ign to assist him, when need press,
with your charitable favours, receive him whom we recommend, and succour
him with the protection of charity, devoutly considering that him who
pitieth shall God also pity in meet and acceptable time.

"Given at Oxford, under the Seal of the Office of the Chancellery of the
aforesaid University on the fifth day of the month of July in the
fourteenth hundred and sixtieth year of our Lord."

From the wording of this letter-testimonial it would be a reasonable
inference that it was granted to enable the recipient to travel to his
home or some other place, but in certain cases the object may have been
to replenish an exhausted purse and aid the distressed scholar to
complete his academic course.

"Many," remarks Mr. A. Clark, "were in a condition of extreme poverty,
which it is now difficult to recognize or even to imagine.... [They]
were exempted from University and College dues, and lived from what they
received from colleges or individual graduates in payment of the
different menial services which they rendered." He gives a list of
fifteen Oxford scholars to whom licences were accorded between 1551 and
1572, their duration varying from seven weeks to eight months. In the
sixteenth century such passports had become necessary, or, at least, the
absence of them, where scholars resorted to begging for a livelihood,
was attended with serious risk. By the 4th section of the Act of 22
Henry VIII. c. 12: "Scolers of the Universities of Oxford & Cambrydge
that goo about beggyng, not being aucthorysed under the Seale of the
sayde Universities," were to be punished as idle rogues, and that
punishment was far from light. This section was included in the Act of
Elizabeth of 1571-2, but omitted from that of 1596-7.

Scholars were often reduced not only to beg, but to borrow; and as this
method of raising money might not always have been easy, even where
security was offered, a system of pledging was devised by the
authorities for the benefit of impecunious members of the University,
both high and low. In all essentials this department is hardly
distinguishable from a pawnbroking establishment conducted under
respectable auspices, but we should go sadly astray if we suffered our
views of the institution to be tinged by the associations of a dingy
shop in some back street in which hopeless penury plays its last shift.
We should rather turn our eyes to the beatific vision of the Mons
Pietatis as pic