ntice as opposed to the master-workman; in fact the 'Bachelor' in
the university corresponded to the 'pupil-teacher' of more humble
associations in our own days. In this sense of the word, as Dr. Murray
quaintly says, a woman student can become a 'Bachelor' of Arts.

[Sidenote: Two elements in the Degree Ceremony: (1) Consent of existing
M.A.'s.]

It was natural that the existing members of the 'university' or guild
should be consulted as to the admission of new members; their consent
was one element in the degree giving. The means by which the fitness of
applicants for the degree was tested will be spoken of later, and also
the methods by which the existing Masters expressed their willingness to
admit the new-comer among them.

[Sidenote: (2) Outside authority, that of the Church.]

But there is quite a different element in the degree from that which has
so far been mentioned. That was democratic, the consent of the
community; this is autocratic, the authority conferred by a head,
superior to, and outside of the community. The Vice-Chancellor of Oxford
represents this second principle; he gives the degree in virtue of 'his
own authority' as well as of that 'of the University'. This authority is
originally that of the Church, to which, in England at any rate, all
mediaeval students _ipso facto_ belonged; the new student was admitted
into the 'bosom' (_matricula_) of the University by receiving some form
of tonsure, and for the first two centuries of University existence, no
other ceremony was needed. Matriculation examinations at any rate were
in those happy days unknown. Hence the authority which the cathedral
chancellor, representing the bishop, had exercised over the schools and
teachers of the diocese, was extended as a matter of course to the
teachers of the newly-risen Universities. The fitness of the applicant
for a degree was tested by those who had it already, but the
ecclesiastical authority gave the 'licence' to teach. This
ecclesiastical origin of the M.A. degree is well shown in the formula of
admission (pp. 15, 16). The new Master is admitted 'in honorem Domini
nostri Jesu Christi' and 'in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost'.

[Sidenote: The Pope and the Universities.]

The close connexion of the Church and higher education is further
illustrated by the view of the fourteenth-century jurists that a bull
from the Pope or from the Holy Roman Emperor was needed to make a
teaching body