Studium Generale의 소멸: 1570년 케임브리지 대학의 정관 개혁

From its beginning in the 13th Century, the University of Cambridge has been the society of masters, who had a significant level of autonomy. Until the 16th Century, regent masters, who were the majority of this society,were the most powerful group in the university. From the mid 16th Century,however, an increasing conflict over the autonomy of the university had been taking place and the constitutional reform in 1570 was the turning point, which is the focus of this study. In 1570, Thomas Cartwright, who was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity publicly criticized the hierarchy of the Established Church and the university and became an influential figure to young fellows and regent masters of the university. Concerned with the fact that the majority influenced by Cartwright’s view could dominate the affairs of the university,John Whitgift, then the master of Trinity College, conferred with heads of some colleges and swiftly modified the statutes, which was approved by the chancellor and the queen. Based on the new statutes, Whitgift himself was appointed as the vice chancellor of the university in November 1570. The new statutes rapidly undermined the authority of the regent masters,who were the dominant group within the university, and empowered the heads of colleges, who previously did not have much influence over the affairs of the University, by giving them the authority over nominating key university officers such as the vice chancellor and assigning lectures. Realising that their longstanding autonomy had evaporated, the proctors, who were representing the regent masters, and several regent masters requested that the chancellor revise the statutes again in 1572, but the request was rejected. Therefore, the university’s distinctive characteristic in the medieval institution as a society of masters gradually changed in to a more modern form of oligarchy by heads of colleges from the 16th Century, the essential feature of which was still preserved to this days. Whereas the universities in the Continent emerged as the centralised modern institutions from the forms of masters’ guild or students’ guild,the modern centralisation of Oxford and Cambridge Universities was through colleges. This is primarily because of the remarkable growth of colleges which started during the 14-15th Centuries, and continued up until the 16th Century. As the tutorial system was established within colleges and heads of colleges could nominate lecturers in the 16th Century, regent masters, who once were the most powerful autonomous group of the university, were absorbed into the colleges’ teaching functions. Although colleges have been regarded a distinctive feature of Oxbridge since then,recently they have become a subject of criticism due to their inefficiency.