It is not known when these degrees were first conferred by Oxford and Cambridge, and they have never been given by foreign Universities. Some foreign writers have considered that they originated in the practice of giving degrees in the single arts of the seven liberal studies; and there is a certain amount of reason for this view, for they were similar to the grammar degrees, in that no residence was required, and that they did not confer full membership of the University on the recipient.

My own view is that they were considered more honourable than degrees in grammar, and that the Doctorate in Music was at first conferred only on musicians of eminence, and without examination. It is known that, in the Middle Ages, music took a very high rank in public estimation in England, and English musicians had considerable reputation abroad. MSS. have recently been found at Modena, Bologna, and among the capitular archives of Trent, dating from the latter part of the fifteenth century, which contain compositions by Dunstable, John Benet, Forest, Power, Stowe, and others, showing that the music of English composers was known and appreciated abroad. There is evidence, moreover, that Dunstable preceded Dufay and Binchois by some years, and that the early English School of music, the development of which was crushed by the general disturbance of all the arts of peace caused by the Wars of the Roses, was flourishing before the rise of the Netherlands School.