Though none of these charges was actually proved, we must admit that they show that the convent was not in a healthy state on the eve of the Dissolution. There is certainly no trace of the religious fervour by which even in the latter days some of the Observant convents were honourably distinguished. We find the brethren at Oxford engaged in money transactions, lending[625] and borrowing[626], ‘buying and selling[627].’ Friar John Arter[628] kept a horse in the town and raised difficulties about the bill; Randulph Craycoke or Cradoc, who had charge of the horse, would not part with it till he had received ‘about ten shillings for food and grass,’ which sum the friar refused to pay, asserting that Randulph had worked the horse himself (_laboravit dictum equum diversis_ (?) _oneribus_). The court, to which the disputants appealed, reduced the amount by 2_s._; but Arter was probably unable to pay: no one appeared at the time appointed to claim the animal, ‘so we sent Cradoc away with the horse until his bill should be paid.’ The Warden, Friar Edward Baskerfeld, D.D., was plaintiff in a somewhat similar case[629], in which both sides were represented by counsel. In his evidence the friar deposed that he had lent Master Richard Weston, LL.B., ‘a Roane hors of the value of 20_s._ in the hostel de flore de leust[630], and that he had handed over the horse to the servant of the Subdean of Excestre in the name of Richard Weston, and that he said these words, stroking (_palpando_) the belly of the horse: “how I delyver the hors sane and sound without spurre gallyng I prey you delyver hym so ageyn,” and that he never saw hym to this day.’ The parties agreed to submit the dispute to the judgment of three arbitrators, and the result does not appear in the records of the court. No doubt some of the friars had private incomes and emoluments of their own[631] (apart from the allowance or ‘exhibition’ which as students they still received from their native convents or from benefactors); and some may have lived outside the walls of their monastery[632]. But the convent itself was very poor; the love of many had waxed cold, and it was inevitable that in order to get a livelihood they should resort to means forbidden by their Rule. At the beginning of the sixteenth century[633], the Warden, Dr. Goodefyld, leased one of the gardens lying within the boundaries of the convent to Richard Leke, brewer of Oxford. The terms of the agreement are unknown, but the friars thought them--or Leke’s interpretation of them, very injurious to their interests, and in 1513 and 1514 demanded the repudiation of the contract. Feeling ran very high, and Leke was in personal danger; the Warden was bound over to keep the peace, and promised ‘that if his friars molested Richard Leke, he would keep them in safe custody until the matter had been more fully examined.’