of the Fellows suffered in the cause. But, mixed with this, was a
wish to uphold the independence of the University, as against the
Archbishop of Canterbury’s power of visitation; and perhaps a feeling
for the _lay_ government, as against the clergy. A former Fellow,
Robert Tresilian, was among Richard II’s chief supporters; and his
fate is the first legend in _The Mirror for Magistrates_, written by
William Baldwin in 1559. Later on several Fellows were connected with
the House of Lancaster. Michael de Tregury (Fellow 1422-1427) was in
1431 made Rector of the new University, set up at Caen by the English
during their rule in France. The physicians of Henry VI. and Margaret
were both Fellows. But when Margaret was at Coventry in 1459, levying
an army for the War of the Roses, she took “Queen’s gold” from the
College, _i. e._ a tenth of an old fine paid the King for ratifying the
grant of a house.
The College was favourably known in the Revival of Learning. William
Grocyn taught Greek in the hall; and Richard Croke and Cornelius
Vitelli lodged in rooms in the College. Some of the Fellows too
were connected with Wolsey; but the College on the whole sided with
the opposition to Henry VIII’s measures, like their friends in the
West. John Moreman (Fellow 1510-1522) opposed Catherine’s divorce,
and was imprisoned under Edward VI. The Cornish insurgents in 1549
demanded that “Dr. Moreman and Dr. Crispin should be safely sent to
them.” Moreman was also famous as a schoolmaster; and as Vicar of the
College living of Menheniot, he taught the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and
Commandments in English, the people having hitherto used only the old
Cornish tongue.
The _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ of 1535 states the College revenues at only
£83 2_s._ But Sir William Petre, a statesman trained under Thomas
Cromwell, wishing to benefit his old College, gave it some lands
and advowsons which he bought of Queen Elizabeth, and added eight
Fellowships for the counties in which his family held or should hold
land. Elizabeth’s Charter of Incorporation is dated 22nd March, 1566.
New Statutes were then framed by Petre and the Visitor. The Rectorship
had already been made perpetual. Petre allowed the Fellows to retire to
the Vicarage of Kidlington in time of plague, an oft-recurring trouble.
Under a later ordinance a Fellow was allowed, with Lord Petre’s
approval, to travel abroad for four years to study Medicine or Civil
Law.
Petre also gave the College a curious Latin Psalm-book, which had
been the family Bible of the Tudors, the most learned royal family in
Europe. It is from it that we know the birthday of Henry VII., 28th
Jan. 1457.
Exeter was still in sympathy with the old faith. Ralph Sherwine (Fellow
1568-1575) was hanged by the side of Edmund Campian of St. John’s, in
1581; and several Fellows fled abroad, such as Richard Bristowe, the
chief of the translators who put forth the Douai Bible. Elizabeth
remedied this by getting two loyal men appointed Rectors successively,
Thomas Glasier in 1578, and Thomas Holland in 1592--the latter was one
of the translators of the Authorised Version. Under them Exeter became
remarkable for discipline and learning, tinged by Puritan views.
John Prideaux was an equally well-known Rector under Charles I., and
came into conflict with Laud. There was more intercourse then between
English and foreign Protestant Universities than there is now; and
Sixtinus Amama, the Dutch Hebraist, speaks in the most grateful terms
of the kindness he received from Prideaux and the Fellows. Exeter was
now training men like Sir John Eliot, William Strode, William Noye, and
John Maynard. Maynard afterwards gave his old College money to found a
Catechetical and a Hebrew lectureship. In 1612 the members included 134
commoners, 37 poor scholars, and 12 servitors--the number of the whole
University was 2920. Western friends, the Aclands, Peryams, and others,
now built a new hall; and John Peryam also built the rooms between the
hall and the library, while George Hakewill, a Fellow, gave money to
build a new chapel in 1623.
As to the life of the place, Shaftesbury, the famous statesman, who was
a member of the College in 1637, gives an amusing account of “coursing”
(now become a sort of free fight) in the schools; of how he stopped the
evil custom of “tucking” freshmen (_i. e._ grating off the skin from
the lip to the chin); and how he prevented the Fellows “altering the
size of” (_i. e._ weakening) “the College beer.” Shaftesbury’s future
colleague in the Cabal, Clifford, was also at Exeter.
Charles I., in 1636, gave an endowment out of confiscated lands to
found Fellowships for the Channel Islands at Exeter, Jesus, and
Pembroke, that men so trained might devote themselves to work in the
Islands. He made John Prideaux (Rector 1612-1642) and Thomas Winniff
(Fellow 1595-1609), Bishops, the former of Worcester, the latter of
Lincoln, when he at last tried to conciliate the gentry, who were
almost all opposed to Laud’s innovations.
In the Civil War most of the Fellows took the King’s side, and
Archbishop Usher sojourned in some wooden buildings then known as
Prideaux Buildings, situated behind the old Rector’s house, buildings
now partly re-erected in the Turl. The College plate was taken by
Charles, although the Fellows had redeemed it by a gift of money; but
the King’s needs were overwhelming.
Under the Commonwealth John Conant became Rector, and increased
the fame of the College for learning and discipline. “Once[125] a
week he had a catechetical lecture in the Chapel, in which he went
over Piscator’s _Aphorisms_ and Woollebius’ _Compendium Theologiæ
Christianæ_; and by the way fairly propounded the principal objections
made by the Papists, Socinians, and others against the orthodox
doctrine, in terms suited to the understanding and capacity of the
younger scholars. He took care likewise that the inferior servants of
the College should be instructed in the principles of the Christian
religion, and would sometimes catechise them in his own lodgings.
He looked strictly himself to the keeping up all exercises, and
would often slip into the hall in the midst of their lectures and
disputations. He would always oblige both opponents and respondents to
come well prepared, and to perform their respective parts agreeably
to the strict law of disputation. Here he would often interpose,
either adding new force to the arguments of an opponent, or more
fullness to the answers of the respondent, and supplying where anything
seemed defective, or clearing where anything was obscure in what the
moderator[126] subjoined. He would often go into the chambers and
studies of the young scholars, observe what books they were reading,
and reprove them if he found them turning over any modern author, and
send them to Tully, that great master of Roman eloquence, to learn the
true and genuine propriety of that language. His care in the election
of Fellows was very singular. A true love of learning, and a good
share of it in a person of untainted morals and low circumstances,
were sure of his patronage and encouragement. He would constantly look
over the observator’s roll and buttery-book himself, and whoever had
been absent from chapel prayers or extravagant in his expenses, or
otherwise faulty, was sure he must atone for his fault by some such
exercise as the Rector should think fit to set him, for he was no
friend to pecuniary mulcts, which too often punish the father instead
of the son. The students were many more than could be lodged within
the walls: they crowded in here from all parts of the nation, and some
from beyond the sea. He opposed Cromwell’s plan of giving the College
at Durham the privileges of a University, setting forth the advantages
of large Universities and the dangers which threaten religion and
learning by multiplying small and petty Academies. He was instrumental
in moving Mr. Selden’s executors to bestow his prodigious collection
of books, more than 8000 volumes, on the University. In his declining
age he could scarce be prevailed upon by his physicians to drink now
and then a little wine. He slept very little, having been an assiduous
and indefatigable student for about threescore years together. Whilst
his strength would bear it, he often sat up in his study till late at
night, and thither he returned very early in the morning.”
The Restoration put an end alike to learning and to discipline, to
the grief of a few good men, such as Ken, though the Royalists in
general issued numerous squibs and satires against the Puritans,
which still impose on some writers. Anthony Wood, a strong Royalist
and constant resident in Oxford, makes frequent allusion in his
diaries to the disastrous effects of the Restoration. “Some cavaliers
that were restored,” he says in one place, “were good scholars, but
the generality were dunces.” “Before the war,” he says in another
place, “we had scholars that made a thorough search in scholastic and
polemical divinity, in humane learning, and natural philosophy: but
now scholars study these things not more than what is just necessary
to carry them through the exercises of their respective Colleges and
the University. Their aim is not to live as students ought to do, viz.
temperate, abstemious, and plain and grave in their apparel; but to
live like gentry, to keep dogs and horses, to turn their studies into
places to keep bottles, to swagger in gay apparell and long periwigs.”
The difference between a Puritan and a Restoration Head of a House is
strongly set out by the contrast between Conant’s government of Exeter
and that of Joseph Maynard, who was elected on Conant’s ejection for
refusing submission to the Act of Conformity (1662). Wood says--“Exeter
College is now (1665) much debauched by a drunken governor; whereas
before in Dr. Conant’s time it was accounted a civil house, it is now
rude and uncivil. The Rector (Maynard) is good-natured, generous, and
a good scholar; but he has forgot the way of a College life, and the
decorum of a scholar. He is given much to bibbing; and when there is
a music-meeting in one of the Fellows’ chambers, he will sit there,
smoke, and drink till he is drunk, and has to be led to his lodgings by
the junior Fellows.”
In 1666 pressure was put upon Maynard to resign, and he did so
on advice of the Visitor and his brother, Sir John Maynard. The
resignation was made smooth for him by the understanding that he
should be appointed Prebendary of Exeter in room of Dr. Arthur Bury,
who was now elected Rector of Exeter. Dr. Bury wrote a book, famous
in the Deist controversy, called _The Naked Gospel_, which had the
distinction of being impeached by several Masters of Arts, and formally
condemned and burnt by order of the Convocation of the University.
About the time of its publication, Bury got into trouble with Trelawney
the Visitor, the same whose name became a watchword in the West (“and
shall Trelawney die”), over questions of discipline and jurisdiction.
The Visitor expelled Bury and his supporters, July 1690; the decision
was appealed against in the Court of King’s Bench, and in the House of
Lords, but was finally upheld.
The evil effects of the Restoration in studies and in morals continued.
Later on, Dean Prideaux can still say, “There is nothing but drinking
and duncery. Exeter is totally spoiled, and so is Christ Church. There
is over against Baliol, a dingy, horrid, scandalous ale-house, fit for
none but dragooners and tinkers. Here the Baliol men, by perpetual
bubbing, add art to their natural stupidity to make themselves perfect
sots.”
Exeter and Christ Church were both reformed by John Conybeare,[127]
a writer famous for his answer to the _Christianity as old as the
Creation_ of Matthew Tindal, also an Exeter man.
Jacobite feeling was strong in Oxford, and at the election of county
members in 1755, when the Jacobites guarded the hustings in Broad
Street, twenty men deep, the Whigs passed through Exeter and succeeded
in voting. The Vice-Chancellor, a strong Jacobite, remarked on “the
infamous behaviour of one College”; and this led to a war of pamphlets.
Christ Church, Exeter, Merton, and Wadham were the four Whig Colleges.
Early in the eighteenth century the front gate and tower and the
buildings between this and the Hall were erected by the help of
such friends as Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Armagh, formerly a
Fellow. But in 1709 the library was burnt. The fire began “in the
scrape-trencher’s room. This adjoining to the library, all the inner
part of the library was destroyed, and only one stall of books or
thereabouts secured.” The wind was west, and the smoke must have
reached the nostrils of Hearne as he lay abed at St. Edmund Hall, for
“he was strangely disturbed with apprehensions of fire.” The library
was rebuilt in 1778, and had many gifts of books and manuscripts, and a
fund for buying more was established by Dr. Hugh Shortridge.
When the time of religious revival came, John Wesley influenced some
members of the College, such as Thomas Broughton (Fellow 1733-1741).
During the present century other Fellows were noted in the Evangelical
movement; and in the Tractarian movement the names of William Sewell,
John Brande Morris, and John Dobree Dalgairns (better known as Father
Dalgairns), were conspicuous.
Nor did the College lack among the fellows and scholars names in
Science, such as Milman and Rigaud; or in Oriental Learning, as
Kennicott and Weston; or in Classics and Literature, as Stackhouse and
Upton; or in Law, as Judge Coleridge; or in Theology, as Forshall the
editor of Wiclif’s Bible, and Milman, Bishop of Calcutta, and Jacobson,
Bishop of Chester; while among its other members it counted Sir
Gardner Wilkinson and Sir Charles Lyell. Of the living men who uphold
the repute of the College, this is not the place to speak.
In 1854 the Commissioners threw the Fellowships open, and turned eight
of them into scholarships, ten open, ten for the diocese of Exeter,
and two for the Channel Islands. In the same year new buildings were
begun facing Broad Street, and next year a library, and the year after
a chapel and a rectory. Since the chapel absorbed the site of the
former rector’s house (east of the old chapel), the new house was built
on the site of St. Helen’s quadrangle. The liberality of the members
was conspicuous on the occasion of these buildings. Stained-glass and
carved oak stalls have been since given to the chapel, and some fine
tapestry, representing the Visit of the Magi, executed by Burne Jones
and William Morris, old members of the College.
Many changes have been made in old arrangements, but the foundation
of the new scholarships carried out the real spirit of the Founder’s
views, in passing men rapidly through a University training. It is
hoped that Walter de Stapeldon would, if now living, approve of the
care for educating scholars which he had so much at heart.
V.
ORIEL COLLEGE.
BY C. L. SHADWELL, M.A., FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE.
Adam de Brome, the actual, though not the titular, founder of Oriel
College, was at the beginning of the fourteenth century a well-endowed
ecclesiastic, in the service of King Edward the Second. He held
the living of Hanworth, Middlesex; he was Chancellor of Durham and
Archdeacon of Stow; he held the office of almoner to the King; and
in 1320 he was presented by the King to the Rectory of St. Mary the
Virgin, Oxford.
The College of Walter de Merton had then been in existence nearly
half a century; and the type which he had created, a self-governing,
independent society of secular students, well lodged and well endowed,
was that to which the aims of the struggling foundations of William of
Durham, Devorguilla of Balliol, and Bishop Stapeldon were directed.
The poor masters established out of William of Durham’s fund, and now
beginning to be known as the scholars of University Hall, were still
subject to Statutes issued by the University, and had not yet attained
to an independent position. It was not till 1340 that the scholars of
the Lady Devorguilla were set free from the authority of extraneous
Procuratores, and allowed to be governed by a Master of their own
choosing. The office of Rector of Stapeldon Hall was an annual one;
he was appointed by the scholars from among themselves, or if they
disagreed, by the Chancellor of the University, and his principal
duties were bursarial. But for the standard set by the completely
organised House of Merton, the development of these infant societies
might have taken a very different direction.
Adam de Brome appears to have chosen Merton as his model, and his
foundation was from the first intended to be styled a College, a title
perhaps till then exclusively enjoyed by Merton.[128]
By Letters Patent, dated at Langley, 20th April, 1324, he obtained
the royal license to purchase a messuage in Oxford or its suburbs,
and therein to establish “quoddam collegium scolarium in diversis
scientiis studentium,” to be styled the College of St. Mary in Oxford,
with power to acquire lands to the annual value of thirty pounds. In
the course of the same year he purchased the advowson of the church
of Aberford, in Yorkshire; and, in Oxford, Perilous Hall, in St. Mary
Magdalen parish, and Tackley’s Inn in the High Street; and by his
charter dated 6th December at Oxford, and confirmed by the King, 20th
December, 1324, at Nottingham, he founded his College of scholars
“in sacra theologia & arte dialectica studentium,” appointing John
de Laughton as their Rector, and assigning to them Tackley’s Inn as
their residence. This Society, if it ever came into actual existence
at all, lasted only a little more than a twelvemonth; and on the first
of January, 1325-6, its possessions were surrendered by Adam de Brome
into the King’s hands, as a preliminary to its re-establishment under
the King’s name. Edward the Second had already shown an interest in
the maintenance of academical students at the sister University; and
the scholars whom he supported there were the germ of the institution
afterwards developed by his son under the name of King’s Hall. He also
founded the Cistercian house at Oxford. He lent himself readily to the
suggestion of his Almoner; and by his Letters Patent, dated at Norwich,
21st January, 1325-6, he refounded the College, with Adam de Brome
as its head with the title of Provost, restoring the old endowments,
further augmented by the grant of the advowson of St. Mary’s. Leave
was given to appropriate the church to the use of the College on
condition of maintaining four chaplains for the performance of daily
service. License was given to take and hold lands in mortmain to the
annual value of sixty pounds. The original statutes are dated on the
same day as the charter of foundation. By these statutes, nearly all
the provisions of which are taken verbatim from the Merton statutes of
1274, the College was to consist of a Provost, and ten scholars to be
nominated in the first instance by Adam de Brome, and thereafter to
be elected by the whole body. The ten first nominated were to study
Theology; those elected in future were to study Arts and Philosophy,
until they were allowed to pass to the study of Theology or (to the
number of five or six out of ten) of Civil or Canon Law. The Provost
was to be chosen by the whole body of scholars from among themselves
and presented to the King’s Chancellor for admission. The second
officer of the College was the Dean, corresponding to the Sub-Warden at
Merton, filling the Provost’s place in his absence, and acting with him
at all times in the College government. Provision was made, similar to
that at Merton, for the appointment of other subordinate Deans, such
as were established elsewhere and in later foundations; this power has
however never been exercised, and the Dean of Oriel, alone of all who
bear that title, is in power and dignity second only to the head of
the College. The scholars were to be chosen from among Bachelors of
Arts, without preference for any locality, place of birth, or kindred.
Three chapters were to be held in the year, at the same times as those
appointed at Merton, Christmas, Easter, and St. Margaret’s day, at
which inquiry was to be made into the conduct of the members, and newly
elected scholars were to be admitted.
The foundation was now in contemplation of law, complete. The new
Society was a corporate body, having a license to hold land, and with
a common seal.[129] It probably was at first established either in
St. Mary’s Hall, the Manse or Rectory House of St. Mary’s Church, or
in Tackley’s Inn, a large messuage in the High Street, on the site now
occupied by the house No. 106.
But the College had not long been founded before Adam de Brome
perceived that the protection afforded by the King’s name would be
insufficient, unless he could also obtain the support of the Bishop of
Lincoln, Henry de Burghash. The Bishop’s approbation of the foundation
was not given until a new body of statutes had been drafted, differing
in many important particulars from the Foundation Statutes, and placing
the College under the control not of the Crown but of the Bishop. The
Provost when elected is to be presented to the Bishop for approval
or confirmation. Only three of the Fellows may be allowed to study
Civil or Canon Law, all the rest being required to betake themselves
to Theology. The Bishop is everywhere substituted for the King or his
Chancellor; his approval is required for alterations in the statutes;
the power of interpreting them on the occasion of any dispute is vested
in him; and he is constituted the sole and final judge in the removal
of a Provost or scholar for misconduct. Prayers are to be said for the
Bishop’s father and mother, Robert Lord Burghash and Matilda his wife,
his brothers Robert and Stephen, as well as for the King and Adam de
Brome; the name of Hugh le Despenser is significantly omitted. These
statutes were issued by the College 23rd May, and confirmed by the
Bishop 11th June, 1326; the Bishop’s charter approving the foundation
was first given on 13th March, but apparently was kept back until the
constitution of the College had been settled to his satisfaction,
and was only finally granted on 19th May. In the course of the same
year the appropriation of the church of St. Mary was approved by the
Bishop and the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln; and on Adam de Brome’s
resignation, the College was duly inducted by the Prior of St.
Frideswide (August 10).
By the close of the year the Queen’s party, to which Bishop Burghash
belonged, had triumphed over the Despensers, the deposition of the
King following in January 1327. The Bishop made use of the favour in
which he stood with the new government to obtain some substantial
benefits for the College which he had taken under his protection. The
advowson of Coleby, Lincolnshire, purchased by Adam de Brome, was
secured to the College by a Royal grant, with a view to its ultimate
appropriation. The Hospital of St. Bartholomew, near Oxford, and of
Royal foundation, was annexed to the College. The maintenance of the
almsmen was provided by a charge on the fee farm rent of the city; but
the possessions of the Hospital, consisting principally of tenements
and rents in Oxford, went to augment the slender endowments of the
College.[130] But the most important accession which the institution
now received was by the grant of a messuage, called “La Oriole,” the
nucleus of the site of the present College buildings. This messuage
stood in St. John Baptist’s parish, fronting Schidyard Street and St.
John Street, and occupying nearly the whole of the southern half of
the present quadrangle; the south-east corner, the site of the present
chapel, was not acquired till later. It had anciently been known as
Senescal Hall, but had since acquired the name of La Oriole. Queen
Eleanor, wife of Edward the First, had granted it to her chaplain and
kinsman James of Spain, and the reversion was now (Dec. 1327) conferred
upon the College. The life interest was surrendered in 1329, and the
Society probably removed there in that year.[131]