Part 18 (1/2)

[3] This was a counsel of perfection. The bedels certainly received fees (see below).

[4] It is, nevertheless, a fact that high dignitaries of the Church--e.g., Cardinal Pole--are represented with beards; and St.

Benedict himself is depicted with this virile appendage!

[5] These pet.i.tions are taken from a large and valuable collection translated by Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith and contributed to the _Collectanea_ (Third Series) of the Oxford Historical Society. They are copied substantially as she gives them; but curiously enough the accomplished lady stumbles over the word ”brais,” for which she proposes ”arms” as the translation, evidently thinking of _bras_ and quite forgetting that _braies_ is the French for ”breeches.”

[6] In 1334 a number of masters and scholars migrated to Stamford and attempted to found a University there. This is known as the Stamford Schism.

[7] The University of Cambridge is believed to have been founded in consequence of a migration from Oxford in 1209. The relative s.p.a.ce a.s.signed to Oxford, as the typical English University of the Middle Ages, in the present work, may be justified by some words of Mr.

Blakiston: ”The University of Cambridge, occupying a less central and more unhealthy situation, and having less powerful protectors, did not compete in popularity and privileges with the older society before the sixteenth century. It was not even formally recognized till it received the licence of Pope John XXII. in 1318.... Oxford schools were renowned as a 'staple product' at a time when Cambridge was famous only for eels.”

[8] The Common Serjeant was for long to the City what the King's Serjeant was to the Crown. The appointment lay with the Court of Common Council, and till 1824 the custom was to elect the senior of the Common Pleaders in the Mayor's Court. He was originally rather an advocate than a judge. The office goes back at least as far as the commencement of the fourteenth century, being mentioned in the civic records of that date.

[9] This and the other prayers cited are translated from the ”Formulae Liturgicae,” published by Gengler and Roziere, and included in Henderson's ”Select Doc.u.ments” (Bell).

[10] The ”Dialogus de Scaccario” contains the following legendary account of the origin of this custom, which, like so many others, was an Anglo-Saxon usage continued under the Normans:

”Now in the primitive state of the kingdom after the Conquest those who were left of the Anglo-Saxon subjects secretly laid ambushes for the suspected and hated race of the Normans, and here and there, when opportunity offered, killed them secretly in the woods and in remote places: as vengeance for whom--when the Kings and their ministers had for some years with exquisite kinds of tortures, raged against the Anglo-Saxons; and they, nevertheless, had not, in consequence of these measures altogether desisted--the following plan was. .h.i.t upon: that the so-called ”hundred,” in which a Norman was found killed in this way--when he who had caused his death was not to be found, and it did not appear from his flight who he was--should be condemned to a large sum of tested silver for the fisc; some indeed to _l._36, some to _l._44, according to the different localities, and the frequency of the slaying.