Students in the Middle Ages: Interesting Facts about Student Life
Students in the Middle Ages: Interesting Facts about Student Life
Anonim
Students in the Middle Ages
Students in the Middle Ages

student life for many, as a rule, it is associated with a hostel, cramming, a half-starved existence and, of course, fun. If we turn to the period of the Middle Ages and later eras, it becomes clear that everything has not changed so much. It was only for the faults of the students that they were punished with whips, and the rite of initiation into students was more like mockery.

Students during class
Students during class

It was believed that classes are better remembered if the student is beaten periodically. A lot of medieval manuals have survived, in which students were recommended to flog, whip or drag by the ears. It also passed to some royalty. Although the English princes, who did not show much zeal, there were always whipping boys nearby, who took on all the anger of the teachers.

Revel in Auerbach's Cellar. Illustration for "Faust" by W. Goethe. P.-J. von Cornelius
Revel in Auerbach's Cellar. Illustration for "Faust" by W. Goethe. P.-J. von Cornelius

The tradition of initiation into students was very popular both in the Middle Ages and in later eras. The Manuale Scolarium, a student manual from the late 15th century, describes an initiation procedure for a young youth that looks more like a bullying. They beat him, cut his nails with blunt scissors, forced him to drink urine. It was fun for everyone, except for the one who was being bullied.

There was also a place for fun in the lectures. Once, in the 16th century in Oxford, after another binge, a student fell asleep right in class. The famous poet Richard Corbett, who was a professor at the university, cut the sleeper's silk stockings into shreds.

Anatomy lesson. Rembrandt
Anatomy lesson. Rembrandt

Very often, the craving for knowledge led to the fact that students, not satisfied with an anatomy workshop during the day, went to dig up corpses at night in order to continue studying the human body. Some stole corpses while still "lukewarm", that is, directly from the gallows. In Montpellier (France), for example, there was a whole network of informants who always knew when and where the funeral would take place.

German writer Thomas Platter the Elder, who lived in the 16th century, recounted how, as a student, he stole freshly buried corpses from a cemetery, thereby infuriating the caretakers. It got to the point that the guards, seeing someone near the graves, fired their crossbows without warning.

Dancing students of the University of Altdorf
Dancing students of the University of Altdorf

Perhaps, at all times, students loved to have fun and drink. The Excellent Student's Handbook, dated 1495, describes student restrictions. It was forbidden to spend the night outside the house, swim on Mondays, go to the bazaars on Wednesdays, talk nonsense, etc. Students were flogged again for the offense.

By the way, flogging was considered the favorite method of punishing students in tsarist Russia. It was officially canceled only in 1904.

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