y authorities at Paris and elsewhere had a
great objection to dictating lectures; on the other hand the mediaeval
undergraduate, like his modern successor, loved to 'get something down',
and was wont to protest forcibly against a lecturer who went too fast,
by hissing, shouting, or even organized stone-throwing.]

[Footnote 15: It is amusing to notice that the irreducible minimum of
the _Ethics_ at Paris in the fourteenth century consists of the same
first four books that are still almost universally taken up at Oxford
for the pass degree (i.e. in the familiar 'Group A. I').]

[Footnote 16: It was only _2d._, a sum which has been immortalized by
Samuel Johnson's famous retort on his tutor: 'Sir, you have sconced me
_2d._ for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny.']

[Footnote 17: It was resigned voluntarily by New College in 1834; but
the distinction is still observed (or should be) that a Fellow of the
College needs no grace for his degree, or if one is asked, 'demands' it
as a right (_postulat_ is used instead of the usual _supplicat_). I have
adopted Dr. Rashdall's explanation of the origin of this strange
privilege. It is curious to add that King's College, Cambridge, copied
it, along with other and better features, from its great predecessor and
model, New College.]

[Footnote 18: i.e. in the Parvis or Porch of St. Mary's, where the
disputations on Logic and Grammar, which formed the examination, took
place: this was probably a room over the actual entrance, such as was
common in mediaeval churches; there is a small example of one still to
be seen in Oxford, over the south porch of St. Mary Magdalen Church.]

CHAPTER IV

THE OFFICERS OF THE UNIVERSITY

[Sidenote: The Origin of the Chancellor's Authority.]

The beginning of the organized authority of the University, as has been
already said (p. 22), is the mention of the Chancellor in the charter of
1214. In the earliest period this officer was the centre of the
constitutional life of Oxford. Although the bishop's representative, and
as such endowed with an authority external to the University, he was,
perhaps from the first, elected by the Doctors and Masters there. Hence
by a truly English anomaly, the representative of outside authority
becomes identified with the representative of the democratic principle,
and the Oxford Chancellor combined in himself the position of the
elected Rector of a foreign university, and that of the Chancellor