The front quadrangle of All Souls' remains very much as the founder left it; the hall and the noble Codrington Library in the Italian style, the cloister of the great quadrangle and the odd twin towers belong to the first half of the eighteenth century. The latter are curious specimens of that mixture of the Gothic and Renaissance styles (Nicholas Hawksmoor), of which the best that can be said is that "the architect has blundered into a picturesque scenery not devoid of grandeur" (Walpole). The political and social troubles of the fifteenth century brought about a period of darkness and stagnation in the University. The spirit of independence and reform had been crushed by the ecclesiastics. Oxford had learnt her lesson. She took little part in politics, but played the time-server, and was always loyal--to one party or the other. She neglected her duties; she neither taught nor thought, but devoted all her energies and resources to adorning herself with beautiful colleges and buildings. And for us the result of this meretricious policy is the possession of those glorious buildings which mark the interval between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For the University now built herself schools that were worthy of her dower of knowledge. There was a vacant spot at the end of Schools Street belonging to Balliol College, lying between the town wall on the north and Exeter College on the west. On this site it was determined to erect a School of Divinity (1424). Donations flowed in from the bishops and monasteries. But in spite of all economy funds ran short. The building had to be discontinued for a while (1444). The gift of 500 marks from the executors of Cardinal Beaufort, a former Chancellor, enabled the graduates to proceed with their work. They made strenuous efforts to raise money. They put a tax on all non-resident masters and bachelors; they offered "graces" for sale; they applied to the Pope and bishops for saleable indulgences. In return for a contribution of one hundred pounds from the old religious orders, they agreed to modify the ancient statutes concerning the admission of monks to academical degrees. Some of these methods of raising the necessary monies are doubtless open to criticism, but we cannot cavil when we look upon the noble building which the graduates were thus enabled to raise. The Divinity School, to which, Casaubon declared, nothing in Europe was comparable, was, with its "vaulting of peculiar skill," used, though not completed, in 1466.