Here then, between the Churches of S. Martin and S. Mary, the life of this mediæval University town ebbed and flowed. In the narrow, ill-paved, dirty streets, streets that were mere winding passages, from which the light of day was almost excluded by the overhanging tops of the irregular houses, crowded a motley throng. The country folks filled the centre of the streets with their carts and strings of pack-horses; at the sides, standing beneath the signs of their calling, which projected from their houses, citizens in varied garb plied their trades, chaffering with the manciples, but always keeping their bow-strings taut, ready to promote a riot by pelting a scholar with offal from the butchers' stall, and prompt to draw their knives at a moment's notice. To and fro among the stalls moved Jews in their yellow gaberdines; black Benedictines and white Cistercians; Friars black, white and grey; men-at-arms from the Castle, and flocks of lads who had entered some grammar school or religious house to pass the first stage of the University course. Here passed a group of ragged, gaunt, yellow-visaged sophisters, returning peacefully from lectures to their inns, but with their "bastards" or daggers, as well as their leather pouches, at their waists. Here a knot of students, fantastically attired in many-coloured garments, whose tonsure was the only sign of their clerkly character, wearing beards, long hair, furred cloaks, and shoes chequered with red and green, paraded the thoroughfare, heated with wine from the feast of some determining bachelor. Here a line of servants, carrying the books of scholars or doctors to the schools, or there a procession of colleagues escorting to the grave the body of some master, and bearing before the corpse a silver cross, threaded the throng. Here hurried a bachelor in his cape, a new master in [Illustration: The High Street On the left University College. On the right All Saints' Church, Brasenose College, Church of S. Mary the Virgin, All Souls' & Queen's Colleges.] his "pynsons" or heelless shoes, a scholar of Exeter in his black boots, a full-fledged master with his tunic closely fastened about the middle by a belt and wearing round his shoulders a black, sleeveless, close gown. Here gleamed a mantle of crimson cloth, or the budge-edged hood of a doctor of law or of theology. And in the hubbub of voices which proceeded from this miscellaneous, parti-coloured mob, might be distinguished every accent, every language, and every dialect.[23] For French, German and Spanish students jostled in these streets against English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh; Kentish students mingled with students from Somersetshire or Yorkshire, and the speech of each was quite unintelligible to the other.