CHAPTER 2
THE UNIVERSITY OF
BOLOGNA
November 1222. The Commune of Bologna
Master Martin of Poitou is trying to concentrate but his mind keeps running off. He cranes his head forward, elbows apart on the table, chin on bunched up hands, as if lazily praying. He’s reading a book on the table in the skittish wash of light shed from the candlestick. The days are short now and he often can’t finish preparing his lectures before the light through the window fades. The sheet of linen stretched tight across the unglazed window undulates to the touch of the dark wind, reaching through the closed shutters.
Martin is keen to impress his audience tomorrow, as a number of the students are still taking his lectures on trial. He scratches his head thoughtfully. He wants to be clear and concise, yet covering all he needs to; and with a little wit interspersed. If his next few lectures are good enough, most of the undecided should sign up, giving him a rare, very profitable year. He never had anything like this number of students at the University of Paris. It’s a fantastic opportunity and he needs to capitalise on it. The good times mightn’t last. Already there have been rumours of more of the doctors returning from Padua, where a competing university is now up and running.
Below his window in the gloomy street, he can hear some of the recently returned students noisily making their way to the tavern, a hundred paces or so down the street. They are boisterous, joking amongst themselves, oblivious to any offence they’re causing around them. Their arrogance has been fuelled by their triumph, as they see it, over the commune. The townspeople on the other hand are feeling deeply resentful.
Most of the students on the way to the tavern are Gascons, Bordelais, Provençals and Catalans, all of whom speak much the same language: Lengua Romana or Catalan. Latin is the common language for all the students at the University and the language of the lectures, but the students prefer to speak their own languages when relaxing.
“Hey beautiful,” one of them calls out. “Want to join us in the tavern?”.
“Leave off,” says another voice. “I think that one’s married”
.
“Well she didn’t wait around; flew back inside like a rabbit down a burrow!”
“Are you surprised, when she saw your face?”
Yes that one’s a beauty alright, thinks Martin, who knows all the good looking women along the street. But very married.
“Oh now that’s a pretty one”, says one of the voices, to the laughter of the others. “I think I’ll take her with me.”
“Now clear off”, comes a fierce male voice, “or I’ll take to you with a cleaver! We’ve had enough of you lot.”
That causes more merriment amongst the students.
Martin shakes his head. Why is there always such bad blood between the university and the town? he wonders to himself. The students are intelligent. But some have so little sense! The town youths are no better; probably worse! It was much the same in Paris.
Martin had been struggling in Paris. A poor Master of Arts from a trade background. Martin’s father, a successful artisan potter from Chauvigny who sold his wares at markets as far afield as Poitier, had high ambitions for his son. Martin had high ambitions for himself.
However the County of Poitou was in an increasing state of unrest, with competing claims for it by the French and English Kings and treacherous nobles switching sides, back and forth. The townspeople suffered, taken advantage of by all. This, coupled with some health issues, caused his father’s previously flourishing business to suffer. Martin became very short of money. His inception as a Master of Arts at the University of Paris, falling on top of all those years of study, had been devilishly expensive, culminating in the lavish banquet he’d been expected to hold.
Martin had only intended to teach at the University of Paris for the two years required by his oath to the University. He had wanted to branch from his arts studies to medicine, for which arts was a prerequisite. But medicine was a long course and his father’s pockets weren’t deep enough.
Martin had hoped, over time, to fund his studies from teaching in Paris. But university lecturing in arts didn’t pay well. The students were tight fisted and there was plenty of competition between the masters to attract the most students, to bolster their incomes.
The offer from Bologna a couple of months ago had been a godsend.
Around six months ago, virtually the entire Bologna student body, with all the doctors following, had abandoned that proud and arrogant commune and gone across to Padua. To an enthusiastic reception. The Commune of Padua knew how much money and prosperity the University had brought to Bologna and had keenly wooed the students and doctors.
The Commune of Bologna had been furious. It had earlier extracted oaths from the student rectors not to move the student bodies, but they had left anyway. The rectors had perjured themselves! But there was little the commune could do. The Pope fully supported the actions of the students and the doctors, so there was no chance of having the rectors excommunicated for perjury. And the University, operating almost entirely from rented accommodation, had left no property, or nothing valuable for the commune to take as compensation. Compensation for the enormous losses Bologna would suffer without the students!
Bologna, although it disliked the students, had come to rely on them for its prosperity. The owners of lecture halls and housing, the purveyors of food and clothing, the tradesmen and everyone else; they all knew they were in trouble if the University didn’t return.
So the proud commune had to give way; at least in part. They attracted back many of the students and some of the teachers. But they needed more teachers to replace those who had stayed at the new University of Padua. Mostly teachers of law, but also some humble teachers of arts.
The offer to Martin was a great one. He was offered the use of a hall for his lectures free of rent for the first year. He had also been guaranteed a minimum number of students, at a surprisingly good rate. To the extent there were not enough students, or they didn’t agree to pay the agreed rate, the Bologna commune had agreed to pick up the shortfall!
But the University here is so different to the one in Paris!
Both Paris and Bologna are great and now well established universities. The University of Paris is run by the masters and the church. Here at Bologna it couldn’t be more different. Nominally, the Archdeacon of Bologna is chancellor of the whole university, but this has only happened recently at the Pope’s insistence; and in any event, the Chancellor is only a figurehead. The true power is with the four different groups of students: the Lombards, Romans, Tuscans and Ultramontanes. Most of all, the real power lies with the four elected student rectors.
Imagine! As a condition of being allowed to teach, Martin had been required to swear an oath to the student rectors that he would obey them! At any time a rector could send his bedel with a summons for Martin; and Martin will have to drop everything and follow obediently. Whatever the student bodies decide, he and the other doctors have to obey. And they have no say in it.
But it goes way beyond this. He had been required to lodge a bond before being allowed to teach and had to agree to being fined if he started or finished his lectures late, or absented himself, or didn’t properly cover the course!
Still, all the doctors at Bologna have the same rules and the rectors don’t seem to apply them unfairly. And the money promised was very good! But it is so different to what he’s been used to.
Down in the street below Martin can now hear angry and insistent voices. A group of apprentices and young labourers are gathering in the dark, calling for their fellows to join them. A steady hum of noise drifts up the street from the tavern, punctuated by the occasional burst of raucous laughter and loud singing.
There’ll be trouble tonight, Martin thinks. He must have seen or heard a dozen clashes of varying severity over his years in Paris. He releases the linen cover from the window and opens the shutters to hear better, ignoring the cold fingers of wind which flick at the candles.
They are summoning up courage. Some are cautioning against attacking the students. Looks like nothing will happen for a while. Martin puts on a thick cloak and then goes back to his thoughts.
One thing he does like about the University of Bologna is that it is freer, more enlightened. In Paris, teaching of the works of the great Aristotle has been banned, with the works declared heretical. Martin was reduced to secretly reading the few of the recent translations he could surreptitiously gain access to. Here at Bologna, Aristotle is freely available and is taught openly. However ironically, Aristotle is of little interest to most of the practical and worldly Italians. Unlike the northern Europeans, they are far more interested in knowledge which will help them make money and advance themselves.
By agreement with one of his new colleagues, Martin has been sitting in on some of the lectures on Aristotle’s newly available works, only recently translated from Arabic by Master Michael Scot and others. These were works thought lost, or entirely forgotten in Christian Europe. However, astonishingly the Arabs had preserved them, together with numerous other ancient texts. The Arabs had translated the original ancient Greek works into Arabic and had studied them, often adding insightful commentaries. Some of the new works are masterful, groundbreaking. It makes Martin wonder what else is still out there, waiting to be discovered and translated.
In a few months time the famous Master Michael Scot himself has promised to deliver a series of lectures at the university, on Aristotle’s Physics, which he has only recently finished translating. Martin is eagerly looking forward to hearing him speak and perhaps even meeting him.
The band of apprentices and young labourers below him has started to move. Martin stands, uncomfortably bending his lanky frame over the table and peers out of his window. They are hard to spot in the dark, but shadowy forms materialise as they approach the light of the tavern. Hardly hesitating, the youths grab three unlucky students unwise enough to be on the edge of a group which had spilled out of the tavern, drinks in hand. They start punching and wrestling with them. One young student is thrown to the ground and several town youths start kicking him.
“To us! Guyenne!”, “Arago! Sant Jordi!”, “Students to us!”
The tavern soon empties of students as the rallying cries go up. Blows are thrown by the first to arrive and the students soon rescue their fellows. Words of abuse fly, the two groups now face each other off, a few paces apart. Some glinting knives are drawn on either side, more threateningly than with intent. The antagonists make a few half hearted feints, but no one wants to risk going in too close. They’re not quite angry or drunk enough.
“Young men! That’s enough! Put away your blades. You’re all too young to face the executioner. Apprentices, to your homes, or I’ll have words with your masters on the morrow! I know who you are! Students, come back inside. The fighting’s over for the night.”
The tavern owner stands near the door, hefting a well worn club in his hands. He’s an old and experienced hand. A heavy set man, with massive shoulders and more than a few scars. No one in their good senses would think of taking him on face to face, unless heavily armed. `It’s been quite a mild contretemps. No one has been killed or injured. He wants his customers back. The night is still young.
The two groups start to separate further, beginning to disperse, muttering and uncertainly watching the others. Only when all the apprentices and labourers have vanished out of the light from the tavern and are apparently well away, do the last of the students return to the tavern. This time, all stay safely inside, with the door closed behind them.
The students are lucky that the tavern keeper broke the fight up before anyone was seriously hurt and that the Watch wasn’t needed. If the students hear the Watch is on its way, they run for it in all directions. They know from hard experience that the Watch dislikes them and will take the side of the town. They need to make it back to their premises, amongst their brethren, with the door securely barred, without being caught. They know they have the “right” to be tried only by their rector, but once in the hands of the Watch, anything can happen.
Looks like the excitement is over for the night, Martin thinks. He’s getting cold despite his thick cloak. He reaches across his table again and closes the shutters and restores the linen window cover. He stokes the fire behind him and is rewarded by a flush of heat.
He still has a lecture to finish. And it needs to be a good one. He’ll then be able to get to bed. He’s not going to be late for his lecture in the morning; and not just because he fears being fined. Martin wants to impress the students.
