DOCTOR, denoting etymologieally a teacher, is the title conferred by the highest university degree. Originally there were only two steps in graduation, those of bachelor and master, and the title doctor was given to certain masters as an alternative or as a merely honorary appella-tion. It, is in thi.s sense that the word is to be understood in the phrase Doctor Angelicus applied to Aquinas, and in many other familiar instances of a similar kind. The process by which the doctorate became established as a third degree, distinct from and superior to that of master, cannot be very clearly traced. At Bologna it seems to have been conferred in the faculty of law as early as the 12th centnry, but there is no sufficient authority for the statement commonly made that the celebrated Irnerius drew up the formulary for the ceremonial, and that Bulgarus was the first who took the degree. Paris, the other great university of the Middle Ages, conferred the degree in the faculty of divinity, according to Antony Wood, some time after 1150, the earliest recipients being Peter Lombard and Gilbert de la Portree. In England the degree was intro-duced in the reign of John or of Henry III. Both in Emdand and on the Continent it was confined for a con-siderable period to the faculties of law and divinity ; it was not until the 14th century that it began to be conferred in medicine, and in England it is still unknown in the faculty of arts. In Germany, however, there is a degree of doctor of philosophy. The doctorate of music was first conferred at Oxford and Cambridge ; its use in Germany is comparatively recent. See UNIVERSITIES.