The truth seems to me to be that the feeling at Cambridge was one of suspicion, and there are indications that the bishops of Ely in an awkward fashion were opposed to anything like _secular education_. We hear of money being left to support _priests_ studying theology, and of an experiment for introducing scholars as residents in the Hospital of St. John. The canons were to take in the young scholars as _boarders_ into their house, and look after their conduct and morals. The plan did not answer. It was an attempt to put new wine into old bottles. There came an explosion. Cambridge in the thirteenth century had not the _men_ that Oxford had, so Oxford kept the lead. Perhaps there was some soreness. Did ecclesiastics shake their heads as they saw the walls of Balliol College rise, and learnt that there was just a little too much importance given to mere scholarship, and no prominence given to theology in those early statutes of 1282? Did they, without knowing why, anticipate with anxiety the awakening of a spirit of free thought and free inquiry among those scholars of the Merton, Rule? Did the orthodox party resort to prophecy, which is seldom very complimentary or cheerful in its utterances? This is certain, that while Balliol College was building there was a stir among the Benedictines, and an effort made to assert themselves and take their place among the learned. John Giffard started his great college for the reception of student monks at Oxford. It became, and for centuries continued to be, the resort of the Benedictine order, and was supported by levies from a large number of the old monasteries. The inference is forced upon us that the English monasteries no longer stood in the front rank as seats of learning. Students and scholars would no longer go to the monks; the monks must go to the scholars. But the establishment of a seminary for the reception of young monks at Oxford tended to the strengthening of the ecclesiastical influence in that University. Cambridge lost in the same proportion that Oxford gained. Even the great Priory of Norwich sent its promising young monks to Qxford, passing by the nearer and more conveniently situated University. As early as 1288 we find entries in the Norwich Priory Rolls of payments for the support of the schools and scholars at Oxford. It was long after this that Cambridge offered any similar attraction to the "religious."