through which a University passes, first as _scholae_, where there is
“a more or less fortuitous gathering of teachers and students”; next
as a _studium generale_, when the teachers become “a sort of guild
of masters or doctors,” with control over the admission by a degree
to their own body; and lastly as a _Universitas_, when the society
“acquires a corporate existence,” with a well-defined constitution
and privileges. The first and second of these stages were attained by
Oxford in the twelfth century, and the third early in the thirteenth
century. It is early in this latter century that we also find the
earliest associations of students among themselves. The system of Halls
was due to the desire of the poorer class of students to live for
economy’s sake in a common house with common meals, under the charge of
a Principal whose duty was quite as much to manage household affairs
as to superintend the studies of his scholars.[213]
The existence of the house which became Brasenose Hall may be carried
back with certainty to the second quarter of the thirteenth century,
the earliest facts at present known being that it belonged, in or
before A. D. 1239,[214] to one Jeffry Jussell, and that it passed
into the hands of Simon de Balindon, who sold it in about 1261 to the
Chancellor and Masters of the University, for the use of the scholars
enjoying the benefaction of William of Durham. Soon after this purchase
the occupier, Andrew the son of Andrew of Durham, was forcibly ejected
by Adam Bilet and his scholars, and no doubt at this time, if not
earlier, the tenement acquired the name of Brasenose, and was used as
schools, for in 1278 an Inquisition[215] says, “Item eadem Universitas
[Oxon.] habet quandam aliam domum que vocatur Brasenose cum quatuor
Scholis … et taxantur ad octo marcas, et fuit illa domus aliquo tempore
Galfridi Jussell.” The transition from these Scholae or lecture-rooms
to a Hall cannot now be traced, but no doubt took place within the same
century.
In the early part of 1334 a striking incident occurred in the history
of the Hall. Under stress of internal faction, and not on this
occasion, it would seem, from excesses on the part of the citizens,
there was a migration of a large number of the students of the
University from Oxford to Stamford, fulfilling the (later!) prophecy of
Merlin--
“Doctrinae studium quae nunc viget ad Vada Boum
Tempore venturo celebrabitur ad Vada Saxi.”
But of all the emigrants the only men who kept together were the
students of Brasenose Hall, as is evidenced by the existence at
Stamford to this day of a fourteenth century archway, belonging to an
ancient hall called for centuries “Brasenose Hall in Stamford,” the
refectory of which was standing till A.D. 1688,[216] and still more by
a brass knocker which is assigned by antiquaries to the early part of
the twelfth century, and which from time immemorial hung on the doors
of the Stamford gateway. It is reasonable to suppose that the knocker
had originally given a name to the Oxford Hall, and had been carried
as a visible sign of unity to the distant Lincolnshire town.[217] The
King used all his power to force the students to return to Oxford, and
in a final commission in July, 1335, the name of “Philippus obsonator
Eneanasensis” occurs among the thirty-seven who resisted to the last
the mandates of the King.[218]
The list of Principals of Brasenose is preserved from 1435 onwards (see
p. 271), but little or nothing is recorded of the life of the Hall. Its
flourishing state may be inferred from its vigorous annexation of the
surrounding buildings, as Little St. Edmund Hall, Little University
Hall, and St. Thomas Hall. An inventory of the furniture belonging to
Master Thomas Cooper of Brasenose Hall, who died in 1438, is printed in
Anstey’s _Munimenta Academica_, ii. 515. The Vice-Chancellor in 1480-82
was William Sutton, Principal of Brasenose Hall, and Proctors in 1458
(John Molineux) and 1502 (Hugh Hawarden) were Brasenose men.
The new College, founded in 1509, was in several special ways a
continuation of, and not merely a substitute for, the old Hall. The
site of the Hall was exactly at the principal gateway of the College;
it had already annexed many of the adjacent buildings required for
the new erection, and the last Principal of the Hall was the first
Principal of the College. It may fairly be claimed therefore that there
is a real succession, both of name and fame, from the one to the other.
II. THE FOUNDERS OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE.
William Smyth, the chief founder of Brasenose, was the fourth son of
Robert Smyth, of Peel House, in Widnes (Lancashire), and belonged to
a Cuerdley family. Of the date of his birth, early education, and
career at Oxford nothing whatever is certainly known. In 1492 when he
was instituted to the Rectory of Cheshunt, he was a Bachelor of Law.
Through the influence of the Stanley family, and of Margaret, Countess
of Richmond, Smyth obtained promotion both in civil and ecclesiastical
lines, until in 1491 he was elected Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.
In the closing years of the fifteenth century he presided over the
Prince of Wales’s Council in the Marches of Wales, and was President
of Wales in 1501 or 1502. In Lichfield he founded, in 1495, a Hospital
of St. John, which has preserved a portrait of him almost identical
with the one owned by the College. In the same year he was translated
to Lincoln. The Bishop’s connection with Oxford was renewed in 1500,
at the end of which year he was elected Chancellor, retaining the
office till August, 1503. This link with the University had great
results, for in 1507 the Bishop established a new Fellowship in Oriel,
endowed Lincoln College with two estates, and formed his plans with a
view to the foundation of Brasenose. After that event there is little
of importance to notice in his public life before his death on 2nd
January, 1513/4.
Sir Richard Sutton, Knight, the co-Founder of Brasenose, and the first
lay founder of any College, was of the family of Sutton, of Sutton
near Macclesfield, and probably a kinsman of William Sutton, Principal
of Brasenose Hall in and after 1469; but no connection can be traced
between this family and the wealthy Thomas Sutton who founded the
Charterhouse a century later. Of his birth and education there is no
record, but he was a Barrister of the Inner Temple and was made a Privy
Councillor in 1497. In 1513 he was Steward of the Monastery of Sion at
Isleworth, a house of Brigittine nuns. At his expense Pynson printed
the _Orcharde of Syon_, a devotional book, in 1519. In 1522 or 1523 he
received the honour of knighthood, and died in 1524.
III. THE FOUNDATION AND EARLY STATUTES OF THE COLLEGE.
The first record of the proposal to found Brasenose is contained in
the will of Edmund Croston, dated (four days before his death) on Jan.
23, 1507/8, where are bequeathed £6 13_s._ 4_d._ to “the building
of Brasynnose in Oxford, if such works as the Bishop of Lyncoln and
Master Sotton intended there went on during their life or within
twelve years after.” It is probable that the Bishop at one time
intended that Lincoln College should enjoy his benefactions, for Robert
Parkinson, Sub-rector of Lincoln, wrote about 1566-69, “Proposuerat
enim [episcopus], ut ferunt, omnia nostro collegio praestitisse quae
postea in Brasinnos egit, si voluissent R[ector] et S[cholares] qui tum
fuerunt ab eo propositas conditiones recipere.”
The actual foundation can be best shown in the form of annals, it being
understood that the disposition of the halls mentioned was nearly as
follows--
HIGH
STREET.
|
| V | |
| | | |
| +---------+---------+ --------+ |
| | | | | | ST. | |
| | HABER- | | |Garden | THOMAS | |
| | DASHER | | | | HALL | | EXETER
| | HALL | LITTLE | ST. |SALIS- | | | COLLEGE
| |(Oseney) | ST. |MARY’S | BURY | BRAZE- +--------+ | GARDEN
| | | EDMUND | ENTRY | HALL | NOSE |LITTLE | |
| +---------+ HALL | | | HALL | UNI- | |
| | |(Oseney) |(Oriel)|(Oriel)| |VERSITY | |
| | Garden | | | | | HALL | |
| | | | | | (Univ. |Coll.) | |
| +---------+---------+-------+-------+--------+--------+ +--------+
-+ SCHOOL STREET. |
+---------------+ +----------+-----------+---------+-----------+ |
-+ | | | |<- 58 ft.->| | | |
| | ST. MARY’S | | GLASS | STAPLE | BLACK | DEEP | |
| | CHURCH | | HALL | HALL | HALL | HALL | |
| | | | | (Lincoln | | | |
| | | | (Oseney) | Coll.) |(Oseney) | | |
1508, Oct. 20, Brazen Nose and Little University Halls are leased by
University College to Richard Sutton, Esq., and eight others (four of
whom were among the first Fellows) for ninety-two years at an annual
rent of £3, on condition that the lessees should spend £40 on the
tenements within a year. The College agreed to renew the lease and to
give over all their rights, as soon as property of the annual value
of £3 should be given them. In 1514 Sutton assigned this lease to
trustees to carry out his purposes.
1509, summer. Edward Moseley’s stone quarry at Headington is let to the
founders and Roland Messenger for their lives.
1509, June 1. The foundation stone of the College is laid, as recorded
on a modern copy of the original inscription, now and probably always
placed over the doorway of Staircase No. 1, which used to lead to the
first chapel of the College:--
“Anno Christi 1509 et Regis Henrici octavi primo | Nomine diuino
lincoln | presul quoque sutton . Hanc posu | ere petram regis ad
imperium | primo die Iunii.”
1509/10, Feb. 20. Oriel College lets Salisbury Hall and St. Mary’s
Entry (Introitus S. Mariae) to Sutton and others for ever in
consideration of an annual rent of 13_s._ 4_d._
1511/2, Jan. 15. A Charter of Foundation granted to Smyth and Sutton.
1523, May 6. Sutton transfers the property acquired from University
College in 1508, to the Principal and Fellows of Brazenose.
1530, May 12. Haberdasher, Little St. Edmund, Glass and Black Halls are
granted to the College on a lease of ninety-six years by Oseney Abbey,
the first being at once converted by payment into the property of the
College, but the others not till March 6, 1655/6.
1556, Nov. 2. Staple Hall, which had once belonged to the Abbey of
Eynsham, is leased by Lincoln College to Brasenose for ever at a rent
of 20_s._ per annum.
* * * * *
“Rome was not built in a day,” and it is curious to note how the old
and new foundations overlap each other. The College building clearly
began at the south-west corner of the present front quadrangle, and
Brasenose Hall was no doubt left until the building naturally reached
it. Thus John Formby was Principal of the Hall till Aug. 24, 1510,
when Matthew Smyth succeeded him, and in Smyth’s name on Sept. 9,
1511 Roland Messenger still became surety for the dues payable by the
Hall to the University, for the ensuing year; and even on Sept. 9,
1512, Smyth himself “cautioned,” as it was called, for the moribund
hall. Moreover, a scholar of the Hall was locked up in August 1512
for interfering with the workmen who were building Corpus. The first
occasion on which the College appears in the University Registers is
in Sept. 1514, when Matthew Smyth, “Principal of the College or Hall
of Brasen Nose” is mentioned; but there is evidence that the corporate
action of the College dates from at least as early as Nov. 1512. We
thus have before us the successive steps by which a College gradually
grew, and literally piece by piece took the place of the precedent
Halls.
It is now time to turn to the statutes, the buildings being reserved
for a later section.
The Charter of Foundation is dated Jan. 15, 1511/2, and the original
statutes were no doubt shortly after drawn up and ratified by the two
founders, but no copy of them remains. Bishop Smyth’s executors in
about 1514 revised and signed a modification of the code, which still
exists, and finally at the request of the College Sir Richard Sutton
once more revised them, on Feb. 1, 1521/2.
As in conception and in form of buildings, so in respect of their
statutes also, Merton and New College are the two cardinal foundations.
From the latter were derived the statutes of Magdalen, founded in 1458,
and from these latter the earliest statutes of Brasenose. The general
sense of the Code of 1514 with Sutton’s changes in 1522, can be well
gathered from the Churton’s abstract in his _Lives of … (the) Founders
of Brazen Nose College_ (Oxf. 1800), pp. 315-40. The preamble is as
follows, the original being in Latin--
“In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, and of the most blessed Mother of God, Mary the glorious
Virgin, and of Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, and also of St. Michael
the archangel: We, William Smyth, bishop of Lincoln, and Richard
Sutton, esquire, confiding in the aid of the supreme Creator, who
knows, directs and disposes the wills of all that trust in him, do out
of the goods which in this life, not by our merits, but by the grace
of His fulness, we have received abundantly, by royal authority and
charter found, institute and establish in the University of Oxford, a
perpetual College of poor and indigent scholars, who shall study and
make progress in philosophy and sacred theology; commonly called _The
King’s Haule and Colledge of Brasennose in Oxford_; to the praise,
glory, and honour of Almighty God, of the glorious Virgin Mary, Saints
Hugh and Chad confessors, St. Michael the Archangel and All Saints; for
the support and exaltation of the Christian Faith, for the advancement
of holy church, and for the furtherance of divine worship.”
The College is to consist of a Principal and twelve Fellows, all of
them born within the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield; with preference
to the natives of the counties of Lancaster and Chester; and especially
to the natives of the parish of Prescot in Lancashire, and of Prestbury
in Cheshire. One of the senior Fellows is annually to be elected
Vice-Principal; and two others Bursars. The only language tolerated for
public use, unless when strangers are present, is Latin. The Bishop of
Lincoln has always been the Visitor.
Thus Brasenose started fairly on its course, equipped with statutes,
with property from its founders and benefactors, and with students
drawn, as ever since until recently, chiefly from good families of
Cheshire and Lancashire, Leighs and Watsons, Lathams and Brookes and
Egertons. But the history of a College which has not been at any time
predominant in the University is both difficult and unnecessary to
trace; difficult from the paucity of records of its internal social
life, and unnecessary from the lack of general interest in the domestic
affairs of one particular College among so many. It will be the task of
one who deals with the social life of Oxford to seize on those features
of College history which from time to time best represent the character
of successive periods: in this place it will suffice to give a few
scenes or facts which being themselves of interest have also sufficient
illustration from existing records.
IV. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE RESTORATION.
In the Bodleian (MS. Rawl. D. 985) there is a volume of copies of Latin
letters written by Robert Batt of Brasenose, chiefly to a brother,
in which among much of the usual rhetoric there is also curious
information about the life of the College. They range from 1581 to
1585, and we read of his complaints to the Principal because a junior
man is put into his study (_musæum_), of an archery meeting at Oxford,
which much distracts the young Batt, and of the visit of the Prince
Alaskie to Oxford. He asks his Cambridge brother to come up for Commem,
and with Yorkshire bluntness writes letters to the Master and a Fellow
of University College, asking for a Fellowship!
So too in 1609-11 we find ten letters from Richard Taylor as tutor to
Sir Peter Legh’s son (Hist. Manuscripts Commission, _Report 3_, 1872,
p. 268), which throw light on College affairs and expenses of that time.
In the Register of the Parliamentary Visitors of the University from
1647 to 1658 we obtain an insight into the condition of the College,
which shows it to have been in a creditable state. At first the College
is as Royalist as any, the proportion of submitters to those who
were willing to endure actual expulsion rather than acknowledge the
Visitors’ rights, being probably only twelve to twenty-three, in May
1648. Their Principal, Dr. Samuel Radcliffe, had already, on Jan. 6,
been deprived of his office, and Daniel Greenwood, a submitter, had
been on April 13, put in his place. But the spirit of the College is
abundantly shown by the proceedings which ensued on Dr. Radcliffe’s
death. Three days after that event, on June 29, the Society, to use
Wood’s words, “(taking no notice that the Visitors had entred Mr.
Greenwood Principal) put up a citation on the Chappel door (as by
Statute they were required) to summon the Fellows to election. The
Visitors thereupon send for Mr. Thom. Sixsmith and two more Fellows
of that House to command them to surcease and submit to their new
Principal Mr. Greenwood; but they gave them fair words, went home,
and within four days after [July 13] chose among themselves, in a
Fellow’s Chamber, at the West end of the old Library, Mr. Thom. Yate,
one of their Society.” The Visitors immediately deposed him, in favour
of Greenwood; but at the Restoration Dr. Yate’s claims were at once
recognized, and he long enjoyed the headship. This resistance by
the Fellows was proved to be not lawlessness but loyalty, for when
resistance was of no avail, they “speedily[219] recovered their
working order, and gave but little trouble to the Visitors,” a contrast
to the general example of other Colleges.
The more eminent Brasenose men who belong to this period are: Alexander
Nowell, Fellow and Principal, Dean of St. Paul’s (matr. 1521); John
Foxe, the Martyrologist (_c._ 1533); Sampson Erdeswick, the historian
of Staffordshire (1553); Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Chancellor
Ellesmere (_c._ 1556); Sir Henry Savile, afterwards Warden of Merton
(1561); John Guillim, the herald (_c._ 1585); Robert Burton, the author
of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1593); Sir John Spelman, the antiquary
(1642); Elias Ashmole, the herald, founder of the Ashmolean Museum
(1644); and Sir William Petty (1649).
V. BRASENOSE IN MODERN TIMES.
The period from the Restoration to 1800 was in Oxford as elsewhere
marked rather by the excellence of individuals than by a high standard
of general culture. In the first part of the period Brasenose is not
especially distinguished, except by an undue prominence in the records
of the Vice-Chancellor’s Court; but as we approach the close of the
eighteenth century there are signs of a period of great prosperity,
which distinguished the headships of Cleaver, Hodson and Gilbert, the
first and last of whom were Bishops of Chester (then of Bangor, and
finally of St. Asaph) and Chichester respectively. The signs of this
are unmistakable. The numbers show an unusual increase, and the College
is in the front both in the class-lists and in outdoor sports. The
high-water mark was perhaps reached when the story could be told of Dr.
Hodson (in about 1808), which is related in Mark Pattison’s _Memoirs_.
“Returning to College, after one Long Vacation, Hodson drove the last
stage into Oxford, with post-horses. The reason he gave for this piece
of ostentation was, ‘That it should not be said that the first tutor
of the first College of the first University of the world entered it
with a pair.’ … The story is symbolical of the high place B.N.C. held
in the University at the time, in which however, intellectual eminence
entered far less than the fact that it numbered among its members many
gentlemen commoners of wealthy and noble families.”
But intellectual eminence there certainly was at this time, for in
the class-lists of Mich. 1808 to Mich. 1810, out of thirty-seven
first-classes Brasenose claimed seven, monopolizing one list
altogether; and out of seventy-five second-classes it held twelve.
This was the period of what has been called the “famous Brasenose
breakfast.” Reginald Heber won the Newdigate in 1803 with a poem which
will never be forgotten--his _Palestine_. His rooms were on Staircase
6, one pair left, under the great chestnut in Exeter Garden called
Heber’s Tree. In 1803 Sir Walter Scott went to Oxford with Richard
Heber, Reginald’s brother. The story may be told in Lockhart’s[220]
words: Heber “had just been declared the successful competitor for
that year’s poetical prize, and read to Scott at breakfast in Brazen
Nose College the MS. of his _Palestine_. Scott observed that in the
verses on Solomon’s Temple one striking circumstance had escaped him,
namely that no tools were used in its erection. Reginald retired for a
few minutes to the corner of the room, and returned with the beautiful
lines--
‘No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung,
Majestic silence!’”[221]
In connection with this literary and social side of the College may be
mentioned the Phœnix Common-room or Club, the only social Club in the
University which is more than a century old. It was started in 1781
or 1782 by Joseph Alderson, an undergraduate of Brasenose, afterwards
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and received a full constitution
with officers and rules in 1786. It has always nominally consisted of
twelve members, generally dining together once a week. The records
of the Club are singularly complete, even to the caricatures on the
blotting-paper of the dinner-books. Of the twelve original members five
were soon elected to Fellowships, and such names as Frodsham Hodson
(afterwards Principal), Viscount Valentia (_d._ 1844), Earl Fortescue
(_d._ 1861), Reginald Heber (Bishop of Calcutta), Lord George
Grenville (_d._ 1850), the Earl of Delawarr, the friend of Byron,
Richard Harington (afterwards Principal), Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne
(“S. G. O.”), and the present Deans of Rochester and Worcester, have
raised it to no ordinary level. Its contemporary from 1828 to 1834, the
Hell-fire Club, was of a very different character; but from one or two
dubious incidents in its career has found its way into literature.[222]
The incident which produced from the pen of Reginald Heber the humorous
poem entitled the _Whippiad_[223] was connected with members of the
Phœnix, though not with a meeting of the Club. The Senior Tutor had
incautiously endeavoured to wrest a whip from Bernard Port, who had
been loudly cracking it in the quadrangle; but alas, the representative
of constitutional authority soon measured his length on the grass,
being, not for the first time (as Heber maliciously notes) “floored by
Port.”
The Ale Verses were an ancient social custom, probably at least as
old as the Restoration. On Shrove Tuesday the butler presented a copy
of English verses on Brasenose Ale to the Principal, written by some
undergraduate, and received thereupon a certain sum of money. The
earliest extant poem is of about the year 1700; but there is a long
gap from that year till 1806, and they are not continuously preserved
till from 1826, having been printed first in about 1811. They supply
all kinds of contemporary information, collegiate, academical and
political, chiefly of course by way of allusion. At last in 1886 the
College Brew-house was removed to make room for new buildings, and with
it went the Ale Verses, except that in 1889 one more set was issued.
In 1888 a Fellow of the College printed a Latin dirge over the sad
surcease; but soon the Verses will be forgotten, and the Brew-house.
On the river Brasenose has always been prominent: never once in the
Eights or Torpids has it sunk below the ninth place. In the first
inter-collegiate races, in 1815, Brasenose is at the head, and when the
records begin again, in 1822, again takes the lead. At the present time
(June 1891) B.N.C. has started head in the Eights on 110 days.[224]
The only clubs which had cricket grounds of their own in about 1835
were the Brasenose and the Bullingdon (Ch. Ch.), and even in 1847 the
Magdalen, _i. e._ the University Club, was the only additional one.
Early cricketing records are difficult to find; but in recent times no
College has been able to show such a record as B.N.C. in 1871, when
it had eight men in the University eleven, and when sixteen of the
College beat an All-England eleven. In 1873 sixteen of B.N.C. also beat
the United North of England eleven. The Inter-University high-jump of
1876, when M. J. Brooks of B.N.C. cleared 6 feet 2½ inches, was an
extraordinary performance.