st, forfeit twenty marks; and, if he can afford to spend one
hundred pounds, must forfeit twenty pounds."

Brief reference must here be made to the relations between the mendicant
orders and the University in general, if only because the memory of the
former was so perpetuated, long after the disappearance of the
fraternities, in the famous term "Austins." Those relations were, for a
considerable time, the reverse of friendly. The friars complained that
degrees in theology were refused them; the University accused the
friars, among other enormities, of "stealing children." To prevent such
abduction, in 1358 the following statute was passed:

"The nobles and people generally are afraid to send their sons to
Oxford, lest they should be induced by the mendicant friars to join
their order; it is therefore hereby enacted that if any mendicant friar
shall induce or cause to be induced any member of the University under
eighteen years of age to join the said friars, or shall in any way
assist in the abduction, no graduate belonging to the cloister or
society of which such friar is a member shall be permitted to give or
attend lectures in Oxford or elsewhere for a year ensuing."

This enactment was repealed eight years later; but in 1414, when
forty-six articles were drawn up by the University of Oxford, addressed
to the Council of Constance, it was urgently represented that the friars
should be restrained from granting absolution on easy terms, from
_stealing children_, and from begging for alms in the house of God.
Their adversaries also warmly denounced the nefarious conduct of
"wax-doctors," or ignorant friars, in seeking to obtain graces for
degrees by means of letters from influential persons; and in 1358 their
indignation bore fruit in a very stringent statute bearing upon the
subject.

It is difficult not to think that a large part of this antagonism was
caused by envy of the friars. For one thing, they were excellent
grammarians, and eventually almost all elementary instruction passed
into their hands with the full approval of the authorities, who ordered
that payment should be made to them, as the actual teachers, and no
longer to the idle grammar masters. This, however, is only a tithe of
the service rendered by the friars to the University, which owed an
immense obligation to them. The Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and
Austins, all settled at Oxford, and rendered invaluable service to the
cause of learnin