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the Power of determining about weights and measures."1 From this time on the town continued to lose certain of its market privileges. Five years later, in 1295, for some unstated rea son the town refused to pay their fee-farm rent for the market to the Crown, and con sequently "King Edw. the ist did seize upon the Clerkship of the Mercat to the use of the Exchequer, and let out the same sometime to the Constable of Oxford, and sometimes to others who should pay,for it."2
Thus far the records seem to show the city suffering under persecution, in which the gown aided by the crown was snatching away its rights. And no doubt this is a true pic ture of much that was happening; but the other side of the question, the provocation for royal interference in behalf of the gown, is seen in two letters from the King ad dressed to the City, under the dates of 1330 and 1331. The first orders that "Wine should not be sold dearer in Oxford and the suburbs thereof than in the City of London,
ARMS OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY
From the East Window of the Bodleian Library. This escutcheon combines the three mottos, used in succession, of the University.
The town naturally was exasperated at being deprived of the Clerkship, but a worse trouble was to come, for we learn that, "Whereas King Edw. ii. had before in a Charter of his join'd the Chancellor and Mayor together absolutely in the custody of the Assize, as aforesaid, Edw. iii. now joined them together herein: for upon the Mayor's Non-Complyance herewith the Chancellor alone was to have the custody of the said Assize.3 'Ogle, p. 48. 'Ib., pp. 49 and 13. "Ayliffe, History of Oxford, I., p. 100.
unless it be a half penny in every quart";* while the second appoints a commission to inquire into and redress "the unusual and uneven selling of Wine and Victuals in Oxon by the Baillives and others."4 This inquiry appears to have brought about an agreement, in 1348, between the two corporations to hold a joint assize of weights and measures, but any good results it might have had were lost after the riot of St. Scholasticas' Dayv when a large number of students were killed. 'Ogle, p. 52.
