athematicals, 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, they preach one sermon to the people in English, and another
to the university in Latin. They answer all comers also in their own
persons unto two several questions of divinity in the open schools at
one time for the space of two hours, and afterward reply twice against
some other man upon a like number and on two several dates in the same
place, which being done with commendation, he receiveth the fourth
degree, that is, bachelor of divinity, but not before he has been
master of arts by the space of seven years, according to their
statutes.

The next, and last degree of all, is the doctorship, after other three
years, for the which he must once again perform all such exercises and
acts as are before remembered; and then is he reputed able to govern
and teach others, and likewise taken for a doctor. I have read that
John of Beverley was the first doctor that ever was in Oxford, as Beda
was in Cambridge. But I suppose herein that the word "doctor" is not
so strictly to be taken in this report as it is now used, since every
teacher is in Latin called by that name, as also such in the primitive
church as kept schools of catechists, wherein they were trained up in
the rudiments and principles of religion, either before they were
admitted unto baptism or any office in the Church.

Thus we see that from our entrance into the university unto the last
degree received is commonly eighteen or twenty years, in w