The friars who were sent up to Oxford had usually completed their eight years' study of Arts in the Friars' schools, and were probably chosen for the promise they had shown in the course of their earlier studies. Their academic studies were confined to the Faculty of Theology, in its wide mediæval sense, and of Canon Law, the hand-maid of theology. But though the regulars were for the most part subject to the same regulations as the secular students in these faculties, yet the Orders were bound before long to find themselves in antagonism with the customs of the University. The rules of the Preaching Friars forbade them to take a degree in Arts; the University required that the student of theology should have graduated in Arts. The issue was definitely raised in 1253, and became the occasion of a statute, providing that for the future no one should incept in Theology unless he had previously ruled in Arts in some University and read one book of the Canon, or of the Sentences, and publicly preached in the University. This statute was challenged some fifty years later by the Dominicans, and gave rise to a bitter controversy which involved the Mendicant Orders in much odium. The Dominicans appealed first to the King and then to the Pope, but the award of the arbitrators appointed upheld the statute. The right of granting dispensations, however, or graces to incept in Theology, to those who had not ruled in Arts, was reserved to the Chancellor and Masters. A clause which prohibited the extortion of such "graces" by means of the letters of influential persons was inserted, but was not altogether effective. Certain friars who had used letters of this kind are named in a proclamation of the year 1358. "These are the names of the wax-doctors who seek to extort graces from the University by means of letters of lords sealed with wax, or because they run from hard study as wax runs from the face of fire. Be it known that such wax-doctors are always of the Mendicant Orders, the cause whereof we have found; for by apples and drink, as the people fables, they draw boys to their religion, and do not instruct them after their profession, as their age demands, but let them wander about begging, and waste the time when they could learn in currying favour with lords and ladies." From an educational point of view no doubt the University was right in insisting on the preliminary training in Arts. Roger Bacon speaks with contempt of the class that was springing up in his day--people who studied theology and nothing but theology, "and had never learnt anything of real value. Ignorant of all parts and sciences of mundane philosophy, they venture on the study of philosophy which demands all human wisdom. So they have become masters in theology and philosophy before they were disciples." The tendency and the danger of our modern educational system is to specialise, not in theology but in science, without any proper previous training in the humanities.