Congratulations on sticking it out – you are now an Oxford graduand! As you put on your gown and hood, do you know what happens at your graduation ceremony? Or have you just come back from one and been baffled by the Latin?
Let’s go through what happened (or what will happen), step by step.
Introduction and History
The graduation ceremony at Oxford, as you may have gathered, is old, and as a result has acquired and then preserved many picturesque features which serve as much to lengthen the ceremony as to reflect preserved tradition. I hope, however, that this guide will serve to explicate these features, and turn what merely needs to be sat through into a truly interesting and meaningful few hours in the Sheldonian.
Where it Happens
Graduations at Oxford can occur anywhere and have occurred somewhere beyond the Sheldonian Theatre, where you will most likely be, in the past. What is important is the body of people that is assembled to confer the degree: strictly speaking, this is the body called the ‘Ancient House of Congregation‘ which is convened today only for the purposes of the graduation ceremony. It is the old Congregation before its powers were stripped by the Oxford University Act of 1854 and is distinct from the Congregation which is the body that governs the University today. The Ancient House is traditionally composed of the ‘Regent Masters’, i.e. those who teach at the University, and historically stood alongside the old Convocation, which was composed of regent and non-regent masters and which served as the final legislative body for the University.
Convocation today no longer has those functions, which have been devolved to the modern Congregation.
The Ancient House of Congregation ≠ Congregation ≠ Convocation
The medieval university was considered (and considered themselves) to be a guild, where the art being taught was not mechanical or artisanal but liberal and intellectual. It was divided into four faculties Arts, Divinity (Theology), Medicine, and Law. The faculty of law taught Canon, i.e. Church, and Civil, i.e. Roman, law: English Common Law was learnt at the Inns of Court by apprenticeship, which survives today as the pupillage of barristers.
As a guild Universities also had various grades which you be promoted to after proving your abilities to the satisfaction of the guild elders. The familiar terms are Apprentice, Journeyman or Fellow, and Master.
Now where have we seen a tripartite system before? This seems to correspond quite well to the modern three-grade system of Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees!
Sadly, though the correspondence is appealing it is not exact: the Doctorate in Philosophy (nominally in the faculty of arts) is a 19th century invention. The real progression is closer to Student, Bachelor, and Master (or Doctor: the two terms were synonymous in medieval times).
That this is the real historical position can be seen from the anomalous position that master’s degree in law at Oxford: it is called a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL). And historically there was no title of ‘master’ in that faculty, a BCL could progress straight onwards to a Doctor (DCL). Additionally, there was the (now extinct) title of Student of Civil Law (SCL) which, of course, makes the parallel exact.
Student to Bachelor to Master (Doctor)
The Privileges of the Masters of Arts
Of these four faculties the Arts was the junior faculty, the others were ‘higher’ faculties: you had to finish the Arts course (becoming a ‘Master’ of the ‘Arts’) to start studying, at least theoretically, in the higher faculties. Arts was junior in rank but not in importance, however: for as the font and wellspring of scholars in all the other faculties it eventually arrogated to itself the right to grant and block degrees at the university.
A Master of Arts (MA; always ‘arts’ in the plural because those refer to the seven liberal arts and sciences) also gained the right on taking that degree (and the duty for a few years) to teach at the university and, while doing so, took their place in the Ancient House of Congregation. This survived until recent times in the modern practice that every Fellow of a college or other permanent teaching staff member who was not an Oxford MA was granted one by Congregation on their taking up their post. American college graduations are known as ‘commencement’, and one speculative reconstruction construes this as a remnant of the MAs ‘commencing’ to teach at their university.
As a guild formed for the transmission of knowledge and learning, you had to be in a position to do the teaching: that is, at least an MA, in order to become a full member of the guild and participate in the control of the guild’s (the university’s) affairs. All MAs, in a very late survival of this medieval principle, used to do so through Convocation; this survives in a degenerated form in the formal rights and powers of (the modern) Congregation, which is today composed not only of teaching staff but also senior administrative staff.
The importance of the MA, however, survives in the little-known provisions of the University of Oxford’s Order of Precedence, where a Master of Arts outranks even such doctors as that of medicine (DM), science (DSc), and letters (DLitt), nevermind that of philosophy (Oxford’s DPhil – PhD almost everywhere else): though the MA is of course outranked by all of these people if they also hold the MA degree. Cambridge‘s is similar, where the Bachelor of Divinity outranks all sorts of doctorates, though the MA is relegated to the perhaps more sensible position as head (bar one: the Master of Surgery MCh is often taken as a doctoral-equivalent degree in surgery) of the master’s degrees.
The MAs as a group also had their representatives in the university, sort of like trade union ‘stewards’ or ‘organisers’ today, ostensibly to safeguard their rights and the rights of the Faculty of Arts against senior university officers and the higher faculties. They are called the Proctors, and, if you haven’t met them in their capacity as the University’s disciplinary officers (in which capacity they also handle club and society business), you’ll meet them later once we talk about the ceremony.
They wear a lovely black gown in the doctoral pattern with big bell-shaped sleeves, sleeved and faced with blue velvet: a picturesque survival of the MA’s dress gown (which had black velvet: there’s a theory that the black faded to blue and became traditional). With this gown they wear what is supposed to have been the MA’s dress or winter hood, which is black fully lined with white miniver fur, which is worn (basically inside-out) so that only the fur lining can be seen. It’s quite nice!
This is therefore the setting of the graduation ceremony. You are surrounded by MAs (your Dean of Degrees will usually be wearing the robes of an MA: look out for the black-and-red hood, which can be seen above too, worn by the pro-proctors: observer the black velvet down the front of their MA gowns), and the Vice-Chancellor presides as administrative head of the University: we will talk more about their role later. Let us begin.
The Ceremony
Opening
There are four main characters in this ceremony pertinent to us. Three of them are on the thrones: the Vice-Chancellor on the middle throne, the Senior Proctor to their right (your left), and the Junior Proctor to the Vice-Chancellor’s left. The fourth accompanies you, and is your college Dean of Degrees. All these people can send someone else to do their job, so we will only be referring to the principals here.
The first thing to do is for the proceedings to be inaugurated. To do this the Vice-Chancellor pronounces the formula, announcing to everyone what they’re here for:
Causa huius Congregationis est ut Gratiae concedantur, ut Gradus conferantur, necnon ut alia peragantur, quae ad Venerabilem hanc Domum spectant.
“The reason for this Congregation is that Graces be granted and Degrees be conferred, and further that other business which concerns this Venerable House be transacted.”
Historically, Congregational business might be preceded by general legislative Convocational business: after the latter the Vice-Chancellor would descend from the higher throne (remember, Convocation used to outrank Congregation), proclaiming “Dissolvimus hanc Convocationem; fiat Congregatio”: I dissolve the Convocation, and hold Congregation.
Qualifications
The next thing to happen is the Registrar confirms that everyone present is qualified for the degree they’re about to take.
(This page is under construction)