rts and every lawful
faculty, and that the doctors, masters, readers, and students might
there enjoy all the liberties, honours, exemptions, and immunities
granted by the Apostolic see to the doctors, masters, and students in
the University of Bologna. He gave the power to confer degrees and make
licentiates--an important recognition in those days, for it brought the
influence of the Church on the side of schools of learning, and gave
universal European validity to the degrees so conferred.[68] The Bishop
of Glasgow was the patron and head of the University of Glasgow, which
was thus founded forty years after that of St. Andrews, and forty years
before that of Aberdeen. The next prelate, Bishop Andrew Muirhead
(1455-1473) took an important part in the State affairs of the period,
and as far as his work in the cathedral is concerned, built the hall of
the choral vicars. It is situated between the two buttresses at the west
end of the north aisle of the choir, and is a low building now roofed
with flags. It was called the "aula vicariorum chori," and was built as
an accommodation for the vicars choral, whose duties were to serve and
sing in the choir. They were formed into a college by Bishop Muirhead,
were originally twelve in number, but were afterwards increased to
eighteen, and were aided by boy choristers. Archbishop Eyre thinks that
this building on the north side of the cathedral was the early
song-school of the church, which passed into the hands of the college of
vicars choral, and was a hall for their business meetings and musical
practice, the second storey being probably their reading-room, or the
sleeping-place of the sacristan, who was required to sleep in the
church.[69]

Robert Blacader (1484-1508) was high in favour with King James IV., and
was one of the embassy sent to England to arrange the marriage of the
Scottish monarch with the daughter of Henry VII. James had previously
sought consolation under the Bishop's care, enrolled himself as a
prebendary in the cathedral, and in person attended as a member of the
cathedral-chapter. The King was always favourable to Glasgow, and did
not desire the see to be subordinate to that of St. Andrews. He urged
upon the Pope that the pallium should be granted to the Bishop of
Glasgow, whose cathedral, he urged, "surpasses the other cathedral
churches of my realm by its structure, its learned men, its foundation,
its ornaments, and other very noble prerogatives." A bu