So I read some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in college a few years ago. My personal favorite was the Miller's Tale, I thought it was nice and sophomoric.
My question is this: in the Miller's Tale, we hear the story of the carpenter's wife being pursued by a university student named Nicholas.
How would a scholar such as Nicholas, currently pursuing studies at a university and presumably not generating any income, support himself? More largely, how did university students at the time (1380's?) support themselves? How did they pay for room and board? food? Did they need a patron? Were 'loans' of some sort available?
When I was in school I had financial support from my family and took out loans. How would a student like Nicholas guarantee the financial means to engage in scholarly pursuits full-time?
University students came in two basic flavors: members of a mendicant order studying for their licentia docendi, license to teach (preach); and students supported by their parents or other private benefactors.
In addition to university tuition and living costs, there was also a major cost associated with graduation/receiving a degree. Since many university students in the late Middle Ages came from the urban gentry or lower nobility, many opted not to pay for the degree: they needed the education to help their career, not the degree to qualify them for a different sort of career.
There are a substantial number (well, in terms of medieval sources) of preserved letter exchanges between parents and their sons at university that involve students begging for extra money and parents either owning up or refusing.