Halls, it will have been observed, were known also by the name of entries and inns or (deriving from the French) hostels. And that in fact is what they were. The principal, who might originally have been the senior student of a party who had taken a house in which to study, or the owner of the house himself, derived a good income from keeping a boarding-house of this kind. He was responsible to the University for the good conduct of his men, and to his men, one must suppose, for their comfort. The position of principal was soon much sought after, and the ownership of a good hostel, with a good connection, would fetch a price like a public-house to-day. It was found necessary, however, to decree that the principal of a hall should be a master, and should not cater for the other inmates. Payments for food were therefore made by the students to an upper servant, known as a manciple, whose duty it was to go to market in the morning and there buy provisions for the day, before the admission of the retail-dealers at nine o'clock. The amount which each student contributed to the common purse for the purchase of provisions was known as "Commons." It varied from eight to eighteen pence a week. Extra food obtained from the manciple to be eaten in private was called "Battels." The principal could only maintain his position and fill his hall if he satisfied the students. The government of these halls was therefore highly democratic. A new principal could only succeed if he was accepted by the general opinion of the inmates and received their voluntary allegiance. On coming up to Oxford the student, however little he might intend to devote his life to the Church, adopted, if he had not done so before, clerical tonsure and clerical garb. By so doing he became entitled to all the immunities and privileges of the clerical order. He was, now, so long as he did not marry, exempt from the secular courts, and his person was inviolable. No examination or ceremony of any kind seems to have been required in order to become a member of the University. Attendance at lectures, after a declaration made to a resident master to the effect that the student purposed to attend them, was enough to entitle him to the privileges of that corporation. The germ of the modern system of matriculation may perhaps be traced in the statute (1420), which required that all scholars and scholars' servants, who had attained years of discretion, should swear before the Chancellor that they would observe the statutes for the repression of riots and disorders.