he freshmen. The
scholars are to be silent at meals and to listen to a reader; there
must be no noise in their chambers, and a senior is to be in authority
in each chamber, and to report breaches of regulations. Conversation
is to be conducted in Latin.

We have here the beginnings of a new system of University life, and we
can trace the tendency towards collegiate discipline still more
clearly in the Founder's statutes of 1274, which are much longer and
more elaborate than in 1270. The scholars or Fellows are now to (p. 055)
obey the Warden, as their Superior; the Deans and the seniors in
chambers are to bear rule under him and, in the first instance, to
report to him; the Sub-Warden is to take his place in his absence and
to assist him at other times; three Bursars are to help him in the
management, of the property. The Patron or Visitor, may inquire into
the conduct of the Warden or into any accusations brought against him,
and has the power of depriving him of his office. The Warden is not an
absolute sovereign; the thirteen seniors are associated with him in
the government of the College, and the Sub-Warden and five seniors are
to inspect his accounts once a year. At the periodical scrutinies,
when the conduct of all the members of the College is to be examined,
accusations can be brought against him and duly investigated. This
custom, and others of Walter de Merton's regulations, were clearly
borrowed from the rules of monastic houses, and a company of secular
clerks seems to have had difficulty in realising that they were bound
by them, for as early as 1284 the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had
become the Visitor of the College, had to issue a series of orders for
the observances of the statutes. The Warden and Fellows of Merton had
permitted the study of medicine: they had interpreted too liberally the
permission to study law; they had increased their own allowances (p. 056)
and the salaries of their brewer and their cook; the Fellows had
resisted the authority of the Warden; they had neglected the
attendances at divine service enjoined by the Founder, and they had
been lax about expulsions. The change which Walter de Merton had made
in a scholar's life was so far-reaching that a secular would probably
not have shared the astonishment of Archbishop Peckham (himself a
friar) at the unwillingness of the Merton scholars to recognise the
loss of their traditional freedom.

The system inaugurated by Walter de