Franciscan students were maintained at the Universities by a system of exhibitions. These were provided sometimes by private benefactors[362], usually by the native convent of the student out of the ‘common alms,’ with the occasional assistance of other convents[363]. From the few traces which remain of the custom we may infer that the exhibition was generally reckoned at £5 a year, and that this sum covered the ordinary expenses of living[364]. Masters, lecturers and bachelors, as already stated, were supported by the convent in which they lectured[365]: but their allowance was probably not much larger than that of the ordinary student friars. Nicholas Hereford, preaching at Oxford in 1382[366], asserted that those of the Mendicants who had graduated as masters or bachelors, in addition to the ample allowance which they got from their community, begged for themselves, saying, ‘I am a bachelor (or master) and require more than others, because I ought to be able to live up to my position.’ (_Quia oportet me habere ad expendendum secundum statum meum._) It is impossible to say what proportion of the Franciscans at Oxford proceeded to a degree. In 1300 we have the names of twenty-two members of the convent: of these, ten at least were then, or became afterwards, Doctors of Divinity[367]. But the proportion of graduates to non-graduates and B.D.’s in the whole convent cannot have been nearly so large. The following statistics are derived from the University Registers[368]. From 1449 to 1463, five Franciscans obtained or supplicated for the doctor’s degree; five others for that of bachelor only. From 1505 to 1538 (i.e. about thirty-three years, as some pages of the Registers are missing), twenty-five Franciscans incepted or supplicated for the degree of D.D.; twenty-six others obtained or supplicated for that of B.D. (one of them also for B.Can.L.): three more were admitted to oppose: one more supplicated for B.Can.L. The proportion of D.D.’s to B.D.’s would generally be larger than this: from 1532 to the dissolution in 1538 fourteen obtained, or supplicated for, the degree of bachelor, two only became D.D.’s: we may reasonably suppose that some of the fifteen bachelors would have proceeded to the doctor’s degree had not the dissolution intervened. The following figures will show the relative numbers of the various religious houses in Oxford[369]. The Registers from 1449 to 1463 contain the names of 10 Franciscans, 13 Dominicans, 12 Carmelites, 9 Austin Friars, 44 Benedictines, and 8 Cistercians: from 1505 to 1538, of 57 Franciscans, 40[370] Dominicans, 24 Carmelites, 23 Austins, 169 Benedictines, and 44 Cistercians. CHAPTER IV. BOOKS AND LIBRARIES.