Seeking The Light Of Wisdom: Student Life Of Medieval Universities

Student life,the key to lift the veil on the medieval university students,is also an important access to understand the running of medieval universities and the operation of their rules and regulations,as well as the relationship between universities and the medieval society.From the standpoint of students,university life can be divided into three periods,including the preparation before entrance,study and taking exams during the period and their job hunting after leaving.The investigation of their life in different periods should not only involves activities but also the backgrounds,environments,ways,processes and scenes of the activities.Based on the university statutes and records,ecclesiastical and secular decrees,student letters,student manuals and other scattered historical materials,the exploration of student life of medieval universities in this dissertation is made through different aspects as follows.Firstly,the explanation of the institutional background is mainly on the non-residence study license system,the enrollment requirements and the regulations of learning and exams.Secondly,the investigation of their living environments is made around the judicial and economic environment of subsistence,space-time environment of study and employment environment of job seeking.Fourthly,the reveal of processes of activities is chiefly on the student initiations,learning on the lecture class and exams of different degrees.Thirdly,the analysis of ways of activities is largely on the oathtaking modes of enrollment and the methods of classroom learning.At last,this dissertation also tries to restore the scenes of taking admission oaths and learning on the class by some pictures and the class notes in students' textbooks.In conclusion,as the privileged group,although medieval university students tends to form their own identity outside the established rules,the fundamental characteristic of their university life is still the desire for truth.They were the elites in the late Middle Ages.Through them,the medieval universities influenced the developments of the whole medieval society.