‘at all times when it shall be necessary, to have free entry and egress thence to restore, repair and defend the wall of the said town.’ In 1321[124] Walter Morton obtained leave to grant in mortmain to the Franciscans a place with its appurtenances, measuring five perches by five, in the suburb of Oxford; and similar licence was given to John de Grey de Retherfeld[125] in 1337 to bestow on them a tenement, six perches by five, lying next their habitation on the east side within the town. This brings us to the end of the list of grants of landed property to the Oxford Minorites--a list which we may claim to be fairly complete. It is interesting to note from what classes the donors were drawn. Most of them were men of business--the leading tradesmen of the town[126]. Three of them, Laurence Wych, John Culvard, and Richard Cary, were at various times Mayors of Oxford, and the two latter represented the city in Parliament[127]. Richard Mepham belonged to the higher rank of ecclesiastics. Master Thomas de Valeynes seems to have been a person of some importance in Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties[128]. Buildings. Of the buildings of the Friars Minors in Oxford we have disappointingly little information--with the exception of the boundary wall already mentioned there are no remains of their house now visible. Excavations might perhaps yield interesting results, but most of the ground is thickly built over, and the information derived from the records and other sources is rarely precise enough to enable us to identify with any certainty the sites of the various buildings. For the first twenty years the Friary must have presented a very modest, not to say mean, appearance, and the brethren were probably contented to take the accommodation afforded by the houses, which were granted them, with little alteration. The infirmary built by Agnellus has already been noticed. After they had been nearly a year in Oxford, the friars built a small chapel[129]. In 1232, the King gave them ‘thirty beams in the royal forest of Savernak for the fabric of their chapel which they are having built at Oxford,’ adding that ‘if any one in the same bailiwick shall wish to give them timber, the bailiff shall permit them without hindrance to carry through the forest free of toll oaks to the number of thirty[130].’