submission of the burgesses to his authority, and his disposition to deal mercifully with them, proceeds to impose upon them certain penalties. One of these is the remission of half the fixed rent payable for halls tenanted by scholars, for a period of ten years. Another is the payment of fifty-two shillings yearly for the support of poor scholars, and the obligation to feast one hundred poor scholars every year on St. Nicholas’s Day. They are also to swear that, in future, they will furnish the scholars with provisions at a just and reasonable price; and that if they shall arrest a clerk they shall deliver him up, upon due requisition from the bishop of Lincoln or the archdeacon of Oxford, or his official, or the chancellor, or ‘him whom the bishop of Lincoln shall have deputed to this office.’ This oath is to be repeated yearly. All masters who continued to lecture after the retirement of scholars under Papal mandate are to be suspended from lecturing for three years. All townsmen convicted of participation in the original crime are to come, without shoes, hats, or cloaks, to the graves of the murdered ‘clerks,’ and are to give their bodies proper burial in a place to be solemnly chosen. Upon any default in the fulfilment of these conditions, the former sentence of excommunication is again to be enforced by the bishop of Lincoln. [Sidenote: Office of chancellor] It is to be observed that in this memorable document there is no mention of an ‘University.’ The members of the academical fraternity are called simply ‘clerks’ or ‘scholars studying at Oxford.’ It may further be inferred from the expressions respecting the chancellor, that no chancellor of the University existed distinct from the chancellor of the diocese, or, at least, that, if he existed, he was a nominee of the bishop of Lincoln. On the other hand, the scholars are recognised throughout as under the special protection of the Papal See, as well as under special jurisdiction of the bishop of Lincoln, afterwards to become _ex officio_ Visitor of the University. It seems to follow that, while the University, as a corporation, was not yet fully constituted, such a corporation already existed in an inchoate state, and the schools of Oxford enjoyed a privileged status at the supreme court of Western Christendom. When they first became, in the legal sense, an ‘University’ under a chancellor of their own, is still a disputed question, though a seal has been engraved, supposed to be of about the year 1200, which bears the inscription, ‘_Sigillum Cancellarii et Universitatis Oxoniensis_.’ Much learning has been expended on the origin of the chancellorship, and it will probably never be determined with certainty whether the earliest chancellors derived their authority exclusively from the bishop of Lincoln as diocesan, or were in the nature of elective rectors of the schools (_Rectores Scholarum_), whose election was confirmed by the bishop of Lincoln.