10. Merton's idea was soon afterwards followed at Cambridge, where Peterhouse College was opened in the year 1284. During this century, too, we find a rival university springing up at Stamford; but, owing to the opposition of Oxford and Cambridge, it was snuffed out, though there are still standing some interesting buildings which were connected with it. College after college, at both Oxford and Cambridge, has been founded since then; each one has its own special laws and government, which have been altered from time to time, and for many centuries now they have been cities of colleges, unlike anything else in the country.
11. Many old customs are kept up still at Oxford and Cambridge; the scholars and officials of the colleges and universities go about in their gowns, as they have done for centuries, and each university has still rights and privileges in the government of the town which have naturally come to it in the course of time. The town and the townsfolk have their interests and government; so that there are two authorities, side by side, responsible for law and order. The gown and the town depend upon each other; and in days gone by they have, times without number, misunderstood each other, and quarrelled, and fought.
12. In the reign of King Edward III Oxford was the most famous seat of learning in Europe. Many of its students were foreigners, but, as everyone could talk Latin as well as he could his native language, they had no real difficulty in making themselves understood.
Summary.—Our universities began about the thirteenth century. A university is a corporation, or body of learned men banded together to teach. Scholars were attracted to the universities from the schools, and encouraged and helped to go to them. Hostels were gradually started for scholars in the university town. The Dominican Friars were a great teaching order. Walter de Merton was the founder of the first Oxford College; by that means the teachers and taught lived together. The object of these colleges was to promote learning. Stamford had a university for a time. Many old customs are still observed in a university city. Oxford in the reign of King Edward III was the most famous university in Europe.
[CHAPTER XXXV]
CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE BLACK DEATH
1. In the middle of the fourteenth century, in the reign of King Edward III, came the Black Death. It carried off half the population of the country at least, and all classes of society felt its effects.
2. We have said that in some of the old parish churches you can see, by some of the work done just after this time, that the builders were very much poorer than they had been, and had to finish off in a very plain fashion work begun on a grand scale. You must remember, too, that there were several different kinds of land-owners or overlords—the king, the great lords, bishops, colleges, and monasteries. The manors, of which these estates were made up, in the course of centuries were divided and subdivided in many ways as the land became more valuable. Many people might thus have an interest in one manor which a couple of hundred years before had been in the hands of one person only. That made law business very complicated when these little parcels of land changed hands.
3. Though manors could not be bought and sold outright, little by little money was paid to have bits of manors and the various rights in manors let out, or leased, for a term of years. This was especially the case with property in towns, and with lands belonging to corporations, like colleges and monasteries, which were often scattered about in various parts of the country.
4. On the manors in the country districts the same thing was going on, though perhaps more slowly than in the towns. It became much more convenient for the villeins and cottiers, and other tenants of a manor, to pay a rent to the lord instead of actually working on the lord's land. At first this rent was paid in the produce of the land—a few hens or eggs, a calf or a lamb, or so much corn, till by and by we find actual payments in money as rent.