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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, October 1906

8. Degrees by Royal Charter—

8. Degrees by Royal Charter

It was the custom in the Middle Ages for a university to apply for a bull, charter, or other act of recognition from the Pope or Emperor. This was reputed to give some sort of international validity to the degrees granted by the university. The master or doctor of a university so recognised by papal or imperial authority had or was reputed to have the jus ubique docendi, the right of teaching anywhere throughout Christendom, and not merely within the jurisdiction of his own alma mater. This universal recognition was, however, more a name than a reality, and must then, as now, have been a matter lying wholly in the discretion of those from whom it was sought.

page 14

We no longer seek bulls from Rome, nor is there any longer any emperor from whom we can seek imperial authority, but it is still the custom to seek and obtain royal charters for the granting of degrees. Whatever possible effect the possession of such a charter may have upon the prestige of a university, it is not easy to see that it has any legal consequence at all, or is anything more than a form or ceremony inherited from mediæval practice. The only authority which the University of New Zealand requires for the granting of a degree is that of the New Zealand Parliament; nor can a royal charter affect in any way the operation of the degree so given. The recognition of a degree outside the colony in which it is obtained is entirely optional on the part of the recognising bodies; and it does not seem that American degrees, which are given without the sanction of any royal charter, stand in any different legal position in England from that of New Zealand degrees, to which that sanction belongs.