edited in the seventeenth century. They include a rhymed series of
rules for behaviour at table, which, though post-medieval in date,
give us some clue to the table manners of the medieval students:--

Majorem ne praevenia- }
Locum assignatum tenea- }
Mensae assignatae accumba- }
Manibus mundis nudis eda- }
Aperientes caput faciem ne obtega- }
Vultus hilares habea- }
Rite in convictu comeda- }
Sal cultello capia- }
Salinum ne dejicia- }
Manubrium haud aciem porriga- } tis
Tribus cibos digitis prehenda- }
Cultro priusquam dente tera- }
. . . . . }
Ossa in orbem depona- }
Vel pavimentum jacia- }
Modeste omnia facia- }
Ossa si in convivas jacia- }
Nedum si illos vulnera- }
Ne queramini si vapula- }
. . . . . }
Post haustum labia deterga- } (p. 107)
Modicum, sed crebro biba- }
. . . . . }
Os ante haustum evacua- }
Ungues sordidulos fugia- } tis
. . . . . }
Ructantes terga reflecta- }
Ne scalpatis cavea- }
. . . . . }
Edere mementote ut viva- }
Non vivere ut comed- }

The Economist's accounts at Aberdeen have been preserved for part of
the year 1579, and show that the food of a Scottish student, just
after the medieval period, consisted of white bread, oat bread, beef,
mutton, butter, small fish, partans (crabs), eggs, a bill of fare
certainly above the food of the lower classes in Scotland at the time.
The drinks mentioned are best ale, second ale, and beer. His victuals
interested the medieval student; the conversation of two German
students, as pictured in a "students' guide" to Heidelberg (_cf._ p.
116), is largely occupied with food. "The veal is soft and bad: the
calf cannot have seen its mother three times: no one in my country
would eat such stuff: the drink is bitter." The little book shows us
the two students walking in the meadows, and when they reach the
Neckar, one dissuades the other from bathing (a dangerous enterprise
forbidden in the statutes of some universities, including Louvain (p. 108)
and Glasgow). They quarrel ab