THE OFFICERS OF THE UNIVERSITY
[Sidenote: The Origin of the Chancellor's Authority.]
The beginning of the organized authority of the University, as has been
already said (p. 22), is the mention of the Chancellor in the charter of
1214. In the earliest period this officer was the centre of the
constitutional life of Oxford. Although the bishop's representative, and
as such endowed with an authority external to the University, he was,
perhaps from the first, elected by the Doctors and Masters there. Hence
by a truly English anomaly, the representative of outside authority
becomes identified with the representative of the democratic principle,
and the Oxford Chancellor combined in himself the position of the
elected Rector of a foreign university, and that of the Chancellor
appointed by an external power. The reason for this anomaly is partly
the remote position of the episcopal see; Lincoln, the bishop's seat,
was more than 100 miles from the University town, which lay on the very
borders of his great diocese. The combination too was surely made
easy by the influence of the great scholar-saint, Bishop Grosseteste,
who had himself filled the position of Chancellor (though he may not
have borne the title) before he passed to the see of Lincoln, which he
held for eighteen years (1235-1253) during the critical period of the
growth of the academic constitution.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
During the first two centuries of the University's existence, the
Chancellor was a resident official; but in the fifteenth century it
became customary to elect some great ecclesiastic, who was able by his
influence and wealth to promote the interests of Oxford and Oxford
scholars; such an one was George Neville, the brother of the King-Maker
Earl of Warwick, who became Chancellor in 1453 at the age of twenty. He
no doubt owed his early elevation to the magnificence with which he had
entertained the whole of Oxford when he had proceeded to his M.A. from
Balliol College in the preceding year.
[Sidenote: The Vice-Chancellor.]
From the fifteenth century onwards the Vice-Chancellor takes the place
of the Chancellor as the centre of University life; as the Chancellor's
representative, he is nominated every year by letters from him, though
the appointment is in theory approved by the vote of Convocation.
The nomination of a Vice-Chancellor is for a year, but renomination is
allowed; as a matter of fact, the Chancellor's choice is limited by
custom in two ways; no Vice-Chancellor is reappointed more than three
times, i.e. the tenure of the office is limited to four years, and the
nomination is always offered to the senior head of a house who has not
held the position already; if any head has declined the office when
offered to him on a previous occasion, he is treated as if he had
actually held it.
The Vice-Chancellor has all the powers and duties of the Chancellor in
the latter's absence; but in the rare cases when the Chancellor visits
Oxford, his deputy sinks for the time into the position of an ordinary
head of a college.
[Sidenote: The Control of Examinations.]
The only duties of the Vice-Chancellor that need be here mentioned are
his authority and control over examinations and over degrees, duties
which are of course connected. Any departure from the ordinary course of
proceeding needs his approval: e.g. (to take a constantly recurring
case) he alone can give permission to examine an undergraduate out of
his turn, when any one has failed to present himself at the right time
for viva voce.
Now that all Oxford arrangements for examinations have developed into a
cast-iron system, the appeal, except in matters of detail, to the
Vice-Chancellor is rare; but it was not always so; his control was at
one time a very real and important matter. In the case of the famous Dr.
Fell, Dean of Christ Church, Antony Wood notes 'that he did frequent
examinations for degrees, hold the examiners up to it, and if they would
or could not do their duty, he would do it himself, to the pulling down
of many'. It is no wonder that men said of him:--
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell.
He was equally careful of the decencies and proprieties of the degree
ceremony; 'his first care (as Vice-Chancellor) was to make all degrees
go in caps, and in public assemblies to appear in hoods. He also reduced
the caps and gowns worn by all degrees to their former size and make,
and ordered all cap-makers and tailors to make them so.'
It was necessary for him to be strict; some of the Puritans, although
they were not on the whole neglectful of the dignity and the studies of
the University, had carried their dislike of all ceremonies and forms so
far as to attempt to abolish academical dress. 'The new-comers from
Cambridge and other parts (in 1648) observed nothing according to
statutes.' It was only the stubborn opposition of the Proctor, Walter
Pope (in 1658), which had prevented the formal abolition of caps and
gowns; and one of Fell's predecessors as Vice-Chancellor, the famous
Puritan divine, John Owen, also Dean of Christ Church, had caused great
scandal to the 'old stock remaining' by wearing his hat (instead of a
college cap) in Congregation and Convocation; 'he had as much powder in
his hair as would discharge eight cannons' (but this was a Cambridge
scandal, and may be looked on with suspicion), and wore for the most
part 'velvet jacket, his breeches set round at knee with ribbons
pointed, Spanish leather boots with Cambric tops'. But in spite of this
somewhat pronounced opposition to a 'prelatical cut', Owen had been in
his way a disciplinarian. He had arrested with his own hands, pulling
him down from the rostrum and committing him to Bocardo prison, an
undergraduate who had carried too far the wit of the 'Terrae Filius',
the licensed jester of the solemn Act.
[Sidenote: The Bedels.]
Fortunately the Vice-Chancellor in these more orderly days has not to
carry out discipline with his own hands in this summary fashion. He has
his attendants, the Bedels, for this purpose, who, as the statutes
order, 'wearing the usual gowns and round caps, walk before him in the
customary way with their staves, three gold and one silver.' The office
of Bedel is one of the oldest in Oxford, and is common to all
Universities; Dr. Rashdall goes so far as to say that 'an allusion to a
bidellus is in general (though not invariably) a sufficiently
trustworthy indication that a School is really a University or Studium
Generale'. The higher rank of 'Esquire Bedel' has been abolished, and
the old office has sadly shrunk in dignity; it is hard now to conceive
the state of things in the reign of Henry VII, when the University was
distracted by the counter-claims of the candidates for the post of
Divinity Bedel, when one of them had the support of the Prince of Wales,
and another that of the King's mother, the Lady Margaret, and when the
electors were hard put to it to decide between candidates so royally
backed; it was a contest between gratitude in the sense of a lively
expectation of favours to come, and gratitude for benefits already
received (i.e. the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity, the first
endowment of University teaching in Oxford). Even the Puritans had
attached the greatest importance to the office, and a humorous side is
given to the sad account of the Parliamentary Visitation in 1648 and the
following years, by the distress of the Visitors at the disappearance of
the old symbols of authority. The Bedels, being good Royalists, had gone
off with their official staves, and refused to surrender them to the
usurping intruders. Resolution after resolution was passed to remedy the
defect; the Visitors were reduced to ordering that the stipends of
suppressed lectureships should be applied to the purchase of staves, and
were finally compelled to appeal to the colleges for contributions
towards the replacing of these signs of authority. The present staves
date from the eighteenth century, while the old ones[19] rest in
honourable retirement at the University Galleries.
Though the office of Bedel has ceased to be in our own days a matter of
high University politics, it would be difficult to exaggerate the
importance of the part played by the Bedel of the Faculty of Arts in the
degree ceremony. It is he who marshals the candidates for presentation,
distributes the testaments on which they have to take their oath, and
superintends the retirement of the Doctors and the M.A.s into the
Apodyterium, whence they return under his guidance in their new robes,
to make their bow to the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors.[20] If the truth
must be added, he is often relied on by these officers to tell them what
they have to do and to say.
[Sidenote: The Proctors.]
If the Vice-Chancellor is responsible for order in the Congregation, and
actually admits to the degree, the Proctors, as representatives of the
Faculty of Arts, play an equally important part in the ceremony. These
officials are to the undergraduate without doubt the most prominent
figures in the University; they form the centre of a large part of
Oxford mythology; it may be said (it is to be hoped the comparison is
not irreverent) that they play much the same part in Oxford stories as
the Evil One does in mediaeval legends, for like him they are mysterious
and omnipresent beings, powerful for mischief, yet often not without a
sense of humour, who are by turns the oppressors and the butts of the
wily undergraduate. To most Oxford men it comes as a discovery, about
the time they take their degree at the earliest, that the Proctors have
many other things to do besides looking after them.
The office goes back to the very beginnings of the University and is
first mentioned in 1248, when the Proctors are associated with the
Chancellor in the charter of Henry III, which gave the University a
right to interfere in the assize of bread and beer.
Their number recalls one of the most important points in the early
history of Oxford. The division of the students according to 'Nations',
which prevailed at mediaeval Paris, and which still survives in some of
the Scotch universities, never was established in the English ones; in
this as in other respects the strong hand of the Anglo-Norman kings had
made England one. But though there was no room for division of
'Nations', there was a strongly-marked line of separation between the
Northerners and the Southerners, i.e. between those from the north of
the Trent, with whom the Scotch were joined, and those south of that
river, among whom were reckoned the Welsh and the Irish. The fights
between these factions were a continual trouble to the mediaeval
University, and it was necessary for the M.A.s of each division to have
their own Proctor; hence originally the Senior Proctor was the elect of
the Southerners and the Junior Proctor of the Northerners.
Proctorial elections were a source of constantly recurring trouble, till
Archbishop Laud at last transferred the election to the colleges, each
of which took its turn in a cycle carefully calculated according to the
numbers of each college. In our own generation this system has been
carried a step further, and all colleges, large or small alike, have
their turn for the Proctorship, which comes to each once in eleven
years. The electors for it are the members of the governing body along
with all members of Congregation belonging to the college.
The Proctors represent the Masters of Arts as opposed to the higher
faculties (i.e. the Doctors), and it is in virtue of the time-honoured
right of the Faculty of Arts to decide all matters concerning the
granting of 'graces', that the Proctors take their prominent part in the
degree ceremony. Although the Vice-Chancellor is presiding, it is the
Proctor who submits the degrees to the House, and declares them
'granted'. Before doing this the two Proctors, as has been said (p. 9),
walk half-way down the House and return, thus in form fulfilling the
injunction of the statutes that 'they should take the votes in the usual
way'.[21]
[Sidenote: The Registrar.]
One other University official must be mentioned, the Registrar, i.e. the
Secretary of the University. The existence of a Register of Convocation
implies that there must have been an officer of this kind in mediaeval
Oxford, but the actual title does not occur till the sixteenth century;
its first holder seems to have been John London of New College, so
scandalously notorious in the first days of the Reformation. But the
character of University officials was not high in the sixteenth century.
One of the earliest Registrars, Thomas Key of All Souls, was expelled
from his post in 1552 for having during two years neglected to take any
note of the University proceedings; he actually struck in the face
another Master of Arts who was trying to detain him at the order of the
Vice-Chancellor. For this he was sent to prison, and fined 26_s._ 8_d._;
but he was released the very next day, and his fine cut down to 4_d._ He
lived to be elected Master of University College nine years later, and
to be the mendacious champion of the antiquity of Oxford against the
Cambridge advocate. This was his namesake Dr. Caius, equally mendacious
but more reputable, the pious 'second founder' of a great Cambridge
college.
The Registrar's duty in the degree ceremony, as has been said (p. 5), is
to certify that the candidates have fulfilled all the requirements for
the degree, that they have received 'graces' from their colleges as to
proper residence, and that all examinations have in every case been
passed; the Registrar derives this latter information from the
University books in which records are now kept of each stage of an
undergraduate's career. It is only recently, however, that this system
has been adopted; less than twenty years ago each candidate for a degree
had to produce his 'testamur', the precious scrap of blue paper issued
after every examination to each successful candidate, pass-man and
class-man alike. It was a clumsy system, but it had strong claims of
sentiment; most old Oxford men will remember the rush to get the
'testamur' for self or for friend, and the triumph with which the
visible symbol was brought home. Since the University has abolished
these, it might with advantage introduce the custom of granting to each
graduate, on taking his degree, a formal certificate of the examinations
he has passed, of his residence and of the rank to which he has
attained. Such a certificate, whether called 'diploma' or by any other
name, would be of practical value; in these days study is international,
and the number of men is very great, and is increasing, who need to
produce evidence of their University career and its results for the
authorities of foreign or American universities. These bodies often
issue diplomas of most dignified appearance; it is a pity that Oxford,
which in some ways is so rich in survivals of picturesque custom, should
fail in this matter. It is true that a certificate of the degree can be
obtained, if a man writes to the Registrar for it and pays an extra fee;
this additional payment seems a little unjust; and men would be more
willing to take the degree if, as they say, 'they had something definite
to show for it.'
[Sidenote: The Presenters for the degrees.]
The presenters for the degrees are mainly college officials; it is only
for the higher degrees that University professors present, and then not
simply in virtue of being University officials[22], but also as having
already attained the degree which the candidate is seeking. The old
Oxford theory was that of the Roman magistracy, that only those who
were of a certain rank could admit others to that rank. Thus the Regius
Professor of Medicine usually presents our medical Bachelors and
Doctors; but he performs this duty because he is a Doctor; he has,
however, as occupying the professorial chair, the right to claim
presentations for himself, as against all other Doctors, even those
senior to him in standing. This right is a matter of immemorial custom
for the Regius Professors; it has been given to the Professor of Music
by a recent statute (1897).
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: For their history and for a description of the present
staves, cf. Appendix II.]
[Footnote 20: It seems a pity that the old order cannot be restored, and
the candidates kept outside till their 'graces' have been passed.
Formerly they were kept in the 'Pig Market', i.e. the ante-chamber of
the Divinity School (see p. 89), or in the Apodyterium, till this part
of the ceremony was completed; they were then finally ushered into the
presence of the Vice-Chancellor by the Yeoman Bedel. The modern
arrangement, by which candidates are present at the passing of their own
'graces', i.e. at their admission to the degree, may be convenient, but
it is quite inconsistent with the whole theory of the ceremony.]
[Footnote 21: For the importance of the Proctorial walk and for the
legends attached to it, compare p. 10.]
[Footnote 22: For the presentation to the new doctorates, D.Litt. and
D.Sc., cf. p. 11.]