And here as elsewhere the spirit of national isolation was held in check by the larger comprehensiveness of the University.

After the dissensions that threatened the prosperity of Paris in the thirteenth century, Norman and Gascon mingled with Englishmen in Oxford lecture-halls.

Irish scholars were foremost in the fray with the legate.

At a later time the rising of Owen Glyndwr found hundreds of Welshmen gathered round its teachers.

And within this strangely mingled mass society and government rested on a purely democratic basis.