Video: "Removing the Horns and Hooves": An Amazing Ritual of Initiation for Students in a Medieval University
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
In the Middle Ages, getting to university was not easy. Many tests awaited the applicant, the most terrible of which was the ritual of initiation into students. This was not a custom for the faint of heart.
When the first universities appeared in medieval Europe, an unexpected problem arose. Young students were often naughty, full of youthful maximalism. Sometimes there was no government on them. But wise teachers knew a way to deal with an energetic crowd. Before embarking on training, young people began to be subjected to all kinds of trials in order to break their pride, overcome gluttony and other sins.
One of the medieval traditions actually anticipated hazing. Young students were obliged to "serve" the senior students. Those were given humiliating tasks, forced to pay in taverns and public baths.
But the strangest custom of medieval education was the deposition. This practice existed in German lands and in Sweden from the late 15th century to the middle of the 18th century. Enrolling in local universities, students had to go through a series of sophisticated tests.
"Green" students, and at that time only men were educated, arrived at the university and introduced themselves to the dean. When there were enough of them for initiation, the dean announced the date and time. He also appointed a depositor - a teacher responsible for conducting the ceremony.
The leader of the ritual handed out objects to the students to “adorn themselves”: hats, glasses, combs, scissors, clothes of “various patterns and colors”. The latter usually meant a buffoonish costume.
The depositor asked the students to open their mouths wide, and they received two boar tusks, which they held, gritting their teeth, with an order not to pull them out. Fake horns and donkey ears clung to their heads.
Under the commands of a mentor, students marched into a specially prepared auditorium. At the same time, the depositor urged them on with a stick, as if they were a herd of bulls or donkeys. In the room, the students made a circle around the teacher, who insulted them, making fun of the bestial appearance, and then lectured on the "vices and stupidity of youth", the need for "improvement and discipline through study."
The depositor asked difficult questions, sometimes in the form of riddles. If a student answered incorrectly or too slowly, he would get a sandbag in the head. Often there were so many blows that the sand literally clogged the eyes. Because of the fangs in their mouths, students could not speak articulately, even if they knew the answer. For this relied on its own portion of insults. The depositor called them pigs, since the fangs symbolize the sin of gluttony. It was believed that young people's perceptions of learning were obscured by addictions to food and drink.
Then the head of the ceremony asked the students if they were ready to give up their sinful thoughts. Everyone agreed, and then the depositor with the help of tongs pulled out the boar's tusks, symbolizing the end of gluttony. He removed the horns, which represent coarseness, as well as the donkey ears, which hide the donkey's inner nature. The depositor "cleaned" the ears of his charges with a huge toothpick, brutally shaved his head with a wooden razor, and cut off his hair with an ax. At the end of the procedures, the "converts" were poured water on their heads, symbolizing the acquisition of purity and getting rid of bad habits.
At the end of the ceremony, students received a certificate of the deposition ceremony. Now sinless they could be admitted to the university. In most German educational institutions, this paper was considered a serious document, and an applicant who did not pass the rite of passage was not allowed to further study.
Studentship in the Middle Ages is not only cruelty and cramming, but also funny drinking, crime stories and interesting facts from the life of students.
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