The Culture of the Middle Ages 453 things must be endured by the scholar. Therefore, we declare, by this general and ever-to-be-valid law, that in the future no one shall be so rash as to venture to inflict any injury on scholars, or to occasion any loss to them on account of a debt owed by an inhabitant of their province, a thing which we have learned is sometimes done, by an evil custom. And let it be known to the violators of this decree, and also to those who shall at the time be the rulers of the places where the offense is committed, that a fourfold restitution of property shall be exacted from all those who are guilty and that, the mark of infamy being affixed to them by the law itself, they shall lose their office forever. Moreover, if any one shall presume to bring a suit against them on account of any business, the choice in this matter shall be given to the scholars, who may summon the accusers to appear before their professors, or before the bishop of the city, to whom we have given jurisdiction in this matter. But if, in sooth, the accuser shall attempt to drag the scholar before another judge, even though his cause is a very just one, he shall lose his suit for such an attempt. We also order this law to be inserted among the imperial constitutions under the title, ne filius pro patre, etc. Given at Roncaglia, in the year of our Lord 1158, in the month of November. 1 A modern writer gives the following picture of student 191. An _. . . . , T , , . account of life at Paris in Abelard s time. the lectures at Paris. (From At five or six o'clock each morning the great cathedral bell would ring out the summons to work. From the neigh- McCabe's boring houses of the canons, from the cottages of the towns- Abe folk, from the taverns, and hospices, and boarding-houses, the stream of the industrious would pour into the enclosure beside the cathedral. The master's beadle, who levied a 1 The remarkable privileges granted by Philip Augustus to the stu- dents at Paris in 1200, and the protection extended to the same students by Pope Gregory IX in 1231, may be found in Translations and Reprints, Vol. II, No. 3, "The Mediaeval Student," by Professor Munro.
