which is 'The House of the Blessed Mary the Virgin in Oxford'; for in a deed, nearly coeval with the Foundation, to this description is subjoined [the words] ' Commonly called Oriole College.'"
When in 1410, Oriel gave a breakfast hour not stated—to the Bailifs of Oxford and their wives, in the Provost's chamber, the total cost was ten shillings and eight pence half penny. This may, perhaps, be accounted for by the fact that the symposium took place in Lent, when the fare might have been meagre. Meat, in those days, was a farthing, or half a cent, a pound; cheese a half penny, or a cent, a pound; eggs cost four pence half penny for ten dozen; French wine and mild ale were a penny a gallon; and salt was six pence and five-eighths of a penny a bushel. The prices of oats, peas, beans, barley, leeks, and onions, the chief staple of a Lenten repast, are not recorded.
Oriel, at about that same period, the beginning of the Fifteenth Century, became a little ungentlemanly in its manners. There is an ancient account of three Fellows, who headed a band of ruffians by night this was in 1411 who beat, wounded, and spoiled men, and caused murder. "They haunted taverns, day and night, and they did not enter college before ten, or eleven, or even twelve
