The Oxford Degree Ceremony

These organized bodies were called 'universitates'8, i.e. guilds or associations; the name at first had no special application to bodies of students, but is applied e.g. to a community of citizens; it was only gradually that it acquired its later and narrower meaning; it finally became specialized for a learned corporation, just as 'convent' has been set apart for a religious body, and 'corps' for a military one.

The origin of Oxford University.

When these organized bodies were first formed is a question which it is impossible to discuss at length here, nor could a definite answer be given. The University of Oxford is, in this respect, as in so many others, characteristically English; it grew rather than was made, like most of our institutions, and it can point to no definite year of foundation, and to no individual as founder. Here it must suffice to say that references to students and teachers at Oxford are found with growing frequency all through the twelfth century; but it is only in the last quarter of that century that either of those features which differentiate a university from a mere chance body of students can be clearly traced. These two features are organized study and the right of self-government.

The first mention of organized study is about 1184, when Giraldus Cambrensis, having written his Topographia Hibernica and 'desiring not to hide his candle under a bushel,' came to Oxford to read it to the students there; for three days he 'entertained' his audience as well as read to them, and the poor scholars were feasted on a separate day from the 'Doctors of the different faculties'. Here we have definite evidence of organized study. Much more important is the record of 1214 (the year before Magna Carta9), when the famous award was given by the Papal Legate, which is the oldest charter of the University of Oxford. In this the 'Chancellor' is mentioned, and we have in this office the beginnings of that self-government which, coupled with organized study, may justify us in saying that the real university was now in existence. It is quite probable that the first Doctor of Divinity whom we find 'incepting' in Oxford, is the learned and saintly Edmund Rich, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; he seems to have taken this degree in the reign of John, but he had been already teaching secular subjects in the preceding reign (Richard I's). It is significant of mediaeval Oxford's position as a pillar of the Church and a champion of liberty, that her first traceable graduate should be the last Archbishop of Canterbury who was canonized, and one of the defenders of English liberties against the misgovernment of Henry III.

The University a Guild of M.A.s.

The 'University' of Oxford, like the great sister (or might we say mother?) school of Paris, was an association of Masters of Arts, and they alone were its proper members. In our own days, when not more than half of those who enter the University proceed to the M.A. Degree, and when only about ten per cent. of them reside for any time after the B.A. course is ended, this state of things seems inconceivable; but it has left its trace, even in popular knowledge, in the well-known fact that M.A.s are exempt from Proctorial jurisdiction; and our degree terminology is still based upon it. It is the M.A. who is admitted by the Vice-Chancellor to 'begin', i.e. to teach (ad incipiendum), when he is presented to him, and at Cambridge and in American Universities the ceremonies at the end of the academic year are called 'Commencement'. What seems an Irish bull is really a survival of the oldest university arrangements.

The meaning of the 'Degree'.

As then the University is a guild of Masters, the degree is the 'step' by which the distinction of becoming a full member of it is attained. Gibbon wrote a century ago that 'the use of academical degrees is visibly borrowed from the mechanic corporations, in which an apprentice, after serving his time, obtains a testimonial of his skill, and his licence to practise his trade or mystery'. This statement, though accurate in the main, is misleading; the truth is that the learned body has not so much borrowed from the 'mechanic' one, as that both have based their arrangements independently on the same idea.

A Bachelor of Arts.

This connexion may be illustrated from the other degree title, 'Bachelor.' If the etymology at present best supported may be accepted, that honourable term was originally used for a man who worked on a 'cow-strip' of land, i.e. who was assistant of a small cultivator; whether this be true or not, it at any rate soon came to denote the apprentice as opposed to the master-workman; in fact the 'Bachelor' in the university corresponded to the 'pupil-teacher' of more humble associations in our own days. In this sense of the word, as Dr. Murray quaintly says, a woman student can become a 'Bachelor' of Arts.

Two elements in the Degree Ceremony: (1) Consent of existing M.A.'s.

It was natural that the existing members of the 'university' or guild should be consulted as to the admission of new members; their consent was one element in the degree giving. The means by which the fitness of applicants for the degree was tested will be spoken of later, and also the methods by which the existing Masters expressed their willingness to admit the new-comer among them.

(2) Outside authority, that of the Church.

But there is quite a different element in the degree from that which has so far been mentioned. That was democratic, the consent of the community; this is autocratic, the authority conferred by a head, superior to, and outside of the community. The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford represents this second principle; he gives the degree in virtue of 'his own authority' as well as of that 'of the University'. This authority is originally that of the Church, to which, in England at any rate, all mediaeval students ipso facto belonged; the new student was admitted into the 'bosom' (matricula) of the University by receiving some form of tonsure, and for the first two centuries of University existence, no other ceremony was needed. Matriculation examinations at any rate were in those happy days unknown. Hence the authority which the cathedral chancellor, representing the bishop, had exercised over the schools and teachers of the diocese, was extended as a matter of course to the teachers of the newly-risen Universities. The fitness of the applicant for a degree was tested by those who had it already, but the ecclesiastical authority gave the 'licence' to teach. This ecclesiastical origin of the M.A. degree is well shown in the formula of admission (pp. 15, 16). The new Master is admitted 'in honorem Domini nostri Jesu Christi' and 'in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost'.

The Pope and the Universities.

The close connexion of the Church and higher education is further illustrated by the view of the fourteenth-century jurists that a bull from the Pope or from the Holy Roman Emperor was needed to make a teaching body a 'Studium Generale', and to give its doctors the jus ubique docendi10. A curious survival of the same idea still remains in the power of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as English Metropolitan, to recommend the Crown to grant 'Lambeth degrees' to deserving clergy; this is probably a survival of the old rights of the Archbishop as 'Legatus Natus' in England of the Holy See.

Survivals in the modern Degree Ceremony.

There were then two elements in the conferring of a mediaeval degree, the formal approval of the candidate by the already existing Masters and the granting of the 'licence' by the Chancellor.

Of these the 'licence' is fully retained in our present ceremony; the new M.A. receives permission (licentia) from the Vice-Chancellor to 'do all that belongs to the status of a Master', when 'the requirements of the statutes have been fulfilled'. This condition is now meaningless, for he has already fulfilled all 'the requirements'; but in mediaeval times it referred to the second (and what was really the most important) part of his qualifications, his appearance at the solemn 'Act' or ceremony which was the chief event of the University year. At it Masters and Doctors formally showed that they were able to perform the functions of their new rank, and were then 'admitted' to it by investiture with the 'cap' of authority, with the 'ring', and with the 'kiss' of peace; the kiss was given by the Senior Proctor; the ring was the symbol of the inceptor's mystical marriage to his science. The 'Act' in our day only survives as giving a name to one of our two Summer Terms, which still have a place in the University Calendar, and in the requirements of 'twelve terms of residence', although only nine real terms are kept. Its disappearance was gradual; already in 1654, when John Evelyn attended the 'Act' at St. Mary's, he expresses surprise at 'those ancient ceremonies and institution (sic) being as yet not wholly abolished'; but the 'Act' survived into another century, although becoming more and more of a form; it is last mentioned in 1733. With the ceremony disappeared the formal exhibition of the candidate's fitness for the degree he is seeking.

The Master in Grammar.

But in the mediaeval University it had been far otherwise. The idea that a degree was formally taken by the applicant showing himself competent for it, may be well illustrated from the quaint ceremony of admitting a Master in Grammar at Cambridge, as described by the Elizabethan Esquire Bedel, Mr. Stokys: 'The Bedel in Arts shall bring the Master in Grammar to the Vice-Chancellor, delivering him a palmer with a rod, which the Vice-Chancellor shall give to the said Master in Grammar, and so create him Master. Then shall the Bedel purvey for every Master in Grammar a shrewd boy, whom the Master in Grammar shall beat openly in the Schools, and he shall give the boy a groat for his labour, and another groat to him that provideth the rod and the palmer. And thus endeth the Act in that faculty.' It may be added that the Vice-Chancellor and each of the Proctors received a 'bonnet', but only one, however many 'Masters' might be incepting. In Oxford likewise the 'Master in Grammar' was created 'ferula (i.e. palmer) et virgis'.

The Disputations at the Act.

The Oxford M.A. had to show his qualifications in a way less painful, though as practical, by publicly attacking or defending theses solemnly approved for discussion by Congregation. These theses were themselves by no means always solemn, e.g. one of those appointed in 1600 was 'an uxor perversa humanitate potius quam asperitate sanetur?' ('whether a shrew is better cured by kindness or by severity'). This question, obviously suggested by Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, which was written soon after 1594, was answered by the incepting M.A.s in the opposite sense to the dramatist. It need hardly be said that all the disputations were in Latin. The Doctors too of the different faculties were created at the 'Act' after disputations on subjects connected with their faculty. Something resembling these disputations still survives in a shadowy form at Oxford, in the requirements for the degrees of B.D. and D.D. A candidate for the B.D. has to read in the Divinity School two theses on some theological subject approved by the Regius Professor, a candidate for the D.D. has to read and expound three passages of Holy Scripture; in both cases notice has to be given beforehand of the subject, a custom which survives from the time when the candidate might expect to have his theses disputed; but now the Regius Professor and the candidate generally have the Divinity School to themselves.

All the ceremonies of the 'Act' have passed away from Oxford completely.11 They are only referred to here as serving to illustrate the idea that a new Master was not admitted till he had performed a 'masterpiece', i.e. done a piece of work such as a Master might be expected to do. There was till quite recently one last trace of them in our degree arrangements; a new M.A. was not admitted to the privileges of his office till the end of the term in which he had been 'licensed to incept'; although the University, having given up the 'Act', allowed no opportunity of 'incepting', an interval was left in which the ceremony might have taken place. Now, however, for purposes of practical convenience, even this form is dropped, and a new M.A. enters on his privileges, e.g. voting in Convocation, &c., as soon as he has been licensed by the Vice-Chancellor. Strictly speaking an Oxford man never takes his M.A., for there is no ceremony of institution; he is 'licensed' to take part in a ceremony which has ceased to exist.

The Encaenia.

And yet in another form the 'Act' survives in our familiar Commemoration; the relation of this to the 'Act' seems to be somewhat as follows. The Sheldonian Theatre was opened, as will be described later (p. 81), with a great literary and musical performance, a 'sort of dedication of the Theatre'; this was called 'Encaenia'.12 So pleased was the University with the performance that the Chancellor next year (1670) ordered that it should be repeated annually, on the Friday before the 'Act'. From the very first there was a tendency to confuse the two ceremonies; even the accurate antiquarian, Antony Wood, speaks of music as part of 'the Act', which was really performed at the preliminary gathering, the Encaenia. The new function gradually grew in importance, and additions were made to it; the munificent Lord Crewe, prince-bishop of Durham, who enjoys an unenviable immortality in the pages of Macaulay, and a more fragrant if less lasting memory in Besant's charming romance Dorothy Forster, left some of his great wealth for the Creweian Oration, in which annual honour is done to the University Benefactors at the Commemoration.

Hence, while the customs of the 'Act' became more and more meaningless and neglected, the Encaenia became more and more popular, until finally the older ceremony was merged in the newer one. In our Commemoration degree-giving still takes place, along with recitation of prize poems and the paying of honour to benefactors. The degrees are all honorary, but they are submitted to the House in the same way as ordinary degrees; the Vice-Chancellor puts the question to the Convocation, just as the Proctor submits the 'grace' to Congregation, and in theory a vote is taken on the creation of the new D.C.L.s, just as in theory the Proctors take the votes as to the admission of new M.A.s.

Commemoration may be, as John Richard Green said, 'Oxford in masquerade'; there may be 'grand incongruities, Abyssinian heroes robed in literary scarlet, degrees conferred by the suffrages of virgins in pink bonnets and blue, a great academical ceremony drowned in an atmosphere of Aristophanean (sic) chaff'. But the chaff is the legitimate successor of the burlesque performance of the Terrae Filius at the old 'Act', and the degrees are submitted to the House with the old formula; even the presence of ladies would have been no surprise to our predecessors of 200 years ago, however much they would have astonished our mediaeval founders and benefactors; in the Sheldonian from the first the gallery under the organ was always set apart for 'ladies and gentlewomen'. 'Oxford', to quote J.R. Green once again, 'is simply young', but when he goes on to say 'she is neither historic nor theological nor academical', he exaggerates; the charm of Oxford lies in the fact that her youth is at home among survivals historic, theological, and academical; and the old survives while the new flourishes.

CHAPTER III

THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE DEGREE CEREMONY

The Preliminaries of the Degree Ceremony.

It is needless to describe the requirements of our modern examination system, for those who present themselves for degrees, and their friends, know them only too well. And to describe completely the requirements of the mediaeval or the Laudian University would be to enter into details which, however interesting, would yet belong to antiquarian history, and which have no relation to our modern arrangements.

But there are certain broad principles which are common to the present system and to its predecessors, and which well deserve attention.

(1) Residence.

The first and most important of these is that Oxford has always required from those seeking a degree, as she requires now, 'residence' in the University for a given time. It is declared in the Proctors' books (mediaeval statutes used picturesque language), that 'Whereas those who seek to mount to the highest places by a short cut, neglecting the steps (gradibus) thereto, seem to court a fall, no M.A. should present a candidate (for the B.A.) unless the person to be presented swear that he has studied the liberal arts in the Schools, for at least four years at some proper university'. There was of course a further three years required of those taking the M.A. degree, and a still longer period for the higher faculties. Residence, it may be added, was required to be continuous; the modern arrangement which makes it possible to put in a term, whenever convenient to the candidate, would have seemed a scandal to our predecessors. It will be noticed that much more than our modern 'pernoctation' was then required for residence, and that migration from other universities was more freely permitted than is now the case. This freedom to study at more than one university is still the rule in Germany, and Oxford is returning to it in the new statute on Colonial and Foreign Universities, which excuses members of other bodies who have complied with certain conditions, from one year of residence, and from part of our examinations.

Relaxations of Residence.

The University in old days, however, was more prepared to relax this requirement than it is in modern times; the sons of knights and the eldest sons of esquires13 were permitted to take a degree after three years, and 'graces' might be granted conferring still further exemptions; e.g. a certain G. More was let off with two years only, in 1571, because being 'well born and the only son of his father', he is afraid that he 'may be called away before he has completed the appointed time', and so may 'be unable to take his degree conveniently'. The University is less indulgent now.

(2) Lectures.

The old statute quoted above also implies that there were special lectures to be heard during the four years of residence; some of them had to be attended twice over. The old Oxford records give careful directions how the lectures were to be given; the text was to be closely adhered to and explained, and digressions were forbidden. There are, however, none of those strict rules as to the punctuality of the lecturer, the pace at which he was to lecture, &c., which make some of the mediaeval statutes of other universities so amusing14.

The list of subjects for a mediaeval degree is too long to be given here; it may be mentioned, however, that Aristotle, then as always, held a prominent place in Oxford's Schools.15 This was common to other universities, but the weight given to Mathematics and to Music was a special feature of the Oxford course.

The lectures were of course University and not college lectures; the latter hardly existed before the sixteenth century, and were as a rule confined to members of the college. As there were no 'Professors' in our sense, the instruction was given by the ordinary Masters of Arts, among whom those who were of less than two years' standing were compelled to lecture, and were styled 'necessary regents' (i.e. they 'governed the Schools'). They were paid by the fees of their pupils (Collecta, a word familiar in a different sense in our 'Collections'). There was keen competition in early days to attract the largest possible audience, but later on the University enacted that all fees should be pooled and equally divided among the teachers. For this (and for other reasons) the lectures became more and more a mere form, and no real part of a student's education.

Cutting Lectures.

There had been from time immemorial a fixed tariff for 'cutting'16 lectures, and there was a further fine of the same amount for failing to take notes. But the University from time to time tried actually to enforce attendance. A curious instance of this occurs toward the close of the reign of Elizabeth; a number of students were solemnly warned that 'by cutting' lectures, they were incurring the guilt of perjury, because they had sworn to obey the statutes which required attendance at lectures. They explained they had thought their 'neglect' to hear lectures only involved them in the fine and not in 'perjury', and after this apology they seem to have proceeded to their degrees without further difficulty.

Graces.

In fact there was a growing separation after the fifteenth century, between the formal requirements for the degree, and the actual University system; sometimes irreconcilable difficulties arose, e.g. when two students were (in 1599) summoned to explain why they had not attended one of the lectures required for the degree, and they presented the unanswerable excuse that the teacher in question had not lectured, having himself been excused by the University from the duty of giving the lecture. In fact the whole system would have been unworkable but for the power of granting 'graces' or dispensations, which has already been referred to: how necessary and almost universal these were, may be seen from the fact that even so conscientious a disciplinarian as Archbishop Laud, stern alike to himself and to others, was dispensed from observing all the statutes when he took his D.D. (1608) 'because he was called away suddenly on necessary business'. We can well believe that Laud then, as always, was busy, but there were other students who got their 'graces' with much less excuse. Modern students may well envy the good fortune of the brothers Carey from Exeter College, who (in 1614) were dispensed because 'being shortly about to depart from the University, they desired to take with them the B.A. degree as a benediction from their Alma Mater, the University'.

The New College Privilege.

One curious development of the old system of 'graces' survived in one of the most prominent of Oxford colleges almost till within living memory.17 William of Wykeham had ordained that his students should perform the whole of the University requirements, and not avail themselves of dispensations. When the granting of these became so frequent that they were looked upon as the essential part of the system, the idea grew up that New College men were to be exempt from the ordinary tests of the University. Hence a Wykehamist took his degree with no examination but that of his own college, both under the Laudian Statute and after the great statute of 1800, which set up the modern system of examinations. What the founder had intended as an encouragement for industry was made by his degenerate disciples an excuse for idleness.

(3) Examinations.

So far only the qualifications of residence and attendance on lectures have been spoken of. The great test of our own times, the examination, has not even been referred to. And it must certainly be admitted that the terrors of the modern written examinations were unknown in the old universities; such testing as took place was always viva voce. That the tests were serious, in theory at any rate, may be fairly inferred from the frequent statutes at Paris against bribing examiners, and from the provision at Bologna that at this 'rigorous and tremendous examination', the examiner should treat the examinee 'as his own son'. Robert de Sorbonne, the founder of the famous college at Paris, has even left a sermon in which an elaborate comparison is drawn between university examinations and the Last Judgement; it need hardly be said that the moral of the sermon is the greater severity of the heavenly test as compared with the earthly; if a man neglects his prescribed book, he will be rejected once, but if he neglect 'the book of conscience, he will be rejected for ever'. Such a comparison was not likely to have been made, had not the earthly ordeal possessed terrors at least as great as those that mark its modern successors.

Responsions.

It may be added at once, however, that we hear very little about examinations in old Oxford; but still there were some. Then as now the first examination was Responsions, a name which has survived for at least 500 years, whatever changes there have been in its meaning. The University also still retains the time-honoured name of the 'Masters of the Schools' for those who conduct this examination (though there are now six and not four, as in the thirteenth century), and candidates who pass are still said as of old to have 'responded in Parviso'.18