It is certainly somewhat surprising to find a man of CHAP. IV. Poggio's intelligence implicitly asserting that the unhealthiness of a locality recommended it as a place of education for youth; but the fact affords decisive evidence that such was the theory then generally recognised. The mens sana was not to be sought in corpore sano. The modern theory of education requires the simultaneous developement of the physical and mental powers, or rather teaches us to look upon them as only modes of the same force,-a force purely physical in its origin. In those days they were looked upon as antagonistic; the mind, it was held, was strengthened by the weakening of the body. Occasionally indeed men of more than ordinary discernment advocated a sounder view, eender We find Grosseteste, he who could cheerily suggest to a melan-y by a choly brother an occasional cup of wine as a remedy for over depression, objecting on sanitary grounds to low and marshy districts'; and Walter Burley, if we may trust Dr. Plot's account, seriously believed that philosophers from Greece had selected Oxford as the scene of their labours on account of the healthiness of the situation. But views like these were certainly the exception, and the prevailing theory was that on which Poggio so unmercifully insisted'. Unreasonable τὴν ̓Ακαδημίαν καταλαβεῖν ἐξεπίτηδες, ἵνα τὴν ἄγαν ευπάθειαν τοῦ σώματος, οἷον ἀμπέλου τὴν εἰς τὰ περιττά φοράν, TEPIKÓTTOL. The writings of St. Basil were much studied at this time in connexion with the controversy be tween the eastern and western Churches. 1·Ipso dixit ei quod loca super aquam non sunt sana, nisi fuerint in sublimi sita.' Eccleston, in Monumenta Franciscana, p. 66. mountainous to the south and east; The first distinct expression of I think it very considerable what remains upon record in Mag dalen College library, in an antient manuscript of Walter Burley's, fellow of Merton (tutor to the fainous King Edward in and deservedly stiled doctor profundus), who upon the problem complexio rara quare sanior, has these words concerning the healthy condition of Oxford and its selection by students for the seat of the muses: A healthy city must offeber, p. 20. This language at be open to the north and east, and will be observed was used three years a that theory now appears, it will be found, like r abandoned crotchets of medievalism, to contain f truth. The highest state of physical well-being the most favorable to severe mental application; ny a college tutor in the present day could probably stimony, that the high tension of the nervous system red by athletic training often materially interferes with anuity of the student to devote himself to the sedentary is of an Honour course. Having pursued, as far as seems necessary for our pre- purpose, our inquiry into the causes which may be supto have determined the localisation of the university, ay now proceed to examine the character of the stulife of these early times. If then we accept the theory aly put forward of the commencement of the university, necessarily follows that we shall be prepared also to accept very modest estimate of the culture that originally prevailed. We shall postulate neither Greek philosophers nor royal patrons, but readily admit that the instruction given. could only have been that of the ordinary grammar school of a later period. The Latin language, or 'grammar' as it was designated, formed the basis of the whole course: Priscian, Terence, and Boethius, were the authors commonly read'. There were probably some dozen or more separate schools, each presided over by a master of grammar, while the Magister Glomeria represented the supreme authority. It is in connexion with this officer, whose character and functions so long baffled the researches of the antiquarians, that we have an explanation of those relations to Ely, as a tradition of the earliest times, which formed the precedent for that ecclesiastical interference which was terminated by the Barnwell Process. The existence of such a functionary and of the before the attack of Poggio on the Observantists: but on the other hand it is to be noted that it is tho language of a layman, and that the university of Louvain was founded for all the faculties save that of theology. (See p. 282, note 2, and Errata.) Nothing certainly can justify Dr Newman in adducing Louvain, as lately in his Historical Sketches, as an illustration of mediaval notions with respect to the best sites for universities. 1 Terence however par excellence; the grammar school, at a later period, seems to have been also known under the designation of the school of Te rence. grammar schools, prior to the university, enables us to un- CHAP. I. derstand how, in the time of Hugh Balsham, an exertion of the episcopal authority, like that which has already come. under our notice, became necessary in order to guard against collision between the representatives of the old and the new orders of things,-between the established rights of the Master of Glomery and rights like those which, by one of our most ancient statutes, were vested in the regent masters in the exercise of their authority over those students enrolled on their books. If we picture to ourselves some few hundred students, of all ages from early youth to complete manhood, mostly of very slender means, looking forward to the monastic or the clerical life as their future avocation, lodging among the townsfolk, and receiving such accommodation as inexperienced poverty might be likely to obtain at the hands of practised extortioners, resorting for instruction to one large building, the grammar schools, or sometimes congregated in the porches of their respective masters' houses, and there receiving such instruction in Latin as a reading from Terence, Boethius, or Orosius, eked out by the more elementary rules from Priscian or Donatus, would represent, we shall probably have grasped the main features of a Cambridge course at the period when Irnerius began to lecture at Bologna, Vacarius at Oxford, and when Peter Lombard compiled the Sentences. Meagre as such a 'course' may appear, there is every Core of reason for believing that it formed, for centuries, nearly the sole acquirement of the great majority of our university stu dents. The complete trivium, followed by the yet more formidable quadrivium, was far beyond both the ambition and the resources of the ordinary scholar. His aim was simply to qualify himself for holy orders, to become Sir Smith or Sir Brown', as distinguished from a mero hedge-priest,' and to obtain a licence to teach the Latin tongue. For this the degree of master of grammar was sufficient, and the qualifi cations for that degree were slight:-to have studied the larger Priscian in the original, to have responded in three 1 Sir, the English for Magister; while Dominus was contracted into Dan; e.g. Dan Chaucer CHAP. IV. public disputations on grammar, to have given thirteen lectures on Priscian's Book of Constructions, and to have obtained from three masters of arts certificates of his 'learning, ability, knowledge, and moral character,' satisfied the requirements of the authorities'. His licence obtained, he might either be appointed by one of the colleges to teach in the grammar school frequently attached to the early foundations; or he might become principal of a hostel and receive pupils in grammar on his own account; or he might, as a secular clergyman, be presented to a living or the mastership of a grammar school at a distance from the university. Introduction of the arts course at Cambridge. With the latter part of the twelfth century the studies of the trivium and quadrivium, or in other words the discipline of an arts faculty, were probably introduced at Cambridge. This developement from a simple school of grammar into a studium generale was not marked, it is true, by the same éclat that waited on the corresponding movements at Bologna, Paris, or even Oxford, but it is not necessary to infer from thence that Cambridge was much inferior either in numbers or organization. The early reputation of those scats of learning survives almost solely in connexion with a few great names, and the absence of any teacher of eminence like Irnerius, Abelard, or Vacarius, at our own university, is a sufficient explanation of the fact that no accounts of her culture in the twelfth century have reached us. On the other hand, the influx of large numbers from the university of Paris, which we have already noted as taking place about the year 1229, can only be accounted for by supposing that the reputation of the university was by that time fairly Intercourse established. Of the frequent intercourse between Paris and Pars and the the English universities in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and during part of the fifteenth century, we have already spoken. This intercourse, it is to be observed, is to be traced not merely in the direction assumed by the mental activity of Oxford and Cambridge at different junctures, but also in the more definite evidence afforded by their respective statute books. It was natural that when a Cambridge or Oxford between English uni versities. 1 Statute 117. De Incepturis in Grammatica. Documents, 1 374. were all powerful, and by and bye a suburb was formed CLAP on the opposite bank; this suburb gradually extended itself until it incorporated what was probably a distinct village encircling the church of St. Benet. Then the society of secular canons, founded by Picot, crossed the river, as Augustinian canons, to Barnwell; private dwellings began to multiply; numerous hostels were erected; the period of college founda tions succeeded; and at last the new town completely eclipsed the old Grantbrigge, which sank into an obscure suburb'. Such may be regarded as a sufficiently probable theory of the early external growth of Cambridge, but it still remains to explain how such a locality came to be selected as the site of a university. Compared with Stamford, Northampton, or even Huntingdon, all of them seats of monastic education, Cambridge, to modern eyes, would have appeared an unhealthy and ineligible spot. It was the frontier town of a country composed of bog, morass, and extensive meres, interspersed with occasional tracts of arable and pasture land, and presenting apparently few recommendations as a resort for the youth of the nation; the reasons therefore which outweighed the seemingly valid arguments in favour of a more inviting and accessible locality have often been the subject of conjecture. Fuller himself seems at a loss to understand why the superior natural advantages of Northampton did not win for that town the preference of the academic authorities. As regards the first commencement of the university, an obvious explanation is to be found in the fact that, in all probability, no definite act of selection ever took place. Like Paris and Oxford, Cambridge grew into a centre of learning. Somewhere in the twelfth century the university took its |