562 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
municatioii then at hand did not make it possible for parents to exercise the checks upon absent sons such as they may exer cise to-day. Felix Platter, d. 1614, states in his autobiogra phy that, as late as the middle of the sixteenth century, it required twenty days to make the journey from Basel to the school of Montpellier. At Paris students were excused from the payment of fees on account of the long distances from which they had come, the journeys often requiring several months and involving perils from robbers.1 Complaint was made in Paris, 1218, of scholars who broke into houses, car rying off girls and women; and in 1269 a public proclama tion denounced gangs of students who broke into houses, ravished women, and committed robberies and " many other enormities hateful to God."2 In Paris the inns — tabernce — were numerous. English students were noted for their drinking, and " to drink like an Englishman and to sing like a Norman" became proverbial.3 The duel was a com mon way of settling disputes, and Gregory IX., 1231, forbade students going through the streets carrying arms.4
The rescript given by Frederick Barbarossa to Bologna, 1158, presented a picture of students as those "who exile them selves through love of learning and wear themselves out in poverty." The facts do not support any rosy picture of social equality, such as we would expect in an ideal democracy. The number who were drawn to the universities from love of adventure and novelty must have been large. The noble man had his special quarters and his servants, while the poor student begged his bread. It was the custom of the chan cellor of Oxford to issue licenses for the needy to beg.5
1 Auctar. , I. p. xlvi. 2 Chart. , I. 426 ; Compayre" , p. 276.
3 Cantat ut Normannus, bibit ut Anglicanus, Auctar., I. p. Ivi. For the fighting abilities of the English nation see Auctar.. I. p. Ix. Rashdall, II. 678 sqq., gives a number of cases of fights between town and gown in Paris. The cases of 1278 and 1304 were the most notorious. * Chart., I. 138.
6 Rashdall, II. 656 sqq. Rashdall gives the following estimate of living in Oxford in the fifteenth century. Meat was \ d. a pound ; butter and^ cheese, \d. a pound, while six pounds of wheat cost 4 d. Thus, 1£ pounds of bread, 1 pound of meat, and 1 pound of butter and cheese made up about 1 d. a day, or Id. a week, " a tolerably substantial basis for a student's diet."
§ 91. THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. 563
At Bologna the rich occupied the first seats.1 Robert of Cour§on commended the gift of garments and other articles to needy scholars.
The mediaeval universities were the centres of the ideals and hopes of the younger generation. There, the seeds were sown of the ecclesiastical and intellectual movements of after times and of the revolutions which the conservative groups pronounced scientific novelties and doctrinal heresies.
A mediaeval writer pronounced the three chief forces for the maintenance of the Catholic faith to be the priesthood, the empire, and the university. This was not always the case. From Paris went forth some of the severest attacks on the theory of papal absolutism, and from there, a cen tury later, the reformers, Gerson and D'Ailly, proceeded. Hussitism was begotten at Prague. Wyclifs teachings made Oxford a seat of heresy. Wittenberg, the last of the mediaeval universities to open its doors, protected and followed Luther. Basel, Pius II. 's creation, Heidelberg, Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, and other universities became the bulwarks of the new ideas. On the other hand, the Sorbonne, Louvaine, and Cologne ordered Luther's works burnt. As an agent of culture and the onward progress of mankind, the Middle Ages made no contribution to modern times comparable in usefulness to the university.