Note 96 — Chapter I · THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

See pensioners, iv. p. 217 n.

Mr. J. Bass Mullinger has published (Hist. Univ. Camb. pp. 218-220) a highly interesting statute relating to hostels which dates in all probability from the end of the xiii c., and shows how rapidly university rights in these hospitia locanda were extended as a consequence of Henry’s rescript (p. 47). Any scholar who “desired to be principal of a hostel” offered his “caution“—with sureties or pledges—to the landlord and became ipso facto its head, and could be instituted by the chancellor against the will of the landlord. The scholar, who has become principal, may not abdicate in favour of a fellow scholar but only give up possession to the said landlord. The next candidate could also appeal to the chancellor should the landlord refuse his request to succeed when a vacancy in the principalship occurred. An interesting clause provides that though the landlord should agree with the scholar-principal that “mine hostel” should not be taxed, the scholars who come to live there may, in spite of both of them, have the house taxed by the taxors, “inasmuch as agreements between private persons cannot have effect to the prejudice of public rights.”