of the Doctors present two passages (puncta) in the Civil or Canon Law as the case might be.  He then retired to his house to study the passages, in doing which it would appear that he had the assistance of the presenting Doctor.  Later in the day the Doctors were summoned to the Cathedral or some other public building by the Archdeacon, who presided over but took no active part in the ensuing examination.  The candidate was then introduced to the Archdeacon and Doctors by the presenting Doctor or Promoter as he was styled.  The Prior of the College then administered a number of oaths in which the candidate promised respect to that body and solemnly renounced all the rights of which the College had succeeded in robbing all Doctors not included in its ranks.  The candidate then gave a lecture or exposition of the two prepared passages; after which he was examined upon them by two of the Doctors appointed by the College.  Other Doctors might ask supplementary questions of Law (which they were required to swear that they had not previously communicated to the candidate) arising more indirectly out of the passages selected, or might suggest objections to the answers.  With a tender regard for the feelings of their comrades at this “rigorous and tremendous Examination” (as they style it) the students by their Statutes required the Examiner to treat the examinee “as his own son.”  The Examination concluded, the votes of the Doctors present were taken by ballot and the candidate’s fate determined by the majority, the decision being announced by the Archdeacon.[63]

The successful candidate ordinarily proceeded within a short time to the public examination, which was held in the cathedral.  At this examination he received both the formal license to teach and the Doctor’s degree.  Before the appointed day he went about inviting friends and public officials to the ceremony.  Ostentation at this time was forbidden: 

Those who are candidates for the Doctor’s degree, when they give their invitations to the public examination, should go without trumpets or any instruments whatever; and the Beadle of the Arch-deacon of Bologna, with the Beadles of the Doctors under whom they are to have the public examination, should precede him on horseback.  At that late day they [the candidates] shall not provide any feast, except among scholars from the same house or among those related to the candidate in the first, second, third, or even the fourth degree.  Furthermore no one of the Rectors shall presume to ride with him on that day.[64]

On the actual day of the examination, however, “the love of pageantry characteristic of the mediaeval and especially of the Italian mind was allowed the amplest gratification”; the candidate went to the cathedral, doubtless preceded by trumpeters, and escorted by a procession of his fellow-students.  The statutes of the German Nation at Bologna describe as one object of that organization “the clustering