to leave the College "uxore ducta," giving up his emolument, his clerical dress, and the tonsure. Even if a Fellow enjoyed the Founder's provision for the long period of his course in Arts and Theology, and proceeded in due time to Holy Orders, it was not contemplated that he should remain a Fellow till his death. "... he had geten him yet no benefyce, Ne was so worldly for to have offyce," says Chaucer, indicating the natural end of a scholar's career. He might betake himself to some "obsequium," and rise high in the service of the king, or of some great baron or bishop, and become, like one of Wykeham's first New College scholars, Henry Chichele, an archbishop and a College founder himself. Should no such great career open up for him, he can, at the least, succeed to one of the livings which the founders of English colleges purchased for this purpose. His "obsequium" would naturally lead to his ceasing to reside, and so vacate his (p. 074) fellowship, and his acceptance of a benefice over a certain value brought about the same result. Some such event was expected to happen to every Fellow; unless he happened to be elected to the Headship, it was not intended that he should grow old in the College, and at Queen's College, Oxford, the arbitrary or unreasonable refusal of a benefice vacated a Fellowship. The object of the College Founder was, that there should never be wanting a succession of men qualified to serve God in Church and State, and to Chaucer's unworldly clerk, if he was a member of a College, there would come, in due course, the country living and goodbye to the University. But statutes were not always strictly observed and the idle life-Fellow, who survived to be the scandal of early Victorian days, was not unknown in the end of the Middle Ages.