The influence of other political classes was now also introduced. Never, as Newman said, has a learned institution been more directly political and national than the University of Oxford. Some of its colleges came to represent the talent of the nation, others its rank and fashion, others its wealth; others have been the organs of the Government of the day; while others, and the majority, represented one or other division, chiefly local, of opinion in the country. The local limitation of the members of many colleges, the West Country character of Exeter, the North Country character of Queen's or University, the South Country character of New College, the Welsh character of Jesus College, for instance, tended to accentuate this peculiarity. The whole nation was thus brought into the University by means of the colleges, which fortunately were sufficiently numerous, and no one of them overwhelmingly important. A vigour and a stability were thus imparted to the University such as the abundant influx of foreigners had not been able to secure. As in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, French, German and Italian students had flocked to Oxford, and made its name famous in distant lands; so in the fifteenth all ranks and classes of the land furnished it with pupils, and what was wanting in their number or variety, compared with the former era, was made up by their splendour or political importance. The sons of the nobles came up to the University, each accompanied by an ample retinue; the towns were kept in touch with the University by means of the numerous members of it who belonged to the clerical order. Town and country, high and low, north and south, had a common stake in the academical institutions, and took a personal interest in the academical proceedings. The degree possessed a sort of indelible character which all classes understood; and the people at large were more or less partakers of a cultivation which the aristocracy were beginning to appreciate. Oxford, in fact, became the centre of national and political thought. Not only in vacations and term time was there a stated ebbing and flowing of the academical youth, but messengers posted to and fro between Oxford and all parts of the country in all seasons of the year. So intimate was this connection, that Oxford became, as it were, the selected arena for the conflicts of the various interests of the nation. CHAPTER VI OXFORD AND THE REFORMATION