Bologna had to maintain a struggle with two other
organisations, the guilds of masters and the authorities of this city
state. They kept the first in subjection; they ultimately succumbed to
the second. A guild of masters, doctors, or professors had existed in
the Studium before the rise of the Universitates, and it survived with
limited, but clearly defined, powers. The words "Doctor," "Professor,"
and "Magister" or "Dominus" were at first used indifferently, and a
Master of Arts of a Scottish or a German University is still described
on his diploma as a Doctor of Philosophy. The term "Master" was little
used at Bologna, but it is convenient to employ "master" and "student"
as the general terms for teacher and taught. The masters were the
teachers of the Studium, and they protected their own interests by
forming a guild the members of which, and they alone, had the right to
teach. Graduation was originally admission into the guild of masters,
and the chief privilege attached to it was the right to teach. This
privilege ultimately became merely a theoretical right at Bologna,
where the teachers tended to become a close corporation of professors,
like the Senatus of a Scottish University.

The Guild or College of Masters who taught law in the Studium of (p. 017)
Bologna naturally resented the rise of the universities of students.
The doctors, they said, should elect the rectors, as they do at Paris.
The scholars follow no trade, they are merely the pupils of those who
do practise a profession, and they have no right to choose rulers for
themselves any more than the apprentices of the skinners. The masters
were citizens of Bologna, and it might be expected that the State
would assist them in their struggle with a body of foreign
apprentices; but the threat of migration turned the scales in favour
of the students. There were no buildings and no endowments to render a
migration difficult, and migration did from time to time take place.
The masters themselves were dependent upon fees for their livelihood;
they were, at Bologna, frequently laymen with no benefice to fall back
upon, and with wives and children to maintain. As time went on and the
teaching masters became a limited number of professors, they were
given salaries, at first by the student-universities themselves and
afterwards by the city, which feared to offend the student-universities.
They thus passed, to a large extent, under the control of the
universities;