Oxford Bigotry and Oxford Studies. 77 



cised by the masters generally, as prior to 1808, but by certain masters 

 appointed by the ruling officers of the University. The education, so 

 far as the professors are concerned, is a dead letter a nonentity. 

 A regular attendance during four years on eleven public readers is 

 by statute necessary for the B. A. degree. By successive dispensa- 

 tions such attendance was first partially and then wholly remitted ; 

 and the University may now be truly said not to have any system of 

 instruction whatever, the Colleges having by the gradual encroach- 

 ment of wealthy power taken the whole business into their own hands. 

 The general history of the Halls and Colleges in Oxford is thus 

 concisely but well given in Mr. Maiden's valuable little Treatise on 

 the Origin of Universities. " Collegiate foundations were established 

 in Oxford at a very early period. University and Baliol Colleges 

 were founded before the end of the reign of Henry III. ; Merlon 

 College in the reign of Edward I.; and Oriel College in that of 

 Edward II. The motive for these foundations was to give the scholars 

 facilities for obtaining lodgings, to relieve the indigent from some 

 portion of their expenses, and to provide more effectually for disci- 

 pline by introducing into the University a species of domestic super- 

 intendence. But the number of colleges, in which provision was 

 made by endowment for the pecuniary benefit of their members, 

 was nothing in comparison with the number of halls or inns (hospitia) 

 in which the students lived chiefly at their own expense, and which 

 merely furnished cheap and convenient lodging and the supervision 

 of a respectable tutor or principal, who was responsible to the Uni- 

 versity for the good conduct of his pupils. In the early part of the 

 fourteenth century, at the commencement of the reign of Edward II., 

 the number of halls is said to have been about 300, while the colleges 

 were only three. For the establishment of these halls nothing more 

 was necessary than that a certain number of scholars should agree to 

 live together, aud find a doctor or master of their own choice, to act 

 as their principal, and that they should hire a house, and find caution 

 for a year's rent. The chancellor or vice-chancellor could not refuse 

 to sanction the establishment, and admit, the principal to his office. 

 In general the halls were held only upon lease ; but by privileges 

 similar to those which have been noticed in foreign Universities, the 

 rent of the halls was fixed every five years by the tutors ; and scholars 

 could not be ejected by the proprietors from a building once occu- 

 pied by them, so long as they punctually paid the stipulated rent. 

 The halls were always subject to be visited and regulated by the Uni- 

 versity authorities. The causes which diminished the number of stu- 

 dents in the University diminished the number of halls, though the num- 

 ber of endowed colleges gradually increased. At the commencement of 

 the fifteenth century the students were decreasing, while the colleges 

 had increased to seven. In the early part of the sixteenth century 

 the number of halls had fallen to fifty-five, while the endowed col- 

 leges amounted to twelve. In 1546 there were only eight inhabited 

 halls ; and five years after the historian remarks that the ancient 

 halls were either desolate, or were become receptacles of poor reli- 

 gious people turned out of their cloisters. In these circumstances 

 the halls lost their value as property to the owners, and several were 



