[326] The proctors are appointed according to a statutory cycle--they are nominated by the colleges in turn, two colleges nominating each year. The proctors at Oxford originally represented the north countrymen and the south countrymen. Entries of Cambridge proctors exist from 1350. The office, of course, is kin to that of the procurator of monastic orders; and the Cambridge proctors supervised Stourbridge fair, the markets, weights and measures, and all those matters which affected the supply of provisions for the university or its finances: to which were added their scholastic functions. [327] The first public orator was Richard Croke; Sir T. Smith, Sir J. Cheke, Roger Ascham, and George Herbert the poet, all held the office. Caius supposes that the master of glomery was university orator, whose duty it was to entertain princes and peers and to indite the epistles of the university on great occasions. He supposes also that as “senior regent” he collected and counted the suffrages in all congregations: the _Statutes_ however show us this officer in company with two _junior regents_ sorting the votes cast for the proctors. See also iii. p. 164 _n._ [328] Thus a guild order in 1389 runs: the alderman “ssal sende forthe the bedel to alle the bretheren and the systeren.” [329] We find Archbishop Laud writing of Oxford: “If the university would bring in some bachelors of art to be yeomen-bedels ... they which thrived well and did good service might after be preferred to be esquire-bedels.” [330] The first esquire or armiger bedell on the Cambridge register is Physwick in the xiv c.; no one else is entered for this office till 1498 when Philip Morgan held it. After him there is another esquire bedell in 1500. The yeoman bedell probably stood in the same relation to the esquire bedell as the trumpeter to the herald. The herald did not blow his own trumpet and the esquire bedell of the university was doubtless not a macebearer. The original two bedells, nevertheless, used to go before the chancellor and masters _virgam deferentes_; and Balsham in 1275 arranges that _the bedell of the master of glomery_ shall not carry his stave on these occasions, but only when on his superior’s own business. A bedell is mentioned in the xiii c. hostel statute referred to on p. 51. [331] Letter of Rennell to Stratford Canning, Nov. 16, 1807. [332] Until 1534 only those who had graduated doctor were elected to the office. [333] Principal (see vi. p. 339 _n._), warden, keeper, proctor, and rector are all titles which at one time or another were familiar in Cambridge. [334] In the xviii c. the colleges had already 4 lecturers in rhetoric, logic, ethics, and Greek. Cf. the provisions in the statutes of Christ’s College xvi c. The college _bursar_, the purse-bearer of his college, is its treasurer and oeconomus: a senior and junior bursar are appointed.