By the Rev. Canon Moberly. 131 
successors the wardens, and so taking from the dean and chapter 
the patronage which had been theirs for the last seventeen years by 
gift of Bishop Bingham, and putting a prior into immediate com- 
mand of the hospital. 
The “final concord” by which this last revolution was accomplished 
is dated February, 1261, at which time legal sanction was sought 
for what had probably been before determined on. An agreement 
was made before the King’s Justices, that the bishops should be 
perpetual wardens of St. Nicholas’ Hospital, and that in return for 
this concession the dean and chapter should have the perpetual 
nomination of one of the brethren—a privilege which they have 
exercised ever since. Thus the nominee of the dean and chapter 
appears to have been the first permanently resident brother in the 
hospital. 
The same year the bishop executed another deed, founding a house 
to be called “ De Valle Scholarum beati Nicholai.” The name is 
one that tells us a good deal about the purpose and studies of the 
new foundation. 
This thirteenth century had been, to an extent most unusual, oc- 
cupied with thoughts of another world and theological study. The 
institutions of the monks had grown worldly, but thase of the friars 
had supplanted them at the beginning of the century, and were the 
avowed servants of the Papacy. A revolution also was taking place 
in the world of knowledge. The friars were for the most part ignorant, 
but among them were reared the famous Mendicant Schoolmen of the 
century, and they introduced their scholastic method into theological 
study. A strife for professors’ chairs in the University of Paris 
arose, and was not finally concluded for thirty years, when the Pope 
settled it in favour of the Mendicants (A.D. 1259). But long 
before this the “Scholares,” .¢., the four university professors of Paris, 
had met in a secluded valley of Auvergne, and thence taken the name 
of Valli-Scholares. The original Valli-Scholares, then, were men 
of the old learning as opposed to the new—those whom Mosheim 
calls Bidlicists'—men who deduced their conclusions from the study 
1 Mosheim, iii., p. 222. 
