crowns of some chaplains, viz. all the skin so far as the tonsure
went, these diabolical imps flayed off in scorn of their clergy," and
"some poor innocents these confounded sons of Satan knocked down,
beat, and most cruelly wounded." The result, in the long run, was
that the University received from Edward III. "a most large charter,
containing many liberties, some that they had before, and OTHERS THAT
HE HAD TAKEN AWAY FROM THE TOWN." Thus Edward granted to the
University "the custody of the assize of bread, wine, and ale," the
supervising of measures and weights, the sole power of clearing the
streets of the town and suburbs. Moreover, the Mayor and the chief
Burghers were condemned yearly to a sort of public penance and
humiliation on St. Scholastica's Day. Thus, by the middle of the
fourteenth century, the strife of Town and Gown had ended in the
complete victory of the latter.

Though the University owed its success to its clerkly character, and
though the Legate backed it with all the power of Rome, yet the
scholars were Englishmen and Liberals first, Catholics next. Thus
they had all English sympathy with them when they quarrelled with the
Legate in 1238, and shot his cook (who, indeed, had thrown hot broth
at them); and thus, in later days, the undergraduates were with Simon
de Montfort against King Henry, and aided the barons with a useful
body of archers. The University, too, constantly withstood the
Friars, who had settled in Oxford on pretence of wishing to convert
the Jews, and had attempted to get education into their hands. "The
Preaching Friars, who had lately obtained from the Pope divers
privileges, particularly an exemption, as they pretended, from being
subject to the jurisdiction of the University, began to behave
themselves very insolent against the Chancellors and Masters."
(Wood, Annals, i. 399.) The conduct of the Friars caused endless