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St. Andrews University 339
Like most documents of their kind, these bulls are a mass of
inelegant Latin verbiage, very difficult to reproduce or to condense
into readable
English. They, nevertheless, yield much substantial
information to the student of academical constitution and usage in
the days of the pre-Reformation church. Nothing more than a
brief allusion to some of their more salient contents can be
attempted here.
The first or principal bull, after a few introductory sentences,
recapitulates the reasons for the foundation of a Scottish University
given in the petition presented to the Pope in name of the King
and others. They were the many risks and dangers by land and
sea to which Scottish clerks were exposed in quest of instruction
in the faculties of Theology, Law, Medicine, and the Liberal
Arts ; the battles they had to fight, the detentions they had to
endure, the broils they had to encounter, and the impediments
they had to put up with at the hands of schismatics on their way
to the Universities of other countries and the ; thought of the
many teachable persons in Scotland who were prevented from
seeking learning abroad on account of the burdens and expenses
it entailed, and who, if a University were established in their own
country, would have less difficulty in obtaining
the instruction for
which they were fitted. Considering these things, the petitioners
advocated the foundation of a home University, and they pointed
to St. Andrews as a convenient and suitable place
for the purpose.
It was further stated on behalf of the Bishop, Prior, Archdeacon,
and Chapter that if the erection of a Studium Generate or Universitas
Studii in St. Andrews were sanctioned, they were prepared to con-
cede to its members very considerable advantages.
The Pope, being satisfied with the above reasons, and taking
into consideration the exemplary devotion of the King and people
of Scotland to the Apostolic See, and also reflecting that in St.
Andrews and its neighbourhood peace and quietness prevailed,
that there was a plentiful supply of provisions and no lack of
well-appointed hospices and other conveniences suitable for
students, sanctioned the proposal to erect a University there.
In so doing he expressed the hope that a city which the divine
goodness had so richly adorned would be equally
fruitful of
knowledge, and would produce men distinguished
for their
wisdom and virtue as well as for their skill in the doctrines of
the various faculties, and that it would be a well-watered fountain
of
knowledge from whose fulness all might draw
to quench their thirst for
learning. He thereafter
who sought
proceeds to