Questionist. supplicat. account of satisfied on these points, he was permitted to proceed with CHAP. IV. the examination which he must pass before he could present himself as a questionist, ad respondendum quæstioni. This The ordeal took place in the arts schools, where he was examined by the proctors, 'posers,' and regent masters of arts: as a test of proficiency it appears to have corresponded to the present final examination for the ordinary degree or for honours, and when it had been passed the candidate received, either from the authorities of his college or the master of his hostel, a supplicat to the chancellor and the senate. This supplicat The having been favorably entertained he was allowed to present himself as a questionist. Of this ceremony, which was probably little more than a matter of form, we have an amusing account in Stokys' Book, a volume compiled in the sixteenth Stokys' century by a fellow of King's College who had filled for the ceremony many years the office of esquire bedell, and that of registrary the Ques of the university. On the appointed day one of the bedells made his appearance in the court of the college or hostel, shortly before nine o'clock, crying Allons, allons, goe, Misters, goe,' and having assembled masters, bachelors, scholars, and questionists, and marshalled them in due order, proceeded to conduct them to the arts schools. As they entered, one of the bedells cried, Nostra mater, bona nova, bona nova, and the father of the college' took his seat in the responsions' chair, 'his children standing over against him in order.' Then the bedell, turning to the father, said, Reverende pater, licebit tibi incipere, sedere, et cooperiri si placet. Then the father proceeded to propound his questions to each of his children in order, and when they had been duly answered he summed up his conclusions. This questioning again was probably purely formal in its character, for it appears to have been regarded as unparental in the the necessary oath as to past studies, that the chance of failure consisted; there seems to have been nothing corresponding to our modern plucking; if the scholar could provide testimony to his fitness, etc., he was admitted to run the gauntlet of determining without further enquiry, and his successful or non-successful extreme if he replied to any performance brought with it the con- 1 The officer who represented the observed by tionist. CHAP. IV. of his children and involved a feeble questionist in argument, it being expressly provided that if he thus unduly lengthened the proceedings the bedell might knock him out,' an operation which consisted in hammering at the school doors in such a manner as to render the voices of the disputants inaudible. When each questionist had responded the procession was again formed, as before, and the bedell escorted them back to their college1. The Determiner. Stare in The above ceremony, it is to be observed, was always held a few days before Ash Wednesday: on its completion the questionist became an incepting bachelor, and from being required respondere ad quæstionem, was now called upon determinare quæstionem, that is, to preside over disputations similar to those in which he had previously played the part of opponent or respondent,--in the language of dean Peacock, 'to review the whole question disputed, notice the imperfections or fallacies in the arguments advanced, and finally pronounce his decisions or determination, scholastico more. As he was required to appear in this capacity throughout the whole of Lent, he was said stare in quadragesima, and stans in quadragesima was the academical designation of an incepting bachelor of arts: as however the minimum number of days on which he was required to determine was never less than nine, and the discharge of such arduous duties for so lengthened a period might prove too serious a demand on the resources or courage of some youthful bachelors, the determiner was allowed, if he demanded such permission, to obtain the assistDeterminers ance of another bachelor and to determine by proxy. We determine by find accordingly a statute which relates to those determining for others, whereby it is required that those bachelors whose services were thus called into request should always be at least a year's standing senior to those whom they represented3. quadragesima. admitted to proxy. 1 Cole MSS. XII 215. (Printed in Peacock's Observations as Append. A.) According to an early Oxford statute determiners were required to dispute logic every day except Friday, when they disputed or presided over disputations in grammar: and on the first and last days of their determination they disputed quæstiones, i. e., probably, debated points in the text of different treatises of Aristotle. See Anstey, Munimenta Academica, 1 246. 3 Statute 141. De Determinatoribus, pro Aliis. Documents, 1 385. But while the timid or incompetent shunned the lengthened CHAP. IV. ordeal, the aspirant for distinction hailed the ceremony of determination as the grand opportunity for a display of his powers. In the faculty of arts a scholar was aut logicus aut Importance nullus, and every effort was made on these occasions to the ceremony produce an impression of superior skill. A numerous tion. audience was looked upon as essential. Friends were solicited to be present, and these in turn brought their own acquaintance: indiscreet partisans would even appear to have sometimes placed themselves near the entrance and pounced upon passers-by and dragged them within the building, in order that they might lend additional dignity to the proceedings by their involuntary presence. One of the Oxford statutes is an express edict against this latter practice'. attached to of determina great event in the as Before the bachelor could become a master of arts, he The Inceptor. must pass through another and yet more formidable ordeal, he must commence. On notifying his wish to this effect to the authorities, either personally or through the regent by whom he was officially represented, he was required to answer three questions,-Sub quo,-in quo loco aut ubi,—quo tempore aut quando,-inciperet. The day selected was, under Inception the ordinary circumstances, the day of the Great Commencement, the career of the second of July, and as this was the chief academical student. ceremony of the year, it was held not in the arts schools, but in the church of Great St. Mary. It would appear that on the preceding day other exercises took place in the arts schools, which from their immediately preceding the day of inception were known as the Vesperia. But the crowning day was undoubtedly that of inception. As the disputa- Account of tions were preceded by the celebration of the mass, the mony. assembly was convened at the early hour of seven, when the sacred edifice became thronged by doctors of the different 1 Item, inhibet dominus cancellarius, sub pœna excommunicationis et incarcerationis, ne aliqui, tempore determinationis bachilariorum, ante ostia scholarum stantes, seu extra per vices vagantes, transeuntes vio lenter trahant, seu iis quamcumque Peacock, Observations, p. 11, Ar- the cere The Prævaricator. CHAP. IV. faculties, masters regent and non-regent, and spectators of every grade. When the exercises began, the incepting The Father. master, with the regent master of arts who acted as his father, took up his position at an appointed place on the right hand side of the church. The father then placed the cap (pileum), the sign of the magisterial dignity, on the inceptor's head, who would then proceed to read aloud a passage from Aristotle. From this passage he would previously have selected and submitted to the chancellor's approval two affirmations of questions, which he proposed formally to defend in logical dispute against all comers. It devolved first of all on the youngest regent, his senior by one year, who was known. from his part on these occasions as the prævaricator1, to take up the gauntlet. The inceptor, if placing a modest estimate on his own powers, would probably have selected some easily defended thesis, and the prævaricator would find all his dialectical skill called into request by the attempt to turn an almost unassailable position. He was however indemnified to some extent by the licence which he received on these occasions to indulge in a prefatory oration, wherein he was permitted to satirize with saturnalian freedom the leading characters in the university or more prominent transactions of the preceding academical year. When this often dreaded performance was over, and he had fairly tested the defensive powers of the inceptor, the proctor said Sufficit, and the place of the regent was forthwith filled by the youngest non-regent. On the latter it devolved to sustain and carry out the attack of his predecessor, and when he, in his turn, had sufficiently tasked the ingenuity of the candidate, the youngest doctor of divinity stepped forward and summed up the conclusions. Other formalities of admission followed, until at last the inceptor was saluted by the bedell as Noster magister, who at the same time pronounced his name; he then retired from the arena, and the next incepting master stepped into his place2. Heavy expenses atten dant upon the cere mony. Such formalities, when compared with those of the present day, would seem to constitute a somewhat trying ordeal 1 Ibid. Append. p. xxvi. 2 Cole MSS. XIII 220. on such ex posed by the for a diffident man, but it is probable that in many instances CHAP. IV. they were regarded with far less apprehension than those by which they were succeeded. It has at all times been a distinctly avowed article of faith with the majority of university students that the depression of spirits incident upon severe mental exertion should be relieved by occasional if not frequent festivities, and Cambridge and Oxford, even in those days of professed asceticism, were no exception to the rule. The different stages of academic progress naturally suggested themselves as fitting opportunities for such relaxations, the main dispute between the authorities and the students being apparently simply a question of degree. Thus even the Limitations youthful sophister, at the time of his responsions, indulged in penses iman expenditure which the chancellor at Oxford found it university. necessary to limit to sixteenpence1; bachelors, stantes in quadragesima, scandalized the university by bacchanalian gatherings even in 'the holy season of Lent,' until they were forbidden from holding any such celebrations whatever'; while at Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, the papal authority was invoked to prevent inceptors expending more than tria millia Turonensium, a sum which as thus expressed in the silver coinage of Tours equalled no less than £41. 138. 4d. English money of the period, or some five hundred pounds of the present day. It is in the highest degree improbable that the average expenditure of incepting masters of arts made any approach to a sum of this magnitude, but in all cases the expense was considerable. Presents of gowns and gloves to the different officers of the university, together with |