ABSTRACT
The original "profession" was the clerical profession. Before 1500 one made a profession by taking religious vows. The key requirement for membership in a monastic order was to be bound by vows of poverty, chastity, stability, and obedience - especially obedience. The promotion of knowledge in general and truth above all is transformed into an expectation that professional academics will develop and improve their scholarly competence, maintain the standards of their discipline, and observe their responsibilities to the specialization of their subjects. As one function of a code is to specify the responsibility and efficacy of academic practice, it must provide for ways of auditing results. For instance, if an academic is supposed to preserve and advance knowledge, then the code must specify what counts as doing this. The primary reason for developing a code is to demonstrate that the competencies in which academicians are interested are of value to society at large, and hence should be promoted and conserved.
