Continent to England or from England to the Continent without the leave of the king or his justiciar, and that all who possessed" revenues" in England should return within three months" as they loved them." It is true that several not unimportant schools existed at Oxford before 1167. Theobald Stampensis, a "Doctor at Caen," sometime prior to 1117, transferred his school to Oxford, where he had under him “sixty or a hundred clerks, more or less." He was a theologian of liberal tendencies. Another master, also a theologian, Robert Pullus or Pullen, was teaching in 1133. Whether the celebrated jurist Vacarius taught at Oxford prior to 1167, is uncertain. He had undoubtedly lectured at Canterbury in the forties, but since his Liber Pauperum became the recognised text book in Civil law at Oxford before the end of the century, it is quite possible, as Gervase asserts, that he taught at Oxford before 1167 as well as after.

But a single school, however celebrated, does not constitute a University. Although there is no proof that the master and scholars expelled or recalled from Paris, came to Oxford in consequence of Henry's prohibition, it is certain that within a few years of that event a number of schools in more than one Faculty, taught by many masters and attended by a numerous body of scholars, some from distant countries, had come into existence.

What I desire to emphasise here is the practical independence of the masters. It is probable that "unless according to the custom of Paris he shall have been examined and approved" by the bishop or his representative, the master was not allowed to teach, but once he had obtained this licence he was free from further ecclesiastic control. Apparently at first the head of the master's gild was styled the "Rector." Later he became the "Chancellor," and though the bishop's officer, he was elected by the masters, and usually from their ranks. Without a cathedral-Oxford

was under the see of Lincoln-the chancellor, as he became more dependent upon the University, made himself less dependent upon his distant bishop. The governing authorities in the Inns of Court were originally styled "Rectors."

In its primitive form, then, the University of Oxford was an unconscious reproduction of the Parisian Society of Masters. At the end of the twelfth century the University of Paris was merely a customary society, without officers, written statutes, or any other attributes of a recognised legal corporation.

The University of Paris grew out of the Cathedral School, whose first great master was William of Champeaux. In his day, Paris began to rival the scholastic fame of Chartres, of Tours, of Rheims, but it was not until the teaching of his great pupil and opponent Abelard, who also attracted scholars from all parts of Europe, that the schools of Paris surpassed their rivals and laid the foundation of that unique prestige which they retained throughout the mediæval period. In the time of Abelard three great schools, attached respectively to the Cathedral, the church of St. Genevieve and the church of St. Victor, were in existence, but it was from the chancellor of the first alone that the masters obtained their licences.

With the increasing demand for education, the chancellor granted formal permission to masters to open for their own profit schools outside the monastic schools, but under the shadow of the Church. About 1174 this privilege was taken from the chancellor and entrusted to the masters of the Church schools. Indeed, they were forbidden to refuse a licence to any properly qualified candidate. A body of professional customs and unwritten laws gradually grew up. No one could become a teacher unless he had sat for an adequate period at the feet of some duly authorised master. And since the latter was the best qualified judge of his ability, his sanction was naturally essential for a diploma.

Attendance in early times was required for a period of from five to seven years. Moreover, the candidate was not fully qualified until he had given his inaugural lecture in public, under the presidency of his master. This inception, as it was subsequently called, involved two ideas—the formal entrance into the profession by actual performance—a ceremony in Roman law essential to the actual investiture of office—and the recognition by his master and others similarly qualified of his incorporation into the society of teachers.

After the master's cap or biretta had been placed upon his head, the candidate received a ring and an open book, a kiss, and a benediction from his former master. Then, seated in the magisterial cathedra, he delivered his lecture or held a disputation. It was an essential part of the inceptio that the new master should entertain the whole or a considerable number of his new colleagues. In addition, presents of gloves and gowns were expected, and later, gifts of money to the funds of the society.

Out of this inception-the ceremonies and mysteries of which may be traced to classical times-grew the idea of the formal gild or close corporation. But there is no evidence of anything more than an informal gild of masters in Paris till the commencement of the 13th century, when about 1208 the body appears to have been regulated by written statutes, though still without a presiding officer.

At first at Oxford, as at Paris, neither the University nor its constituent bodies assembled in buildings of its own. In this lay their strength. A University might secede and take all its property-the students' fees-with it. Houses for schools were hired, and churches and convents borrowed for the congregations and general meetings. And even so, until the close of the 12th century, the University was rather an idea than an institution, and until the middle of the 13th century it was a customary rather than a legal

corporation. Written statutes only date from 1352, and even after that year we hear more of the customs of the University than of its statutes. For fully a century before the foundation of the earliest college-that of University College, still legally styled "Great University Hall"-Oxford scholars lived under a system of residence in Halls, Hostels or Inns. These places of residence were independent and self-governing communities. They consisted of bodies of ten to twenty scholars, one of whom became responsible for the rest to the owner of the house. Rules were framed for domestic government by the scholars themselves, which eventually developed into the Aularian Statutes; the scholar who leased the building was elected by them and became known as the Principal, a title given to the head of an Inn of Chancery. The first exercise of control by the Chancellor was marked by the custom of giving security for the rent before that official. It was this custom which enabled the Chancellor to reject unsuitable persons and gradually to supervise their organisation, but it was not till 1432 that the Principalship was limited to graduates, and not till the second half of the 15th century that the Chancellor attempted to interfere with the Aularian Statutes or to impose upon the Halls statutes of the University. But the Principal was always elected by the scholars, his socii, and it was not till the reign of Elizabeth that the Chancellor acquired the effective nomination. As late as 1857, however, we find the nomination of the Principal of St. Mary Hall submitted to the Aulares, by whom it was approved.

At this early period, then, the government of a Hall was democratic, and the authority of the Principal was limited by the self-imposed statutes of the community. The transition from such institutions to endowed colleges, presided over by a master and amenable to the regulations of the University, was similar in Oxford, Paris, and the German Universities. But even after the institution of the college,

the Hall survived for two classes of scholars the sons of the aristocracy and the poorest students who could not afford the cost of residence in a Pedagogy.

So great is the similarity between the Halls of the Universities and the Inns of Court of Chancery that to deny a common origin seems impossible. For the London law student, as for the Oxford scholar, a common centre became a necessity.

Voluntary association in a Hall or Inn for common purposes, such as board and residence, domestic discipline and education, was a universal institution of the age. Long before Edward I commenced his great reform, associations of lawyers and students must have been in existence in the city or just outside its boundaries. Unincorporated and unendowed, we should not expect to find any official records, but it seems evident that they fell within the scope of Edward's reform, in which Henry Lacey, Earl of Lincoln, with Chancellor Burnett, were the leading spirits. The tradition current among the ancients of Lincoln's Inn, in Dugdale's time, that the Earl of Lincoln, "About the beginning of Edward II's reign being a person well affected to the knowledge of the Lawes, first brought in the professors of that honourable and necessary study to settle in this place,"1 has been scouted as mere self-laudation by the Benchers of this Society.

The early history of the site of Lincoln's Inn has long been a puzzle. The records of Lincoln's Inn commence in the year 1422, the first book being entitled Liber Hospici de Lincolnsin. At that date the society was paying rent to the Bishop of Chichester for the occupation of his premises which have since been known as "Lincoln's Inn," whilst the society has for two and a-half centuries used the arms of the Laceys, Earls of Lincoln. How are these facts to be reconciled?

1 Origin. Juridic., 231.