of the Privilege, the remark is not less true of those humbler
functionaries, the personal attendants of the scholars. As we have seen,
the payment of the bedels depended in part on collections, and the gains
of the scholars' servants were derived from the same source. Every
master was compelled by statute to exact contributions from his scholars
at the end of term at what was called "collection." At the present time
the expression is applied to terminal examinations, and this use of it
originated from the circumstance that fees were paid by the scholars
varying in accordance with the subject of study. For grammar the
statutable amount was eightpence, for natural philosophy fourpence, and
for logic threepence per term, and it was usual to reckon four terms to
the year. To each scholar were allotted two servants--a superior and an
inferior; the former receiving threepence, and the latter one penny per
term. There was no evading these charges; even the poorest student had
to pay "scot and lot" towards the support of both classes of menials,
some of whom were doubtless better off than himself. The division of
these servants into orders, resembling those of the bedels, has
descended to modern days, most Oxford colleges having their upper and
under "scouts." This, it has been well observed, "is a curious instance
of the vitality of insignificant customs, which exist while the greater
give place to new."

At the commencement of the chapter, a list was furnished of various
occupations--more or less connected with the work of the University--the
professors of which were regarded as of the Privilege. The term
"privilege," in this and similar contexts, denotes administrative
autonomy and special jurisdiction; and members of these trades were
amenable to the Chancellor, while the Chancellor had to answer for their
good behaviour to the King and Parliament. In the Middle Ages the
Chancellor was not, as he is to-day, a permanent and ornamental
figure-head, the duties properly pertaining to the office being
discharged by the Vice-Chancellor. He was the active and dominant
centre of University life, and, as such, took cognizance of numerous
details which would now be deemed too petty, and even ridiculous, for a
personage of his dignity and importance. So great, however, was the
pressure of judicial and other business that it was necessary that he
should be relieved of part of the burden, and thus we often find
commissaries sitting in