132 St. Nicholas’ Hospital, Salisbury. 
of the Bible and older fathers, and were opposed to the Mendicant 
Schoolmen, who accepted the Bible as their text-book, yet drew 
their conclusions from philosophy and by philosophical methods. 
At the head of these Biblicists in Paris now was William de St, 
Amour; at the head of the Mendicants, not only in Paris, but 
throughout Europe, was Thomas of Aquino. The very year in 
which Bridport founded his college (1261) died Pope Alexander IV., 
the great patron of Mendicants: but Louis IX. (Saint Louis), 
hardly a less patron of the same party, was still King of France. 
In the popedom of Alexander IV. it had required great courage for 
William de St. Amour to bring out his work, “ The Perils of the 
Last Times”: he was summoned to Rome, opposed by Thomas of 
Aquino, tried, and sent into exile in France, where he continued till 
Alexander’s death. 
Now the fact that Bishop Bridport chose the name of Valli- 
Scholares for his new college seems to indicate that he espoused 
the cause of the old learning, the cause of William de St. Amour, 
in this controversy. And the fact that Bishop Bingham had en- 
couraged the foundation of Friar Preachers, or Dominicans—the 
first Mendicant order—at Wilton, about 1245, shows that he was 
disposed to favour the rival school, that of the new learning, or of 
St. Thomas of Aquino. 
But the University of Oxford had its internal troubles as well as 
the University of Paris. The latter, on occasion of a fray with the 
municipal authorities, had closed its doors, and issued forth into the 
country, where it had set up its staff in different towns, nay, had 
even been invited over by Henry III. to Oxford. In this it was 
exactly imitated by Oxford. That university had at this time come 
into collision with the town, and dispersed its students. Upon this 
occasion many went to Cambridge: but others migrated to Salisbury. 
In Salisbury they must have attended the Cathedral services, then 
presided over by Ralph Heytham, as chancellor. But as it was 
with the full concurrence of the chapter that Bishop Bridport 
established his new college in 1261, we must not think that there 
was any bickering’ between the Cathedral students of theology and 
those of the new Valley College, or College de Vaux. We do not 
