It had formerly been enacted (1333) that since the absence of the Chancellor was the cause of many perils, his office should become vacant if he were to absent himself from the University for a month during full term. But in the course of the fifteenth century the Chancellor changed from a biennial and resident official to a permanent and non-resident one. He was chosen now for his power as a friend at court, and by the court, as it grew more despotic and ecclesiastically minded, he was used as an agent for coercing the University. To-day the Chancellorship is a merely honorary office, usually bestowed on successful politicians. The Chancellor appoints a Vice-Chancellor, but usage compels him to appoint heads of houses in order of seniority. This right of appointment dates from the time when the Duke of Wellington, as Chancellor, dispensed with the formality of asking convocation for its assent to the appointment of his nominee. Having sketched thus far the development of the office which represents the power and dignity of the University, we may now turn to consider the position of the young apprentices from their earliest initiation into this guild of learning. The scholars of mediæval Universities were your true cosmopolitans. They passed freely from the University of one country to that of another by virtue of the freemasonry of knowledge. Despising the dangers of the sea, the knight-errants of learning went from country to country, like the bee, to use the metaphor applied by S. Athanasius to S. Anthony, in order to obtain the best instruction in every school. They went without let or hindrance, with no passport but the desire to learn, to Paris, like John of Salisbury, Stephen Langton or Thomas Becket, if they were attracted by the reputation of that University in Theology; to Bologna, if they wished to sit at the feet of some famous lecturer in Civil Law. Emperors issued edicts for their safe conduct and protection when travelling in their dominions--even when warring against the Scots, Edward III. issued general letters of protection for all Scottish scholars who desired to repair to Oxford or Cambridge--and when they arrived at their destination, of whatever nationality they might be, they found there as a rule little colonies of their own countrymen already established and ready to receive them. Dante was as much at home in the straw-strewn Schools Street in Paris as he would have found himself at Padua or at Oxford, had he chanced to study there. It has indeed been suggested that he did study there in the year 1313. Like Chaucer, he may have done so, but probably did not. There is certainly a reference to Westminster in the "Inferno" (xii. 119); but it is not necessary to go to Oxford in order to learn that London and Westminster are on the banks of the Thames.