prescribed, and if any scholars retired from the college with the intention of giving up learning, or even ceased to study diligently, their salaries were no longer to be paid. If the scale of these salaries and statutable allowances was humble, it was chiefly because the founder intended the number of his scholars to be constantly increased, as the revenues of the house might be enlarged. He even recognised the duty of meeting the needs of future ages, and empowered his scholars not only to make new statutes, but even to migrate elsewhere from Oxford in case of necessity. [Sidenote: Social position, manners, and academical life of early students] If we seek to measure the effect produced by the rise of colleges on the character of the University, we must endeavour to realise the aspect of University life and manners before colleges were planted in Oxford. The students, as we have seen, were lodged in religious houses, licensed halls, or private chambers. The former were mostly destined to swell the ranks of the regular clergy, and, it may be presumed, were subjected to some wholesome rules of discipline, independent of any authority exercised by the University. As they also received the whole or the greater part of their instruction within the walls of their convents, they probably were rarely seen in the streets, cultivated a certain degree of refinement, and took comparatively little part in the riots which constantly disturbed the peace of Oxford in the Middle Ages. With the other two classes it was far otherwise. Even the inmates of halls lived in a style and under conditions which, in our own age, would be regarded as barbarism. Like other scholars, they were chiefly drawn from a social grade below that of esquires or wealthy merchants. Many of them were the less vigorous members of yeomen’s or tradesmen’s families; not a few sprang from the very lowest ranks, and actually begged their way to Oxford. The majority had probably come as mere schoolboys, at the age of eleven or twelve, to one of the numerous grammar-schools which prepared their pupils for the higher studies taught in the ‘Schools of Oxford’ properly so called. It was for these younger scholars, we may suppose, that regular ‘fetchers’ and ‘bringers’ were licensed by the University, as we learn from a document of 1459, though some were attended by private servants. The older scholars, however, doubtless travelled in parties, for the sake of protection and economy, with their scanty baggage slung over the backs of pack-horses. Having safely arrived in Oxford, they would disperse to their several halls; and it does not appear that, at this period, a freshman underwent any process of matriculation or took any oath before acquiring the privileges of the University. He would, of course, share his bedroom, if not his bed, with others, and be content with the roughest fare, but he must also have dispensed with nearly all