Certainly the elders gave their pupils sport enough after their kind, but the intellectual quarrels of the schoolmen, the furious controversies of the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Scotists and the Thomists, the Nominalists and the Realists, were a part of it. When the excitement of local riots, theological disputes and political dissension failed, there were the exactions of a Papal representative to be resisted. And when such resistance led to the citation of the Chancellor and Proctors and certain masters to appear within sixty days before the Cardinal appointed by the Pope to hear the case at Avignon, there was the whole principle that no Englishman should be dragged across the seas to judgment to be fought for (_circa_ 1330). For every man was a politician in those days, and the scholars of Oxford not least. Their quarrels and riotings were therefore not without political significance. Thus when the Mad Parliament met in the "new house of the Black Friars at Oxford," the behaviour of the barons was reflected by that of students. The "nations" pitched their field in "Beaumont," and after a fierce fight in battle array, divers on both sides were slain and pitifully wounded. The Northerners and Welshmen were at last acknowledged to be conquerors. The position of the students with regard to the country, is indicated by the old rhyme: "Mark the Chronicles aright When Oxford scholars fall to fight Before many months expired England will with war be fired." It was Oxford, the centre of English ecclesiasticism, which, by the riot that hounded the Papal Legate out of the city, gave the signal for a widespread outbreak of resistance to the wholesale pillage of excessive Papal taxation. Regardless of the gathering storm, the Legate Cardinal Otho had arrived at Oxford with his retinue of Italians, and taken up his abode at Osney. Some members of the University, having sent him some delicacies for his table, went to pay their respects in person, and to ask of him a favour in return. The doorkeeper, however, a suspicious Italian, absolutely refused to admit them to the guests' hall. Irritated by this unexpected rebuff, they collected a great number of their comrades, and made a determined attack on the foreigners, who defended themselves with sticks, swords and flaming brands plucked from the fire. The fury of the clerks reached its height when the Legate's chief cook took up a cauldron full of boiling broth, and threw its contents in the face of a poor Irish chaplain, who had been begging for food at the kitchen door. A student thereupon drew his bow, and shot the cook dead on the spot, whilst others tried to set fire to the massive gates which had been closed against them. The terrified Legate, hastily putting on a canonical cope, fled for refuge to the belfry of the abbey, and there lay hid for several hours, while the clerks assailed the building with bows and catapults.