John Gower wrote moralizing poems on the
villein's revolt, the sins of the clergy and attorneys, and the
bad rule of King Richard II, who in 1377 succeeded Edward III.
Robin Hood ballads were popular. The minstrel, who was a honorable
person, replaced the troubadour of older times.
There were many colleges at Oxford and Cambridge due to the
prohibition of gifts to the church. Laymen instead of
ecclesiastics were appointed as Chancellor. The Masters at Oxford
got rid of ecclesiastical supervision by a bishop and archdeacon
by 1368. One could be admitted as a student at age thirteen. The
rate of maintenance for a student was 10d. weekly.
A Bachelor of Arts degree was granted after four years of study
and an oral exam. Required reading in 1340 for the Bachelor's
Degree was the new logic of Aristotle ("Prior and Posterior
Analytics" e.g. on syllogistic logic and deduction, the "Topics",
or the "Sophistical Refutations", e.g. logical fallacies such as
from 'All A are B' to 'All B are A'), and a selection from these
Aristotle works on physics: "Of Heaven and Earth", "On the Soul",
"Of meteors", "Of Birth and Decay", or "Of Feeling and What is
Felt" with "Of Memory and Recollection" and "Of Sleep and Waking",
or "Of the Movement of Animals" with "Of Minor Points in Natural
History".
A Master of Arts degree could be awarded after three more years of
study and teaching.
Pages:
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441