A Medieval Classroom

I've always liked this painting. To a 21st-century academic, it will seem quite authentic because it seems so startling familiar: the students who are paying close attention. The students who may or may not be paying attention. The student in the first row, with a somewhat sarcastic expression on his face, who looks as if either he is speaking or he urgently wants to speak -- a class clown? A young scholar with a mind of his own? Perhaps both at once?

The student in the third row, nearest to us, who appears to be hung over and possibly asleep. The student in the back row, farthest from us, in conversation with someone who doesn't appear to belong in the classroom at all -- why is the teacher putting up with this? Perhaps this student is from a powerful family and the teacher has been made to understand that this student can do as he pleases.

One rule in medieval universities which was violated extremely rarely was that women were not allowed to participate. I've heard of exactly one exception to this rule: a woman known as Nawojka disguised herself as a boy and studied at the university of Krakov for two years before being discovered to be a woman. She was put on trial, but no-one from the university could be found who would say a bad word about her. Her record as a student was excellent. The authorities didn't know what to do with her, until she asked to be sent to a convent; they agreed. She taught at the convent and eventually became its abbess.

Or perhaps not: there seems to be some disagreement about whether the story of Nawojka is an historical account or a legend.

Some people have said that there are women in the picture above, which was painted on a wall in a German university in the 14th century. (I'm sorry, I don't know which university it was in, or who painted it. It's in a museum in Berlin now. Sorry, I don't know which museum. Not much help. am I?) Maybe they got this impression because some men's and boys' clothing and hats and hairstyles of 14th-century central Europe may seem feminine to us today. Also, some of the boys studying at universities in the 14th century were very young, by today's standards. Perhaps even pre-pubescent in some cases.