Stationers regarded as the University's servants were
sworn, as we have already indicated. The document
giving the form of their oath is undated, but most likely
the rules laid down were observed from the time the
stationers were first attached to the University. The oath
was strict. A part of their duties was the valuation of
books and other articles which were pledged by scholars
in return for money from the University chests. These
chests or hutches were expressly founded by wealthy men
for the assistance of poor scholars. By the end of the
fifteenth century there were at Oxford twenty-four such
chests, valued at two thousand marks; a large pawnbroking
fund, but probably by no means too large.[1] Mr. Anstey, the
editor of Munimenta Academica, has drawn a vivid picture
of the inspection of one of these chests and of the business;
conducted round them, and we cannot do better than
reproduce it. Master T. Parys, principal of St. Mary Hall,
and Master Lowson are visiting the chest of W. de Seltone.
We enter St. Mary's Church with them, "and there we
see ranged on either side several ponderous iron chests,
eight or ten feet in length and about half that width, for
they have to contain perhaps as many as a hundred or
more large volumes, besides other valuables deposited as
pledges by those who have borrowed from the chest.
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