nd ten shillings a year for shoes. In 1337 the latter, on
resigning their office in congregation, according to custom, complained
that the superior bedels had neglected to furnish them with board.
Thereupon the University decreed that the inferior bedels should be
granted the option of standing at meals with the superior or receiving a
weekly allowance of sevenpence as compensation. This allowance was to be
suspended during the absence from Oxford of any inferior bedel, whether
occasioned by his own affairs or those of the University. The annual
payment of ten shillings for shoes was confirmed. Failure to observe
these regulations subjected superior bedels to the loss of their office
when the time came for the maces to be resumed.

The question will naturally arise--From what source, or sources, did the
superior bedels obtain the means not only to provide for their
necessities, but also to feed, house, and, to some extent, clothe their
hungry and dissatisfied dependents? Light is thrown upon this subject
in a way which shows that the superior bedels themselves may not have
been without a grievance. At any rate, about seventy years later--in
1411--an ordinance draws attention to omissions on the part of the
students, evidently inconvenient at the time, in the following words:

"The charity of students has in these latter days grown cold, so that
they no longer make collections for the Doctors and Masters of their
several faculties, nor _make due presents to the Bedels_; therefore it
is decreed that henceforth all scholars, on receiving notices from a
Doctor, Master, or Bedel of their respective faculties shall pay regular
contributions according to the ancient statutes on pain of losing the
current year of their academical course, and of forfeiting their
privilege; and all principals of halls, at the notice of the Doctors,
Masters, or Bedels, shall within a month from the commencement of such
collection, take care that the members of their societies contribute,
and send in the names of those who fail to do so to the Chancellor under
a penalty of twenty shillings: and every Doctor or Master shall pay the
Bedel honestly within a month from the commencement of the collection."

From a notice of the year 1432 it transpires that the bedels received
one-twelfth of all fines inflicted for misdemeanours; and, in 1434,
prior to the admission of inceptors, the Chancellor announced that each
inceptor would be required to pay the o