cursum," and students of medicine had
to read certain books "semel ordinarie, bis cursorie." The statutes of
Heidelberg contrast "cursorie" with "extense." In the Faculty of Canon
Law there was an additional distinction, the ordinary lecture being
generally restricted to the Decretum; at Oxford, the book of Decretals
is to be read at the morning hours at which the doctors of law are
wont to deliver ordinary lectures, and at Vienna the doctors are
forbidden to read anything but the Decretals in the morning at
ordinary lectures. The instructions given to the Vienna doctors of (p. 142)
law illustrate the thoroughness of the medieval lecture in all
faculties. They are first to state the case carefully, then to read
the text, then to restate the case, then to remark on "notabilia," and
then to discuss questions arising out of the subject, and finally, to
deal with the Glosses. So, at Oxford, the Masters in Arts are to read
the books on logic and the philosophies "rite," with the necessary and
adequate exposition of the text, and with questions and arguments
pertinent to the subject-matter.

A problem, still unsolved, about the methods of lecturing disturbed
the minds of the Parisian masters. Were they to dictate lectures or to
speak so fast that their pupils could not commit their words to
writing? From the standpoint of teachers who delivered frequent
lectures, all of the same type, and on a few set books, it was
probably desirable that there should not be opportunities of
possessing such copies of a professor's lectures as used to circulate,
not many years ago, in Scottish and in German universities. In 1229
the Faculty of Arts at Paris made a statute on the methods of
lecturing. It explains that there are two ways of reading books in the
liberal arts. The masters of philosophy may deliver their expositions
from their chairs so rapidly that, although the minds of their
audience may grasp their meaning, their hands cannot write it (p. 143)
down. This, they say, was the custom in other faculties. The other way
is to speak so slowly that their hearers can take down what they say.
On mature reflection, the Faculty has decided that the former is the
better way, and henceforth in any lecture, ordinary or cursory, or in
any disputation or other manner of teaching, the master is to speak as
in delivering a speech, and as if no one were writing in his presence.
A lecturer who breaks the new rule is to be suspended for a year,