the clubs or guilds into which the students from the different countries began to form themselves towards the end of the thirteenth century for mutual protection and support against the townspeople.1 At Cambridge, the proctors retained throughout the Middle Ages the style Rectores sive Procuratores. This circumstance had long since convinced us that at one time the title must have been Rector or Proctor at Paris and at Oxford, since the constitution of Cambridge came from Paris by way of Oxford. So far as Oxford is concerned, Mr. Maxwell Lyte has now supplied us with direct evidence of the fact. At Bologna the Universities of students eventually succeeded in making themselves practically the governing body of the whole academic institution, and in reducing the Professors to the most humiliating subjection to the Student Rectors. It is singular that the institution which at Bologna was the instrument of student-supremacy and magisterial vassalage should have become at Paris, and still more at Oxford, the great instrument of magisterial supremacy. The ultimate explanation of the liability of the modern English student to be hunted down in the streets for breaches of the Statute de habitu non academico must be sought in the unrestrained liberties of the Bologna students of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

As soon as the Nations were formed at Paris, the business of the University tended to pass practically into the hands of the Masters of Arts, the superior Faculties being merely called in to give their assent to the determinations of the more fully organised Faculty of Arts. At Paris this state of things passed away after the middle of the thirteenth century. At Oxford it remained a permanent part of the constitution of the University, which may be said to represent an arrested development, under a different environment, of the Parisian constitution. At Oxford no measure could be brought before the congregation of all the Faculties sitting at S. Mary's before it had been promulgated in the congregation of Regents in Arts or 'Black Congregation,' sitting at S. Mildred's and presided over by the proctors. The Artists even claimed, at least when unanimous, a veto on the further progress of University legislation. Their right to this veto remained a matter of dispute till the fifteenth century, when the Artists

1 Cf. Denifle, i. 95 ff., 136 ff.

2 P. 53.

3 Mun. Acad. pp. 429, 481-3. The first entry is found in the Proctor's books only; of the last there is a late transcript in the Chancellor's.

were forced to content themselves with asserting the right to a separate preliminary discussion of a proposed statute.1 But it still remained in the power of the two proctors to refuse to summon a 'previous Congregation,' 2 and in this power we find the origin of the still existing proctorial veto.

Another constitutional difference between Oxford and Paris arises from the early date at which the non-Regents came into prominence at the former. At Paris the presence

3

of the non-Regents never appears to have been legally necessary even for the making of a permanent statute. In the fourteenth century it became the practice to summon them on important occasions, but when they attended they voted as members of their respective Faculties or Nations. At Oxford the consent of the non-Regents early became necessary to University legislation, though the Regents kept in their own hands the right of electing University officers and of granting ' graces' or dispensations. The Congregation of Regents was, in fact, the executive and administrative body. The chief conduct of the affairs of the University was thus lodged (as the conduct of the affairs of every University ought to be lodged) with the teaching body. The legislative power was reserved to the Congregation of Regents and Non-regents (to which in post-medieval times the name of Convocation was appropriated) which was then composed solely of teachers and resident ex-teachers.

In mediæval Oxford, therefore, there were three Congregations in all 4 :

(1) The Previous' or 'Black' Congregation' of Regents in Arts which elected the Proctors and conducted the preliminary discussion on a proposed statute sitting at S. Mildred's.

(2) The executive Congregation of Regents of all Faculties, which sat in the Congregation-house at S. Mary's.

(3) The Great Congregation of Regents and non-Regents, which sat in the choir of S. Mary's.

In the early days of the University it is probable that, at Oxford as at Paris, the consent of all the Faculties was necessary to make a permanent statute, but after the beginning of the thirteenth century an attempt was made by

1 Mun. Acad. pp. 331, 491.

2 Ibid. p. 146.

3 Ibid. p. 41 et passim. But in 1252 only the Regents take part in making a Statute.-Ibid. p. 347.

4 Besides Congregations of the several higher Faculties for inceptions, &c., but these latter do not appear to have made separate Statutes for themselves, as at Paris.

5 Mon. Franc. p. 347.

the Faculty of Arts, in order to carry the statutes directed against the Friars, to establish the principle of voting by Faculties. A declaratory statute was passed by the Regents in Arts, the Faculty of Medicine (a single Doctor), and a majority of the non-Regents affirming that a statute passed by two Faculties with the assent of the non-Regents should be binding on the rest. The principle thus asserted, though perhaps not absolutely beyond dispute, seems, on the whole, to have been the recognized constitutional theory of the University throughout the mediæval period.1

The modern reader will very probably want to know which of these assemblies it was that 'granted degrees.' The fact is that originally none of them strictly speaking 'granted degrees.' The taking a Master's degree originally consisted of two stages.2 (1) The still extant ceremony of receiving the Chancellor's licence to incept. (2) The actual inception by which the Licentiate became a full Master or Doctor. Before the licence could be granted, a certain number of Masters of the candidate's Faculty were required to depose to his competency 3; while the Proctors, as the officers of the University, attended to take their oaths of obedience to the University and the statutes. But the licence was conferred by the Chancellor in virtue of his spiritual authority, not by the University.5 The ceremony which we call 'taking a degree' is really, as anyone may see who examines the words which were muttered over him when he knelt before the Vice-Chancellor, in reality the conferment of the Church's licence to incept, or begin to teach as a Master. The Licentiate does not become a Master until he has been received into the society of his colleagues by inception; and at the actual ceremony of inception only the Masters of the particular faculty, together with the Chancellor and Proctors, are officially present, and by one of the Masters, not by the Chancellor, the ceremony was performed."

Whence, then, arose the present control of the 'ancient house' of Congregation over the conferment of degrees? 1 See the Digby Rot. I. in the Bodleian and cf. Mun. Acad. pp. 322, 481-3

2 Want of space compels us to say nothing as to the Bachelor's degree, the constitutional theory of which is somewhat different.

3 Mun. Acad. pp. 378, 379, 424, 449.

4 Ibid. pp. 120, 489.

5 Even the later formula runs 'auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis. Ibid. p. 383.

• This is clear from Digby Rot. I. Even under the Laudian Statutes the candidates for the higher degrees incepted under their respective Professors, the Artists under one of the Proctors.

Without pretending to speak confidently, we believe it will be found that the necessity of the 'grace' of Congregation arose from the frequency with which in the course of time a dispensation came to be sought from some of the statutable conditions required for the degree, the power of dispensation being in ordinary cases lodged with the Regents. This, however, is one of the points on which we desiderate further information.

We fear that we may have done some injustice to the high value of Mr. Maxwell Lyte's book by concentrating our attention upon a side of Oxford history on which little direct help is to be obtained from his pages. In the interests, however, of the continuation of the work which Mr. Lyte has so well begun, we should be as sorry that his book should be looked upon as adequate or final as that the thorough and student-like character of his work, within its own limits, should fail to obtain the most ample and cordial recognition.' Even its very deficiencies will not be without their value if they serve to bring home to some of the numerous band of Oxford students who are now engaged upon various points of Oxford history the imperative necessity of the application of the comparative method to the study of Universities. Without such comparative study they will remain ignorant of the very existence of the real problems of their subject, and will remain as blind as the average undergraduate to the true meaning and significance of all that is ancient in the institutions among which they live.

ART. X.-THE CONVOCATION OF YORK: ITS DIFFICULTIES AND PROSPECTS.

1. The York Journal of Convocation, A.D. 1861-1886. 2. The Convocations of the Two Provinces. By GEORGE TREVOR, M.A., Canon of York, and Proctor for the Archdeaconry of York. (London, 1852.)

AN eminent judge of great shrewdness and humour, well known some twenty or thirty years ago on the Northern Circuit, was in the habit, as he grew old, of occasionally

1 Mr. Maxwell Lyte's volume, it will be seen, stops at the year 1530. We hope, however, he may be encouraged to continue the history down to more recent times.

expressing a wish to his friends that he could be made an Archbishop, always, however, adding emphatically, 'Not Canterbury, no! not Canterbury: that would give me too much to do but York!' The wish, indeed, in those days. was not altogether unnatural, and we remember something very like it being expressed, in his good-humoured, cynical fashion, by the late Lord Houghton in the House of Lords, when, deploring what he thought the present superfluous activity of the Episcopate, he said: 'I, my Lords, have lived in the good old days of Archbishop Harcourt, and those are my ideal of what an Archbishop's days should be.' We are afraid that the lines which have fallen to the present Archbishop of York have not been quite the pleasant ones either of the humorous judge or of the lively poet. Two of the most painful cases of Ritual prosecution with which he has been, perhaps unavoidably, mixed up, have developed much religious dissension in his Province, while an apparent refusal to allow the eminent Canon Missioner of the Diocese of Durham to conduct a mission in his own has lately involved him in a curious and unpleasant controversy on the distinctions between an inhibition,' a 'prohibition,' and a 'refusal,' no reason being given for the imposition of any of the three. The relations, moreover, between himself and the Northern Convocation can scarcely fail to have been for several years a source of pain and difficulty to him. The case of Canon Trevor, which bears upon the last subject, has recently attracted considerable attention; and, as the condition of one of our National Convocations must always have its effect on the Church at large, we need make no excuse for attempting to place before our readers both an account of the recent annals, and of what we are afraid must be called the disagreements of the Lower House of York with its President, and also a view of the future prospects of the Convocation.

We are quite aware that this is a delicate, and not a very agreeable, subject to take in hand. No one who has read the correspondence to which we have referred can feel it to be otherwise. At the same time, it is not desirable that matters which are considerably affecting, and indeed making, the history of the Church should be passed by in silence, or misunderstood; nor are we at all disposed to take the gloomy view in which one or two writers on this subject indulge. The Convocation of York has always shown great ability and independence; and it has been, perhaps, unavoidable that it should have shown also some of that combative spirit, with which we of the South sometimes credit our Northern brethren.