剑桥大学(3)

The University of Cambridge (3)

走向独立 剑桥大学的大多数学生起初是教堂执事或牧师，主持某种神圣的仪式，期望在教堂或文职部门（外交官、法官、王室官员）发展事业。为了在求学期间维持自己的生活，他们先在教堂里寻找工作（有俸圣职、牧师会会员，甚至大教堂里的要职），但是作为委任的教堂执事，他们起初隶属于当地教会机构。不过，在15世纪末之前，他们做这些工作不受这些机构的制约，除了罗马教皇之外，他们独立于所有的教会结构。

Moves to Independence Most of the scholars of the University were at first clerks or clergymen, in holy orders of some sort, and expecting careers in the Church or in the Civil Service （as diplomats, judges or officers of the royal household）. To support them during their years of study, they looked for preferment in the Church （a benefice, a canonry, even a dignity in a cathedral）, but as ordained clerks they were at first subject to the local ecclesiastical authorities. Before the end of the fifteenth century, however, they had freed themselves from this, and were independent of all ecclesiastical authority except the Pope＇ s. The Chancellor became an ecclesiastical judge in his own right, hearing all cases involving the morals or discipline of scholars, and proving the wills of all who died in residence. At about the same period, the Chancellor also provided scholars with a secular court to which they could resort for the trial of all civil and criminal cases except those concerning major crimes.