The market-place, the camp, and the baronial hall, where were sung or recited these often imaginary stories of the past, were the schools of the many unlettered; just as the conversation of Arabs and Jews around the desert fires had stimulated the imagination of the young Mahomet; but for the few who could afford a sounder education there were the universities--Paris, Bologna, Oxford, to name but three of the most famous. The word _universitas_ implied in the Middle Ages a union of men; such a corporation as the ‘guilds’ formed by fishmongers and drapers to protect their trade interests; and the universities had indeed originated for a similar purpose. Cities to-day that have universities in their midst are proud of the fact, and welcome new students; but in early mediaeval times an influx of young men of all ages from every part of Europe, many of them wild and unruly, some so poor that they must beg or steal their daily bread, was at first sight a very doubtful blessing. Street fights between nationalities who hated one another on principle, or between bands of students and citizens, were a common occurrence in the towns that learning honoured with her presence, and had their usual accompaniment of broken heads, fires, and looting. But for the _universitas_ formed by masters and students to control and protect their members, these centres of education would probably have been stamped out by indignant tradesmen: as it was they had to fight for their existence. Municipalities looked with no lenient eye upon a corporation that seemed to them a ‘state within a state’, threatening their own right to govern all within the city. It was not until after many generations that they understood the meaning of the word co-operation, that is, the possibility of assisting instead of hindering the work of the _universitas_. Sometimes a king like Philip Augustus insisted on toleration by granting to his students the ‘privilege of clergy’, but as the University grew it became able to enforce its own lessons. In the thirteenth century the Masters of Paris closed their lecture-halls and led away their flock, in protest for what they considered unfair treatment by the city authorities during a riot, and their absence taught Parisians that, in spite of head-breakings, the students were an asset, not a loss, to municipal life. Under the protection therefore of a papal ‘bull’, they returned a few weeks later in triumph to the Latin Quarter.