THE HALL. 693 



recorded, they are purchased by All Souls College for the hall, 

 and could have been little more than sconces. 



In 1658 a pair of large candlesticks (the material not being 

 stated in the accounts, but) probably of brass, cost King's 

 College 27.$-. 6d. But the commonest price of brass candle- 

 sticks is from 2s. 6d. to $s., of pewter about is. yd., of latten 

 from 8d. to is. %d. Tin candlesticks are from %d. to is. &/. 

 Those of iron are from 6d. to lod. each, and wooden ones i s. 



It was in the hall, the chapel, and the offices that candles 

 were consumed, and therefore the hall was the common 

 sitting-room of the society when the days grew short and 

 artificial light was necessary. I do not assert that the whole 

 stock of candles purchased by these corporations was consumed 

 at the college rooms and offices, for the members of the 

 society had the opportunity of purchasing from the college 

 store for their private apartments, as they had of buying other 

 articles which were kept in stock, the price obtained for these 

 extras being duly entered among the receipts of the College, and 

 being known as battels 1 in Oxford and sizings at Cambridge, 

 as distinguished from commons, i.e. the regular allowance 

 made to each inmate. Sometimes academical paupers were 

 maintained from a common fund, but assigned to wait on 

 their seniors, when they were called servitors at Oxford. 

 Many persons, who afterwards rose to considerable positions, 

 began their career in this humble way during the seventeenth 

 century, as Mill the Editor of the Greek Testament, Potter 

 Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hearne the antiquary. 



There are a few entries of snuffers. I find a pair at Kirtling 

 in 1587 at iod., another at Eton College in 1624 which cost 6</., 

 another pair in 1635 bought by the owner of Mendham for 

 ICY/., three pair by Winchester College in 1648 at 5</., two by 



1 This fact, that battelf and sizings were extras, has been a little obscured by 

 batellars and sizars being names given to the poorest or nearly the poorest class of 

 students in the two Universities. Hut they got this name because they were 

 originally dependants on richer students, who paid for their maintenance, and were 

 charged with this as battels or extras. Thus Master maintained a sizar at his own 

 charge at Cambridge. 



