y, of the civil law, physic, the Hebrew
and the Greek tongues. And for the other lectures, as of philosophy,
logic, rhetoric, and the quadrivials (although the latter, I mean
arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, and with them all skill in the
perspectives, are now smally regarded in either of them), the universities
themselves do allow competent stipends to such as read the same, whereby
they are sufficiently provided for, touching the maintenance of their
estates, and no less encouraged to be diligent in their functions.

These professors in like sort have all the rule of disputations and other
school exercises which are daily used in common schools severally assigned
to each of them, and such of their hearers as by their skill shewed in the
said disputations are thought to have attained to any convenient ripeness
of knowledge according to the custom of other universities (although not
in like order) are permitted solemnly to take their deserved degrees of
school in the same science and faculty wherein they have spent their
travel. From that time forward also they use such difference in apparel as
becometh their callings, tendeth unto gravity, and maketh them known to be
called to some countenance.

The first degree is that of the general sophisters, from whence, when they
have learned more sufficiently the rules of logic, rhetoric, and obtained
thereto competent skill in philosophy, and in the mathematicals, they
ascend higher unto the estate of bachelors of art, after four years of
their entrance into their sophistry. From thence also, giving their minds
to more perfect knowledge in some or all the other liberal sciences and
the tongues, they rise at the last (to wit, after other three or four
years) to be called masters of art, each of them being at that time
reputed for a doctor in his faculty, if he profess but one of the said
sciences (besides philosophy), or for his general skill, if he be
exercised in them all. After this they are permitted to choose what other
of the higher studies them liketh to follow, whether it be divinity, law,
or physic, so that, being once masters of art, the next degree, if they
follow physic, is the doctorship belonging to that profession; and
likewise in the study of the law, if they bend their minds to the
knowledge of the same. But, if they mean to go forward with divinity, this
is the order used in that profession. First, after they have necessarily
proceeded masters of art