Oxford | Page 8

passers-by, and cry, "Pity the Bocardo birds":
"Pigons qui sont en 1'essoine, Enserrez soubz trappe voliere,"
as a famous Paris student, Francois Villon, would have called them. Of Bocardo no trace remains, but St. Michael's is likely to last as long as any edifice in Oxford. Our illustrations represent it as it was in the last century. The houses huddle up to the church, and hide the lines of the tower. Now it stands out clear, less picturesque than it was in the time of Bocardo prison. Within the last two years the windows have been cleared, and the curious and most archaic pillars, shaped like balustrades, may be examined. It is worth while to climb the tower and remember the times when arrows were sent like hail from the narrow windows on the foes who approached Oxford from the north, while prayers for their confusion were read in the church below.
That old Oxford of war was also a trading town. Nothing more than the fact that it was a favourite seat of the Jews is needed to prove its commercial prosperity. The Jews, however, demand a longer notice in connection with the still unborn University. Meanwhile, it may be remarked that Oxford trade made good use of the river. The Abingdon Chronicle (ii. 129) tells us that "from each barque of Oxford city, which makes the passage by the river Thames past Abingdon, a hundred herrings must yearly be paid to the cellarer. The citizens had much litigation about land and houses with the abbey, and one Roger Maledoctus (perhaps a very early sample of the pass-man) gave Abingdon tenements within the city." Thus we leave the pre-Academic Oxford a flourishing town, with merchants and moneylenders. As for the religious, the brethren of St. Frideswyde had lived but loosely (pro libito viverunt), says William of Malmesbury, and were to be superseded by regular canons, under the headship of one Guimond, and the patronage of the Bishop of Salisbury. Whoever goes into Christ Church new buildings from the river-side, will see, in the old edifice facing him, a certain bulging in the wall. That is the mark of the pulpit, whence a brother used to read aloud to the brethren in the refectory of St. Frideswyde. The new leaven of learning was soon to ferment in an easy Oxford, where men lived pro libito, under good lords, the D'Oilys, who loved the English, and built, not churches and bridges only, but the great and famous Oseney Abbey, beyond the church of St. Thomas, and not very far from the modern station of the Great Western Railway. Yet even after public teaching in Oxford certainly began, after Master Robert Puleyn lectured in divinity there (1133; cf. Oseney Chronicle), the tower was burned down by Stephen's soldiery in 1141 (Oseney Chronicle, p. 24).

CHAPTER II
--THE EARLY STUDENTS--A DAY WITH A MEDIEVAL UNDERGRADUATE

Oxford, some one says, "is bitterly historical." It is difficult to escape the fanaticism of Antony Wood, and of "our antiquary," Bryan Twyne, when one deals with the obscure past of the University. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the strange blending of new and old at Oxford--the old names with the new meanings--if we avert our eyes from what is "bitterly historical." For example, there is in most, perhaps in all, colleges a custom called "collections." On the last days of term undergraduates are called into the Hall, where the Master and the Dean of the Chapel sit in solemn state. Examination papers are set, but no one heeds them very much. The real ordeal is the awful interview with the Master and the Dean. The former regards you with the eyes of a judge, while the Dean says, "Master, I am pleased to say that Mr. Brown's PAPERS are very fair, very fair. But in the matters of CHAPELS and of CATECHETICS, Mr. Brown sets--for a SCHOLAR--a very bad example to the other undergraduates. He has only once attended divine service on Sunday morning, and on that occasion, Master, his dress consisted exclusively of a long great-coat and a pair of boots." After this accusation the Master will turn to the culprit and observe, with emphasis ill represented by italics, "Mr. Brown, the COLLEGE cannot hear with pleasure of such behaviour on the part of a SCHOLAR. You are GATED, Mr. Brown, for the first fortnight of next term." Now why should this tribunal of the Master and the Dean, and this dread examination, be called collections? Because (Munimenta Academica, Oxon., i. 129) in 1331 a statute was passed to the effect that "every scholar shall pay at least twelve pence a-year for lectures in logic, and for physics eighteenpence a-year," and that "all Masters of Arts except persons of royal or noble family, shall be obliged to COLLECT their salary from