it. Thus in the fifteenth century the national corporations, though existing, were no longer represented by the Arts, and the latter was but one Faculty, with a single vote, like each of the other Faculties.

§ 17. On the Organic Structure supposed to be requisite to constitute a University.

Our review suggests the inquiry-What form of organization and independence will answer to the notion of a Universitas Literaria? The whole difficulty of reply turns upon the fact that it is a question of more or less. We cannot at all go along with the idea that Letter and Seal on the part of supreme authority, ecclesiastical or temporal, are the critical matter. We believe contrariwise that organization generally proceeds of itself without formal sanction for some time; and that in the farther growth, external Power can protect and ratify, but cannot create. The structure must work itself out, according to the organizable materials at hand, by a natural independent energy of life.

Right of Internal Regulation.

Yet it may be well to point a few steps in the developement and FIRST, the right of internal regulation. By reason of difference in language, in manners, and rights of property, it was an

axiom in the Middle Ages, that "foreigners must be judged by their own laws:" and as none could know these laws but themselves, they were left to settle by themselves all internal questions, wherever they colonized and were amicably received. There can then be no doubt, that the nations of the Students, from the very first moment of their assembling in numbers, possessed a sort of sovereignty over their own members; especially since the scholars were favored guests, whose company was desired. Within the lecture-rooms equally, was an authority independent of external control; exercised however under a form more monarchal. But the scholastic monarch was tied too closely by precedent to rule arbitrarily; and the scientific union overpowering the bonds of nation, brought him into closer contact with the Church and her Head. Indeed many Papal Bulls and Briefs meddled with internal arrangements of the schools: yet we must not infer that the school was not independent, but only that the independence had its limits. Even in the fullest power of the Universities, there were like interferences; nor did Papal and Royal Ordinances scruple to overrule and dictate to the nations,-in matters strictly internal, and when their corporate rights were most recognized,-as often as some evil forced itself upon external notice. Doubtless the same must occasionally have occurred at earlier times.

Transfer what has been said of the Nations and

Schools, to the University itself; and it becomes clear that the first step of organization is, when the University (that is, the Teachers corporately) assume the right of enacting and deciding in scholastic matters:- the right which each Teacher before possessed in his own school. One Authority would now-over rule all, without distinction of schools or nations; reserving only the right of interference for the Church or Chancellor. But when the Teachers were recognized by Pope and Prince as representatives of the entire body of students, the former presently extended their power to legislate for all students, in regard to numerous matters within the academic life, though wholly beyond the circle of the schools themselves. Herein they may have clashed with the authority of the nations, (for the bounds dividing the two could not be defined,) yet the corporate independence of the nations was still theoretically upheld. Like encroachments were made on the authority of the separate Faculties; in short, not only on the Colleges (in the stricter sense) which afterwards arose, but on the more ancient Hospitia, or lodging houses where teachers and scholars dwelt. Doubtless a sort of corporate law had established itself already, for the internal management of these dwellings.

Exemption from common Jurisdiction.

A SECOND step of corporate growth is characterized by exemption from common jurisdiction.

It would begin with personal matters, and such as the general laws of the land had imperfectly provided for; but it would afterwards reach far beyond this limit, in cases where none but members of the body were concerned. Quite different is the right claimed by members of Universities to be under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which some have confounded with the other, supposing it a step of progression attained at Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, nearly at the same time, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. But this state of things at that period shows itself as the established order, and there is no proof that it was an innovation.* The opposite opinion rises out of the belief (which was above contested,) that the Universities were originally independent of the Church. Now in fact, the primitive relation of the Universities to the Chancellor and to the old schools, shows at a glance that the Bishop or his deputy must at first have been the ordinary Judge of the Teachers and Scholars. The presence of lay Teachers and Scholars would occasion anomalies and fluctuations, and as the lay spirit predominated in their mind and life, we can understand the occurrence of frequent conflicts between the ecclesiastical and temporal authorities, even concerning really clerical persons; while, as even the lay persons took the name Clerici, it is not wonderful that they were claimed by the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Exemption from the

* See Note (2) at the end.

ordinary tribunals would consist, not in becoming subject to the ecclesiastical courts, but in becoming free from them.

Of this nature was the controversy of the University of Paris against the Bishop and Chancellor, and against the Papal interference. At first, it was a question as to the limits, or a resistance to the abuse, of the Episcopal rights; but at last it came to an effort for entire Emancipation. The right to "internal" jurisdiction on the part of the University, was conceded by the Bishop and by every body; the whole difficulty was, to define internal concerns appropriately. Take the phrase in too narrow a sense, and the corporate rights of the University were annihilated; explain it too widely, and the Bishop's jurisdiction was at an end. Yet he was needed by way of appeal, when parties who were wronged by the lower authority would otherwise take the law into their own hands; though in fact the cases of appeal reported to us are explicable only by supposing incurable ill will somewhere. It is any-how certain, that the University of Paris never gained this second step of independence. The Papal patronage did but aid them against gross encroachments on their rights by the Bishop, the Chancellor, or the temporal powers.*

Corporate rights concerning POLICE and PROPERTY. The THIRD and last step of independence lay, * See Note (3) at the end.