Congregation.

The oath of obedience was not merely a constitutional weapon kept in
reserve for occasional serious disputes; it affected the daily life of
the Studium, and the masters were subject to numerous petty
indignities, which could not fail to impress our English student if he
was familiar with University life in his own country. He would see,
with surprise, a doctor's lecture interrupted by the arrival of a
University Bedel, as the debates of the House of Commons are interrupted
by the arrival of Black Rod, and his instructor would maintain a reverent
silence while the Rector's officer delivered some message from the (p. 027)
University, or informed the professor of some new regulation. If the
learned doctor "cut" a lecture, our student would find himself
compelled to inform the authorities of the University, and he would
hear of fines inflicted upon the doctors for absence, for lateness,
for attracting too small an audience, for omitting portions of a
subject or avoiding the elucidation of its difficulties, and for
inattention while the "precepta" or "mandata" of the Rector were being
read in the schools. He and his fellow-students might graciously grant
their master a holiday, but the permission had to be confirmed by the
Rector; if a lecture was prolonged a minute after the appointed time,
the doctor found himself addressing empty benches. The humiliation of
the master's position was increased by the fact that his pupils were
always acting as spies upon him, and they were themselves liable to
penalties for conniving at any infringement of the regulations on his
part. At Bologna, even the privilege of teaching was, to a slight
extent, shared by the doctors with their pupils. Lectures were divided
into two classes, ordinary and extra-ordinary; the ordinary lectures
were the duty of the doctors, but senior students (bachelors) were
authorised by the Rector to share with the doctors the duty of giving
extra-ordinary lectures. There were six chairs, endowed by the (p. 028)
city, which were held by students, and the occupant of one of these
was entitled to deliver ordinary lectures. Dr Rashdall finds the
explanation of this anomaly in an incident in the fourteenth century
history of Bologna, when the Tyrant of the City forbade the professors
to teach. The student-chairs were rather endowments for the Rectorship
or for poor scholars than serious rivals to the ordinary professorships,
and the extra-ordinary lec