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MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
period. As the early masters of Oxford and Cambridge did
not live under the shadow of a cathedral church they were
spared many of the conflicts with ecclesiastical authority in
which the masters ofParis engaged; but, even so, they were not
without their disputes over claims of exemption and independence.
By 1221 the bishop of Lincoln had accorded to the
magister scolamm at Oxford the title of chancellor, and by 1226
the bishop of Ely had followed suit at Cambridge: but
only after long-drawn-out disagreement was each university
free to elect its own chancellor without seek
acknowledged
ing episcopal confirmation: Oxford by 1370, Cambridge by
1400.
During the course of the thirteenth century the number of
students in Oxford rose rapidly and probably reached its peak
before the end of the century. In 1315 it was computed that
there were 1,500 clerks in residence. By that date a decline was
setting in which was greatly accelerated by the Black Death
and subsequent outbreaks ofplague. Some recovery had taken
place by the beginning ofthe fifteenth century when the resident
university, it has been computed, numbered about 1,200. The
academical population of Cambridge remained relatively
small, amounting to about a third ofthat of Oxford, until the
fifteenth century when a substantial increase began. The early
masters were obliged in the interest of law and order to bring
the miscellaneous aggregation of students under some control.
In 1231 it was required by the king that all clerks at Oxford
must be attached to a master. By the close ofthe century it had
become the general practice in both universities for masters to
rent premises to serve as boarding-houses where undergraduates
or young graduates could lodge and be under tuition. Halls
(aulai) for students reading arts, inns (bospida) for those reading
law, as they were called at Oxford, and hostels (bospida) as they
were usually called at Cambridge, came to be regarded as
approved pkces of residence where all students might live
under the rule ofa Principal at their own charges. At Oxford
lodging in the houses of townsmen was forbidden by statute
c. 1410 owing to the indiscipline of cbamberdekyns as such