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STUDENT LIFE IN PARIS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 683

left five of them dead on the pavement. Immediately masters and students carried their troubles to the King. They decided to suspend their lectures and to leave Paris, as the murderers were not punished. The threat was a serious one. The importance of the University of Paris for the recruiting of the clergy was so great that a suspension of instruction was tantamount to a brusque interruption of the whole ecclesiastical life.

The King had to give in. The provost of Paris was flung into prison with all those of his accomplices who could be found, some of the murderers having taken flight. The King had their houses demolished and their vines torn up. The masters and students were triumphant. This incident, slight as it was in itself, won for them that same year the grant of a charter which made them independent of the municipal police and the royal judges, and henceforth they were dependent only on the judges of the Church. The provost of Paris was forbidden to lay hands on a scholar except in a case of flagrante delicto, and even then he had to surrender him at once to ecclesiatical justice.

Even from that authority the clerks were not long in freeing themselves. Numerous conflicts soon sprang up between them and their bishop. He suspended their professors a sacris, imprisoned the students, and pronounced excommunication. An appeal was made to the Pope, resulting in a new and decisive victory for the students. The Pope annulled the excommunication and ordered the chancellor to come and justify himself at Rome. Innocent III forbade the bishop to imprison any masters or pupils, and he deprived him also of his monopoly of the students' food. In fact, in 1222 he was despoiled of all power, and from then on our roisterers depended only on the

Pope. The Pope, to be sure, was very far away.

At this period, and in consequence of the almost absolute liberty confirmed more than once by the pontifical power, there was organized on the Mont Sainte-Geneviève that sort of State within a State which lived its own life, had its own jurisdiction, its own customs, and constituted, for about three or four centuries, the most characteristic group of old Paris. Today, as one wanders through the Latin Quarter entirely undistinguished from the rest of the capital, and pauses in front of those vast, light-colored buildings,-lycées, universités, instituts of all kinds, one can reconstruct only with difficulty what in the Middle Ages must have been the aggregation of buildings that rose on this spot and where there dwelt a host of clerks come from all provinces of France and all foreign countries. To form an idea of it one must remember first that there was almost no secondary education in that period. When a pupil had learned reading, writing, and the elements of Latin grammar he became a student and took university courses. He began ordinarily at fourteen or fifteen, as the masters themselves were for the most part very young. A man could be a master at the age of fourteen. A close solidarity bound the masters to the students. They led the same life together, often shared the same lodgings, and did their work and took their pleasures in common, accompanied one another on nocturnal expeditions, and participated - the masters not always least actively in dissipations. Both masters and students, practically certain as they were of impunity, gave themselves over to excesses of which more than one would to-day lead to imprisonment. Not only did they, like the students of all times and places, frequent cabarets and worse resorts,

ransoming newcomers, who were called béjaunes, but they would run through the streets mistreating inoffensive pedestrians, and even take to housebreaking.

A very natural sentiment grouped the students according to their origin into communities that were called 'nations' - the nations of Normandy, of Picardy, of France, of England, of Germany. When two nations met each other they would often fall to mutual recriminations and come to blows. These battles were frequently sanguinary, and had to be suspended, if possible, by the watch. As soon as he intervened, all of the students joined hands in order to attack him. Everything was a pretext for drinking bouts and feasts the arrival of a new master, as much as the end of examinations. Some of them, however, were studious and fairly well behaved. They could be seen in the evening, walking along the banks of the Seine and along the Pré-aux-Clercs, repeating the master's lesson and reflecting on his instruction. A few of them were rich, but the majority were poor ragamuffins. Writings of the period show us the students living in wretched hovels, dressed in rags, and reduced to eating the most meagre victuals in dirty taverns. Their chief drink was water, with a rare allowance of wine and what wine it was! Many of them ate nothing but dry bread and drank a mixture of broth and wine. Meat and fish were served on Sundays and feast days, or on the occasion of a visit by a friend. Three companions who had rented a room in common, we are told by a chronicler of the time, had no furniture but a single small bed, and no headgear but a single bonnet between them to wear to their lectures. The one tunic that was left for the two students who stayed at home was worn by one of them, while the other stayed in bed.

Deprived of the glamour that always clings to the past and the picturesque, the life of the medieval student seems crude and even painful. He left his bed as the clock in the neighboring convent struck five. Lectures began at six, even at five at the faculty of law, and it was necessary to get to chapel to hear the Mass before lectures. Dressed in a simple robe or a gray cape, the student had to brave the darkness of the winter night, grope his way down a tortuous staircase, draw the bolt of a low door, slip out into the dark and narrow streets, and then make his way to the rue du Foirre, where he entered a stable or a barnyard. The listeners took their seats in the summer time on the ground or on the limbs of trees, in the winter time on straw, since the use of benches or stools was forbidden. The rooms were never heated and the windows never paned. A simple candle served for illumination.

At ten or eleven o'clock the work was at an end. The student went back to his room to have a meagre meal. At noon he had to return to the school, to be present at the meridian disputations. The afternoon passed in learning tomorrow's lessons and attending free courses or repetitions. During the lecture he took his notes on a writing desk which he held on his knees and which had a square hole in one corner for the inkwell. Books were rare and expensive, consisting of manuscripts on parchment. The books which the student needed he had to rent at a high

rate.

The student of those days paid dearly for the right to get an arduous education in which the greatest place was reserved for the study of logic, the art of arts and the science of sciences. The liberties he enjoyed and the few celebrations he could make were slight compensation for his miseries. As a result, to relieve his existence, new in

stitutions came into being, and toward the end of the thirteenth century special houses were opened for poor students, where they found board and lodging. These houses increased in importance. They soon became colleges, and modified the life of the University. Royal authority favored their creation and their development, though, on the other hand, it deprived the clerks progressively of the liberties that had been granted them. In the middle of the fifteenth century the majority of the students were pensioners. In 1445 an order of Charles VII withdrew the University from ecclesiastical jurisdiction and subjected it to the common

law. When, in the time of Henri II, a scuffle took place on the Pré-auxClercs between the citizens, the police, and the young students, who, far from being able to avenge themselves on their adversaries as they could have done under Philippe Auguste, were forced to seek pardon from the King. Finally, under Henri IV, the town assumed the right to regulate alone the education of the youth of the kingdom. That was the definite end of all the noisy, troubled, picturesque life which for three centuries had burgeoned on the flanks of the Mont Sainte-Geneviève, and which was one of the most singular pictures of mediæval Paris.

NEW YORK VERSUS STOCKHOLM1

BY PAULA VON REZNICEK AND ANNA VON WESTRUP

NEW YORK

THE husband devotes the day to business, the wife to entertainment, social duties, sport, and welfare work. The last of these occupies a large place in the programme of a modern American society woman. It includes work in so-called girls' clubs or boys' clubs, meetings of various charitable organizations, and serving on the committees of social-service bodies. Many also attend lecture and university courses. The importance attached to physical exercise requires part of the morning to be devoted to outdoor sports. Consequently a nation of early risers.

In the forenoon my young lady drives out in a little runabout, which she has 1 From Berliner Tageblatt (Liberal daily), May 8

bought with her own earnings or has been given by her father, much as a Swedish girl might be given a wrist watch. Such a car costs very little. She may ride out to the country club for a game of tennis, or go shopping. Paris is still trumps in ladies' fashions. Those who can do so make their purchases during an annual trip to that city and the Riviera, or else buy imported costumes. Sports are taken seriously and pursued with great enthusiasm. Money-making is not the first interest of society ladies, and sports afford the same outlet for their energies that business does in case of men.

About half-past one luncheon - almost never at home, and rarely alone, generally with a friend or an acquaintance at a hotel or restaurant. Not in

frequently guests are invited to breakfast at such establishments instead of at one's house. But men are never visible at midday. They are busy elsewhere. Afternoon tea and Mah Jongg or bridge parties, often with thirty or forty tables, occupy part of the afternoon. Some of these are in the interest of charities. When I was in New York it was not unusual to be invited at least once a week to the private home of some well-known citizen where a seat at a Mah Jongg table cost five dollars, or twenty dollars a table. The proceeds, including most of the winnings, went to some well-known charity. Such affairs are never dull, even though no gentlemen are present, for American women are self-sufficient socially.

After office the husband appears on the scene. A spirit of comradeship prevails between man and wife. Easy divorces encourage mutual consideration. Afternoon tea is usually over by the time the husband arrives. He either devotes a short interval to some vigorous sport, like boxing or swimming, or spends the time with his family. There is much going out evenings. In that respect the Americans are more sociable than we are. Many people pay their social debts by theatre parties, which may be large or small. Places are arranged as they would be at one of our own dinners. After the theatre, supper and dancing, with a preference for little French restaurants, and of late an increasing tendency to have them at home-partly the result of Prohibition. Big formal dinners in private residences are comparatively rare. Formal calls are practically out of date. There is much addressing of each other by the first name. All social intercourse is informal. A young lady goes out as a matter of course in the evening with a friend or a party of friends, without a chaperon-to concerts, theatres, parties, the cinema, or

other places of entertainment. No one remarks upon that, even in the most exclusive circles. The young man calls in his car, the couple go to the theatre, and perhaps to a dance afterward, and return earlier or later as the case may be.

STOCKHOLM

STOCKHOLM will never be New York. First of all, Sweden is not a wealthy country. Furthermore, everything is on a smaller scale- and as a result social life is more intimate. It is not so bustling and exacting. The different social classes stand closer to one another. Consequently people understand each other better and have fewer points of difference than in a great country like America. The mercantile spirit is not so preponderant. We have good business men and engineers, and well-qualified experts in other fields of practical activity, but no one would say that a commercial spirit reigns in our society. Economic interests do not thrust themselves into the foreground. A business attitude toward social life, and the acquisition of wealth as an end in itself, are rather exceptional among the Swedes. Consequently our people are not as nervous, as intense, as hurried. They have time to think, and they do not hunt for distractions. Society is not an end in itself; it is not made a business. People retire more within themselves.

In Sweden the family is still the allabsorbing centre of life. The father and mother in the upper social classes — and I am speaking principally of our higher circles - never dream of subordinating their duty to their children to other things; on the contrary, the rearing of their children monopolizes their attention. The Swedes cling to traditions, and in a certain measure, perhaps, lag behind the times. Wives and daughters seldom think

of preparing themselves for a career, and one may safely say that none of them ever expects to compete with women who must depend upon themselves for their support.

The whole standard of living is more modest in Sweden than in America. Young married couples, even in the very highest circles, begin life in a three to five-room apartment, and have but one maid, or dispense with servants entirely. Consequently young married women and young daughters are largely absorbed with their domestic duties, especially since all entertaining is done at home, instead of in a café or restaurant. We have very few women's clubs.

Our more modest scale of living is primarily responsible for the practical education we give our girls. Young ladies of the highest social circles almost invariably attend schools and courses where they are taught cooking, housekeeping, and the care of children. They are therefore professionally prepared, if I may use the term, for marriage. But parents, even among the nobility, seldom interfere in their children's choice of a life mate. Marriage for love is the rule. Nevertheless, a Swedish girl is not inclined to venture into eccentric, romantic, or experimental matrimony. As a rule she uses her freedom in choosing a husband very prudently. Misalliances are the exception.

Sports come next to practical domestic accomplishments in a Swedish girl's life. A taste for them is cultivated in the schools. Skiing, horseback riding, gymnastics, and swimming stand first. The most popular diversion of young people of all classes is dancing. Young girls are allowed to go to balls without chaperons, although they by no means

enjoy the same social freedom that they do in America.

A certain reserve and formal courtesy is characteristic of both sexes in Sweden. We are great people for bowing to each other. A stranger who asks for information on the street will always receive a polite answer. And yet the Swede is a serious sort of person and not easy in his intercourse with strangers. He is rather inclined to be ceremonious, and seldom speaks to anyone to whom he has not been introduced. But after the ice is broken he is generally a loyal friend. His mentality is much like that of the Englishman. I imagine that this explains his interest in England and English literature. He reads chiefly Shakespeare, Shaw, Galsworthy, Hardy-and perhaps Jack London. German literature is too speculative and philosophical for his taste. If a cultivated Swedish family is forced to economize, and to choose between subscribing for seats for a theatrical or an opera season, it will almost invariably select the opera. Musical life is exceedingly important in the Swedish capital, and the annual musical evening at the Royal Palace is the principal social event of the

season.

A Swedish lady of the upper circles dresses herself simply but tastefully. Ladies copy the French modes, gentlemen the English fashions. Simplicity also rules in the kitchen. There is a distinctively Swedish cuisine, but it is neither elaborate nor expensive.

These differences between the social life of New York and Stockholm, like so many differences between America and Sweden, can be traced back to a single cause - Sweden has a tradition, a cultural tradition, which New York has not yet created for itself.

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