At a very early period, not only in the art of logic itself, but in
their manner of applying it: for in the beginning of 1517, says Wood,
about the latter end of Lent (a fatal time for the most part to the
Oxonians,) a sore discord fell out between the Cistercian and
Benedictine monks, concerning several philosophical points discussed
by them in the schools. But their arguments being at length flung
aside, they decided the controversy by blows, which, with sore
scandal, continued a considerable time. At length the Benedictines
rallying up what forces they could procure, they beset the
Cistercians, and by force of arms made them fly and betake themselves
to their hostels. In fact, he says, by the use of logic, and the
trivial arts, the Oxford sophists, in the time of Lent, broke the
king's peace, so that the University privileges were several times
suspended, and in danger of being lessened or taken away. Through the
corrupt use of it, "the Parva Logicalia, and other minute matters of
Aristotle, many things of that noble author have been so changed from
their original, by the screwing in and adding many impertinent things,
that Tho. Nashe (in his book, 'Have at you to Saffron Walden,') hath
verily thought, that if Aristotle had risen out of his grave, and
disputed with the sophisters, they would not only have baffled him
with their sophistry, but with his own logic, which they had
disguised, and he composed without any impurity or corruption. It may
well be said, that in this day they have done no more than what Tom
Nashe's beloved Dick Harvey did afterwards at Cambridge, that is to
say,