Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/798

 The Student Rows of Oxford. he were punished according to his crime." 1 For once at least a town official knew how to use his power, and his exercise of it seems the more justifiable when we note the complaints the town at this time was mak ing to the King. The townsmen claimed

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civic jurisdiction, lîut perhaps the most extraordinary grievance mentioned is that the town baillives were compelled to take oath to observe the privileges of the Uni versity, without the saving clause of alleg iance to the King.

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that the Chancellor set free criminals who justly had been imprisoned by the Mayor; that he appropriated to his own use for feited victuals and fines, exacted heavy bail from laymen, and extended the university privileges to tailors, barbers and parchment makers, who naturally belonged within the 'Hulton, p. 61.

In 1286 a royal commission was ap pointed to investigate the conditions, but no commission could remove the cause of these troubles. The feud was too deep to be done away, and we find accounts of continual dis turbances. A clerk and bailiff met in a hand to hand fight, and the clerk carried off the bailiff's official mace in triumph. A clerk