several Latin works. Girls and boys of
high social position usually had private teachers for grammar
school, while boys of lower classes were sponsored at grammar
schools such as those at Oxford. Discipline was maintained by the
birch or rod.

There was no examination for admission as an undergraduate to
Oxford, but a knowledge of Latin with some skill in speaking Latin
was a necessary background. The students came from all
backgrounds. Some had their expenses paid by their parents, while
others had the patronage of a churchman, a religious house, or a
wealthy layman. They studied the "liberal arts", which derived its
name from "liber" or free, because they were for the free men of
Rome rather than for the economic purposes of those who had to
work. The works of Greek authors such as Aristotle were now
available; the European monk Thomas Aquinas had edited Aristotle's
works to reconcile them to church doctrine. He opined that man's
intellectual use of reason did not conflict with the religious
belief that revelation came only from God, because reason was
given to man by God. He shared Aristotle's belief that the earth
was a sphere, and that the celestial bodies moved around it in
perfect circles. Latin learning had already been absorbed without
detriment to the church.

A student at Oxford would become a master after graduating from a
seven year course of study of the seven liberal arts: [grammar,
rhetoric (the source of law), Aristotelian logic (which
differentiates the true from the false), arithmetic, including
fractions and ratios, (the foundation of order), geometry,
including methods of finding the length of lines, the area of
surfaces, and the volume of solids, (the science of measurement),
astronomy (the most noble of the sciences because it is connected
with divinity and theology), music and also Aristotle's philosophy
of physics, metaphysics, and ethics; and then lecturing and
leading disputations for two years. He also had to write a thesis
on some chosen subject and defend it against the faculty. A
Master's degree gave one the right to teach. Further study for
four years led to a doctorate in one of the professions: theology
and canon or civil law.

There were about 1,500 students in Oxford. They drank, played
dice, quarreled a lot and begged at street corners. There were mob
fights between students from the north and students from the south
and between students and townsmen. But when the mayor of Oxf