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CHAPTER 1 



INTRODUCTION 



Throughout the Dark and Middle Ages, Learning was under the 

 aegis of the Church. Except for useful subjects such as Medicine 

 and perhaps Law, the university students were concerned with 

 material that would either make the student a useful priest or else 

 a person useful to priests. 



The hold that the Church has had on the universities has been 

 but slowly relinquished over the years. Until 1871 it was the custom 

 for the majority of dons at Cambridge to be ordained before they 

 could carry out any of the duties in college. This did not always 

 mean that the prospective Fellow had to make a careful study of 

 theology. Thus the Fellows of some colleges had the right of be- 

 coming ordained in their own chapel as soon as they were elected to 

 a Fellowship without having to undergo any arduous extra study. 

 This special sanction was taken away from them in 1852 and from 

 then on they had to become ordained in the normal manner. 



The Fellows besides being compulsorily ordained also had to 

 live under an enforced celibacy. Should they wish to enjoy the 

 varied pleasures of married life they had in turn to relinquish 

 their college Fellowships. The married clergyman then left 

 Cambridge and usually took up one of the livings that were in the 

 gift of his college. This had its own compensations ; those scholars 

 who had swallowed their intellectual goat in their youth, instead 

 of being forced to eke it out to various undergraduates for the rest 

 of their lives, could leave Cambridge and take up a rich living in 

 the outside world. This made more room available at the university 

 for the younger man, who did not then merely have to wait for 

 his older colleagues to die. 



The hold of the Church on the university continued in many 

 ways. The undergraduates coming up to Cambridge until 1852 



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