34 



UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS. 



France invoked by preference St. William of Bourges, an ancient pupil of 

 the University. One tribe of the Picardy nation honoured St. Firmin, the 

 first Bishop of Amiens, while the other tribe feted St. Piat, Bishop of 

 Tournay. The patron saint of the Normandy nation was St. Remain, Arch- 

 bishop of Rouen. The nation of England, after having stamped upon its 

 seal the image of Edmund the Martyr, Bishop of Norwich, and of St. 

 Catherine and St. Martin, made a point, when it became the nation of 

 Germany, of celebrating the festival of St. Charlemagne, who was looked 

 upon as the founder of the clergy throughout Christendom. 



The patron festivals were, therefore, very numerous in the University of 

 Paris, and the students were always ready to interrupt their studies to take 

 part in the solemnities which were generally held in the famous Pre-aux- 

 Clercs, their veritable domain, beginning at the Faubourg St. Germain des 

 Pro's, and extending down to the Seine, all along what are now the Rue St. 

 Dominique and the Rue de 1'Universite. 



Of all the festivals at which the students took part in a body, the most 

 popular was the Lendit fair, which they looked upon as instituted expressly 

 for their amusement, though it dates back beyond the foundation of the 

 University itself. 



The Paris Cathedral, having received from Constantinople in 1109 some 

 authentic fragments of the cross, the Bishop, in compliance with the wishes 

 of the population who could not find room in the Cathedral, where the 

 relics had hpen deposited, carried them in great pomp, accompanied by his 

 clergy, to the plain of St. Denis, where there was room enough for the vast 

 concourse of worshippers who assembled to contemplate and adore these 

 relics. It is a well-ascertained fact that the schools of the cloister of Notre- 

 Dame took part in the procession. The same ceremony and procession were 

 renewed at stated periods ; and, in the course of time, a market or fair was 

 established upon the very spot consecrated by the religious ceremony. Every 

 year, on the 12th of June, the day after the feast of St. Barnabas, the Lendit 

 (or rather the Indict, that is to say, the day appointed) fair was opened. 

 It was also called the feast of the parchment (see the volume, " Arts in the 

 Middle Ages," chapter Parchment, Paper). Early in the morning of that 

 day, the students, attired in their best, assembled on horseback at the top 

 of Mount St. Genevieve, to accompany the rector of the University, who, 

 arrayed in his scarlet cloak, and wearing his doctor's cap, proceeded on a 



