diocesan of Oxford. When they found their opponents refractory they appealed to the Pope, who at once despatched a legate to the scene of action, where, in nine cases out of ten, the controversy was decided in favour of the university, the darling child of the Church. By the constitution of Pope Gregory IX., granted to Paris University in the year 1231, and soon extended to Oxford, the functions of the academic by the side of civil and ecclesiastic authorities were more clearly and satisfactorily defined. Most conspicuous in that constitution is a statute, according to which the Chancellor of Paris as well as the municipal authorities had to take an oath to honour and maintain the privileges of the university. The relations between the academic authorities and the city magistrates, or to use an academic phrase, between gown and town, remained at all times in an unsatisfactory state. In Italy the universities to a great extent owed their existence to the liberality of opulent citizens, who valued the institutions far too highly to disgust them by any infringement of their privileges. Should, however, the city of Bologna show difficulties in their path, the scholars, well aware of a friendly reception elsewhere, packed up their valuables, or pawned them in case of need, and emigrated to Padua. If the commune of Padua grew in any way obnoxious to the university, the rectors and students at once decided on an excursion to Vercelli. The good citizens of Vercelli received them with open arms, and in the fulness of their joy assigned five hundred of the best houses in the town for the accommodation of their guests, paid the professors decent salaries, and to make the gentlemen students comfortable to the utmost the city engaged two copyists to provide them with books at a trifling price fixed by the rector. If the Bolognese emigrants did not feel comfortable at Imola, there was its neighbouring rival Siena, which allured the capricious sons of the Muses with prospects far too substantial to be slighted by the philosophical students. These gentlemen having pawned their books, their " omnia sua," the city of Siena paid six thousand florins to recover them, defrayed the expenses of the academic migration, settled on each of the professors three hundred gold florins, and— to crown these acts of generosity-allowed the students gratuitous lodgings for eighteen months. However much an Italian student might have relished an occasional brawl in the streets, there was hardly an opportunity given him to gratify his pugilistic tendencies, while in this country the street fights between students and citizens often assumed the most fearful proportions. The more English citizens fostered a feeling of independence, derived from increased wealth and social progress, the less were they inclined to expose themselves to the taunts, and their wives and daughters to the impudence of some lascivious youth or other. The students, on the other hand, able with each successive campaign to point out a new privilege gained, a new advantage won over their antagonists, would naturally find an occasional fight tend to the promotion of the interests of the body academic, besides gratifying their private taste for a match, which in those days, and in this country especially, may well nigh have attained the pitch of excellent performance. We do not think it necessary or desirable to enter into the details of these riots between town and gown which are very minutely narrated in Huber's history of the English Universities. From the position which they had gained in England, it will easily be understood that the universities could not keep aloof from the great political contests of the times, so that as far back as King John's reign the political parties had their representatives at the academic schools, where the two nations of Australes and Boreales fought many a miniature battle, certainly not always with a clear discernment as to the political principles which they pretended to uphold. It is very curious to observe the manner of self-defence which those gigantic establishments adopted when they were pressed by the supreme powers of Church or State. In the first instance they had recourse to suspension of lectures and all other public functions, a step sufficiently coercive on most occasions to force even the Crown into compliance with their wishes. Should, however, this remedy fail, they applied to still more impressive means, which consisted in dissolution of the university or its secession to another town. Even the most despotic monarch could not abide without apprehension the consequences of such a step, if resorted to by a powerful community such as Paris and Oxford, for it had received legal sanction in the constitution granted by Gregory IX., and its results were far too important to be easily forecast or estimated. We have already alluded to the frequent migrations of Italian universities, and need therefore only point out the impulse imparted to Oxford by the immigration in 1209 of a host of secessionist students and professors from Paris, the unmistakeable influence on the development of Cambridge exercised by secessionist scholars of Oxford, and the rise of the University of Leipzig upon the immigration of several thousand German students who, with their professors, seceded from Prague, where Slavonic nationality and Hussite doctrines had gained the ascendency over Germans and Catholics. The universities gradually emancipated themselves, rose higher and higher in the estimation of society, and thus became the sole leaders and guides of public opinion. Popes and emperors forwarded their decrees to the most famous universities in order to have them inserted in the codes of canon and civil law, discussed in the lectures of the professors, and thus commended to a favourable reception among the public. As the highest authorities of Church and State, so did individual scholars appreciate the influence of Alma Mater. It was not uncommon for literary men to read their compositions before the assembled university, in order to receive its sanction and approval before publication. So did Giraldus, for example, recite his "Topography of Ireland" in the convention of the University of Oxford, and Rolandino his chronicle in the presence of the professors and scholars of Padua. We cannot more fitly conclude our remarks on the social position of the Medieval Universities than by shortly narrating the occasion. on which they displayed, for the last time in the Middle Ages, the immense power of their social position. The University of Paris, as it behoved the most ancient and eminent theological school, took the lead in the movements which were made in the case of the Papal schism. Ever memorable will be the occasion when, on Epiphany, 1391, Gerson, the celebrated Chancellor of the University of Paris, delivered his address on the subject before the king, the court, and a numerous and brilliant assembly. Owing to his exertions and the co-operation of the professors and members of the university, certain proposals were agreed upon which tended to restore peace and unity in the church. The king, for a time, was inclined to listen to these proposals, but being influenced again by the party of Clement VII., he ordered the chancellor to prevent the university from taking any further step in the matter. All petitions directed to the king for a revocation of the sentence proving futile, the university proceeded to apply means of coercion. All lectures, sermons, and public functions whatsoever were suspended until it should have gained a redress of its grievances. The letter then directed by the university to Clement VII. gave that Pope such bitter truths to meditate upon, that an apoplectic fit, which soon after caused his death, is partly attributed to the effect of the academic epistle he had received from Paris. It became then universally understood that one of the ways indicated by the Alma Parisiensis must be chosen for the restoration of peace and order in the Church. In 1409 the Synod of Pisa was opened to take the long-desired steps against the schism. The universities were strongly represented by their delegates, not the least in importance among the venerable constituencies of the Occidental Church, the number of doctors falling little short of a thousand. Reformation of the Church in its head and members, and a revision of its discipline and hierarchic organization, were loudly proclaimed by the representatives of the universities, foremost among all by Gerson, the Chancellor of Paris, the most brilliant star in the splendid array of venerable doctors and prelates of the Church. Medieval universities were truly universal in their character, being united by one language, literature, and faith. With the sixteenth century nationalities were growing into overwhelming dimensions; national literature rose in defiant rivalry and joined revived antiquity in marked hostility against the scions of scholasticism; and, to give the final stroke, the unity of faith was crumbling piecemeal under the reforming spirit of the age. The ties which had bound mediæval universities to each other and to their common centre were sundered. Some became defunct; others led a precarious existence; all had a hard and troublesome time of it,—a fact touchingly recorded in the annals of Vienna :-" Ann. 1528: Propter ruinam universitatis nullus incorporatus est." This sad epitaph might have been written over the portals of more than one university and public school by the middle of the sixteenth century. JAMES HELFENSTEIN. LITERATURE. G. Origlia, "Storia dello Studio di Napoli." F. M. Renazzi, "Storia dell' Università di J. Bouillard, "Histoire de l'Abbaye Royale Meiners, "Verfassung und Verwaltung Deut- J. P. Charpentier, "Histoire de la Renais- S. Voight, “Die Wiederbelebung des Clas- G. Tiraboschi, "Storia della Letteratura OME of your readers will, perhaps, remember that some papers appeared from German Theology." The works observed upon were chosen almost at random, with a view only to show what is being said and thought around us, and without even an implied responsibility for the contents of them. These "jottings" were described as an instalment of a much larger purpose, which contemplated the entire cycle of Continental theology; Danish and Norwegian standing next on the list. But the exigencies of a newspaper act unfavourably upon such enterprises, and involve so much uncertainty (and often delay), that I am anxious to find a field which shall be less open to interruption, whatever be the measure of the space assigned. If it happen that the Contemporary Review be available, it will give me much pleasure to send some papers to yourself. The last of the "jottings" to which I refer was a sort of transition, or halfway house between the theology of Germany and that of Denmark. It contained a brief summary of a book by a German, called "Church Matters in the Scandinavian Countries;"* in so far, at least, as it dealt with one of the chiefest in Denmark-the still living (very venerable) Bishop Grundtvig, of Copenhagen. Forty years ago he was the opponent of Clausen, and of the sceptical principles which he had imported from Germany. Against the dangers which threatened he took the ground of history, and argued like an ordinary English Churchman. The Christian Church (he says) is a company of faithful men with a definite confession, which she lays before all who desire to enter into communion with her. She receives them as membersthrough Baptism and the Holy Communion-if they renounce the devil, and profess their faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, according to the Apostolic symbol. So far we have nothing very remarkable. But the great peculiarity of Bishop Grundtvig's theology is to be sought in his views of "Kirchliche Zustände in den Scandinavischen Ländern." Von Moriz LüttkeElberfeld, 1864. |