Not only were questions of public policy and "constitutional usage" determined by the Chancellor's court, but delinquents of all descriptions were brought up for judgment. Here we shall do well to remember that this was an ecclesiastical court, and therefore offences against good morals as well as the law of the land were dealt with. A person unjustly defamed as guilty of incontinence could clear himself by a voluntary process of compurgation--that is, by the sworn testimony of reputable friends. If, unhappily, he was guilty, he might rehabilitate himself by formally abjuring his indiscretions. Both scholars and others of the Privilege frequently appeared before the Chancellor in the character of penitents. In 1443 a certain Christina, laundress of St. Martin's parish, swore that she would no longer exercise her trade for any scholar or scholars of the University, because under colour of it many evils had been perpetrated, wherefore she was imprisoned and freely abjured the aforesaid evils in the presence of Master Thomas Gascoigne, S.T.P., the Chancellor. In 1444 Dominus Hugo Sadler, priest, swore on the Holy Gospels that he would not disturb the peace of the University, and would abstain from pandering and fornication, on pain of paying five marks on conviction. In this case four acted as sureties, singly and jointly. In 1452 Robert Smyth, _alias_ Harpmaker, suspected of adultery with Joan Fitz-John, tapestry-maker, dwelling in the corner house on the east side of Cat-strete, abjured the society of the same Joan, and swore that he would not come into any place where she was, whether in the public street, market, church, or chapel, on pain of paying forty shillings to the University. On August 22, 1450, Thomas Blake, _peliparius_, William Whyte, barber, John Karyn, _chirothecarius_, "husbundemen" (householders), presented themselves before the Chancellor, and, touching the Holy Gospels, abjured the game of tennis within Oxford and its precinct. At this point it will be convenient to refer to a custom not by any means confined to the Universities, about which there appears to be some degree of misconception. "Love-days," as they are called, have been strangely confused with _law_-days, whereas the very essence of the institution was the avoidance of litigation with all its expense and ill-feeling. The practice of submitting disputes to friendly arbitration was seemingly founded on the text: "Dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unbelievers and not before the saints?" In these circumstances it is not surprising that the clergy bore a great part in such proceedings; and thus we find Chaucer avouching of his Frere: In love-dayes ther coude he mochel helpe, For ther he was nat lyk a cloisterer, With a thredbare cope, as is a poore scoler, But he was lyk a maister or a pope.