Ian P. Wei University of Bristol March 2012

1. Competing for academic jobs: how staff-student dynamics changed with the emergence of European universities in the thirteenth century Ian P. Wei University of Bristol March 2012

2. 1 Introduction • a medieval case study • discussion of competition for academic jobs and staff-student dynamics in other periods and cultures • discussion of the role of competition within and between universities

3. 2 The twelfth century: conditions for the development of education in northern France 2.1 Intellectual excitement 2.2 growth of towns and money economy 2.3 growth of bureaucracies

4. 3 Twelfth-century schools and a new type of career: competition between students and masters 3.1 Peter Abelard ‘For my part, the more rapid and easy my progress in my studies, the more eagerly I applied myself, until I was so carried away by my love of learning that I renounced the glory of a military life, made over my inheritance and rights of the eldest son to my brothers, and withdrew from the court of Mars in order to be educated in the lap of Minerva. I preferred the weapons of dialectic to all the other teachings of philosophy, and armed with these I chose the conflicts of disputation instead of the trophies of war. I began to travel about in several provinces disputing, like a true peripatetic philosopher, wherever I had heard that there was keen interest in the art of dialectic’. (HistoriaCalamitatum in The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. B. Radice, revised M. T. Clanchy (London, 2003), p. 3)

5. 3.1 Peter Abelard continued - ‘[William of Champeaux] soon took a violent dislike to me because I set out to refute some of his arguments and frequently reasoned against him. On several occasions I proved myself his superior in debate’. (Ibid., p. 4) - ‘Thus my school had its start and my reputation for dialectic began to spread, with the result that the fame of my old fellow-students and even that of the master himself gradually declined and came to an end’. (Ibid.) - ‘My own teaching gained so much prestige and authority from this that the strongest supporters of my master who had hitherto been the most violent among my attackers now flocked to join my school’. (Ibid., p. 5)

6. 3.2 Goswin - Goswin came to hear Peter Abelard teach publicly in the cloister of Sainte Geneviève where he was ‘the inventor and assertor of unheard-of novelties’ (‘Ex Vita B. GosviniAquicinctensisAbbatis’, ed. M.-J.-J. Brial, in Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, 14 (1806), p. 442) - Abelard was ‘an extremely warlike man, used to victory’. (Ibid., p. 443) - ‘many flocked to him, placing themselves under his teaching’. (Ibid.)

7. 4 Masters and their discontents 4.1 plum jobs still as masters in cathedral schools 4.2 Imagining a safer world in the past: John of Salisbury, Metalogicon. Bernard of Chartres

8. 5 The emergence of universities – reasons for change Key features of the twelfth-century schools: • Consensus about basic education • Textbooks • Involvement of external political powers • Particular places known as leading centres

9. 5 The emergence of universities – reasons for change continued Explanations: • Conflict leading to collective action and the grant of privileges • Learned debate generating educational ideals • University as a product of its urban environment • University as key agent in pastoral mission of church

10. 6 Thirteenth-century universities: competition between students 6.1 regulation and academic generations Statutes of the University of Paris, 1215

11. Statutes of the University of Paris, 1215 ‘No one shall lecture in the arts at Paris before he is twenty-one years of age, and he shall have heard lectures for at least six years before he begins to lecture, and he shall promise to lecture for at least two years, unless a reasonable cause prevents, which he ought to prove publicly or before examiners. He shall not be stained by any infamy, and when he is ready to lecture, he shall be examined according to the form which is contained in the writing of the lord bishop of Paris, where is contained the peace confirmed between the chancellor and scholars by judges delegated by the pope, namely, by the bishop and dean of Troyes and by P. the bishop and J. the chancellor of Paris approved and confirmed. And they shall lecture on the books of Aristotle on dialectic old and new in the schools ordinarily and not ad cursum. They shall also lecture on both Priscians ordinarily, or at least on one. They shall not lecture on feast days except on philosophers and rhetoric and the quadrivium and Barbarismus and ethics, if it please them, and the fourth book of the Topics. They shall not lecture on the books of Aristotle on metaphysics and natural philosophy or on summaries of them or concerning the doctrine of master David of Dinant or the heretic Amaury or Mauritius of Spain’. (L. Thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (New York, 1944), p.28)

12. 6 Thirteenth-century universities: competition between students continued 6.2 towards university administrators 6.3 academics and leadership/administration

13. 7 Questions for our agenda • Do you see other institutional shifts (in the past or in the present) having an impact on how students compete for academic jobs, and on staff-student relations more generally? • How do we ensure that competition within and between universities is fruitful and not destructive?