ts
formed themselves into organized bodies, with definite laws and courses
of study, both because they needed each other's help and protection, and
because they could not conceive themselves as existing in any other way.

These organized bodies were called 'universitates'[8], i.e. guilds or
associations; the name at first had no special application to bodies of
students, but is applied e.g. to a community of citizens; it was only
gradually that it acquired its later and narrower meaning; it finally
became specialized for a learned corporation, just as 'convent' has been
set apart for a religious body, and 'corps' for a military one.

[Sidenote: The origin of Oxford University.]

When these organized bodies were first formed is a question which it is
impossible to discuss at length here, nor could a definite answer be
given. The University of Oxford is, in this respect, as in so many
others, characteristically English; it grew rather than was made, like
most of our institutions, and it can point to no definite year of
foundation, and to no individual as founder. Here it must suffice to say
that references to students and teachers at Oxford are found with
growing frequency all through the twelfth century; but it is only in the
last quarter of that century that either of those features which
differentiate a university from a mere chance body of students can be
clearly traced. These two features are organized study and the right of
self-government.

The first mention of organized study is about 1184, when Giraldus
Cambrensis, having written his _Topographia Hibernica_ and 'desiring not
to hide his candle under a bushel,' came to Oxford to read it to the
students there; for three days he 'entertained' his audience as well as
read to them, and the poor scholars were feasted on a separate day from
the 'Doctors of the different faculties'. Here we have definite evidence
of organized study. Much more important is the record of 1214 (the year
before Magna Carta[9]), when the famous award was given by the Papal
Legate, which is the oldest charter of the University of Oxford. In this
the 'Chancellor' is mentioned, and we have in this office the beginnings
of that self-government which, coupled with organized study, may justify
us in saying that the real university was now in existence. It is quite
probable that the first Doctor of Divinity whom we find 'incepting' in
Oxford, is the learned and saintly Edmund Rich, afterwards Arc