ant in the eyes of a
Universitas. Changes in the statutes of the University could not be
made by the Rector; every twenty years eight "Statutarii" were
appointed to revise the code, and alterations made at other times
required the consent of the Congregation, which consisted of all
students except citizens of Bologna and a few poor scholars who did
not subscribe to the funds of the Universitas. By the time of which we
are speaking, the two jurist-universities at Bologna met together in
one Congregation, and if a Congregation happens to be held during our
Englishman's residence at Bologna, he will find himself bound under
serious penalties to attend its session, where he will mix on equal,
terms with members of the Cismontane University, listening to, or
taking part in, the debates (conducted in Latin) and throwing his
black or white bean into the ballot box when a vote is necessary.

Although the city of Bologna never admitted the jurisdiction of a
Universitas over citizens of the town, there were some classes of
citizens whose trade or profession made them virtually its subjects.
Landlords, stationers, and masters or doctors were in a peculiar
relation to the universities, which did not fail to use their
advantage to the uttermost. If our English student and his socii (p. 024)
had any dispute about the rent of their house, there was a compulsory
system of arbitration; if he found an error in a MS. which he had
hired or purchased from a Bologna bookseller he was bound to report it
to a University Board whose duty it was to inspect MSS. offered for
sale or hire, and the bookseller would be ordered to pay a fine; he
was protected from extortionate prices by a system which allowed the
bookseller a fixed profit on a second-hand book. MSS. were freely
reproduced by the booksellers' clerks, and were neither scarce nor
unduly expensive, although elaborately illuminated MSS. were naturally
very valuable. The landlords and the booksellers were kept in proper
submission by threats of _interdictio_ or _privatio_. A citizen who
offended the University was debarred from all intercourse with
students, who were strictly forbidden to hire his house or his books;
if a townsman brought a "calumnious accusation" against a student, and
disobeyed a rectorial command to desist, he and his children, to the
third generation, and all their goods, were to lie under an interdict,
"_sine spe restitutionis_."

_Interdictio_, or discommuning, wa