ground to believe that Oxford was then less popular with the Church and the public, for the very reason that she was before the age in her estimate of positive Science. In fact, in the middle of the century Civil Law was taught by Vicarius at Oxford; and Medical Science not long after by others. Beside which, although we find no mention of any Abbey or Cathedral Schools which could be a nucleus for the University, yet it had Halls and Inns from the earliest time: wherein it shows a remarkable prematureness of developement, distinguishing it from all contemporaneous institutions.

§ 25. DIVERGENCE of the Oxford System from that of Paris.

The points of contrast to the University of Paris, which, in the midst of similarities, Oxford presents; grow more strongly marked with time, and indicate a difference of origin and of organic tendencies. All this is at once accounted-for, if we believe the system to come down from Alfred. Although the relative antiquity of the Universities of Paris and of Oxford is not to be treated as an affair of honor, it is not immaterial to a right understanding of the history: and the superior antiquity of Oxford, once established, sets at rest many erroneous opinions. Now that a considerable emigration of students took place from Paris to Oxford about 1229,

cause of disturbances in Paris, is true: and it doubtless imparted a great impulse to Oxford: but such a fact, in face of the evidence already adduced will never prove that then first it began to be a University. At the same time, I am not denying the superior ability of Paris in those times: for Oxford never claimed more than the second place.

26. The effect of the Emigration from Paris has been overrated.

If the Parisian emigration had been* the commencement of the Oxford University, the character and form of the latter would have been mainly determined by the new elements now brought in: Oxford would have been modelled after Paris, as to all fundamental points. But in point of fact, on many of these we find singular contrast. She had but two nations and two Proctors, instead of four as at Paris; and no Rector, no common head: the position also of her Chancellor peculiar. Again; the prevailing usage in Oxford was to live in Halls and Inns, (out of which the Colleges arose ;) while this at Paris was the exception, not the rule. Had not the system of two nations, (North and South English) been already immoveably established, the Parisians would surely have organized themselves

* Note (10) at the end, is intended to show more fully that Meiners is wrong on this point.

as a third nation co-ordinate to the rest: but no foreign nations were recognized in the Oxford system.

§ 27. The position of the Chancellor at Oxford had no parallel at Paris.

It has been imagined indeed, that the Chancellor of Oxford was nothing but the Rector of Continental Universities with a new title; a pure assumption opposed to testimony and to facts.* The two names had every where their distinctive meaning, though occasionally the functions of both might be united in one person. In Oxford, the Chancellor was the organic head in the second half of the thirteenth century; but we have decided* accounts that his position was very different in the former half, when, like the Parisian Chancellor, he was an Episcopal officer, beyond the scholastic body, and could not be, like the Parisian Rector, its organic head: so that in fact, the University had then no head at all; but the two Proctors in a certain sense supplied the want. We are justified in assuming that in the previous century also the same arrangement subsisted, there being no indication to the contrary. Yet there are marks that the Chancellor considered himself to be a true member of the University, and no mere foreign inspector appointed by the Bishop:

* See Note (11) at the end.

and this may help us to understand the otherwise. unparallelled and extraordinary change of his position, which exerted influence so important on the University. Mere external circumstances would hardly have sufficed to bring about such a change.

To explain the fact, it may be imagined by some that there was originally a Rector, who was afterwards transformed into an Episcopal Officer. But, how would this have vested him with the title and

power of Chancellor ? The idea is unsupported by testimony; and is a reversing of the probable order of events. In Paris and elsewhere, the Universities began in entire dependence on the Church, and went on towards independence. In Oxford (according to this view) it was just the opposite. Nor can any date for such a change be found. For the Rector must have been a recent officer in Paris in the year 1200 (indeed the name was not yet thus appropriated :) while before this date the imaginary Oxford Rector must have fallen under the episcopal authority.

§ 28. On the Oxford HALLS and INNS.

We shall get involved in endless contradiction, if we allow ourselves to assume, without the slightest evidence, that the University of Oxford developed itself out of Abbey or Cathedral Schools. The very early appearance of Halls and Inns in Oxford

remarkably distinguish it from Paris, where the students lodged in private houses among the town's people.* Even if ever they hired a house expressly for themselves (a thing not recorded) it must have been an exceptive case: while in Oxford it was ever the rule that they lived separately from the townsmen. The few Parisian Collegest which rose after the date of 1200, were not a gradual developement of the Inns, as at Oxford; (where the Inns too rose out of the Halls ;) nor did they ever attain any great influence over the University. The great mass of students still lived among the citizens; a thing most rare at Oxford, and hardly admitted at the Parisian emigration of 1229: while the gradual preponderance attained by the Colleges was evidently an organic movement, brought about mainly by internal causes, though favored also by external circumstances.

It has appeared that the Halls existed immediately after the Conquest, and were doubtless earlier than that era: nor have we reason for imagining any other state of things to have existed before, even up to the very time of Alfred. We are then led to believe that the kernel of the University was one or more Halls founded by Alfred himself; that is to say, that from the very beginning it was essentially a scholastic body, and not a number of parish priests, who undertook tuition of youth as a byework. Believing that historical criticism fairly

*See Meiners i. 107, &c.

† See Note (12) at the end.