SCHOLASTICUS

Magister scholarum, maistreescoles, cancellarius, or master of schools, originally a functionary attached to the cathedral chapter who exercised control of schools (regimen scholarum, jus scholarum, jus in regendis scholis ) throughout the area under the jurisdiction of the chapter. (In other places, jurisdiction over schools was exercised by certain other ecclesiastical bodies, usually a monastery, a priory, etc.) Before and even during the 12th century, when the great medieval universities were forming, schools of an area continued to have only one scholasticus or magister, some member of the cathedral chapter. He was the sole ruler of the schools in the cathedral's jurisdiction but had the right to appoint assistants or substitutes. With the increase in the demand for teachers, he granted the licentia docendi, or the permission to teach, to persons he judged suitable. No competent teacher could be refused this licentia, and it had to be granted freely, without payment of fee, to avoid suspicion of simony (though there were abuses). In Paris the schools (even the university itself) continued to be ruled by the chancellor of the cathedral church, on whom the duties of the scholasticus fell. At Salamanca the scholasticus, or as he was now called, the chancellor of the university (as opposed to rector), had the right to imprison scholars (a right that he shared with the bishop from 1254 onward), since he was held to be the iudex ordinarius of students.

Bibliography: É. lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, v. 5, Les Écoles … (Lille 1910–43) 453–512. h. rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. f. m. powicke and a. b. emden, 3 v. (new ed. Oxford 1936) 1:279–282; 2:84–88, 144–146, 155–158. h. jedin, "Domschule und Kolleg," Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift 67 (1958) 210–223.

[t. c. crowley]