The Oxford friars however could not have acquired their great scholastic reputation unless they had been better fitted than the seculars for the study of theology; and Friar William Woodford had little difficulty in pointing to many who, having entered the Order in their youth, ‘wrote many works of great wisdom, which remain for the advantage of the Church[261].’ The clause of the statute of 1253 which prohibited the extortion of graces or dispensations by means of the letters of influential persons was not altogether effective. When, in 1358, the bitter feeling against the friars found a spokesman in Richard Fitzralph and again burst forth into open hostility, the clause was re-enacted in a more stringent form[262]. Any one using such letters was declared for ever incapable of holding or obtaining any degree at Oxford, and the University determined to hold up these ‘wax-doctors’ to obloquy. ‘These,’ begins a proclamation of the same year[263], ‘are the names of the wax-doctors, as they are called 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[264]; 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.... These are their names: Friar Richard Lymynster incepted in theology by means of the prince’s letters, and his grace contained the condition that he should incept and not lecture, but that Friar John Nutone his predecessor should continue lecturing[265]: and Friar Giuliortus de Limosano of the Order of Minors, who asserted that he was secretary of the King of Sicily, extorted from the University, or rather from the theological faculty, by letters of the King, grace to oppose.’ These instances hardly seem to justify the violent language of the proclamation, and it is uncertain to what extent the Oxford Minorites were guilty of the practice here denounced. Wiclif repeats the charge against the Mendicants generally:-- ‘A what cursedness is this, to a dead man, as to the world, and pride and vanitie thereof, to get him a cap of masterdom by praier of Lords[266]!’