shillings towards the festival expense A part of this
ceremony, but without the degrading marks of it, is
continued to this day. Henry III. occasionally resided at
Oxford, and held there many parliaments and councils: in the
reign of this king the university flourished to an
unexampled degree, the number of students being estimated at
fifteen thousand. Its popularity was about this time also
greatly increased from the circumstance of not less than one
thousand students quitting the learned institutions of
Paris, and repairing to Oxford for instruction; but these
foreigners introduced so dangerous a levity of manners, that
the Pope deemed it necessary to send his legate for the
purpose of reforming " certain flagrant corruptions of the
place." The legate was at first treated with much affected
civility, but an occasion for quarrel being soon found, he
would, in all probability, have been sacrificed upon the
spot, had he not hidden himself in a belfry from the fury of
the assailants. This tumult was, by the exercise of some
strong measures, speedily appeased; but the number of
students was at this period infinitely too great to preserve
due subordination. They divided themselves into parties,
among which the north and south countrymen were the most
violent, and their quarrels harassing and perpetual.
According to the rude temper of the age, these disputes were
not settled by argument, but by dint of blows; and the peace
of the city was in this way so often endangered, that the
king thought it expedient to add to the civil power two
aldermen and eight burgesses assistant, together with two
bailiffs. From petty and intestine broils, the students
appear to have acquired a disposition for political inter-
ference. When Prince Edward, returning from Paris, marched
with an army towards Wales, coming to Oxford he was by the
burghers refused admittance, "on occasion of the tumults now
prevailing among the barons:" he quartered his soldiers in
the adjacent villages, and "lodged himself that night in the
royal palace of Magdalen," the next morning proceeding on
his intended journey; but the scholars, who were shut in the
town, being desirous to salute a prince whom they loved so
much, first assembled round _Smith-gate_, and demanded to be