public examination which he is to take, he will not bring about
any jousting or brawling as some have done heretofore. And if the
candidate, when required, is unwilling to take the oath, or if he
takes the oath and breaks it, he [the Rector] shall utterly
forbid the public examination and direct the Doctors not to hold
their meeting and also stop the Beadle, so that he shall not dare
to announce his programme through the schools, under an arbitrary
penalty to be imposed.[66]

The ceremony at the cathedral included, first, the formal test of the
candidate. After making a speech he held a disputation, in which he
defended a thesis taken from the Laws against opponents chosen from the
body of students, "thus playing for the first time the part of a Doctor
in a University disputation." He was then presented by the Promoter to
the Archdeacon, who conferred the final License to teach Civil or Canon
Law or both, according to the student's training. This was done by a
formula probably similar to the following, which is taken from a book
published in 1710:

Inasmuch as you have been presented to me for examination in both
[Civil and Canon] Laws and for the customary approval, by the
Most Illustrious and Most Excellent D.D. (naming the Promoters),
golden Knights, Counts Palatine, Most Celebrated Doctors, and
inasmuch as you have since undergone an arduous and rigorous
examination, in which you bore yourself with so much learning and
distinction that that body of Most Illustrious and Excellent
Promoters without one dissenting voice,--I repeat, without one
dissenting voice,--have judged you worthy of the laurel,
therefore by the authority which I have as Archdeacon and senior
Chancellor, I create, publish, and name you, N.N., Doctor in the