Avaricious and Corrupt Professors

In Bologna it was the avarice of the professors and the restrictive practices which they were able to introduce which nearly ruined the university. In every university the professors and masters always had the right to admit other members to their guild in other words, it was they who conducted the examinations and awarded degrees which allowed a man to teach. There was trouble from professors who accepted bribes and let students get examination questions beforehand. In the 15th Century the professors persuaded the citizens of Bologna that it was outrageous that they should be at the mercy of an ill-disciplined and tumultuous student body. The city endowed several professorial chairs with stipends paid from the city revenue. This was the beginning of the end. Professorial chairs became exceedingly valuable so that the professors tried to reserve them for citizens of Bologna. This was bad enough, but after a few years they insisted that university chairs should become the property of their holders and be handed down from father to son.

The students of Bologna realised how rapidly the scholastic reputation of their university was declining under its hereditary professors so they persuaded the city to endow five more chairs whose incumbents were to be elected by the students themselves. But, alas, supporters of the various candidates took to fighting in the streets over the claims of their men and so in the end the students' own professors were chosen by lot. This method of election was not a success either and the university continued to lose ground.