[360] The _pileum_ placed on the head of the new master of arts in the xv? and xvi centuries, probably symbolised the termination of the _status pupillaris_. Cf. _Haec mera libertas, hoc nobis pilea donant_; and _servos ad pileum vocare_ (Livy). The tall silk hat signified the same thing. It was worn by young _M.A.’s_, and by the ‘Hat-fellow-commoners,’ and is still worn by _M.A.’s_ on a visit to their _alma mater_ though not by resident ‘dons.’ [361] This was not worn at Trinity, King’s, and one or two other colleges. [362] It is interesting to note that the Scotch universities retain the violet gown. The Scots’ College in Rome (founded in 1600) dresses its collegians in a violet cassock, over which is a black _soprana_. [363] Bachelors of arts whether they be scholars reading for a fellowship or young graduates preparing for the ‘Second Part’ of a tripos, are still _in statu pupillari_. Perhaps, then, the more important gown, the bachelor’s, retained this vestige of the older dress which has been lost in the modification undergone by the undergraduates’. That the strings indicate a state of dependence is confirmed by their being found on the dress of the pope’s lay chamberlains called _camerieri di cappa e spada_; the papal palfrey men and other domestics being also provided with them. [364] A custom now dying out. [365] Christopher Wordsworth became Master of his college. [366] Studies were much later additions in the colleges, and at first a room would be fitted with 8 or 10 ‘studies,’ alcoves or cabinets 5 ft. 6 in. by 6 ft., which would be eagerly hired by students. Sometimes the studies were furnished by the pensioners with the necessary desk and shelves. No attempt at decoration of college rooms appears to have been made till the poet Gray placed scented flowers in his window and bought Japanese vases of the blue and white china afterwards to become so fashionable--which caused much remark. When young peers came up to Cambridge attended by their tutor and an ample _suite_ the colleges were much put about to lodge them, and we find Lady Rutland as early as 1590 sending hangings for her son’s with-drawing-room at Corpus. [367] The enmity of ‘town and gown,’ a consequence, no doubt, of the thronging of our university towns with an alien population, is traditional, and we first hear of it in 1249 before any colleges were built. Fifty years later (in 1305) the townsmen attacked the gownsmen, wounding and beating both masters and scholars “to the manifest delaying of their study” says the King’s letter on the subject (33rd of Edw. I.). Bad relations between ‘town and gown’ prevailed throughout the reign of Elizabeth. Cf. v. p. 261.