It was in 1244 that the first important extension of the Chancellor's jurisdiction was made. Some students had made a raid upon Jewry and sacked the houses of their creditors. They were committed to prison by the civil authorities. Grossetete insisted on their being handed over to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. As the outcome of this riot Henry III. presently issued a decree of great importance. By it all disputes concerning debts, rents and prices, and all other "contracts of moveables," in which one party was an Oxford clerk, were referred to the Chancellor for trial. This new power raised him at once to a position very different from that which he had hitherto enjoyed as the mere representative of the Bishop of Lincoln. "He was invested henceforth with a jurisdiction which no Legate or Bishop could confer and no civil judge could annul." A charter followed in 1248, which authorised the Chancellor and proctors to assist at the assaying of bread and beer by the mayor and bailiffs. On admission to office the latter were required to swear to respect the liberties and customs of the University, and the town, in its corporate capacity, was made responsible for injuries inflicted on scholars. The Chancellor's jurisdiction was still further extended in 1255. To his spiritual power, which he held according to the ordinary ecclesiastical law and to the civil jurisdiction conferred upon him in 1244, a new charter now added the criminal jurisdiction even over laymen, for breach of the peace. By this charter Henry III. provided that, "for the peace, tranquillity and advantage of the University of scholars of Oxford, there be chosen four aldermen and eight discreet and legal burghers associated with them, to assist the Mayors and Bailiffs to keep the peace and hold the Assizes and to seek out malefactors and disturbers of the peace and night-vagabonds, and harbourers of robbers. Two officers shall also be elected in each parish to make diligent search for persons of suspicious character, and every one who takes a stranger in under his roof for more than three nights must be held responsible for him. No retail dealer may buy victuals on their way to market or buy anything with the view of selling again before nine in the morning, under penalty of forfeit and fine. If a layman assault a clerk, let him be immediately arrested, and if the assault prove serious, let him be imprisoned in the Castle and detained there untill he give satisfaction to the clerk in accordance with the judgment of the Chancellor and the University. If a clerk shall make a grave or outrageous assault upon a layman, let him be imprisoned in the aforesaid Castle untill the Chancellor demand his surrender; if the offence be a light one, let him be confined in the town prison untill he be set free by the Chancellor.