and bailiffs of the town to deal fairly with members of the university in the matter or lodgings, and enjoins them to establish according to “university custom” two masters and two liegemen of the town to act as “taxors.”[61] Dating the rescript from Oxford on the third day of May the king writes: “It is already sufficiently known to you that a multitude of scholars has gathered to our town of Cambridge, for the sake of study, both from the regions near home and from beyond the seas; the which is most grateful and acceptable to us, because it gives an example of no small convenience to our whole realm, and our honour is thereby increased; and you especially, among whom these students are loyally dwelling should feel it matter of no little gratulation and rejoicing.”[62] In the second rescript, dated from Oxford on the same day, the king enjoins that no clerk shall live in the town (_quod nullus clericus moretur in villa_) who is not under a _magister scholarum_.[63] [Sidenote: Charters and Bulls. Charter of Hen. III. A.D. 1231. Bull of John XXII. A.D. 1317.] These letters patent addressed to the mayor and burgesses of the town by Henry III. in 1231 are the earliest existing document which can be regarded in the light of a university charter.[64] At the same time it appears by no means certain that royal letters had not been addressed earlier to Cambridge in which the [Illustration: ORIEL WINDOW OF THE HALL, TRINITY GREAT COURT In the nearer part of the picture is the Master’s Lodge, and in the far distance two turrets of King’s Chapel stand up against the evening sky.] academic society there was treated as a moral entity. In the following reign the jury of Cambridge made oath to the effect that “the Chancellor and Masters of the university had appropriated to themselves more ample liberties than were warranted in the charters granted them by the king’s predecessors”;[65] and in the same way when, at the request of Edward II., John XXII. erects Cambridge into a _studium generale_ in the second year of his pontificate, he reaffirms and confirms the privileges with which his predecessors in the apostolic chair and the English kings had adorned the university: _omnia privilegia et indulta praedicto studio ... a pontificibus et regibus praedictis concessa_.[66] In this instrument he refers to Cambridge university as _studium ab olim ibi ordinatum_, “the university from old time there established.” Cambridge and Oxford, however, like the earliest centres of learning in Italy and France--Bologna and Paris--_grew into universities_; papal authorisations follow instead of preceding their institution. In other cases universities were definite creations which make their first appearance with a bull of institution and inauguration attached to them.[67]