We are faced with another difficult question when we proceed to consider the question of the remuneration of masters. This problem is one about which contradictory opinions have been held owing to the fact that it is disputed whether or not the education given in the schools of the Middle Ages was free education. It is indisputable that the original schools of the Church were entirely free and that the schoolmaster was remunerated by sharing equally with the other priests in the common fund of the Church. The transition from free education to fee paying education may be said to date from the time when the schoolmaster became the chancellor. The chancellor continued to draw his share of the revenue of the Church, but no express provision was made for the maintenance of the schoolmaster whom the chancellor appointed.[330] It was probably due to this neglect that the council of 1179[331] decreed that a benefice should be bestowed upon a master so as to enable him to teach the "clericos et scholares pauperes" gratis. This decree was repeated in 1200[332] and 1215.[333] It has not been found possible to trace the appointment to sinecure benefices, subject to the condition that the incumbent of such benefice should hold a school, as the record of the appointment would not also record the condition. We may safely assume that this was done in some cases, as the custom even prevails to-day.[334] In course of time, the master of a school derived a certain amount of his remuneration from the fees which he received from his pupils. This originated in a natural custom that pupils should make some voluntary offering to those who taught them. Thus, the enactment of 1200, which decreed that "presbyteri per villas scholas habeant, et gratis parvulos doceant" also practically enacted that voluntary contributions on the part of the relations of the pupils would be permitted. It is not difficult to conceive that this custom of voluntary offering would develop into one of compulsory payment. The terms used to describe these voluntary offerings are somewhat strange, _e.g._ "cock penny," "potation penny," "nutt money." "Cock pennies" were gratuities given to the schoolmasters in connection with the almost universal custom of cock-fighting which took place in schools on Shrove Tuesday. William Fitzstephen[335] gives an account of the practice, stating that "each boy in the school brings a fighting cock to his master, and the whole of that forenoon is given up to a holiday to watch the cock-fights in the school." Cock-fighting was prohibited in St. Paul's School by Colet's statute of 1518, but the custom seems to have continued at the Manchester Grammar School until 1815.[336] "Potation pennies" were gratuities made when a feast was provided, whilst "nutt money" was the term applied to the gifts made to the schoolmasters at Michaelmas.