HALL, as known at the great seats of learning in England is connected with a college though not incorporated nor as a rule endowed. Many years ago there were 500 halls at Oxford, but now there are very few. The number of colleges connected with the great universities in which provision was made for the support of the members was, for many centuries, small in comparison to the halls or inns (auks, Iospitia), in which the students lived chiefly at their own expense, and were merely furnished with cheap and eonvenient lodgings. At the conithencement of the 14th c. the number of halls was about three hundred, while the colleges amounted only to three. For the establishment of a kill, nothing more was necessary than that a few students, on a mutual agreement to live together, should hire a house, find security for a year's rent, and choose for prin cipal a graduate of respectable character. The chancellor or his deputy could not refuse to sanction the establishment, and to admit the principal to his office. The halls were in general held only on lease; but by a privilege common to most universities, the rent was fixed every five years by sworn taxers, two masters, and two citizens; and houses once occupied by students could not be resumed by the proprietors so long as the rent was punctually paid. The halls were governed by peculiar statutes, and were liable to be
visited and regulated by the university. The causes which occasioned a diminution in the number of the scholars, diminished also the number of the halls, though that of the endowed colleges continued to increase. At the commencement of the fifteenth century, while the students were diminishing, the colleges had risen to seven. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the number of halls had fallen to fifty-five, while the endowed colleges had increased to twelve. In 1546 the inhabited halls amounted to only eight; and in 1651, Wood remarks that, "the ancient halls lay either waste, or were become the receptacles of poor religious people turned out of their cloisters."