At Oxford the seculars, always numerically strong and jealous of the regulars, rallied to Wiclif’s standard; while the Mendicants roused the anger of the University by appealing to external authority. The friars were accused of having made use of their position as confessors to stir up the peasant revolt. On the 18th of February, 1382, the heads of the four Mendicant Convents at Oxford sent a letter to John of Gaunt, denying the charge and begging his protection[548]; all evils were attributed to them, and their lives were in danger. Their chief enemy was Nicholas Hereford. In Lent of the same year Hereford preached a University sermon at St. Mary’s, in which he argued that no ‘religious’ should be admitted to any degree at Oxford[549]. He was appointed by the Chancellor to deliver the principal English sermon of the year at St. Frideswide’s Cross on Ascension Day (May 15th), and used the opportunity to attack monks and friars and mendicancy in general[550]. On the 19th of the same month, the ‘Council of the Earthquake’ met at the Blackfriars in London, and condemned ten of Wiclif’s conclusions as heretical and fourteen as erroneous; among the seventeen doctors of divinity who took part in the council were four Minorites, the Oxford Franciscans being represented by Hugo Karlelle and Thomas Bernewell[551]. The Archbishop sent Peter Stokes, a Carmelite, to publish the condemnation at Oxford. The Chancellor and Proctors resented this interference with their rights, and the general feeling was strong in Wiclif’s favour. Stokes and his brethren went in fear of their lives; when the Carmelite ‘determined’ against Philip Repyngdon on the 10th of June, men were seen in the schools with arms concealed under their clothes. At length, on June 15th, the Chancellor was compelled, by the King’s command, to publish the condemnation of the twenty-four conclusions; ‘and he thus so roused the seculars against the religious that many of the latter feared death, the seculars crying out that they wanted to destroy the University, though really they (the religious) only defended the cause of the Church[552].’