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LEARNING AND EDUCATION 527
lodgers were termed- Students of high birth and ample means
rented halls of their own in which to reside with their houses
holds.
4. The Earlier Oxford and Cambridge Colleges
Before the Black Death a large number ofclerks coming to the
universities were rectors of benefices who were given leave of
absence by their bishops for the purpose ofstudy, provided that
they appointed curates to discharge their parochial duties. This
procedure was regularized by the constitution Quum ex to of
Boniface VIII. There must have been many scholars who were
too young to
accept a benefice, or who had no wish as
yet to
commit themselves to
proceeding to Holy Orders. The grade
of 'first tonsure' sufficed to secure all clerks 'benefit of clergy'.
Then as now many looked to their
parents or relatives for their
support; others were fortunate in receiving from a benefactor
an exhibition for their maintenance, as, for example, Adam of
Usk, ecclesiastical lawyer and chronicler, who owed his educa^
don at Oxford to Edmund Mortimer, earl ofMarch (d. 1409).
Medieval testators turned this form of charity to
reciprocal ad'
vantage. At the suggestion ofBishop Grosseteste, Alan Basset,
an Oxfordshire landowner, founded by his will, about 1243,
scholarships for two priests studying at Oxford or elsewherewho
were to say mass daily for the souls ofthe testator and his wife.
William ofKilkenny, bishop ofEly, made a similar benefacy
tion in 1256 at Cambridge. In 1249William ofDurham, who
had distinguished himselfas a master at Paris, bequeathed, with
the same intention, 310 marks to the university of Oxford for
the maintenance often or more masters of arts studying theo'
logy. Out of this legacy there grew University College, but
not before the precedent for a collegiate hall for the residence of
graduates had been set by Walter ofMerton (d. 1277), bishop
of Rochester and chancellor of England. A rarer form of
academical benefaction at this early period was the provision of
an annual sum for the support of scholars in atonement for an
ecclesiastical offence. Under the legatine award of 1214 the
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