APPENDIX. I HAVE hinted, more than once, in the preceding volume, that my history would not attempt a detail in regard to academical habits, degrees, &c.: but a friend having asked me the meaning of the term, Bachelor of Arts, and suggested whether bachelor did not mean bas chevalier, an inferior knight, I was led to see the expediency of saying something, at least, on degrees, previously to beginning the next volume, where the word will be perpetually recurring and so, finding two or three pages at the end unoccupied, I place my few observations where the introduction of them will not interrupt the general course of the history. It has already been observed, that our college-language is derived from the church and monastery. In the first Christian churches, Bishops, or Presbyters, (I have nothing to do here with the dispute, whether they were different, or the same officers,) and Deacons were two orders, or degrees. They that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good DEGREE. 1 Tim.iii. 13. weptwecouvrai alienam rem sibi vindicant, Budæi Comment. Ling. Græc. p. 663. Dr. Harwood, in his Greek Test. vol. ii. p. 139, on the word, 69μov, observes, Babμor, a step, i. e. they lay a good foundation for the ministerial office, and quotes Livy: Graduq. eo jam via ad consulatum videbatur.-The Doctor, however, should have said, the episcopal, pastoral, or presbyter's office, for Aaxova was the ministerial office.-In the writings of the apostolical fathers, Clement's and Ignatius's Epistles, &c. (whatever authority we choose to allow them) great stress is laid on these distinct orders, or degrees. Some of our Saxon ancestors had, very early, seven degrees in the church. Thus, in the laws of Wightræd, King of Kent," the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it is said, are sevenfold; and and there are seven ranks of ecclesiastical degrees rrapas sýndan cýricllcra gɲasa. Orders is another name for degrees. Augustine, in the old Salisbury Breviary, is said to have been admitted to the order or degree of presbyter, and afterwards admitted to the order, or degree of a bishop, the word, as it is well known, still retained in the English church; but when we speak of deacons orders, priests orders, strictly speaking, we talk incorrectly, though the phrase is sanctioned by custom. From the church the word passed into monasteries and colleges. Even in nunneries, deaconesses, and abbatesses, &c. were abbatissæ, diaconissæ, &c. were ordinata. Whence we immediately get our degrees of B. A. and M. A. of B. D. and D. D. &c. (and more particularly in reference to the word, bachelor,) when they were first introduced, and whence the word itself is derived, is not so clear as to admit of no dispute. The batchelor, in ancient writings, is sometimes called baccalaurus, sometimes bacculaurus, or baculaurus, and, in the French and old Norman, bacheler, bachelier, bachiler. As to the baccalaurus, derived, as some say, from the bacca lauri, the laurel, or ivy, with which he was crowned, if any custom had prevailed of crowning the incipients in the arts and sciences, as they are called, the A. B.s and B. D.s, &c. with the laurel or bay, we might sit down content with that etymology: but the laurus Apollinaris has, if I mistake not, been always appropriated to the poet, and the practice of crowning the archipoeta with laurel, continued in Italy till a very late period. We have all heard of a laureated poet, but I have not, at least, heard of a laureated A. B. Salve, brassicea virens corona, Vid. Strada Prolusion: p. 222. Dr. Johnson's "most probable derivation," in his Dictionary," from bachelors being young, and of good hopes, like the berry of a laurel, or bay," is too ridiculous to deserve notice and when the learned Dufresne talks of bajulare, il quali mostrava gran baculare, cioe gran dottore:" as he deals only in generals, without producing authorities, it amounts to nothing. The same, also, may be said of Dr. Cowel's passage from Rhenanus, “A bacillo nominati sunt quia primi studii authoritatem, quæ per exhibitionem baculi considebatur, jam consecuti fuissent." See Dr. Cowel's INTERPRETER. For I do not remember to have heard more of the bachelor's staff, than of his laurel. A bachelor is defined the first degree, taken in any faculty, to arrive at a doctorate; it might be added, or mastership, for, in our old university records we have no doctors, only masters, (magistri.) And again, bacheler, qui est promu au baccalaureat en quelque faculte: and, again, on apelloit aussi bachelier un jeuni gentilhome, qui servoit sous la baniere d'un autre: Dictionaire de l'Academie: and so, Kelham, in his Norman French Dictionary, bachelier, bachiler, a batchelor, a young esquire, or knight. Thus, too, the learned civilian, Dr. Cowel," Bas chevaliers," low or inferior knights, by tenure of a bare military fee, as distinguished from baronets and bannerets, who were the chief or superior knights: hence we call our bare, simple knights, inferior to baronets, &c. knights bachelors, i. e. bas chevaliers, which, in all likelihood, gave name to the academical degrees of bachelors; as a quality lower than that of masters and doctors. It has been already shewn, that the literature of our schools was fashioned according to that of the Normans, and introduced by them, after the Conquest; and it was natural, whenever our bachelerie was formed, that it should be derived from that source, particularly when we recollect how the Norman French was affected in almost every thing. The word bachelor is not of Saxon, but of Norman French origin, as appears, both in the sense, and from the way of spelling the word: thus Chaucer, who introduced so much French into our language; With him there was his sonne, a young squire, A lover and a lusty bachelere. Prologue to the Squire's Tale. and again, Yong, freshe, and strong, in armes desirous As any bacheler of all his hous. Squire's Tale, where it means, un chevelier bacheler, a knight bachelor, corresponding, both in sense and sound, to the word in the Romance Poets, as quoted by Dufresne; (Glossar. Med. et Inf. Latinit.) in reference to which, un bacheler is a young, a poor, or a low knight. I therefore think Dufresne is more happy in a latter conclusion, than in his former. From different writers he gives this definition, "Bachalarii qui in eo gradu sunt ut ad doctoratum, aspirare possint, quemadmodum baccalarii militares adolescentes, qui ad banneretorum gradum perinde aspirant; Glossarium. ut supra. An A. B. then, I take to be an incipient in the arts, one in the way to an A. M. a B. D. an incipient in the way to a D. D. and accordingly, in an antient statute of the university of Paris, it runs, " Cursor (baccalarius) in theologia inter primum cursum & sententias, tenebitur respondere in theologia, ad minus semel de disputatione tentativa sub magistro. "In the same sense," says Dr. Cowel, (INTERPRETER,) "the bachelors of the companies of London, be such of each company as are springing towards the estate of those who are employed in council, but as yet are inferior."-But see the same under the word BOUCHE OF COURT, where is an indenture in the Norman French, which gives a most minute account of the bas chevalier. The first time I meet with the mention of a doctor's degree, in Hare's Titles, is in 1391', the fourteenth year of Rich. II.'s reign, and of artium baccalaurus, in 1410, the eleventh year of Henry IV. on an occasion a Literæ patentes ne apostatæ fratres ordinis prædicatorum, &c. admittantur ad honorem doctoralem in theologia in aliqua duarum academiarum. Hare's Titles to Collections. |