The scholars from the different London schools met at the Priory for disputations on grammar and logic, and wrangled together in verse. John Stow says: “I myself, in my youth, have yearly seen on the eve of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, the scholars of divers grammar schools repair unto the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, the Priory in Smithfield, where upon a bank boarded about under a tree, some one scholar hath stepped up, and there hath opposed and answered till he were by some better scholar overcome and put down; and then the overcomer taking his place did like as the first. And in the end, the best opposers and answerers had rewards, which I observed not but it made both good schoolmasters and also good scholars, diligently against such times to prepare themselves for the obtaining of this garland. I remember there repaired to these exercises, amongst others, the masters and scholars of the free schools of St. Paul’s in London, of St. Peter’s at Westminster, of St. Thomas Acon’s Hospital, and of St. Anthonie’s Hospital; whereof the last named commonly presented the best scholars, and had the prize in those days. This Priory of St. Bartholomew being surrendered to Henry VIII., those disputations of scholars in that place surceased; and was again, only for a year or twain, revived in the cloister of Christ’s Hospital, where the best scholars, then still of St. Anthonie’s School, howsoever the same be now fallen both in number and estimation, were rewarded with bows and arrows of silver, given to them by Sir Martin Bower, goldsmith. Nevertheless, however, the encouragement failed; the scholars of St. Paul’s, meeting with them of St. Anthonie’s, would call them Anthonie’s Pigs, and they again would call the other Pigeons of Paul’s, because many pigeons were bred in St. Paul’s Church, and St. Anthonie was always figured with a pig following him; and mindful of the former usage, did for a long season disorderly provoke one another in the open street with _Salve tu quoque, placet mecum disputare? Placet!_ And so proceeding from this to questions in grammar, they usually fell from words to blows, with their satchels full of books, many times in great heaps that they troubled the streets and passengers; so that finally they were restrained with the decay of St. Anthonie’s School.”