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Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

"Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series)"

In my time there are three noble
universities in England--to wit, one at Oxford, the second at
Cambridge, and the third in London; of which the first two are the
most famous, I mean Cambridge and Oxford, for that in them the use of
the tongues, philosophy, and the liberal sciences, besides the
profound studies of the civil law, physic, and theology, are daily
taught and had: whereas in the latter the laws of the realm are only
read and learned by such as give their minds unto the knowledge of the
same. In the first there are not only divers goodly houses builded
four square for the most part of hard freestone or brick, with great
numbers of lodgings and chambers in the same for students, after a
sumptuous sort, through the exceeding liberality of kings, queens,
bishops, noblemen and ladies of the land; but also large livings and
great revenues bestowed upon them (the like whereof is not to be seen
in any other region, as Peter Martyr did oft affirm) to the
maintenance only of such convenient numbers of poor men's sons as the
several stipends bestowed upon the said houses are able to
support.


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