St. Frideswide's Priory did not, according to the latest authority on mediæval universities, Mr. Rashdall, create Oxford University,[4] but reasons of convenience of access and other like matter-of-fact causes; for, if the University had needed only a religious house round which to cluster, the neighbouring monastery of Abingdon was far larger and more suitable. Yet there is great probability that the first germs of the University were produced by the Priory. It is said, indeed, that the Mercian kings built inns or halls in the neighbourhood of the convent, but we may suspect this as a legendary statement not more substantiable than the story of King Alfred's founding University College, since the first actual notice of "Oxeneford" does not occur till 912. But it is much more certain that, during the wise rule of Guimond (1122-1141), the first Regular Prior, and of Robert of Cricklade,[5] his successor, there was a school connected with the convent, as indeed was the case with most convents, and probably with St. Frideswide's itself before Guimond's time. This school stood near the west end of the church, about the middle of what is now Tom Quad. Writing of the arrival of Vacarius, in King Stephen's reign, Mr. J.R. Green says:--"We know nothing of the causes which drew students and teachers within the walls of Oxford. It is possible that here, as elsewhere, the new teacher had quickened older educational foundations, and that the cloisters of Osney and St. Frideswide already possessed schools which burst into a larger life under the impulse of Vacarius." The Priory was also one of the centres of university life in its early days, occupying perhaps in some sort the position held by St. Mary's at the present day. From the time of the Translation of St. Frideswide, the chancellor and scholars of the University used to go in Mid-Lent and on Ascension Day "in a general procession to her church, as the mother-church of the University and town, there to pray, preach, and offer oblations to her shrine." The Civil Law School belonged to St. Frideswide's as well as St. Patrick's Schools, and some others situated near to School Street. Among the Halls that the Priors possessed, Brend Hall was in 1438 made over to Lincoln College; Urban Hall and Bekes Inn were bought by Bishop Fox to procure a site for Corpus Christi College.