the end of the contention so far as our pur pose is concerned, for henceforth the influ ence of the University is dominant—is the general "inquisito," or assize of victuals, held before the Chancellor, Gilbert Kymer, in 1449, at which he summoned before him, in his own quarters in Durham College, all the butlers and manciples and investigated the condition of things. And the condition was not wholesome, for the record says that "every one of the bakers about the Univer sity made only bread that was bad in taste, color and in smell, and their loaves were underweight"; and we learn further that they "gave only twelve to the dozen to Clerks, Whereas they gave Thirteen to the dozen to townsmen." In which testimony we see a custom that still lingers among us in the familiar phrase, "baker's dozen." The following incident shows the unfair advantage which the University had over the Town in this struggle and which enabled it to gain the mastery. In 1530, Michael Hethe, Mayor of Oxford, refused to take oath to observe the privileges of the University, the privileges in question relating principally to the market. Bedells summoned him to the Vice-Chancellor, but he refused to go, say ing, "Recommend me unto your Master, and shew him I am here in this town, the King's gracious lieutenant for lack of a better, and 1 know no cause why I should appear before 'him. I know him not for my ordinary; if there be any cause between the University and the Town, I shall be glad to meet him at a place convenient.'" This courageous answer has a sound of modern independence which leads us to wish that the outcome might have been more favorable to the Mayor, but he was fighting against overwhelming odds. Again he was summoned before the Vice-Chancellor, and again he refused. Then the Vice-Chancellor, acting not as a contending official but as a priest—the two offices were conveniently
blended in those days—promptly excom municated him, adding a curse on all who should eat or drink in his presence. No one man in the little town of Oxford could stand against this power of the Church, and we find "forasmuch as so long- as said curse lasted, he was to be deprived of several privileges, he was sorely troubled in mind and could take no rest. At length, consider ing the sad estate he was likely to endure, he humbly required of the Commissary and Proctors absolution, which being promised, was at length by the said Commissary and others given; but with this condition, that he should perform his corporal oath, 'de siaiido juri ct parcndo mandatis Ecclesiae.' "* This power of excommunication was not in frequently used by the University in con nection with the market quarrels. For many years the struggle continued with only slight variation. The Town occa sionally gained a point, or recovered one already lost, but usually paid dear for it by some royal grant of a new privilege to the University. Nearly a century after the Chan cellor held the assize in his chamber in Dur ham College, we find a curious record of the evil practices on both sides. In 1531. the Town complains to the King about the Uni versity. The Deputy Commissioner seized a quarter of beef from a butcher, we are told, "and then he said these words, 'Clare, thou hast forfayted thy quarter of beefe,' and so extorciously took it from him and dyd ette it in Lingcolne College, and never payd for it." The Commissioner answered that the "meat was regratid" (i. e., it had been sold twice in the same market), and that he had paid for it, "for the beefe, or the value there of, Every Pennyworthe was Bestowid apoun pore prisoners, and other pore people, where he might have converted yt to the Common profvte of the University, according to the privilege of the sd Universitie, if it so had plesid him."4 The fact that the value of the
'Hulton. p. 98. 'Wood, Annals, II., p. 37.
'Ogle, p. 58.
"/¿.
