5pm, with a break between 10am and 12 noon. At
Oxford, records show that no fires were allowed
in rooms, even in rooms where lectures were
given and no college had glass in their windows
before 1300. The only warmth came from straw
spread on the floor. If students broke the college
rules they could be sent to prison or even be
excommunicated. By the end of the 15th century
corporal punishment had been introduced. For
example, students could be beaten for selling
their books without permission. There were
also numerous armed fights between students
and the townspeople and between students
themselves when debates became too heated.
One student even attacked his professor with a
sword in the lecture room!
Can you write good begging
letters?
Are you hardy?
You would need to be. At the age of 14 or 15
you left home, went to university, and not
only had to organise living arrangements and
accommodation, you also had to identify which
tutors you wanted to study under and persuade
them to take you. Mind you, you also had the
freedom to leave the tutor without paying if you
didn’t like their course. You studied from 6am to
It must have been a real struggle to get there
and survive but there were some students who
got to university who weren’t particularly welloff. Records at Oxford show students eating
tripe and cheap cuts of meat, although those
with a richer background ate “well peppered pies
of pork, chicken and eels... pigeons, geese and
other fowl roasted on a spit.” A lot of the letters
that have survived from students at this period
show that they usually wrote home only when
they were in need of something. Students being
students, even rich ones tended to run short of
money at University, leading to the common wail
of the weary parent “Primum carmen scolarium
est petitio expensarum, nec umquam erit
epistola que non requirit argentum.” (translation:
A students’ first song is a demand for money
and there will never be a letter which doesn’t
ask for cash) 1
Some things never change!
1.
8
IGNIS
“The Life of Medieval Students as Ilustrated by their Letters”
by Charles Haskins
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1832500?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents