lt. Some such event was expected to happen
to every Fellow; unless he happened to be elected to the Headship, it
was not intended that he should grow old in the College, and at
Queen's College, Oxford, the arbitrary or unreasonable refusal of a
benefice vacated a Fellowship. The object of the College Founder was,
that there should never be wanting a succession of men qualified to
serve God in Church and State, and to Chaucer's unworldly clerk, if he
was a member of a College, there would come, in due course, the
country living and goodbye to the University. But statutes were not
always strictly observed and the idle life-Fellow, who survived to be
the scandal of early Victorian days, was not unknown in the end of the
Middle Ages.

One of the causes of vacating a fellowship throws some light upon the
class of men who became members of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The
opening sentences of founders' statutes usually contain some such
phrase as "collegium pauperum et indigentium scholarium"; but later
sections of the statutes contemplate the possibility of their succeeding
to property--"patrimonium, haereditatem, feudumve saeculare, vel
pensionem annuam"--and if such property exceeded the annual value of
a hundred shillings, a Fellowship was _ipso facto_ vacated. The (p. 075)
"pauperes et indigentes" expressions must not be construed too
literally; the Founder was establishing a claim to the merits of him
that considereth the poor, and the language he used was part of the
ordinary formulas of the time, and ought not to be interpreted more
strictly than the ordinary phrases of legal and Diplomatic documents
or than the conventional terms of courtesy, which begin and conclude a
modern letter. That an English College Founder wished to give help
where help was required, is undeniable, but help was required by
others than the poorest. The advancement of the study of theology was
near the heart of every medieval founder, and the study of theology
demanded the surrender of the best years of a man's life, and the
extension of the period of education long after he might be expected
to be earning his own living. A curriculum in the University which
covered at least sixteen years, and might be followed by nothing more
remunerative than the cure of Chaucer's poor priest, required some
substantial inducement if it was to attract the best men. Canon Law,
Civil Law and Medicine, if they offered more opportunity of attaining
a compet