Chapter 58, Hogwarts School of Divinity (Part 1)
Late autumn of 1348, on the banks of the Thames, Oxford University
Oxford University, a world-renowned institution of higher learning, is located in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. It is known as the "cradle of geniuses and prime ministers".
Founded in 1167, the school is the oldest university in English-speaking countries. Before the 12th century, there were no universities in Britain. People went to France and other continental European countries to study. In 1167, there was a conflict between the then King of England and the King of France. In anger, the King of England recalled the British scholars who were studying at the University of Paris and banned them from going to the University of Paris again. These scholars returned from Paris and gathered in Oxford to engage in the teaching and research of scholastic philosophy. At the end of the 12th century, these scholars in Oxford began to plan a joint school. In 1201, Oxford University had its first president.
In its long history, Oxford University has trained six British kings, 26 British prime ministers (including Gladstone, Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair), and many foreign heads of government (such as Former U.S. President Bill Clinton), forty Nobel Prize winners As well as a large number of famous scientists, such as economist Adam Smith, philosopher Francis Bacon, poet Shelley, writer Graham Greene, chemist Robert Boyle, astronomer Edmundo Halley, etc., It has made significant contributions to the development and progress of human civilization. Therefore, after the decline of the British Empire, British people generally regard Oxford as a tradition, a symbol, a nostalgia and a pursuit, where they can recall the good times of the past and relive the glory of the past - in modern Britain There is a folk proverb: "Passing through Oxford is like entering history."
However, in this world changed by time travellers, the glory of Oxford University has come to an end before it has truly begun.
——As the horrific Black Death landed on the island of Great Britain, the invisible god of death also swept across Oxford. Teachers and students throughout the school soon died in hundreds and thousands. The quiet campus was filled with the smell of corpses, and no one was cleaning up everywhere. Bones and rotting corpses... When Doraemon rushed over with four elementary school students, they searched the entire Oxford University City and found less than a hundred survivors, and more than half of them had become lunatics. ……
At this point, the history of the century-old Oxford University has come to an abrupt end - seeing that almost all the teachers and students in Oxford have died, and only two or three big cats and kittens are left. It is not a climate at all, Dora A Meng calmly expropriated the school building they left behind, and made some modifications as needed. Then, under the deception of Wang Qiu and Ma Tong, a sign was hung up saying "Hogwarts School of Theology".
——That’s right, it’s Hogwarts School of Divinity, not Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!
There is no way, after all, it is still the Middle Ages with a strong religious atmosphere at the moment, and the dawn of the Renaissance and humanism is only slightly revealed. If the brand of "Magic Academy" is directly displayed, I'm afraid the guys from the Inquisition will jump the gun - although today's Inquisition may have only a few people died in the plague, but the wizards are taking advantage of the living people. After all, the evil image of medicine has been deeply rooted in the hearts of European people.
Therefore, even if you are an "angel", you don't have to worry about the church's difficulties at all. Even if it is just for the most basic image construction, the time travelers, under the repeated emphasis of Knight Levi, feel that it is better not to use the name of magic. No., it would be more appropriate to use the word magic instead.
——In this era, magic does not mean wonderful, romantic and handsome, but absolutely politically incorrect and ideologically wrong!
So, Miss Ma Tong reluctantly put away the "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" sign and changed it to "Hogwarts School of Divinity".
In fact, at the beginning, the travelers even wanted to find a place with beautiful scenery in the Scottish Highlands in the north, with mountains behind and a lake, exactly as described in the children's storybook "Harry Potter". A Hogwarts school in the story of Harry Potter.
But the problem is that despite the horrific atmosphere of the Black Death, both the captured King David II of Scotland and the lords and nobles of the Scottish Highlands were happy to donate any castle under their name as a training ground. The base of the "healer" in order to get rid of the fatal haze of death as soon as possible. If the planned Hogwarts School can be built on its own territory, then the Scots will surely have better access to treatment - in the face of the menacing plague that seems to be able to wipe out mankind, Scotland and England Traditional hatred is also less important.
But the trouble is that Wang Qiu and Ma Tong worked tirelessly to use Doraemon's [Random Door] to survey all over Scotland in this era, but they couldn't find any castle that could accommodate thousands of people for a long time. It is suitable for transformation into a college, and the traffic conditions are so miserable that it makes people cry. With Scotland’s backward productivity and pathetic transportation and logistics capabilities, it is really difficult to maintain a relatively high standard of living for so many teachers and students for a long time (no matter in the East or the West, educated people have more status, and students are also cultural People, so the food and clothing should not be too poor)
——Scotland these days is really too backward. It is said that it has become a feudal kingdom, but in fact it has just evolved from a tribal alliance only a few hundred years ago. It is obvious that there are still many traces of ignorance from the primitive era. Anyone who has watched "Braveheart" will probably have a vague feeling that compared to the brightly armored English conquerors, the Scottish rebels in ragged clothes and colorful tattoos are simply like a group of barbarians. .
And this is also true. Even in the previous classical empire era, because it was located north of the Great Wall of Britain and outside the borders of the Roman Empire, Scotland did not enjoy the blessings of ancient Roman civilization like England did. It always stayed in the tribal era and was weak. The fire of civilization is dying in the wilderness. When it came to the Dark Ages of the Middle Ages, it became even more popular. Medieval Italians looked at the Scots the same way modern Europeans look at the black African aborigines - they were vulgar and uncultured, but the key was that Scotland's climate was too cold, the land was barren, the agricultural technology was poor, and the yields per acre of crops were poor. Extremely low, farmers don't have much surplus food to sell, and naturally they can't support too many people who are out of work.
In this era, Scotland had only a few hundred thousand people, and was often not self-sufficient in food. If you randomly find a castle in the Scottish Highlands to expand, and then let a lot of off-duty teachers and students settle there, the nearby remote villages will be destroyed immediately!
Um? Import all food, cloth, fuel and other daily necessities from the outside, as well as stationery and other teaching equipment, without relying on the production of surrounding areas? It would be possible if you had the money, but where are the supporting roads and ports? And if this is done, the cost of living at Hogwarts School will become very high, even too high for most people to bear - just like the Internet fee in some African countries in later generations is as high as ten dollars per hour.
Moreover, before the Industrial Revolution, for most Europeans, the Kingdom of England, located in the southern part of the island of Great Britain, was already a remote and rural place. As for the Kingdom of Scotland in the northern part of the island of Great Britain, it is a rural place among rural places, and there are no eye-catching specialties such as gold, silver, and amber. It can basically be said to be a remote and wild frontier that absolutely no one wants to go to. If Hogwarts is built in such a remote place, it is equivalent to building a key institution in Tibet in modern China: except for the ascetic monks, most of them will not come!
In addition, because the literacy level of the Scots in this era was so low, it was not possible to find a literate person in a town, and it was also difficult to recruit students locally - how could you learn spells if you didn't even know the written language? But if teachers and students are all foreigners, then the relationship with the locals will become extremely alienated, and they will easily be misunderstood as "invaders", causing all kinds of bizarre conflicts... Don't underestimate the xenophobia of the Scots, you're far away from that William right now. The era when Wallace shouted "freedom" and raised an army was less than a hundred years ago!
To sum up, in the spirit of science and responsibility, Wang Qiu and Ma Tong finally gave up their plan to build a school in the Scottish Highlands, and instead directly used the remaining school site in Oxford University City to replace it with the Hogwarts School. The sign is the answer - compared with the cold Scottish Highlands, the conditions in the Oxford Valley are much better: it is adjacent to the fertile London Plains, so you don't have to worry about eating; the Thames River runs through the city, and transportation is also very convenient. The wooden sea-going ships of dozens of tons in medieval Europe could even sail from the Thames Estuary to Oxford without changing land routes in the middle.
To this end, the time travelers specially used Doraemon's 22nd century automatic engineering robot, introduced water from the Thames River, and dug a "black lake" in front of the school - but the big octopus really did not dare to be put in: What if this monster really capsizes the ship and eats people?
In fact, after learning about the "Angels" plan to build a school, the Doge of Venice, the Pope and the Queen of Naples all scrambled to invite the school to their territory, but were ultimately rejected - Hogg It would be so strange if Wards College was not located in the UK!
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"...Your Majesty the Pope, His Majesty the King, Mr. Governor, and the two Queens, please look at this. This is the Black Lake we dug for Hogwarts School. With this lake, the ferry can enter the city of Oxford directly from the Thames River. Inside the district, and there is a space for parking boats near the school. If you use a hand-rowed boat, you can directly enter the colleges along the artificial river in the city, just like the layout of the water city Venice..."
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Standing on a flat-bottomed boat, slowly sailing into the city of Oxford, which has just completed the "urban rectification project", and coming to an open water with rippling blue waves, Wang Qiu pointed at the huge Lucky Cat statue on the island in the middle of the lake. He introduced Pope Clement VI, Queen Joanna of Naples, Queen Joan of England, King David of Scotland, Doge Andrea of Venice and other distinguished guests as follows: "...students from all over Europe can take a boat from other countries to study. port The entrance directly reaches Oxford, and merchants can also sell things needed by the college from the waterway... Now, the Black Death in Oxford has only just subsided. The original more than 30,000 citizens have died, and those who fled to the countryside have died. Most of the evacuees have not returned yet, so the city looks relatively deserted and not very popular. But it doesn’t matter. I believe that after the school is established, the city will definitely prosper soon..."
Of course, it would be fine to dig a black lake as an artificial harbor for Hogwarts School, but it would be too baffling to build an artificial mountain in the flat Oxford Valley, and it would simply be asking for trouble. Therefore, this Hogwarts school still follows the layout of Oxford University. Since it was originally a college founded spontaneously by scholars, Oxford University did not plan a unified campus when it was founded. At that time, students and teachers all rented in the city. They teach in different places. Later, for the convenience of management, a joint operation of independent colleges was adopted to form the University of Oxford. This tradition has been maintained until modern times: Oxford colleges and their institutions are scattered throughout the city of Oxford. Each college is composed of 300-500 teachers and students, engaged in teaching and research in different disciplines. The buildings of the university are basically composed of each college.
To put it simply, the University of Oxford first had various colleges, and then they united to form a university. In fact, many small companies joined forces to form a large company, and in theory they can withdraw their shares and split off at any time - such a thing is in It actually happened once in Oxford. Teachers and students from several colleges quit the university due to conflicts and established another University of Cambridge - instead of establishing a university first and then dividing it into colleges like China.
Oxford's colleges contain many medieval architectural treasures and are clustered around the city centre. For example, the Saxon tower of St. Michael's Church, the Norman fortress and city wall ruins, etc., give people a sense of historical depth everywhere. The ancient streets are lined with European-style courtyards, and each courtyard is a college. Since academics were the exclusive preserve of the church at that time, the colleges were designed with monastery-style buildings. The common impression when you first arrive in Oxford is that each college They are all like those dilapidated ancient temples across China. They give people a feeling of loneliness and desolation as soon as they enter. Because each college is exactly like a medieval monastery, and most colleges have courtyards within courtyards. Some of the more sophisticated colleges even have rivers, lakes, flowers, grass, insects, fish, birds, and animals. Most of the college buildings are antique medieval towers, so Oxford is also called the "Tower City".
To use an analogy, if the city of Oxford is compared to the city of Suzhou, then the University of Oxford is equivalent to the Suzhou gardens scattered throughout the urban area of Suzhou, separated by large blocks of private houses and markets, and "embedded" in various parts of the city. Corner... The disadvantage is that the various colleges are spatially isolated from each other and cannot be planned uniformly. The advantage is that with the continuous development of Oxford University, the city of Oxford has been completely swallowed up by the university and turned into a veritable university city.
——After seeing the appearance of Oxford University with his own eyes, Wang Qiucai finally understood why the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in "Harry Potter" was built like a military fortress, with high walls and towers everywhere. There are also arrow holes and trenches. After arriving here, he discovered that Oxford University in the Middle Ages and Cambridge University not far away sometimes had to fight offensive and defensive battles! For example, Oxford University was besieged by local citizens decades ago. Hundreds of college students were shot to death with bows and arrows by Oxford citizens because they failed to repay credit in pubs and brothels...
Therefore, Hogwarts turned the school into a fortress and divided one school into four colleges, which is also in line with the common sense of medieval universities.
Closer to home, for this copycat version of "Hogwarts School of Divinity" that occupies the old Oxford school site, time travelers naturally divided it into four branches: Gryffindor House, which uses the lion as its symbol, and eagle as its symbol. Ravenclaw House as its symbol, Hufflepuff House as its symbol of the badger, and The symbol of Slytherin House is a snake, and the symbol of Hogwarts is a big fat cat... This is not that time travelers like Wang Qiu and Ma Tong blindly copy the settings of "Harry Potter" , causing trouble for yourself, but out of some practical needs:
The first is to divide the houses according to the gender of the students. Ravenclaw House and Hufflepuff House only admit girls, while Gryffindor House and Slytherin House only admit boys. In the Middle Ages, it was already a standard for women to enroll. A shocking thing: all universities in these days admitted only men, and this was still the case until the 18th century! If we talk about allowing women to enroll in school, we can also use the words "after the great plague, countries were extremely short of manpower and there were not enough men" and "women are more suitable to take care of patients", and cited the nuns who served as nurses during the plagues and wars in the Middle Ages. Let’s use the examples of sick and wounded patients to explain. Then even the "angel"'s order might not be able to withstand the matter of letting boys and girls attend classes together.
(In the UK, the earliest girls’ schools appeared in the early 19th century, and they were still poor colleges affiliated with monasteries. Noble girls’ schools did not exist until the mid-19th century. Co-educational schools were almost in the 20th century, even earlier. The aristocratic ladies of that era were either illiterate or could only hire tutors)
Secondly, the colleges are divided according to the teaching language. Hufflepuff College and Slytherin College teach in Italian and mainly recruit students from various Italian city-states and kingdoms. Gryffindor House and Ravenclaw House teach classes in French, and mainly recruit students from France and England. At this time, England is still a remote French town from a legal perspective, and has not been completely separated to form a nation. nation. Most of the British aristocratic families also originated in France, so all British gentlemen and ladies with some status can basically speak French. Even as a daily language, official documents in England are also drafted in French. Only the uneducated lower class speak French. Talent only speaks English...
In short, this copycat version of "Hogwarts School of Divinity", which was renovated from Oxford University, roughly presents the following camp division:
Gryffindor House - British and French Men;
Ravenclaw House - British and French Women;
Hufflepuff House - Italian Woman;
Slytherin House - Italian Man.
The above arrangement fully reflects the political reality that this college is mainly jointly owned by Italians, British and French.
Of course, Hufflepuff House and Slytherin House are still above ground, not stuffed into any cellar like "Harry Potter".
As for why the four colleges were given such names, the time travelers explained that they were names of archangels, and medieval Europeans were relieved.
In addition to the four colleges mentioned above, considering the appalling literacy rate in medieval Europe, the time-travelers also organized a literacy class in Oxford for those illiterate students to further their studies. The few guys who survived were responsible for teaching newcomers how to read - but in this way, it was almost like turning Oxford University into a Hogwarts preschool. It was really high-end and classy to the extreme!
However, although it is easy to recruit students and it is not difficult to obtain teaching venues, it is not so easy to train teachers. For the time being, time travelers can only make guest appearances, because only they can use so-called "magic" - although these so-called spells, It's just something Doraemon wrote randomly in that [Magic Encyclopedia Dictionary], but the question is, how could Europeans in the Middle Ages understand Japanese?
Fortunately, the time-travelers can also label those Japanese "spells" with the corresponding Roman letters one by one, and then directly take out the combination of these Roman letters and write them into a booklet, forcing students from various European countries in the Middle Ages to memorize them by rote. , if that doesn’t work, just follow those cartoons Just like the magicians in "Spell Manual", you just need to use the "Spell Manual" to cast spells - anyway, there are only more than thirty spells in total, and the caster does not need to have any special talents. No matter how difficult it is to speak, just recite it over and over. Once you become fluent, you will gradually be able to release fireballs, lightning and healing spells.
What's more, in view of the current imminent threat of the plague, Hogwarts School of Divinity is currently only holding short training courses.
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“...Since European countries are still under the threat of the outbreak of the plague, in order to allow more Christians to enjoy the salvation of the Lord while they are alive, instead of having their souls taken away by the God of Death, we plan to cultivate a group of people as quickly as possible. The training period for the batch of therapists is three days. As long as they master the [Complete Healing Technique] and [Group Healing Technique], they can graduate and go to various places to treat diseases and save people. The learning of other spells can be delayed for a while. "
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Wang Qiu explained to the distinguished guests while taking out a stack of small cards decorated with cartoon images of cat heads and cat paw prints. The front and back were printed with "Complete Healing Technique" and "Group Healing Technique" translated into Roman pronunciation respectively. Japanese mantra, distribute one to each of them, "...and there is no need to prepare textbooks, just give each student a card like this, let them flow If you recite the incantation above carefully, you can cast the holy light of healing... In line with the principle of teaching without discrimination, we basically recruited all the literate people we could collect, and collected a total of one thousand Many people. After they rush to various places and teach the spell to others around them, the plague sweeping Europe will soon subside..."
"...Oh, thank God, thank you angels for your generosity, so that humble and pious mortals can stay away from the torture of illness..."
Pope Clement VI took the spell card with great excitement, and burst into tears with excitement, "...but, what about the remaining spells? For example, the big move you used to summon heavenly fire to burn down London? And a wave of your hand Will the magic that destroys a whole street be taught to us?”
He looked at Wang Qiu eagerly, with a look of expectation on his face, while the other kings, queens and governors also quietly pricked up their ears.
"...Of course, Mr. Pope, the purpose of our opening this school is to spread the power of God to the earth, so that more kind people can bathe in the gift of the Lord (actually, it is mainly for scoring points and having fun)... Therefore, we will all know the thirty mantras that the gods allowed to teach this time. Leave it to any devout person without reservation, and you can arrange for anyone who meets the criteria to come to Hogwarts to learn 'divine arts'... However, in my opinion, on some key issues, instead of blindly relying on It would be better for others to take the power into their own hands..."
Wang Qiu said with a calm smile, and at the same time handed several cat-shaped student badges to all the noble guests, "... I wonder if your majesties, besides attending the opening ceremony, are interested in becoming the third student of Hogwarts?" First-time formal students, how about listening to our magical courses?”
Naturally, the King of Scotland, the Queen of England, the Doge of Venice, the Queen of Naples and His Majesty the Pope all readily agreed...
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Then, after three days of intensive study, more than a thousand "quick version healers" who had memorized spells to a dim level were finally able to recite healing spells that were very strange and difficult for them to pronounce, and cast holy healing spells with their own hands. Healing white light... Then he carefully carried the healing spell card "gifted by the angel", left Hogwarts, and embarked on the great road of eliminating the plague and saving the world - about Half of them signed a lifelong contract with the Venice Chamber of Commerce and were considered wage earners of the Venetian merchants; the remaining two-thirds were church members... In addition, before the crash course ended, Doraemon also gave these therapists every Someone gave a pet cat and ordered it to be carefully raised, in order to educate those ignorant people who are hostile to cats. It is necessary to make every saved Christian deeply understand that cats are sacred animals favored by God!
At the same time, the first regular students of "Hogwarts School of Divinity" officially started school after the crash course. They were personally taught by the "angels" and began to practice the spells with more powerful effects. Other spells that are also more "esoteric"...