The Oxford Degree
Ceremony

By

J. Wells

Fellow of Wadham College

Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
1906

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO

PREFACE

The object of this little book is to attempt to set forth the meaning of our forms and ceremonies, and to show how much of University history is involved in them. It naturally makes no pretensions to independent research; I have simply tried to make popular the results arrived at in Dr. Rashdall's great book on the Universities of the Middle Ages, and in the Rev. Andrew Clark's invaluable Register of the University of Oxford (published by the Oxford Historical Society). My obligations to these two books will be patent to all who know them; it has not, however, seemed necessary to give definite references either to these or to Anstey's Munimenta Academica (Rolls Series), which also has been constantly used.

I have tried as far as possible to introduce the language of the statutes, whether past or present; the forms actually used in the degree ceremony itself are given in Latin and translated; in other cases a rendering has usually been given, but sometimes the original has been retained, when the words were either technical or such as would be easily understood by all.

The illustrations, with which the Clarendon Press has furnished the book, are its most valuable part. Every Oxford man, who cares for the history of his University, will be glad to have the reproduction of the portrait of the fourteenth-century Chancellor and of the University seal.

I have to thank Dr. Rashdall and the Rev. Andrew Clark for most kindly reading through my chapters, and for several suggestions, and Professor Oman for special help in the Appendix on 'The University Staves'.

J.W.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

The Degree Ceremony

CHAPTER II

The Meaning of the Degree Ceremony

CHAPTER III

The Preliminaries of the Degree Ceremony

CHAPTER IV

The Officers of the University

CHAPTER V

University Dress

CHAPTER VI

The Places of the Degree Ceremony

APPENDIX I

The Public Assemblies of the University of Oxford

APPENDIX II

The University Staves

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Original Sheldonian

The University Seal
(The seal dates from the fourteenth century and is kept by the Proctors.)

The Chancellor receiving a Charter from Edward III
(From the Chancellor's book, circ. 1375.)

Master and Scholar
(From the title-page of Burley's Tractatus de natura et forma.)

The Bedel of Divinity's Staff

Proctor and Scholars of the Restoration Period
(From Habitus Academicorum, attributed to D. Loggan, 1674.)

The Interior of the Divinity School

CHAPTER I

THE DEGREE CEREMONY

The streets of Oxford are seldom dull in term time, but a stranger who chances to pass through them between the hours of nine and ten on the morning of a degree day, will be struck and perhaps perplexed by their unwonted animation. He will find the quads of the great block of University buildings, which lie between the 'Broad' and the Radcliffe Square, alive with all sorts and conditions of Oxford men, arrayed in every variety of academic dress. Groups of undergraduates stand waiting, some in the short commoner's gown, others in the more dignified gown of the scholar, all wearing the dark coats and white ties usually associated with the 'Schools' and examinations, but with their faces free from the look of anxiety incident to those occasions. Here and there are knots of Bachelors of Arts, in their ampler gowns with fur-lined hoods, some only removed by a brief three years from their undergraduate days, others who have evidently allowed a much longer period to pass before returning to bring their academic career to its full and complete end. From every college comes the Dean in his Master's gown and hood, or if he be a Doctor, in the scarlet and grey of one of the new Doctorates, in the dignified scarlet and black of Divinity, or in the bold blending of scarlet and