the gifts were smaller.[4] A chancellor of the church of
York bequeathed a single volume to Merton. Bishop
Skirlaw--a good friend of the college in other ways--gave
6 books to University in 1404: they were to be chained
in the library and never lent. Such gifts were received as
gratefully as the larger donations; indeed, it was esteemed
a feather in the cap of the Master that while he held office
Skirlaw's books were received. Never at any time were
books more highly appreciated than in Oxford of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Sometimes gifts took
the form of money for a curious purpose. For example,
Robert Hesyl, a country rector, bequeathed the sum of
6s. 8d. "ad intitulandum nomina librorum in libraria collegii
Lincoln: contentorum, supra dorsa eorum cooperienda
cornu et clavis."[5] But the colleges did not depend wholly
on gifts, for records are preserved of purchases for Queen's
College in 1366-67;[6] All Souls College between 1449 and
1460; for Magdalen College between 1481 and 1539; for
Merton College between 1322 and 1379; and for New
College between 1462 and 1481.

[1] Hist. MSS. 8th Rep., i. 46; Reg. Abp. Whittlesey, fo. 122,
cited by Lyte,

[2] Rogers, Agric. and Prices, iv. 599-600.

[3] O. H. S. 32, Collect., 223, 214-15.

[4] See the gifts to Exeter College, O. H. S. 27, Boase, passim.