Un système rituel ?

Abstract

One of the main innovations of the western teaching system in the Middle Ages was a mechanism of social advancement based on the acquisition of knowledge. The university degree system thus served as a certification of acquired skills as well as a means of social differentiation that conferred status. Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the universities would include and exclude, classify and rank, though not exclusively according to intellectual criteria. The graduation ceremonies, with their precise ritual, in which gesture, word and object combined to legitimize an institution, was an act of integration as well as a clear claim to the monopoly of scientific mastery. Thus the comparative study of the genesis and the ritual forms of the graduation ceremonies allows us emphasize the changes in the social function of university degrees in the course of the 14th century.

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