oxford. (Oxford Historical Society. XX.) Oxford, 1892.
H. C. M. Lyte, A History of the University of Oxford from the Earliest Times to the Year
1530. London, 1886.
C. E. Mallet, A History of the University of Oxford. London, 1924.
J. B. Mullinger, The University of Cambridge from the Earliest Times to the Royal
Injunctions of 1535. Cambridge, 1873.
G. Peacock, Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge. London, 1841.
3.4 French Universities

Angers:
J. C. Russell, “An Ephemeral University at Angers (1229–1234),” Colorado College
Publications (Social Science Series, III, no. 2. December, 1927), pp. 47–49.
Montpellier:
F. Fabrège, Histoire de Maguelone. Vol. III. Paris and Montpellier, 1911.
A. Germain, Histoire de l’Université de Montpellier. Introduction to Cartulaire de
l’Université de Montpellier. Vol. I, pp. 1–176. Montpellier, 1890.
La faculté de théologie de Montpellier. Montpellier, 1883.
Étude sur l’École de Droit de Montpellier, 1160–1793. Montpellier, 1877.
Orleans:
J. Doinel, Hugues le Boutellier et le massacre des clercs à Orléans en 1236. Orleans, 1887.
Paris:
H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, Études sur l’état intérieur des abbayes cisterciennes et princi-
palement de Clairvaux, au XII e et au XIII e siècle. Paris, 1858.
L. Auvray, Documents parisiens tirés de la Bibliothèque du Vatican. Paris, 1892.
M. Bierbaum, Bettelorden und Weltgeistlichkeit an der Universität Paris. Münster i.W.,
1920.
G. C. Boyce, The English-German Nation in the University of Paris during the Middle
Ages. Bruges, 1927.
A. Cartellieri, Philipp II. August, König von Frankreich. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1899–1922.
M.-D. Chapotin, Histoire des Dominicains de la Province de France. Rouen, 1898.
Bibliography 251
R. Delègue, L’Université de Paris: 1224–1244. Paris, 1902.

C. E. DuBoulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis a Carolo Magno ad nostra tempora.
6 vols. Paris, 1655–73.
F. Ehrle, “S. Domenico, le origini del primo studio generale del suo ordine a Parigi
e la Somma del primo maestro Rolando da Cremona,” Miscellanea Dominicana,
pp. 85–134. Rome, 1923.
L. Halphen, “Les débuts de l’Université de Paris,” Studi Medievali. Nuova serie, 1929;
pp. 134–139.
C. H. Haskins, “The University of Paris in the Sermons of the Thirteenth Century,”
American Historical Review, X (1904), 1–27. Also in Studies in Mediaeval Culture
(Oxford, 1929), Chap. II, pp. 36–72.
E. Jallonghi, “La grande discordia tra l’Università di Parigi e i Mendicanti,” La Scuola
Cattolica, XIII (1917), 488–502; XIV (1918), 103–123.
B. Jarrett, “The Dominicans and their University Education,” Miscellanea Dominicana,
pp. 169–181. Rome, 1923.
G. Lacombe, Prepositini Cancellarii Parisiensis (1206–1210) Opera omnia. Vol. I. La vie et
les oeuvres de Prévostin. (Bibliothèque Thomiste, XI). Kain: Le Saulchoir, 1927.
A. Luchaire, L’Université de Paris sous Philippe-Auguste. Paris, 1899.
A. Luchaire, La société française au temps de Philippe-Auguste. Paris, 1909.
G.-H. Luquet, Aristote et l’Université de Paris pendant le XIIIe siècle. (Bibliothèque de
l’École des Hautes Études. Sciences Religieuses. XVI. Fasc. 2). Paris, 1904.
D. L. McKay, “Le système d’examen du XIIIe siècle d’aprés le De conscientia de Robert
de Sorbon,” Mélanges d’histoire du moyen âge offerts à M. Ferdinand Lot, pp. 491–500.
Paris, 1925.
P. Mandonnet, “De l’incorporation des Dominicains dans l’ancienne Université de
Paris,” Revue Thomiste, IV (1896), 133–170.
D. A. Mortier, Histoire des maîtres généraux de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs. Vol, I. Paris,
1903.
L. J. Paetow, The Arts Course at Medieval Universities, with Special Reference to Grammar.
Urbana, 1910.
G. Périés, La faculté de droit dans l’ancienne Université de Paris. Paris, 1890.
F. M. Powicke, Stephen Langton. Oxford, 1928.
G. Théry, Autour du décret de 1210. I: David de Dinant. (Bibliothèque Thomiste, VI). Kain:
Le Saulchoir, 1925.
C. Thurot, De l’organisation de l’enseignement dans l’Université de Paris au Moyen Âge.
Paris, 1850.
N. Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne, évêque de Paris (1228–1249). Sa vie et ses ouvrages. Paris,
1880.
252 Bibliography
Toulouse:
M. Gatien-Arnoult, “L’Histoire de l’Université de Toulouse,” Mémoires de l’Académie
des Sciences, Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Toulouse, Série 7, IX, 455–595; X, 1–34;
Série 8, I, 1–32; III, 1–36; IV, 1–26. Toulouse, 1877–82.
A. Molinier, “Étude sur l’organisation de l’Université de Toulouse au 14e et au 15e siècles
(1309–1450),” in De Vic et Vaissette, Histoire générale de Languedoc, VII, 570–608.
3.5 Italian Universities

Arezzo:
L. Guazzesi, Dell’antico dominio del vescovo di Arezzo in Cortona. Pisa, 1760.
Bologna:
V. Cavazza, “Le scuole dell’ antico Studio di Bologna,” Atti e Memorie della Reale
Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Provincie di Romagna. Série 3. XII (1895), 391–468.
A. Hessel, Geschichte der Stadt Bologna von 1116 bis 1280. Berlin, 1910.
N. Tammasia, “Odofredo. Studio storico-giuridico,” Atti e memorie della Reale Deputa-
zione di Storia patria per le Provincie di Romagna. Serie 3. XI (1894), 183–225; XII
(1895), 1–83, 330–390.
G. Zaccagnini, La vita dei maestri e degli scolari nello Studio di Bologna nei secoli XIII e
XIV. Geneva, 1926. (Biblioteca dell’Archivium Romanicum, I, v).
G. Zaccagnini, “L’Insegnamento privato a Bologna e altrove nei secc. XIII e XIV,” Atti e
memorie … di Romagna. Serie 4. XIV (1924), 254–301.
Modena:
Vicini, “Profilo storico dell’ antico Studio di Modena,” Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di
Giurisprudenza della R. Università di Modena. Num. 10. Modena, 1926.
Naples:
Storia della Università di Napoli. Naples, 1924. F. Torraca, ‘‘Le origini, L’età sveva,”
pp. 1–17; G. M. Monti, “L’Età angioina,” pp. 17–151.
K. Hampe, “Zur Gründungsgeschichte der Universität Neapel,” Sitzungsberichte der
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, XIV. Abh. 10 (Heidelberg, 1924), pp. 3–13.
F. Torraca, “Maestro Terrisio di Atina,” Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane,
XXXVI (1911), 231–253.
Padua:
L. Frati, “L’Epistola De regimine et modo studendi di Martino da Fano,” Studi e memorie
per la storia dell’Università di Bologna (Bologna, 1907 ff.) VI (1921), 19–31.
A. Sorbelli, “Notizie di professori e insegnamenti in Padova prima del 1222,” Studi e
memorie … di Bologna. Serie 2. VII (1922), 119–128.
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Siena:
E. Armstrong, “The Sienese Statutes of 1262,” English Historical Review, XV (1900), 1–19.
D. Barduzzi, “Di un maestro dello Studio Senese nel Paradiso Dantesco,” Bullettino
Senese di Storia Patria, XXVIII (1921), 417–429.
3.6 Spanish and Portuguese Universities

E. E. Arteaga, Historia pragmática é interna de la Universidad de Salamanca. Vol. I:
La Universidad de Salamanca y los reyes. Salamanca, 1914.
T. Braga, Historia da Universidade de Coimbra. Vol. I. Lisbon, 1892.
A. Bonilla y San Martin, La vida corporativa de los estudiantes espanoles, en sus relacio-
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D. V. de la Fuente, Historia de las Universidades, Colegios y demas establecimientos de
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M. E. da Motta Veiga, Esboco historico-litterario da faculdade de théologia da
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A. de Vasconcelos, Origem e evolucão do fôro académico privativo da antiga Universidade
portuguesa. Coimbra, 1917.
4 Miscellaneous
C. V. J. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge Biobibliographie.

Rev. edn. Paris, 1905–07.
H. Hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae. 3rd edn. Vol. II. Innsbruck, 1906.
Z. N. Brooke, “The Register of Master David of London,” Essays in History Presented to
R. Lane Poole. Ed. F. M. Powicke. Oxford, 1927, pp. 227–45.
G. G. Coulton, Art and the Reformation. New York, 1928.
C. H. Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1927.
C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science. Cambridge: Harvard Univ.
Press, 1924.
C. H. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929.
L. v. Rockinger, “Über die Ars dictandi und die Summae dictaminum in Italien,”
Sitzungsberichte der königl. bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München.
Bd. I. Heft I, 98–151. Munich, 1861.
L. Thorndike, “Public Readings of New Works in Mediaeval Universities,” Speculum, I
(1926), 101–103.
Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars. Boston and New York, 1929.
W. T. Waugh, “Archbishop Peckham and Pluralities,” English Historical Review, XXVIII
(1913), 625–635.
Index
Abelard 8, 20, 21n, 23 Authentic Habita 91, 123, 125, 130n, 133, 136,
Absenteeism 186, 202n, 213–217, 221n, 138n
238 d’Auvergne, Guillaume; see William of
Absolution 124–126, 129, 146–152 Auvergne
Abuses 12, 25n, 32–38, 43–46, 77, 121, 126, Auxerre, bishop of 66, 77, 185, 220; see also
138, 139, 143, 144, 146n, 158–160, 207, William of Auxerre
216–220, 229, 237 Avignon, church of 107, 181n, 239n
Accursius, Franciscus 96–97
Accursius Magnus (the Great) 96 Barthélemy of Tours 225, 226n
Aimery of Vaire 56, 67 Beauvais, cantor of 64
Albertus Magnus 57 Benedict XII, pope 79, 200n
Alcobaça, abbot of 188 Benefice 14, 15n, 23, 93, 94, 111n, 136, 176–183,
Alexander III, pope 3, 7–11, 15n, 16, 18, 19n, 187, 204–205
20–29, 33–37, 45, 88, 91, 95, 124n, as a means of student support 173, 175,
133–137, 141, 165, 175n, 178, 180n, 185, 180, 182, 187, 188, 207–213, 220–227, 235,
186, 204, 210, 213, 215, 221 236n, 238
Alexander IV, pope 3, 43n, 45n, 65, 68–71, as papal patronage 27, 144n, 173, 175,
81, 85, 106, 107, 109n, 119, 120, 121, 125n, 186–187, 202–207, 210–216, 219, 223–227,
126, 141, 149, 161n, 164, 217n, 222, 235, 236–237
235n, 236 as salary for professors/masters 175–185,
Alexander of Hales, O.F.M. 55 187–194, 197, 198–203, 206n
Alfonse of Poitiers, count of Toulouse 58 Benefit of clergy 132–133
Alfonso VIII, king of Castile 84 Berard of Naples 83n, 102n, 109, 205
Alfonso IX, king of Leon 84 Berardus, rector of Magny 219
Alfonso X, king of Castile and Leon 125n Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint 190, 199, 204,
Amaury de Bène 165 225
Amiens: bishop of 51, 129, 129n, 218n Bernard of Pavia 15n, 95n, 177n, 181n
chapter of 213 Bertholdus, canon of Speyer 150–151
dean of 129n Blanche of Castile 46, 128, 131
Andrew, master, canon at Palencia 205 Blois
Angers 42, 44, 47 canons of 221
bishop of 75 church of Notre-Dame (Burgus
cathedral school 74 Medius) 215
scholasticus of 9, 75 see also Peter of Blois
university of 74–75, 80, 116, 131n, 135, Boethius, Topics 166
140–143, 156, 176, 187, 189n, 202, 227n Bologna
Antoninus, canon at Piacenza 218 archdeacon of 166n, 183
Aquinas, Thomas, see Thomas Aquinas archipresbyter of 187n
Aretinus, Gratia; see Gratia Aretinus bishop of 92n, 93n
Arezzo townspeople of 98, 103, 123n, 190n
church of 205n courts of 136
university of 98, 114, 195 commune of 2, 19n, 97–100, 103, 123, 156,
Aristotle 165–166, 204 158, 169, 196n, 237
Nichomachean Ethics 166 constitution of Bologna 169
Index 255
masters of 183–184, 187n, 193, 195–196 Clement V, pope 76–78, 82n, 107, 117n, 118n,
privileges of 237–238 129n, 131, 135–136, 140, 140n, 145, 151, 167,
statutes of 1317 97, 99–102, 112n, 195, 168n, 182n, 199n, 203n, 232
229n Clerical tonsure 122n, 123n, 129, 132, 133,
student resistance of 1215 98 151
university of 144, 156, 158, 161n, 166–169, Coimbra, university of 86, 125, 127, 184n,
175, 178, 184, 187, 189, 190n, 191, 194, 188, 202
200n, 201, 203, 204, 209, 219–220, 225, alcaldi 126
228–231, 237, 239–241 Collectae 176n, 178n, 191–194, 199, 201,
Boniface VIII, pope 77, 78, 102n, 125n, 126, 209
153n, 154, 166, 188n Collegium 161
Bourges see also corporation
cathedral chapter of 11 Comestor, Peter; see Peter Comestor
schools of 11, 12n, 27 Conrad, cardinal legate 90, 104, 140, 143, 167,
Brieuc, church of 220n 197n, 206
Conrad IV, king of Germany 206
Cambridge Consortia 122, 164
university of 80–83, 154–155, 176–177, Constantinople 142
187, 202, 223, 233, 240 Constitution of the University (Society of
masters at 116 Masters) 2, 3, 17, 28n, 31, 44, 51–55, 58n,
Camerlengo, cardinal 83 66, 69, 70n, 72, 82, 84, 91, 102–104, 110,
Canterbury, archbishop of 12, 142, 160, 204, 116–117, 137, 143–146, 159, 163, 163n, 167,
230 169, 175–177, 201, 216–217, 217n, 227, 229,
see also Stephen Langton 230, 239
Capitouls 135 Corporations of students/masters 2, 3, 7,
Cathedral Schools 2, 8, 10n, 11n, 12–14, 16n, 17, 25, 28–33, 44–45, 47, 53, 55, 58, 63,
17, 19, 24n, 27, 31, 74, 76, 80, 84, 85, 86n, 66, 70n, 73, 80, 88, 98, 104, 116–118, 122,
88–91, 125, 135, 136, 140, 142, 176–178, 124, 141–144, 156–169, 173, 237, 239,
180–181, 184–185, 190–193, 197–198, 241–242
208–209, 223 Costs of instruction 9, 176–179, 190–194, 197,
Celestine III, pope 134n, 214 201–202, 208–209, 212
Châlons-sur-Marne 12 see also fees
chapter of 10 Council of Constance (1414) 83, 97n, 117n,
dean of 10 121
master at 8 Council of London (1138) 9, 10n, 14
schools of 10, 12n, 27 Council of Paris (1210) 165
Charles II of Anjou, king of Naples 114, 131n, (1212) 32n
195 Council of Rome (1079) 8
Chartres, monastery of Saint-Père 236 Council of Soissons (1121) 21n
Saint-Pére, monastery of 236 Council of Tours (1163) 88n, 89n
Chichester, bishop of 210 Council of Valladolid (1228) 187
Chrétien de Beauvais, master 55n, 64n, Council of Vienne (1311) 203n, 236
68n Cremona, canon of 111
Cistercians 55, 60, 107, 108n see also Praepositinus; Roland
Clement III, pope 18, 228–229, 235 Crime and criminality among students, see
Clement IV, pope 83n, 89–91, 100n, 101n, Jurisdiction
102n, 106–109, 114, 145n Curzon, Robert; see Robert Curzon
256 Index
David of Dinant, Quaternuli 165, 204 Faculty 107–108, 110, 113, 118–119, 155, 161,
David of London, master 204 163n, 164–165, 181, 182, 217, 222–223, 227,
Denis, king of Portugal 86 241
Denmark, kingdom of 131, 157 of arts 107, 120, 137, 153n, 160, 164, 166,
Dinant, chapter of 204 167, 197, 197n, 200n, 201, 203
Diniz; see Denis, king of Portugal of canon law 107–110, 164–167
Disciplinary jurisdiction 31, 135–144 of civil law 107–110, 164–167
see also Jurisdiction of medicine 110, 113, 164, 167, 197
Dispensation from residence 113, 121, 164, of theology 107–108, 118, 120, 164, 180–181,
173, 176, 182–185, 188–189, 197, 199n, 184, 184n, 202, 216–220, 223, 238, 241
201–202, 206n, 208, 213–227, 236–241 Fees, to procure the license 8, 11–12, 15n, 16,
Dol, bishop of 216 18, 20–24, 32n, 96, 97, 99, 103, 112, 117,
Dominicans 39, 45n, 54–55, 58–65, 67n, 68, 119n, 173, 187n
70n, 79, 81, 85, 104, 108n, 109, 118, 142, as professor salaries 175–178, 184, 185n,
144, 160, 184n, 199n, 200n, 222, 234, 235n 189, 190–202, 209, 227, 235
Donatus, Barbarismus 166 Ferdinand III, king of Castile 85, 187
Dunkeld, canon of, see Hugo, master Ferdinand IV, king of Castile 188n
Florence, chapter of 216
Ecclesiastical courts 127, 129n, 130–137, 144, Forisfactum 134
145n, 149 Franciscans 54, 60, 62n, 63, 81, 151n, 222, 235
Edward II, king of England 120 Frederick Barbarossa, emperor 92n, 123, 130
Edward III, king of England 154n Frederick II, emperor 105n, 114–115, 130, 195,
Ely, bishop of 82n, 155; diocese of 155 205, 225, 238
Emoluments 49 Friars, see Mendicant Orders
Episcopal prisons 138–140, 153 Fulco, master of the schools at Orleans 20n,
Étienne, master 132 21n, 75
Étienne of Rheims, chancellor of Paris 40n Furnes, provost of 218, 221
Étienne Tempier 71n
Eugenius II, pope 7, 88, 90n, 203, 210 G., master 20n, 21n, 30, 32, 75, 161n, 162
Evreux, bishop of 59n, 60 Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales 208
Exaction of obedience and oaths 42, 44 Geoffrey of Poitiers 47, 193
of teaching fees 8, 10, 12, 192 Geoffrey of Trani 15, 95, 177, 179, 184, 191n,
of illegal taxes or duties 131 192, 194, 205
Examination 18–26, 29, 31, 36, 37n, 38, 39, Geoffroy Babion, scholasticus at Angers 9,
39n, 46, 48–50, 53, 57, 63n, 70–73, 76n, 74n
81–87, 92–95, 99–115, 117–121, 164 Gerardus Puella 27n, 186
applicability between universities 107, Gerona, bishop of 214
113, 118–121, 238 chapter of 214n
requirements 22, 26, 72, 81 Gervalcus of Strasbourg, master 205, 206n
restrictions 81–82 Gilbert of Tournai 217
rights of 21, 23, 29, 66, 70–72, 82, 101, 162, Good Children of Saint Victor; see Paris,
163 College of Bons Enfants de Saint-Victor
Excommunication 31, 41, 51, 60, 66–68, 96, Goslar, church of 216
107, 109, 124–133, 137n, 139, 140, 143, 145, Gratia Aretinus, archdeacon of
146, 148, 149n, 152, 153, 156, 159, 162, Bologna 93–94, 104
166–167, 219, 228n, 229n Gratuity of teaching 29n, 175–177, 190–194,
excommunication nominatim 67 199, 208
Exeter, bishop of 124n, 205n Gregory VII, pope 8
Index 257
Gregory IX, pope 3, 41n, 42–50, 53, 56, 58, Hugolinus Azo 161n, 162
60, 65, 69–72, 74n, 76–79, 80n, 82n, 95, Humbert de Romans, O.P. 65
119, 125n, 127, 128–136, 139–143, 146,
149n, 150, 155, 159–168, 177n, 180n, 181n, Ile-Barbare, abbot of 222
183, 187n, 193, 204–205, 206n, 210–211, Imperial privilege of 1158; see Authentic
216–221, 224n, 225, 230–235, 238, 241n Habita
decretals of 95, 166, 177n, 220 Indulgences 48, 59n, 96, 113, 145, 239
Grosseteste, Robert, see Robert Grosseteste Injectio manuum 124–126, 127n, 129n, 137n,
Guala, cardinal legate 94n, 145, 233 139n, 147, 149, 152
Guido, Cistercian master 60 Innocent III, pope 3, 22, 25, 29n, 30, 32–33,
Guido de Sora, papal legate 105, 144 35–38, 45, 47n, 50, 57n, 62n, 69, 88, 92n,
Guidoni de Verneto 219 93n, 111, 118n, 138, 141, 144, 146–148, 159,
Guild of Masters 17, 25, 33, 35, 40, 78, 88, 161n, 162–166, 178–179, 185–186, 204, 210,
98 211n, 215n, 220–221, 224n, 234
admission to 17, 28, 31–32, 35, 38, 53, 80, Innocent IV, pope 3, 14n, 30n, 46, 50, 53n,
82n, 92, 103, 116, 118, 122, 161n 55–56, 58–60, 62, 63n, 64–65, 67n,
formation 2–3, 18, 20, 23, 25, 80, 118, 237, 69–70, 79–83, 95–99, 109n, 113, 119n, 120,
241 124, 129, 130n, 131, 136, 139n, 140, 142, 144,
papal confirmation 20 145n, 146–153, 160–161, 165, 167, 169,
papal regulation 91 181n, 182–183, 185, 188, 192n, 193n, 197,
Guild of Students 18, 88n, 98, 168 200n, 205, 206n, 210, 211n, 212, 213n,
Guillaume, see also William 214n, 215n, 216–219, 221–225, 227n,
Guillaume de Nangis 65n 231–239, 243
Guillaume Seguier 83n, 89–90, 100n, 101n, Innocent VI, pope 79
108, 109n, 121
Jacobus Vulturus, master 206
Henry II, king of England 204, 225 James I, king of Aragon 108
Henry III, king of England 82, 152n, 153–154, James II, king of Aragon 101n, 125n, 126
204, 233 Jean Halgrin d’Abbeville, cardinal legate and
Henry of Avranches 75n chancellor of Paris 186n, 187
Henry of Susa, (Hostiensis) 181n, 192, 193n, Jean de Barastre 186
194n, 221 Jean de Chandelles 32, 36, 38, 40, 45, 138
Heresy 1, 53, 79, 118, 165, 183, 202, 204, 241 Jean de Montlaur II, bishop 107
Albigensian 79 Jean de Montlhéry 226n
protection of orthodoxy 118n, 202, 183, Johannes Andrea, master 184, 192, 221
241 John, see also Jean
regulations against 53n, 165, 183, 204n John XXI, pope 196
Historia Scholastica; see Peter Comestor John XXII, pope 82n, 83, 85, 155, 186,
Honorius III, pope 84n, 89–95, 97–104, 201–202
110–111, 119n, 123–124, 125n, 126n, 139, John, cardinal legate 110
142, 143n, 146, 150, 156, 159–160, 161n, John of Cyprus 106n
162, 164–168, 178, 180–181, 185–187, John of Garland 75n
204–205, 206n, 209–211, 213n, 214–216, John of Salisbury 20n, 22n, 190, 199,
217n, 218–221, 224n, 229, 234, 241n 206–207, 225
Honorius IV, pope 72, 236 John of St. Giles 46n, 54
Hospitia 234 John the Scot, De divisione naturae 165
Hugo, master 98n, 113, 219 Judex ordinarius 138
Hugo de Seghuin 144n Jurisdiction, see chapter 6
258 Index
Jus ubique docendi 80n, 83–87, 110, 118n, Maguelone

120–121, 238–241; see also licence to archdeacon of 110
teach; licentia ubique docendi bishop of 18, 89–91, 105, 120, 140, 149,
167n, 197n
Lateran III, council 9n, 14–15, 24n, 95n, 178, cathedral chapter of 104, 106–108, 110
183, 191n, 201, 206n, 212, 214 church of 110
Lateran IV, council 14n, 15, 88, 105n, 150n, Martin IV, pope 72, 100, 153
165, 179, 183, 201, 212, 214 Matthew Paris 55n, 75n, 130n, 149n, 151n
Laurentius 15n Mayorales, rectors in Spanish
Le Mans, bishop of 128 universities 86
Leo IV, pope 7, 90n Meaux
Lerida, university of 84–85, 125–126, 184n, archdeacon of 145n
187n, 188n bishop of 51
License to teach 7, 8, 12, 16–20 21n, 24, 35, Mendicant Orders 31, 43n, 47, 50, 52, 54–62,
38, 54n, 71n, 75, 82–87, 90, 92n, 93, 95, 63n, 64–70, 72–73, 78–79, 82, 109n,
97, 101n, 111–113, 116, 118, 121, 178, 187n, 144n, 234n
196, 238 Merton, Walter de; see Walter of Merton
see also licentia ubique docendi Michael, papal legate 130
Licensing of unworthy men 48, 121 Michael Scot 204–206, 244n
Licentia ubique docendi 7n, 13–14, 16, 18, Milan, university of 215n
25–26, 76–77, 83, 85, 87, 101n, 102, 112n, Modena
114, 118n, 119–121, 183n, 191n, 227, bishop of 96
238–239 chapter of 213
see also license to teach university of 26n, 114, 125n, 196
Licentia ubique regendi 119 Montpellier
Licentiandi 119, 162, 163 church of 106
Licet non credas, letter of 152, 200 church of Saint-Firmin, prepositus 106
Lincoln council at 130
archdeacon of 152 legatine statute of 1220 18, 90n, 91, 104,
bishop of 19, 53n, 80–82, 116, 120, 105n, 106, 129, 136, 140, 143, 167, 197
152–153 university of 17, 18, 19, 19n, 20, 27, 80, 88,
cathedral of 116 88n, 89, 90, 90n, 91, 101n, 102n, 104–113,
chancellor of 116 120–121, 129, 136, 138n, 140, 143, 149, 156,
diocese of 205n 167, 175, 178, 184n, 187, 197, 201, 209,
Lisbon 219n, 237, 239–240
bishop of 86
university of 86, 125, see also Coimbra Naples
Lisieux, bishop of 160, 230 kingdom of 130
Lombard, Peter, see Peter Lombard university of 114–115, 117, 125, 130n, 184,
Lombardy, kingdom of 130 189, 191, 193, 194n, 195, 195n, 201, 238
Louis IX, king of France 58, 107n, 110, 127, Narbonne
131, 193n, 230, 235 province of 205n
Luca, master 60 university of 182–183, 222–223, 227n,
Lyon 239
diocese of 222 Nevers
chapter of 224
Maestrescuela 84, 84n, 85, 86n, 126 count of 132
Magischola 8 diocese 219
Magister scholarum 8, 10n, 12n, 17, 18, 74–76, Nicholas IV, pope 86, 96, 96n, 97, 102, 106,
82, 84, 133n, 135–136, 137n, 138, 198 110, 120–121, 125, 127, 167, 187n, 188, 239
Index 259
Nicholas, cardinal legate 152, 233, 236 Conservator of apostolic privileges

Nicholas, rector of Novo 219 125–126, 129, 131n, 132, 143, 145n, 146n,
Nicholas de Bar-sur-Aube 64n 156, 161
Noyon, bishop of 132 Papal bulls, constitutions, and decretals
of 1222 41, 44, 139, 143n, 160
Octavian, cardinal legate 95, 101n of 1254 65
Odo of Sully, bishop of Paris 214 of 1306 76, 125n, 131, 135–136, 140n,
see also Paris, bishop of 145, 151, 167, 199n, 232
Odofredo 194 decretals 3, 9n, 12n, 13, 15, 21, 23, 92n,
Order of the Val des Écoliers (Vallis- 95, 166, 177n, 183–185, 190, 192, 203,
Scolarium) 55, 61, 235 215, 220, 221n, 243
Orleans Quanto Gallicana (1170) 9n, 12n,
bishop of 66, 76, 77, 80, 116, 118n, 130, 151, 13–15, 21, 24n, 95n
198 Quasi Lignum Vitae (1255) 65–68,
chancellor of 77 70n
church of 75 Quia nonnullis (1215) 179n, 184, 190
scholasticus of 75, 77, 118, 135, 140 Super speculam (1219) 15n, 180, 181n,
student riot of 1236 130 182–185, 186n, 188, 190–191, 201, 213n,
townspeople of 130 215, 218–223, 238
university of 20n, 22, 42, 44, 66, 74–78, Tue fraternitatis (1207) 220, 221n
129–132, 135–136, 143, 149n, 150–151, 156, Papal protections and privileges 3, 25,
167, 168, 176–178, 184n, 187, 189n, 198, 48, 55n, 59, 65, 68n, 82, 83, 86, 100, 102,
202, 227n, 232 107, 109, 113, 118, 132–133, 142–143,
Orthodoxy, protection of 1, 118, 121, 202, 241 149–151, 156–162, 167, 182, 199n, 234,
Oseney Abbey, see Oxford 235n, 237–241
Otho, papal legate 153 of autonomy 110, 158, 163, 237
Ovid 198 against brigands 130
Oxford against corporate
board of taxors 233 excommunication 41, 51, 107,
burghers of 233, 236 124–126, 145–146, 156, 159, 162, 167
chancellor of 32 against exaction or local customs
Oseney Abbey 153 duties 12, 44, 131
town and gown conflict, 1208–1209 152, against interdict 126
236 against suspension 126
university of 17, 19–20, 27, 28, 53n, 80–82, of absolution 124
116, 120, 152–156, 166, 175–177, 185n, of jurisdiction 122, 208
186–187, 197, 202–203, 209, 223, while traveling 130
227–228, 232–237 Papal recognition of corporation 2, 28,
29, 29n, 30, 31, 32, 32n, 45, 75n, 85, 97,
Padua 111, 113, 117, 121, 142–146, 158, 159, 162,
bishop of 112 237, 239, 242
university of 100n, 101n, 104, 111–112, 117, Papal university (University of the Roman
194n, 195–196, 201, 234n Court) 83, 90, 109, 114, 116, 120–121,
Palencia 183n, 185, 189, 203–204, 223, 238, 239
diocese of 187 college of doctors 83
university of 84, 126, 187–189, 202n, 205, Paris
227 Burghers and townspeople 47, 127–128,
Papacy 134, 148, 150, 154, 229–230, 232
Authority over license-system 99–121, Cathedral of Notre-Dame 24n, 60–61, 73,
124 100
260 Index
Paris (cont.) University of 2, 8, 9n, 15, 16n, 17, 19–73,

archdeacon of 100 74–80, 85, 91, 94–95, 101, 104–109, 113,
bishop of 76, 128, 129, 138, 140, 147, 116–121, 125, 127, 131–138, 141–146,
156, 214n, 229–230, 234 148–149, 151, 155–158, 161–169, 175–178,
canons of 62n 181–193, 198–204, 207, 209–210, 213n,
cantor of 207 214, 215, 217n, 218–223, 226–228,
cathedral school of 12–13 232–234, 237–241
chancellor of 20–21, 24–25, 29, 42–43, board of taxors 232
49, 67, 74n, 75–76, 77n, 80–83, cessation of lectures (1253) 58–60,
104–106, 132, 138, 145, 156, 226, 229, 64, 66, 168
231, 236–237, 238n compromise of 1213 34, 35n, 36n,
chapter of 2, 159, 234 37–40, 41n, 45, 47–48, 50n, 142n,
church of 33n, 73, 215 148n, 164
officialis of 140 conflict of 1218–1228 43
scholasticus of 140 conflict of 1280–1290 72
Churches dispersion of 1229 42, 46, 47, 48n, 54,
Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois 186 74, 75n, 82, 193
Colleges prohibition against teaching civil
College of Bons Enfants de law 35n, 74, 76, 88, 93
Saint-Victor 234 secular boycott of religious
College of Saint Thomas of the masters 67
Louvre 234 statute of 1207 36, 50, 62n, 118, 185
College of the Sorbonne 235 statutes of 1215 (Robert of Curzon)
Convents and monasteries 38, 45, 60n, 133n, 136–137, 151n, 159,
Dominicans (Saint-Jacques) 39, 162–164, 166, 229–230
45n, 54–55, 57n, 58, 60–63, 65–66, statutes of 1228 38n, 40n, 46–47,
67n, 68, 70n, 79–81, 82n, 85, 104, 49–50, 52–53, 55
107–109, 118, 142, 144, 160, 184n, 195, statutes of 1231 (Parens scientiarum)
199, 200n, 217n, 222, 234–235 31, 44, 46, 48, 50–52, 57–58,
Franciscans (Cordeliers) 54, 55n, 62n, 68n, 69, 76, 78, 116, 136,
58–61, 62n, 63, 79, 81, 108n, 151n, 139–142, 159, 163, 167, 193n, 230,
217n, 222, 235 232
Mathurines 55, 61 student riots of 1200 127
Saint-Marcel, abbey of 128, 147n student riots of 1228 46–47, 147n,
Bourg of 128n, 147n 149n, 150
canons of 214 student riot of 1253 58–59, 64
Saint-Victor Pastoureaux 151
abbot of 146–148 Patronage, of masters 203–207, see also
prior of 52 chapter 8
Sainte-Geneviève of students 173, 175, 180, 182, 187–188,
abbey of 45–46 207–213, 220–227, 235, 236n, 238
abbot of 41–44, 48–49, 67, 129, 218 Pedagia 131
chancellor of 43, 67–68, 71, 165 Persona ficta 161
schools of 8n Peter of Blois 22n
Saint-Germain-des-Prés Peter Cantor 207, 222
abbot of 128, 147n Peter, canon of Soissons 215n
monastery of 235 Peter, cardinal of St. Chrysogono 224n
Val des Écoliers 55, 61, 235 Peter, cardinal-bishop of Tusculum 228
Index 261
Peter, cardinal legate 77 archdeacon of 41, 129n

Peter Comestor 24–26 cathedral chapter of 222
Historia Scholastica 81 dean of 222
Peter of Corbeil 186 officialis of 41, 41n
Petrus Hispanus; see John XXI university of 133, 135, 145, 222
Peter Lombard 165, 203, 210n Richard of Amiens, master 218n
Sentences 81 Richard of York 218
Peter; see also Pierre Robert of Clermont, count 234
Philip II, Augustus, king of France 127, 134, Robert Curzon, papal legate 40, 45, 60n,
150, 204n 136–137, 143, 151n, 159, 162–166, 207,
Philip IV, the Fair, king of France 135, 157 229–231
Philip, chancellor of Paris 40, 42, 45, 50, 74n, Robert of Douai, master 64
75n, 132 Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 53,
Philip de Grève 51n, 207 81, 133n, 236n
Piacenza 112 Robert of Sorbon 72n, 73n, 117n, 151, 199,
chapter of 214 226, 235
university of 104, 111–113, 117, 239 Roland of Cremona 46n, 47, 54, 70n, 79n
Pierre de Celles 224n Rolandinus Passaggieri 102
Pillius, glossator 161 Roman Curia; see Papacy
Podestà 97, 99n, 124, 157, 168, 196n Roman law 103
Potestas jurisdictionis 1, 237 Romano Frangipani, cardinal legate 43n,
Potestas magisterii 1, 88, 94, 117, 121, 237 44–45, 49, 79, 143, 159, 181n, 219, 230,
Praepositinus of Cremona 32, 199 238, 241n
Premonstratensians 55 Rotulus nominandorum 187
Prévostin; see Praepositinus
Privilege of a seal 160, 161, 229 Sabinus, professor of law 192
Privilegium canonis 124, 129 Saint-Amour, Guillaume de; see William of
applicability for lay students 127–129, Saint-Amour
148 Saint-Quentin, dean of 186
Privilegium fori 88n, 122n, 124–125, 127, 132, monastery of Saint-Prix, abbot of 132
134, 140, 145n, 152, 156, 242 Salamanca
Procurator 142, 144, 166–167, 195 maestrescuela of 126
Provisions of 1213 40 university of 84–86, 119–120, 125,
Pseudo-Boethius, De disciplina 161n, 166, 184n, 187–188, 202–203,
scholarium 189 240
Salaries 15n, 27n, 100, 175
Rainaldus, archdeacon of Salisbury 210 sources of 100, 103, 132, 141, 143, 173
Raymond, count of Toulouse 132, 183n see also chapter 8 175–207
Raymond of Peñafort 15n, 92n, 93n, 95, Salerno, university of 17, 20, 105n, 115, 206
166n, 175n, 177n, 183–184, 191n, 192, Salisbury
196n, 217n archdeacon of 210
Raymund Peroneti 205 bishop of 153n
Reggio Scholasticus 8, 9, 74–78, 80, 85, 86, 116–118,
bishop of 111 121, 135–136, 140, 238
university of 111 Segovia, bishop of 213n, 215, 216n
Rheims Senlis
abbey of Saint-Rèmi, abbot of 138, 210 bishop of 59n, 60, 128, 131, 142, 145n,
archbishop of 10, 129, 142 146n, 161, 217n
262 Index
Senlis (cont.) consuls of 131n, 151

dean of 129, 142 count of 58, 131, 143, 176n, 182
university of 142, 145n officialis of 135n
Sens 165 seneschal of 135n
archbishop of 137n, 231 university of 54n, 74, 78, 79n, 80, 116–121,
archdeacon of 41 125–126, 129–132, 135–136, 140, 143, 145,
chapter of 186, 213 149, 151, 156, 165, 167–168, 176n, 182–185,
officialis of 41, 41n, 145n 187n, 188–189, 197, 199, 202, 209n, 223,
Sentences; see Peter Lombard 227, 232, 238–241
Simony 7–17, 23, 25, 27, 95, 178n, 217n, Tours
Siena archbishop of 205n, 220n
province of 206n chapter of 205n, 215
university of 114, 189, 196 church of 205n
Siete Partidas 85, 86n, 197 Treaty of Paris 1229–30, 143
Seville, studium generale 85 Trinitarians 55
Society of masters 17, 20, 23, 25–31, 35, 52, Troyes
90, 92, 106, 116, 141–142, 146, 152, 156, archdeacon of 34, 37–38, 138
158, 162 bishop of 34, 37–38, 138, 142, 160, 230
expulsion from 45n, 47 dean of 34, 37–38, 138
for membership rules, see chapter 3 subdeacon of 34
see also Guild of Masters Twelfth-century Renaissance 7, 25, 178,
Socrates 191–192 237
Soissons
bishop of 210 Universitas 30n, 32n, 142, 146, 161
chapter of 215 see also corporation
council of 21n University derivation
Stephen Langton 160, 213n cathedral school 75, 84, 135, 176, 234
Studia generalia 2, 3, 28, 78, 79n, 83, 101n, guild 73
108n, 111, 113, 118n, 120, 156, 175, 177, imperial foundation 114, 195
181, 184–185, 190, 191n, 193, 220–226, legatine foundation 143, 238
239 papal foundation 74, 109n, 120, 176n, 182,
Studia particularia 181, 185, 193, 222 183n, 235–238
Stephen of Tournai 20n, 22, 23n, 75n, 199, royal foundation 84, 86, 116–117, 125–126,
207, 214n 156, 187, 188n, 202
Supplications 30, 81n, 145n, 149n, 212n secular foundation, see chapter 4
Urban IV, pope 68n, 71, 71n, 106n, 112, 126,
Tancred 15n, 166n, 179n, 182–185, 191, 192n, 140, 231n
220
Tertia ecclesiarum 188, 197, 202 Valencia, university of 188–189, 202, 227,
Theobald, master 215 239, 241
Thomas à Becket 225 Valladolid, university of 85, 187n, 188
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. 57, 63, 67, 73n, 121n, Vercelli
166, 181n, 195n, 225, 238 chapter of 180n, 181n
Summa Theologica 166 university of 114, 195, 220n, 234n
Tortona, chapter of 213 Vermandois, seneschal of 132
Toulouse Vicenza university of 114, 196
bishop of 151, 232 Vincentius, master 221
cathedral school of 80n Vincentius Hispanus 12, 191
Index 263
Walandus 210 William of Saint-Amour 45n, 64, 65n, 67,

Walter of Merton 235 68n, 144
William VIII of Montpellier 18–19 De periculis novissimorum temporum 67
William, clerk of the king of Cyprus 204n
William, legate 228 York
William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris 46, abbey of St. Mary, abbot of 205
52 archbishop of 213
William of Auxerre 47, 66, 77, 185, 193n, 220 chapter of 186
William of Lexi 225, 226n university of 26n

The Papacy and The Rise of The Universities

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The Papacy and the Rise of the Universities

Education and Society

William J. Courtenay (Madison)

Jeremy Catto (Oxford)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/esmr

Gaines Post (†)

Edited with a Preface by

Names: Post, Gaines, 1902–1987, author. | Courtenay, William J., editor.

Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

1 The Twelfth Century—Alexander III and the Licentia docendi 7

2 The License-System of the University of Paris in the Thirteenth

3 The License-System in Universities of Ecclesiastical Origin Influenced

4 The License-System in Universities of Secular Origin 88

5 The License-System, Conclusion: the Licentia ubique docendi 116

7 The Papacy and the Internal Development of the Universities 158

Introduction to Part 2 173

8 The Papacy and the Masters 175

9 The Papacy and the Students 208

10 Conclusion: The Papacy and the Founding of the Universities 237

The research contributions of Gaines Post (1902–1986) lay in two different

Archiv Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters

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4 Cf. Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 2.

The Twelfth Century—Alexander III and the

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Quanto Gallicana ecclesia majorum personarum scientia et honestate

To all masters of schools in the churches of France it was strictly forbidden to

37 A. Luchaire, La société francaise au temps de Philippe-Auguste, p. 68.

develop as a Society of Masters under the jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical of-

50 Ibid., I, chap. iii, for the history of Salerno.

61 Rashdall, op. cit., I, 291.

Alexander … dilecto filio Petro tituli sancti Chrysogoni presbytero car-

In 1212, as we have seen,66 a chancellor met opposition from the organized

66 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 14 and 16; cf. supra, p. 20, note 53.

It is possible now to consider the conclusions to which the scholastic leg-

71 Op. cit., I, 284.

In the constitutional history of none of the centers of learning that devel-

The License-System of the University of Paris in the

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principe de la gratuita et de la liberti du haut enseignement.” As I have explained above

17 Supra, pp. 29–31; Ch.U.P., I, no. 8.

21 Cf. Rashdall, II, ii, pp. 355–359.

34 Ibid., loc. cit.

in dispute.49 This committee, after long deliberation and thoughtful consid-

49 Ch.U.P., I, no. 16.

56 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20, p. 78.

authority on the island in order to understand the movement that led to

Notre-Dame, or by the abbot of Sainte-Geneviève, or by the masters.78 In 1255,

78 Ibid., I, no. 89: “… Decano Suessionensi et magistro Symoni de Alteis canonico

Honorius III appointed a commission to protect the masters and students

82 Ch.U.P., I, no. 45; supra, pp. 41–42.

89 See the preceding note, and notes 73–77.

Sainte-Geneviève, and directly as before in the condemnation of the bishop

dispersion.97 So long as the bishop and chancellor remained to create new

and canon law was to be determined through an examination by the chancel-

119 Supra, p. 44.

questions left unsettled in the two intervening decades became a source of

person of Alexander of Hales,141 the Cistercians in 1244–1245,142 and by 1254

141 Ibid., loc. cit.

146 Rashdall, I, 373.

faculty or bachelor who refused to abide by these statutes would be expelled

in theologica facultate promoveantur ad cathedram, nisi prius seipsum examinaverit,

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4 Cf. Kaufmann, Deutsche Universitäten, I, 2.

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37 A. Luchaire, La société francaise au temps de Philippe-Auguste, p. 68.

50 Ibid., I, chap. iii, for the history of Salerno.

61 Rashdall, op. cit., I, 291.

66 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 14 and 16; cf. supra, p. 20, note 53.

71 Op. cit., I, 284.

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17 Supra, pp. 29–31; Ch.U.P., I, no. 8.

21 Cf. Rashdall, II, ii, pp. 355–359.

34 Ibid., loc. cit.

49 Ch.U.P., I, no. 16.

56 Ch.U.P., I, no. 20, p. 78.

78 Ibid., I, no. 89: “… Decano Suessionensi et magistro Symoni de Alteis canonico

82 Ch.U.P., I, no. 45; supra, pp. 41–42.

89 See the preceding note, and notes 73–77.

119 Supra, p. 44.

141 Ibid., loc. cit.

146 Rashdall, I, 373.

203 Ibid., loc. cit.

225 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 314–316, 318, 321.

232 Cf. Rashdall, I, 389 f.

239 Ibid., I, no. 191; supra, p. 56.

1 Rashdall, II, i, 148 f.; Denifle, Universitȁten, p. 270.

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12 Cf. Rashdall, II, i, 137 f.

63 Rashdall, II, i, 107.

71 Rashdall, II, i, 69 f.; Denifle, pp. 479 f.; La Fuente, I, 89 f.

82 Rashdall, II, i, 73.

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24 Supra, Chap. I, pp. 9–16.

43 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 174, no. 21.

47 See my section on salaries, infra, p. 197.

62 See Chap. VIII, section 1.

72 Fournier, II, no. 890.

94 Ibid., II, no. 895, supra, note 56.

117 Infra, Chap. IX, §1.

131 Ibid., loc. cit.

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20 Ch.U.P., I, nos. 229 and 265.

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11 Chart. Studii Bon., I, no. 43; an. 1233.

19 Sarti-Fattorini, II, 174, no. 21.

41 Ch.U.P., I, no. 71.

53 Ibid., I, no. 92.

69 Labbé-Mansi, XXII, 669.

81 Cf. Génestal, Le Privilegium Fori, I, intro., p. ii, p. 3 ff.

95 For example, in 1231; Ch.U.P., I, nos. 71, 82.

133 Ibid., II, i, 152.

148 Ch.U.P., I, no. 3.

169 Fournier, II, no. 884; supra, p. 105.

204 Cf. Haskins, op. cit., pp. 60 f.

238 Anstey, op. cit., I, 5–8.

246 Peacock, Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge, p. 16.