Life in the Medieval University — A Reader’s Guide

Sconces and Social Control

A striking feature of Rait's account is the detailed regulation of student behavior through fines paid in wine—'sconces.' At the College of Cornouaille, speaking the vernacular incurred a fine of 'the price of a pint of wine,' while walking through chambers in pattens cost a pint. The statutes prescribe escalating penalties: a quart of 'good wine' for introducing a stranger to hall, a quart of 'ordinary wine' for unseemly noise at meals. Rait notes that these penalties often mirror modern college rules, but the medieval system also sconced striking a servant, with severity depending on the injury. The Sorbonne register records a doctor of divinity sconced for picking a pear, forgetting to shut the chapel door, or eating in the kitchen. The head cook was fined for badly preparing meat or for being found with a prostitute. Rait uses these examples to illustrate the 'lack of control over outbursts of bad temper' characteristic of medieval life, while also showing how college discipline was both petty and pragmatic.

The Student's Day at Dainville

A late code of statutes from the fourteenth-century College of Dainville provides a rare timetable: rising at five, chapel at five-thirty, mass at six. All resident students had to attend. Rait points out that by this period colleges had grown beyond their original bursars to include many 'foranei scholares' who paid their own way. The daily schedule is presented without commentary, allowing the reader to infer the rhythm of study, prayer, and communal life. Rait's handling of such documents is characteristic: he presents the statute verbatim or in close paraphrase, then draws a single, sharp observation—here, noting the development of commoners alongside foundations. The effect is to ground the narrative in primary evidence while keeping the focus on lived experience rather than institutional abstraction.

Nations, Rectors, and Civic Tensions

Rait devotes considerable attention to the 'nations' at Bologna—student guilds organized by geographic origin—and their elected rector. The rector held real power over both students and, through the university's collective bargaining, over the city. Rait explains that an English law student at Bologna would belong to the English nation, owe allegiance to his rector, and participate in a system where the university could boycott lectures or even leave the city. The masters, by contrast, were increasingly controlled by the student guilds, a reversal of the Parisian model. Rait's account is careful not to overgeneralize: he notes that the Bologna system was unique and that its 'degradation of the masters' was a local development. The excerpts show his method of alternating between institutional description and concrete example, such as the student's dual relationship to his nation and his universitas.

Rait's study rewards readers who attend to the specific statutes and anecdotes he selects. The book is not a continuous narrative but a mosaic of documentary evidence, and its value lies in the cumulative picture of a world where academic life was inseparable from legal codes, wine fines, and civic politics. Readers should approach it as a sourcebook as much as a history, noting how Rait's editorial choices—which statutes he quotes, which colleges he highlights—shape our understanding of medieval student life.

The rain kept time with Rait’s dry statutes, and I found myself longing for a warmer voice, one that trusted growth over punishment. By evening, that longing led me, almost by accident, to a very different autobiography — of a man who made gardens for children’s minds. The juxtaposition felt right: discipline’s cold walls, then Froebel’s open windows. Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel $c translated and annotated by Emilie Michaelis ... and H. Keatley Moore. — Story, Setting & Ideas stayed with me long after the rain stopped.