The statutes of the monastic college of
Clugny order that "because the mind is rendered prudent by sitting
down and keeping quiet, the said students at the proper and wonted
hours for study shall be, and sit, alone in their cells and at their
studies." Parisian statutes are stricter than English statutes in
insisting upon frequent inspections of students' chambers, and a
sixteenth-century code for a Parisian college orders the officials to
see their pupils every night before bed time, and to make sure, before
they themselves retire for the night, that the students are asleep and
not wandering about the quadrangles.

Strict supervision is found in colleges in other French universities,
even in those which belong to the student type. It was, of course,
especially strict in monastic colleges, which carried their own
customs to the University; in the College of Notre Dame de Pitie, at
Avignon, the master of the novices lived in a room adjoining their
dormitory, and had a window, through which he might watch their
proceedings. Supervision was sometimes connected with precautions
against fire, _e.g._ at the College of Saint Ruf, at Montpellier, (p. 089)
an officer was appointed every week to go round all chambers and rooms
at night, and to warn anyone who had a candle or a fire in a dangerous
position, near his bed or his study. He was to carry a pail of water
with him to be ready for emergencies. A somewhat similar precaution
was taken in the Collegium Maius at Leipsic, where water was kept in
pails beside the dormitories, and leather pails, some centuries old,
are still to be seen at Oxford. As a rule, the dormitories seem to
have contained a separate bed for each occupant, but in the College of
St Nicholas de Pelegry at Cahors, students in arts (who entered about
the age of fourteen) were to sleep two in a bed. Insistence on the use
of Latin is almost universal; the scholars of the College de Foix at
Toulouse are warned that only ploughmen, swineherds and other rustics,
use their mother tongues. Silence and the reading of the Bible at
meals was usual, and students are sometimes told to make their needs
known, if possible, by signs. Fines for lateness at meals are common,
and there are injunctions against rushing into Hall with violence and
greed: no one is to go near the kitchen to seize any food, and those
who enter Hall first, are to wait till the rest arrive, and all are to
sit down in the proper order. Prohibitions ag