aught what he knew--even, it was
sometimes complained, what he did not know. We read of one Adam du
Petit Pont, who, in the twelfth century, expounded Aristotle in the
back-room of a house on the bridge amid the cackle of cocks and hens,
and whose _clientele_ had many a vituperative contest with the
fish-fags of the neighbourhood. The students grouped themselves
according to nationalities, and with their masters held meetings in
any available cloister, refectory, or church. When funds were needed,
a general levy was made and any balance that remained was spent in a
festive gathering in the nearest tavern. The aggregation of thousands
of young men, some of whom were cosmopolitan vagabonds, gave rise to
many evils. Complaints are frequent among the citizens of the
depredations and immoralities of riotous _clercs_, who lived by their
wits or by their nimble fingers, or by reciting or singing licentious
ballads:--the _paouvres escolliers_, whose miserable estate,
temptations, debauchery, ignoble pleasures, remorse and degradation
have been so pathetically sung by Francois Villon, master of arts,
poet, bohemian, burglar and homicide. The richer scholars often
indulged in excesses, and of the vast majority who were poor, some
died of hunger. It was the spectacle of half-starving _clercs_ begging
for bread that evoked the compassion of pious founders of colleges,
which originally were simply hostels for needy scholars. On the return
of Louis VII. from a pilgrimage to Becket's shrine, his brother Robert
founded about 1180 the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury and a hostel
for fifteen students, who, in 1217, were endowed with a chapel of
their own, dedicated to St. Nicholas, and were then known as the poor
scholars of St. Nicholas.[67] In 1171 a London merchant (Jocius de
Londonne), passing through Paris on his return from the Holy Land,
touched by the sight of some starving students begging their bread,
founded a hostel for eighteen poor scholars at the Hotel Dieu, who in
return for lodging and maintenance were to perform the last Christian
rites to the friendless dead. This, known as the college of the
Dix-huit, was afterwards absorbed in the Sorbonne. In 1200 Etienne
Belot and his wife, burgesses of Paris, founded a hostel for thirteen
poor scholars who were known as the _bons enfants_. In all, some dozen
colleges were in being when St. Louis came to the throne. In 1253, St.
Louis' almoner, Robert of Cerbon or Sorbon, a poor