s of the English secular clergy forms an
illuminating contrast. The noble verses, in which he tells of the
virtues of the parish priest, certainly imply that the seculars also
had their temptations and that they did not always resist them; but
the fact remains that Chaucer chose as the representative of the
parochial clergy one who

"wayted after no pompe and reverence,
Ne maked him a spyced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, but first he folwed it himselve."

The history of pious and charitable foundations is a vindication of
the truth of the portraiture of the "Prologue." The foundation of a
new monastery and the endowment of the friars had alike ceased to
attract the benevolent donor, who was turning his attention to the
universities, where secular clergy were numerous. The clerks of Oxford
and Cambridge had succeeded to the place held by the monks, and, after
them, by the friars, in the affection and the respect of the nation.

Outside the kingdom of England the fourteenth century was also a great
period in the growth of universities and colleges, to which, all (p. 004)
over Europe, privileges and endowments were granted by popes, emperors,
kings, princes, bishops and municipalities. To attempt to indicate the
various causes and conditions which, in different countries, led to
the growth, in numbers and in wealth, of institutions for the pursuit
of learning would be to wander from our special topic; but we may take
the period from the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the
fifteenth century as that in which the medieval University made its
greatest appeal to the imagination of the peoples of Europe. Its
institutional forms had become definite, its terminology fixed, and
the materials for a study of the life of the fourteenth century
student are abundant. The conditions of student life varied, of
course, with country and climate, and with the differences in the
constitutions of individual universities and in their relations to
Church and State. No single picture of the medieval student can be
drawn, but it will be convenient to choose the second half of the
fourteenth century, or the first half of the fifteenth, as the central
point of our investigation.

We have already used technical terms, "University," "College,"
"Student," which require elucidation, and others will arise in the
course of our inquiry. What is a University? At the present day a
University