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 lookout for promising youths to enter the ranks of the priesthood or one of the celebrated orders. But Hübmaier was past twenty years of age before he was ready to enter the university, and past thirty before he took his baccalaureate degree, as we should say. Luther and Eck, some years his juniors, had already been lecturing for several years in their respective universities, while Hübmaier was still an undergraduate.

The first written record that we have of Hübmaier is his matriculation at the University of Freiburg, under date of May 1, 1503. In the matriculation book he is described as "Baldesar Hiebmayr de Augusta" i. e., from Augsburg. This university, established in 1456, was but little older and hardly more famous than the much nearer University of Ingolstadt, and why the more distant institution should have been sought is not easily conjectured. Here the usual studies of the period were pursued with ardour and success, until the taking of his Master's degree, probably in 1511. On the occasion of his taking a later degree an oration was delivered, according to the academic custom of those days, by his master. Dr. Eck, which gives us