accounts, any indication of the domestic quarrels which at this time
violently divided the Society. The attempts made by the Archbishop,
with the support of the King, to suppress the Lollard doctrines,
aroused considerable opposition in the University. In 1395, Pope
Boniface IX. had issued a Bull, in answer to a petition from the
University, by which the Chancellor was confirmed as the sole authority
over all its members, to the exclusion of all archbishops and
bishops in England. This Bull, though welcome to the majority of the
Congregation, consisting largely of Masters of Arts, was resisted by
the higher faculties, and especially by the Canonists; and the King, at
the instance of the Archbishop, compelled the University, by the threat
of withdrawing all its privileges, to renounce the exemption. Another
burning question was the condemnation of the heretical doctrines of
Wycliffe. Under considerable pressure from Archbishop Arundel, the
University appointed twelve examiners to search Wycliffe’s writings,
and extract from them all the erroneous conclusions which deserved
condemnation. This task was performed in 1409; but the recalcitrant
party among the residents continued to throw considerable difficulty
in the way of the Archbishop’s wishes; and Oriel seems to have been
an active centre of resistance. In 1411, the Archbishop visited the
University, with the double object of asserting his metropolitical
authority, which had been threatened by the Papal Bull of exemption,
and of crushing out the Lollard heresies. He was not immediately
successful; but he had behind him the support of the King, and by the
end of the year the obnoxious Bull was revoked, and order was restored.
It was probably after this settlement that an enquiry was held at
Oriel into the conduct of some of the Fellows who had taken an active
part in opposition. William Symon, Robert Dykes, and Thomas Wilton,
all Northerners, are charged with being stirrers up and fomenters of
discord between the nations; they frequent taverns day and night, they
come into College at ten, eleven, or twelve at night, and if they find
the gate locked, climb in over the wall. Wilton wakes up the Provost
from his sleep, and challenges him to come out and fight. On St Peter’s
Eve, 1411, when the College gate was shut by the Provost’s order, he
went out with his associates, attacked the Chancellor in his lodgings,
and slew a scholar who was within. One witness deposed to seeing him
come armed into St. Mary’s Church, and when his sword fell out of his
hand, crying out, “There wyl nothing thryve wyt me.” In support of
the charge that Oriel College suffered in reputation by reason of the
misbehaviour of its Fellows, Mr. John Martyll, then Fellow, deposes
that many burgesses of Oxford and the neighbourhood are minded to
confiscate the College lands, rents, and tenements. Upon these general
charges of domestic misconduct, follow others against Symon and against
Master John Byrche of more public importance. Byrche was Proctor in
1411, and Symon in 1412.[135] Both appear to have taken an active part
in opposing the attempt of the Chancellor and the Archbishop to correct
the ecclesiastical and doctrinal heresies of the University. Byrche
as Proctor contrived to carry in the Great Congregation a proposal
to suspend the power of the twelve examiners appointed to report on
Wycliffe’s heresies; and when the Chancellor met this by dissolving
the Congregation, Byrche next day summoned a Small Congregation, and
obtained the appointment of judges to pronounce the Chancellor guilty
of perjury, and by this means frightened him into resigning his office.
When the Archbishop arrived for his visitation, Byrche and Symon held
St. Mary’s Church against him, and setting his interdict at naught,
they opened the doors, rang the bells, and celebrated high mass. When
summoned in their place in College to renounce the Papal Bull of
Exemption, they declined to follow the example of their elders and
betters, and flatly refused to comply.
Upon these charges a number of witnesses were examined; some, possibly
townsmen, giving evidence as to the disturbances in the streets between
the Northern and Southern nations; others, notably John Possell, the
Provost, Mr. John Martyll, and Mr. Henry Kayll, Fellows, Mr. Nicholas
Pont, and Mr. John Walton, speaking to the occurrences in College
and in the Convocation House. It does not seem that any very serious
results followed from the inquiry; Symon, and a young bachelor Fellow,
Robert Buckland, against whom no specific charge was made, confessed
themselves in fault; as to the others, nothing more is recorded. A
number of further charges were prepared against a still more important
member of the College, the Dean, John Rote (or Root), who by his
connivance, and by his refusal to support the Provost’s authority,
made himself partaker in the misconduct of the younger Fellows, and
was justly held to be the “root” of all the evil. Such was the weight
of his character in College, that none would venture to go against
his opinion; his refusing to interfere, his sitting still and saying
nothing when these enormities were reported to the Provost, was a
direct encouragement to the offenders. At other times, in Hall, and in
the company of the Fellows, he uttered the rankest Lollardism. “Are
we to be punished with an interdict on our church for other people’s
misdoings? Truly it shall be said of the Archbishop, ‘The devil go
with him and break his neck.’ The Archbishop would better take care
what he is about. He tried once before to visit the University, and
was straightway proscribed the realm. I have heard him say, ‘Do you
think that Bishop beyond the sea’--meaning the Pope--‘is to give away
my benefices in England? No, by St. Thomas.’” What was this but the
battle-cry of the new sect, “Let us break their bonds asunder, and
cast away their cords from us”? But no evidence was offered on these
charges, and Root remained undisturbed in his College eminence.
Possell, who is stated to have been sixty years of age at the time
of the commission of enquiry, seems to have died in September 1414;
and the proceedings which followed further illustrate the divided
condition of the College. A prominent candidate for the Provostship was
Rote, already conspicuous for his outspoken Lollardism, and who, by
his adversaries’ own admissions, was of far more weight and influence
in the College than the old and timid Provost. An election was held,
seemingly in the following October, at which he was chosen; and he
obtained confirmation from the Bishop of Lincoln on November 17th.
But the validity of the proceedings was at once contested by Mr. John
Martyll, one of the Fellows, on the ground of want of notice; and
Rote’s claim to the office was kept in suspense, pending an appeal
to Rome. From the College accounts, the payments due to the Provost
seem to have been made to Rote, under a salvo, pending the appeal.
Archbishop Courtenay, who had lately succeeded Arundel, interfered, and
summoned the parties before him at Lambeth, where on 14th February,
1415, Rote renounced his claims. A new election took place, at which
Dr. William Corffe was chosen; and he was confirmed by the Bishop of
Lincoln, on the 16th of March following, by John Martyll, his proxy.
He appears then to have been absent from England, representing the
University at the Council of Constance. From this embassy he perhaps
never returned; the proceedings of the Council record him as present in
June 1415; and a note in a MS. in the College library states that he
died at Constance. His name occurs as Provost in a deed dated 14th May,
1416; and he is mentioned as “in remotis agens” 3rd April, 1417. His
death may be presumed to have occurred about September 1417.
The period from 1429 to 1476, during which the College was under
the rule of its four great provosts--John Carpenter, Walter Lyhert,
John Hals, and Henry Sampson--was one of exceptional brilliance and
prosperity. Hitherto the College had been one of the most slenderly
endowed; but during this period a stream of benefactions flowed in
upon it, which materially altered its position. The first and most
considerable addition which it received was the legacy of John Frank,
Master of the Rolls, who left the sum of £1000 for the support of four
additional Fellows. The money was judiciously invested in the purchase
of the Manor of Wadley, near Faringdon, once the property of the Abbey
of Stanley, Wilts, and which had lately been forfeited to the Crown.
This property was acquired in 1440, and the statute providing for the
enlargement of the Foundation is dated 13th May, 1441. The adjoining
estate of Littleworth was purchased some time later by Hals, then
Bishop of Lichfield, and also given to the College. The manors of Dene
and Chalford,[136] in the parishes of Spelsbury and Enstone, Oxon, were
acquired by Carpenter, who had become Bishop of Worcester in 1443, and
were given by his will to the College, for the support of a Fellow
from the diocese of Worcester. Somewhat later William Smyth, Bishop
of Lincoln, and afterwards one of the founders of Brasenose College,
founded another Fellowship for his own diocese, and endowed the College
with the manor of Shenington, near Banbury. The last considerable
addition to the College property was made by Richard Dudley, sometime
Fellow, who in 1525 gave the manor of Swainswick, near Bath, to
maintain two Fellows. The whole of these new endowments, which exceed
many times over the value of the original possessions of the College,
were acquired in a period of less than a hundred years, and they are
the lasting memorial of what until recent times must be considered the
most splendid period in the College history.
By these benefactions the number of Fellows, fixed at ten in the
Foundation Statutes, was raised to eighteen, at which it remained down
to the changes of recent times. Four of these, founded by John Frank,
were to be chosen out of the counties of Wilts, Dorset, Somerset,
and Devon; one, founded by Bishop Carpenter, from the diocese of
Worcester; and one, founded by Bishop Smyth, from the diocese of
Lincoln. The two Fellowships founded by Dudley were not made subject
to any restriction; but the College bound itself, in acknowledgment of
Carpenter’s benefaction, to assign one of the original Fellowships also
to the diocese of Worcester. This provision was repealed in 1821. There
were therefore from the reign of Henry VIII. onwards seven Fellowships
limited in the first instance to certain counties and dioceses, and
eleven which were subject to no restriction. And there never grew up
at any time any class of junior members of the Foundation, entitled
by statute or custom to succeed to Fellowships, or indeed any class
whatever, corresponding to the scholars, postmasters or demies, to
be found at most other Colleges. Certain Exhibitions were indeed
established by Bishop Carpenter and Bishop Lyhert, and charged upon
lands given by them to St. Anthony’s Hospital in London. Others, again,
were founded by Richard Dudley. But neither the Exhibitions of St.
Anthony nor the Dudley Exhibitions ever grew to the least importance.
The small stipends originally assigned to them were never increased;
and with the change in the value of money, they sank into complete
insignificance.
New statutes to regulate these additions to the Foundation were enacted
in 1441, 1483, and in 1507. From another statute in 1504 dates the
establishment of the College Register, which thenceforward becomes the
sole authentic record of the history of the College. This Register is
directed to be kept not by the Provost, but by the Dean; and a similar
practice was established about the same time in several other Colleges,
such as Merton, where the Register begins in 1482, Magdalen, Brasenose,
and others. It was probably thought that the duty would be better
discharged by a subordinate officer, who could be called to account
by his superior, than by the Head himself, whose negligence it was no
one person’s business to correct. The Oriel Register, though first
instituted by the statute of 1504, contains also the record of some
transactions of earlier date; and the statute was probably intended
to put upon a regular footing a practice which had already begun, and
which was found to be of service. If this Register had been employed
as the statute directed, in recording “omnia acta et decreta, per
Praepositum et Scholares capitulariter facta,” it would be invaluable
for the history of the College; but unfortunately the tendency soon
showed itself to confine the entries to a limited number of cases, such
as the elections and admissions of the Provost and Fellows, and to
leave unnoticed many matters belonging to the ordinary daily life of
the Society, for the insertion of which no exact precedent was found.
When at a later time the character of the College changed from a small
Society of graduate students to an educational institution, receiving
undergraduate members, scarcely any notice is to be discovered in the
Register which betrays the existence of tutors or pupils, or of any
other members of the Society besides the Provosts and Fellows.
Another important source of information is the series of Treasurer’s
accounts, known as the Style. These begin in 1450, almost immediately
after the election of Provost Sampson, and the plan then introduced,
of which he may possibly have been the author, has lasted in unbroken
continuity to the present time. For some time this account records the
whole of the pecuniary transactions of the College; but after the
act of Elizabeth (18 Eliz. c. 6) came into operation, and the surplus
revenue of each year became divisible among the Provost and Fellows,
the practice soon established itself of excluding from both sides of
the account items of a novel or exceptional character. The rents of
the College estates are given in the fullest detail; but no mention
is made of the fines taken on the renewal of leases, although these
began very early to form an important part of the College revenue. The
whole of the domestic side of the account, the charges upon members
outside the Foundation, and the cost of their maintenance, the fees
paid by undergraduates to tutors and College officers, servants’ wages,
and other similar items, are nowhere noticed. When in the seventeenth
century the whole fabric of the College was pulled down and rebuilt, it
would be difficult to find in the pages of the Style any entry which
would give a hint that any unusual outlay was in progress.
The century which followed the resignation of Provost Sampson in 1475,
presents very little of general interest. At the visitation of the
College by Atwater, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1520, among other matters
of minor consequence, occurs the first recorded instance of an abuse
which was probably then and for long afterwards not unfrequent. Thomas
Stock had resigned his Fellowship in favour of John Throckmorton,
keeping back his resignation until he was sure that Throckmorton
would be elected. “Hoc potest trahi in exemplum perniciosum. Ita quod
in posterum socii resignabunt loca sua quibus voluerint. Dominus
injunxit ne deinceps aliquis talia faceret in electionibus ibidem.” The
Injunctions of Bishop Longland, following on his visitation in 1531,
seem to show a growing laxity of discipline. The Provost, then Thomas
Ware, is admonished to be personally resident in the College, and to
attend more diligently to his duties. The Bachelors are to observe the
regular hours of study in the library at night, and not to introduce
strangers into their sleeping-rooms. The new classical learning
(“recentiores literae, lingua Latina, et opera poetica”) is not to be
pursued to the prejudice of the older studies, the “Termini Doctorum
antiquorum.” The disputations and exercises are to be kept up as in
former times; the Provost, Dean, and senior masters are to attend the
disputations, and to be ready to solve the doubtful points. No Fellow
is to go out of residence without the leave of the Provost or the
Dean, and then only for a limited time, whether in term or vacation.
The vacant Fellowships are to be filled up in a month’s time, and no
Fellowship to remain vacant in future longer than one month.
Fifteen years later another set of Injunctions was issued by the
same Bishop. The Fellows are again enjoined to be diligent in their
studies, giving themselves to philosophy for three years following
their admission, and then going on to divinity. The unseemly behaviour
of Mr. Edmund Crispyne calls for special reprimand; he is to give up
blasphemy and profane swearing; he is not to let his beard grow, or
to wear plaited shirts, or boots of a lay cut; he is to be respectful
and obedient to the Provost and Dean, on pain of excommunication and
deprivation of his Fellowship. Mention is made of St. Mary Hall as a
place of education under the control of the College, but distinct from
it. The door opening from the College into the Hall is to be walled
up, and no communication between the two to be allowed henceforth. The
College is to appoint a fit person to be Principal of the Hall, who is
to provide suitable lectures for the instruction of the students there.
The Reformation makes but little mark in the recorded history of the
College. No difficulty was met with by the King’s Commissioner, Dr.
Cox, when he came in 1534 to require the acknowledgment of the Royal
supremacy. Four years later came the orders for depriving Becket of the
honours of saintship, and for removing his name from all service-books.
The thoroughness with which these orders were carried out is remarkably
illustrated at Oriel, where even in so obscure a place as the Calendar
prefixed to the Register of College Muniments, the days marked for
the observance of St. Thomas have been carefully obliterated. There
was, however, one member of Oriel, Edward Powell, who distinguished
himself by his opposition to the King’s policy. He had been Fellow of
the College from about 1495 to 1505; afterwards he became Canon of
Salisbury, and also held other ecclesiastical preferments. On the
first appearance of Luther’s writings he was selected by the University
as one of the defenders of orthodoxy, and recommended as such to the
King. When, however, the question of the King’s divorce arose, Powell
was retained by Queen Katherine as her ablest advocate; and from that
time he was conspicuous by his resistance to the King. In 1540 he
was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield for denying the Royal
supremacy, and for refusing to take the oath of succession.
In the pages of the College Register the affairs of St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital play a much more important part than any changes in religion.
It was in 1536 that the long-standing dispute between the College
and the City respecting the payment appropriated to the support of
the almsmen was finally settled. The charge, £23 0_s._ 5_d._, out of
the fee farm rent of the town, had been granted by Henry I. on the
first establishment of the Hospital; but ever since the annexation
to the College by Edward III., great difficulty had been experienced
in obtaining punctual payment. Charters confirming the charge had
been obtained from nearly every sovereign through the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries; but the City persevered in disputing its
liability. In 1536 both parties agreed to stand to the award of two
Barons of the Exchequer, and by their decision the payment was settled
at the reduced amount of £19 a year, and the nomination of the almsmen
was transferred to the city.
On the resignation of Provost Haynes in 1550, the King’s Council
endeavoured to procure the election of Dr. William Turner, a prominent
Protestant divine, honourably known as one of the fathers of English
Botany. The Fellows, perhaps anticipating interference, held their
election on the day of Haynes’ resignation, and chose Mr. John
Smyth, afterwards Margaret Professor of Divinity. Smyth was promptly
despatched to the Bishop of Lincoln for confirmation, and on his return
to the College was duly installed Provost. Some days afterwards the
Dean was summoned to attend the Council and to give an account of the
College proceedings. His explanations were apparently accepted, and
no further action was taken. Smyth retained his place through all
the changes of religion under Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. On his
resignation in 1565, Roger Marbeck of Christchurch, and Public Orator,
was chosen, although not statutably qualified, having never been a
Fellow. It is possible, though not hinted at in the account of the
election, that he was recommended either by the Queen or by some other
powerful personage; and a dispensation was obtained from the Visitor
authorising a departure from the regulations of the Statutes. Marbeck
held the office only two years, and was succeeded by John Belly,
Provost 1566 to 1574.
The long reign of the next Provost, Anthony Blencowe, covers the
period of transition from the old to the new era. The College of the
medieval type consisted of the Fellows only. Already Bachelors of
Arts at the time of their election, they carried on their studies
under the direction of the Head and seniors, proceeding to the
higher degrees, and ultimately passing from Oxford to ecclesiastical
employment elsewhere. William of Wykeham had indeed made one important
innovation on the type which Walter de Merton had created; for the
younger members of his foundation were admitted direct from school, and
only obtained their first University degree after they had been some
years at College. The example of New College was followed at Magdalen
and Corpus; but in these cases, as at New College, the admission of
undergraduates was only introduced as part of the regulations for
members of the Foundation, and it was not in contemplation to make the
College a school for all comers. No doubt a few _extranei_, graduate
or undergraduate, were occasionally admitted to share the Fellows’
table, and to profit by their advice and companionship; but the bulk
of the younger students remained outside the Colleges, lodging in the
numerous Halls in the town, and subject only to the discipline of the
University. Instances of such _extranei_ are Thomas Arundel, already
mentioned as a member of Oriel in the fourteenth century; Henry, Prince
of Wales, afterwards Henry V., at Queen’s College; Doctor Thomas
Gascoigne, who at different times resided at Oriel, at Lincoln, and
at New College. This class survived to recent times in the Fellow
commoners, or gentlemen commoners, whose connexion with the Colleges
is historically older than the more numerous and important class of
commoners, which has overshadowed and ultimately extinguished them.
It is worth observing that the three Colleges of William of Wykeham’s
type, New College, Magdalen, and Corpus, although they received
gentlemen commoners, did not admit ordinary commoners until the changes
which followed on the University Commission of 1854. All Souls has
remained to the present day a College of Fellows alone.
The religious changes of the sixteenth century were followed by great
alterations in the discipline of the University. Acting on pressure
from without, a Statute was passed in 1581 requiring all matriculated
students to reside in a College or Hall. The old Halls had nearly all
disappeared; of the few remaining most were connected more or less
closely with one of the Colleges. Queen’s College claimed, and was
successful in retaining, St. Edmund’s Hall. Merton had purchased Alban
Hall in the earlier part of the century. Magdalen Hall was dependent
on Magdalen College. The connexion between Oriel and St. Mary Hall was
older and closer than any. The Principal was, invariably, chosen or
appointed from among the Fellows. The holders of the small Exhibitions
founded by Bishop Carpenter and Dr. Dudley were lodged not in the
College but in the Hall; in times of plague the members of the Hall
were allowed to remove to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, for a purer
air. In the census of the University, taken in 1572, Oriel appears
to have numbered forty-two members; of these the Provost and Fellows
account for nineteen; three were servants; the remaining twenty, one
of whom may be perhaps identified with Sir Walter Raleigh, represent
the favoured class of _extranei_, of which we have already spoken.
In the same year the members of St. Mary Hall numbered forty-six.
The next half century sees this proportion completely reversed. The
matriculations at Oriel from 1581 to 1621 average a little over ten
a year; those at St. Mary Hall sink to five. The control over the
Hall was taken away by the Chancellor, Lord Leicester, though the
College might well have made out as good a claim as that successfully
asserted by Queen’s College over St. Edmund’s Hall. But the Principals
continued to be chosen from among Fellows of Oriel down to the time of
the Commonwealth.
As has been already stated, the Register contains but few notices from
which it could be gathered that any great change in the character of
the College took place at this time. In 1585 the Provost admonishes the
Fellows as to the behaviour of their scholars, and they are ordered
to be responsible to the butler for the battels of their scholars or
pupils. In 1594 an order was made that no Fellow should have more than
one poor scholar under the name of batler. In 1595 the Dean is invested
with the power of catechising. In 1606 one of the Fellows is appointed
public catechist for the instruction of the youth, as required by
University Statute. In 1624 a Mr. Jones, not a Fellow, is appointed, on
his own application, Praelector in Greek. A Register of the admission
of commensales, that is the members of the higher order only, or Fellow
commoners, was begun in 1596, and continued to 1610. It contains
eighteen names only, the first being that of Robert Pierrepont,
afterwards Earl of Kingston. With this exception the admissions into
the College have to be collected from the University Matriculation
Register, supplemented from about 1620 by the Caution Book.