CARACTERIZACIÓN DEL ADULTO MAYOR
1.3 DIFERENTES PERSPECTIVAS HACERCA DEL ADULTO MAYOR
Conceived in response to such particular demands circumstances, St Andrews was slow to develop into what contemporaries had come to recognise as a fully-functioning
studium generale. It was only after the papacy issued confirmation of its erection in
1413 that the university was entitled to confer degrees. For almost four years, the university had existed simply as a community dedicated to learning, benefiting from fiscal and legal privileges but lacking formal structure. It continued to want for designated buildings and endowment until 1419, and catered for Scottish scholars almost exclusively for much of the fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries.77 Rashdall makes the distinction – as perceived by medieval society – between universitas, an academic community, and studium generale, an institute of higher education offering instruction in at least one of medicine, law and theology and attracting students ‘from all parts’.78 At St Andrews, faculties were set up immediately following receipt of the papal bulls and, as Litstar, Schevez, Gill and Croyser illustrate, teaching in decreets and theology was offered from its inception.79 However, in its exclusively Scottish
76RPS, 1399/1/3 (accessed, 12 September 2010).
77 Montrose’s annexation of 1419. Evidence, iii, 350-351; see also, above n.34, below, n.88, 124. 78 Rashdall, Universities, ii, 2-5.
scholarly community, the early university perhaps bore greater resemblance to the concept of a universitas than a fully-fledged studium generale.
Given the purpose underpinning the development of a university at St Andrews, this is not surprising. In the first instance, the collaborators in its foundation did not envisage an institution to rival those of the continent. Wardlaw’s episcopal charter indicates rather a practical solution to immediate concerns. It provided for the scholars gathered in St Andrews and prospective students from the wider diocese, but did not anticipate an academic influx from further afield.80 Nonetheless, his episcopal charter, and the subsequent papal confirmation, illustrate that the universitas gathered in St Andrews was intended to provide and follow instruction in higher disciplines. Dispensation issued in the second bull permitted scholars from other dioceses to attend, and to continue to hold their benefices in absentia for ten years – long enough to enable students to undertake both an arts degree and elementary qualification in a higher discipline, or complete the full programme in a higher subject.81
The comparative lack of extant muniments recording the fortunes of higher disciplines at St Andrews (when compared with the survival of the Acta – the faculty of arts’ minutes) makes it difficult to gain a sense of the extent of teaching in medicine, law and theology. Moreover, the absence of records documenting incorporations before 1473 does not permit cross-referencing against arts graduation rolls to identify scholars of higher disciplines for much of the fifteenth century. Perhaps because of this, the enduring impression of pre-Reformation St Andrews (and Scotland’s medieval university foundations generally) is of their functioning as arts institutions preparing ‘undergraduate’ students for ‘postgraduate’ study at continental studia.82 There is little indication at all of a functioning medical faculty at early St Andrews. Evidence for
80 StAUL, UYUY100, Papal Bull. By contrast, those planning the foundation of Glasgow University
(1450-1451) envisaged attendance by scholars from outwith the diocese and mainland Scotland. Overtures made to Gaels suggest perhaps the Glasgow academics had considered the character of their institution more carefully than Wardlaw felt obliged to do in safeguarding the privileges of an established community. Munimenta, i, 6.
81Evidence, iii, 172-173.
82 For example, Rashdall, Universities, ii, 303-305; Dunlop, James Kennedy, 261; Nicholson, Later
Middle Ages, 587-590; Cowan, ‘Church and Society’, 126-127. For discussion of the validity of this
students engaging with civil law is similarly limited. Cant draws on the presence of practitioners in both laws at early St Andrews, such as Wardlaw, to suggest that instruction in civil law was sought and offered.83 However, the university’s supplication (of 1432) to dispense clergy in holy orders, and holding dignities, to study this discipline at St Andrews, indicates only limited uptake of civil law by its early students. The petition laments the lack of a functioning civil law faculty, but anticipates one flourishing – to the benefit of the kingdom – should the pope grant dispensation.84 The apparent failure of the consequent papal endorsement to stimulate greater engagement with civil law at St Andrews suggests that, while there may have been a desire among secular administrators in Scotland to take advantage of the local studium to develop a body of university-trained civilists, clerics continued to view decreets and theology degrees as the best means of securing ecclesiastical preferment.
We have seen that teaching was instigated in theology and decreets, and at least some of the founders acquired degrees in these disciplines following the papal confirmation of 1413. Watt suggests that John Haldenstone’s theology doctorate, obtained at St Andrews, was vital in securing his succession to Bisset as prior of St Andrews in 1417.85 Durkan, meanwhile, identified thirty-one theology and seventeen decreets scholars at St Andrews between its inception and c.1440 – some graduating, others non-graduating students.86 We shall see, moreover, that a significant number of the Scottish episcopate of the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries had enrolled at St Andrews as students, but not in arts. Among this group at least, this suggests that an increasing number were opting to receive some instruction in a higher discipline at St Andrews (also Glasgow and perhaps Aberdeen), although not to degree level. While we should be careful about extending this pattern to Scots scholars generally, it indicates
83 Cant, St Andrews, 13.
84 CSSR, iii, 210-211. Honorius III banned civil law as a discipline at Paris in 1291 and following this,
clerics in holy orders usually required dispensation to study civil law . Rashdall, Universities, ii, 143 & n.
85 Watt, Graduates, 248. Durkan suggests this final level of theology qualification was in fact conferred
as an honorary degree by Wardlaw. Durkan, Scottish Universities, 33-35.
that faculties of decreets and theology were operating at Scotland’s medieval university foundations, and meeting the requirements of a significant number of students.87
The numbers of decreets and theology scholars at early St Andrews did not perhaps rival those of arts listed in graduation lists presented in the Acta. Nonetheless, this source highlights that faculties of arts, law and theology were formally established following promulgation of the papal bulls in 1414. They provided the developing university with structure. The foundation of colleges would come later but, in the meantime, the faculties provided the most distinctive divisions in the university and marked a real development from the loose association of scholars that had existed previously.88 The first record in the Acta provides a list of students who acquired BA degrees in the faculty of arts in 1414.89 Early entries in this minute book also contain references to the ‘Faculty of Canon Law’ and ‘School of Theology’, thereby testifying to the contemporaneous establishment of these bodies. That of canon law is first recorded in the minute of 18 October 1415 detailing the faculties of arts and canon law pooling resources to procure further guarantees of their privileges.90 The school of theology is first documented in May 1416, listed as the venue of an arts meeting.91 All preceding entries record the hospital of St Leonard, owned by the priory, as hosting arts faculty congregations. From this point, however, ‘St Leonard’s’ and the ‘School of Theology’ were used interchangeably. This 1416 record suggests the existence of a functioning theology faculty but that at this point, it was viewed as little more than an extension of the priory and cathedral chapter.
This is unsurprising given the early university’s dependency on priory buildings and resources, and the role played by successive priors, Bisset and
87 See above, and sections 3.5, 3.6, 3.8, 3.11.
88 The college foundations: St John’s, with Robert Montrose’s endowment, 1419 (Evidence, iii, 350-351);
St Salvator’s by Bishop James Kennedy, 1450-1451 (StAUL, UYSS110/A/1-UYSS110/A/3, Foundation Papers; Cant, St Salvator, 49-66); St Leonard’s by Bishop Alexander Stewart, Prior John Hepburn and James IV, 1512-1513 (StAUL, UYSL110/A/1-UYSL110/A/4.1, Foundation Papers; Evidence, iii, 274-275; Herkless and Hannay, St Leonard, 127-144); St Mary’s by Archbishop James Beaton, 1538 (StAUL, UYSM110/B1/P1/2-UYSM110/B1/P1/3, Foundation Papers; Evidence, iii, 357-358).
89Acta, 1.
90ibid., 3.
Haldenstone, as dean of theology. We have seen that, in the turbulent circumstances which gave rise to the studium at St Andrews, practicality perhaps determined that theology would be the preserve of the priory. It may be that this was the price Bisset exacted for use of his buildings. But it also made sense: students could access the cathedral library easily, and apply themselves to studies in an atmosphere conducive to learning. In the first instance, then, the theology school at St Andrews perhaps resembled those of certain Dominican orders which assumed the function of theology faculties in particular universities such as Cologne.92 It remained as such until March 1439 when the faculty devised a constitution and its first set of statutes, and took definite steps towards establishing itself as a body independent of the priory.93
While the establishment of faculties provided the early university at St Andrews with some rudimentary structure, the subjects studied – arts, decreets and theology – remained those associated with the masters who had first gathered in St Andrews. The priory continued to exert control over a significant element of the university’s academic provision; and as long as the university remained dependent on the priory for buildings and resources, there was little prospect that this would change. None of this is entirely surprising or unique to St Andrews. As we have seen, seeking instruction in civil law and medicine made little sense for clerics aspiring to distinguished ecclesiastical careers, while dependency on the priory bore similarities to theological provision elsewhere in Europe. Moreover, despite the apparent medieval distinction between universitas and studia generale, partial development was hardly unusual among the new universities of the fifteenth centuries. Teaching at Leipzig (1409), for example, was similarly limited to arts, theology and decreets, with emphasis on arts.94 Leipzig also drew its students primarily from neighbouring areas. Development at Trier (1454) and Ingolstadt (1459) was so halting that both underwent
92 Asztalos, ‘Faculty of Theology’, 414-417.
93 The original statutes are lost. Two copies survive but are dated differently: an Edinburgh University
copy, 1428 [1429], and a St Andrews transcript, 1438 [1439]. The witness designations suggest that the earlier date is erroneous, but Hannay mistakenly rendered this date (18 March 1429) in his publication of the statutes. Hannay, Statutes, 80, 112. For further discussion of this dating problem, see Acta, cxli-cxlii; Durkan, Scottish Universities, 33-34.
re-foundation (1473, 1472 respectively).95 Provisions for universities at Calataydd (1415), Mantua (1433) and Gerona (1446), meanwhile, failed to amount to anything more than ‘paper’ universities.96 The term studium generale was probably only truly applicable, in a functioning sense, to longer-established institutions such as Bologna, Paris, Montpellier and Prague. Yet, even the latter, so vibrant in the fourteenth century, was so wracked by academic feuding and religious controversy that, by 1408, it had completely lost its cosmopolitan character.97