556 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The university had its own government, endowments, and privileges. These privileges, or bills of rights, were of great value, giving the body of teachers and students protection from the usual police surveillance exercised by municipalities and included their exemption from taxation, from military service except in cases of exigency, and from the usual modes of trial before the municipal authorities. Suits brought against members of the University of Paris were tried before the bishop of Paris. In Bologna, such suits were tried before the professor of the accused student or the bishop. By the privilege of Philip Augustus, 1200, the chattels of students at Paris were exempt from seizure by the civil officer. The university was a state within the state, a free republic of letters.1 The master and students formed, as it were, a separate class. When they felt that their rights were abused, they resorted to what was called cessation, cessatio, a suspension of the functions of the university or even removal to some other locality. In 1229 the University of Paris suspended for two years on account of the delay of Queen Blanche to give redress for the violent death of two students during the carnival. Many professors left Paris till not a single one of fame remained. The bishop of Paris launched excommunications against the chief offenders ; but the university was victorious and the king made apology for the injuries inflicted and the pope revoked the ecclesiastical censures. Gregory IX., 1231, confirmed this privilege of suspending lectures.2 This feature survives in the German universities which cling to Lehrfreiheit, the professor's liberty to teach, as conscience dictates, without fear of inter ference from the state.
The Model Universities. — In the administration of their affairs the universities followed Bologna and Paris as models. In Bologna the students were in control, in Paris the masters in conjunction with the students. As for their relation
1 The University of Cambridge in its calendar is still styled "a literary republic." Laurie, p. 186.
2 Chart., I. 138, liceat vobis usque ad satisfactionem condignam suspendere lectiones.
§ 90. THE UNIVERSITIES. 557
to the pope and the authority of the Church, Bologna was always free, antipapal and anticlerical, as compared with her younger sister in France. The democratic principle had large recognition. The first element to be noticed is the part played by the different faculties. In Paris the faculties were fully organized by the middle of the thirteenth century. In 1281, the university as a body promised to defend each of its faculties.1 Long before that time each faculty passed upon its own degrees, regulated its own lectures, and per formed other special acts.
The second element was the part which the so-called nations had in the administration. In Bologna there were four nations, the Italians, English,2 Provencals, and Germans. The students of Paris were likewise divided into four groups, representing France, Picardy (including the Netherlands), Normandy, and England, the last giving place, in 1430, to Germany. The distinctive organization at Paris goes back to the early years of the thirteenth century.3 At first float ing colonies brought together by national and linguistic affinities, the nations were developed into corporate organi zations, each with a code of its own. They were in turn divided into provinces. An elective official, known as the rector, stood at the head of the whole corporation. At Bologna he was called, as early as 1194, "rector of the associations," rector societatum. He directed the affairs of the university in conjunction with a board of counsellors representing the provinces.
The first record calling the head of the University of Paris
1 Chart., I. 590. The term "faculty" was first used of the university of Paris by Honorius III., 1219. Chart., I. x, 87.
2 English archdeacons were expected, after their election, to go to Bologna to study canon law. See Capes, Hist, of the Eng. Church, p. 240.
8 Chart., I. 215, Honorius III., 1222, speaks of "nations," but does not definitely give the number. Chart., I. 103, Du Boulay, following a spurious document, dates their organization as far back as 1206. Denifle puts the existence of the four nations in Paris as far back as 1215-1222. See Chart., I. xxi. The first clear trace of the division into nations seems to be in a bull of Honorius III., 1217, and concerns Bologna. It, is addressed to the scolaribus universitatis de v.rbe, de campania et de Tuscia, Bunonie commorantibus.