years the establishment of Merton College upon its present site and
under statutes which had assumed their final shape, by three years
the code of rules drawn up by the University for the University Hall,
and by one year the date of the statutes of Balliol College, statutes
which preceded the establishment of students upon the present site of
that College. It was in 1283 that John Giffarde, Baron of Brimsfield,
on St. John the Evangelist’s day, being present in St. Peter’s Abbey
at Gloucester, founded Gloucester College, “extra muros Oxoniæ,” as
a house of study for thirteen monks of that abbey, appropriating for
their support the revenues of the church of Chipping Norton. This was
the first monastic College established in Oxford. It differed from the
Hall which not long after was built for the Benedictines of Durham,
in that, while Durham College admitted secular students, Gloucester
College was limited to monks of the Benedictine Order. It was not long
before the other great English Benedictine Houses, whose students
when sent to Oxford had hitherto been placed in scattered lodgings,
recognized the advantage of bringing them together under common
discipline and instruction and a common Head. They obtained permission
therefore of the Abbey of Gloucester to share with them their house at
Oxford, and to add to the existing buildings several lodgings, each
appropriated to the use of one or more of the Benedictine Houses. The
building made over in the first place by Giffarde had been originally
the mansion of Gilbert Clare earl of Gloucester, for whom it had the
advantage of being close to the Royal palace of Beaumont, in Magdalen
Parish. His arms were in Antony Wood’s day still to be seen “fairly
depicted in the window of the Common Hall.” It subsequently passed into
the hands of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and was exempt
from Episcopal and archidiaconal jurisdiction “a tempore cujus memoria
non existit.” It was from the Hospitallers that Giffarde bought the
house which he made over to Gloucester Abbey. In 1290 or 1291, upon
the agreement to admit other Benedictine Houses to a joint use of the
College, the founder purchased four other tenements, and, obtaining a
license in mortmain from Edward I., conveyed the whole to the Prior and
monks. Thereupon was held at Abingdon a General Chapter of the Abbots
and Priors of the Order, at which provisions were made for regulating
the new buildings to be erected and for providing contributions towards
the expenses, while rules were drawn up for the conduct of the College.
All Benedictines of the Province of Canterbury were to have right
of admission to “our common House in Stockwell Street,” and all the
students were to have an equal vote in the election of the Prior. The
strife and canvassing which took place over these popular elections
in time arose to such a head as to create a scandal in the order, to
remedy which it was decreed by a General Chapter that the author of
any such disturbance should be punished by degradation and perpetual
excommunication. The monks themselves, differing in this respect from
the subsequent foundation of Durham College, were not permitted to
study or be conversant with secular students; they were bound to attend
divine service on solemn and festival days; to observe disputations
constantly in term-time; to have divinity disputations once a week,
and the presiding moderator was endowed with a salary of £10 per annum
out of the common stock of the Order, which provided also for the
expenses of their Exercises and Degrees in the matter of fees and
entertainments. It was the duty of the Prior to enforce all regulations
and to see that the monks preached often, as well in the Latin as in
the vulgar tongue. It was further jealously stipulated that in their
exercises they should “answer” under one of their own Order, a trace
of the struggle between the religious orders and the University which
arose to such a height in the case of the various orders of Friars.
Few structures carry their history and their purpose upon their face in
a more obvious or more picturesque manner than do the still surviving
remains of the old Benedictine colony. Each settlement possessed a
lodging of its own “divided (though all for the most part adjoining
to each other) by particular roofs, partitions, and various forms of
structure, and known from each other, like so many colonies and tribes,
(though one at once inhabited by several abbies,) by arms and rebuses
that are depicted and cut in stone over each door.” These words of
Antony à Wood are a perfect description of the cottage-like row of
tenements which still form the south side of the present quadrangle,
and partially apply to the small southern quadrangle, though many of
the features have been in this case obliterated. But on the north side
all that now remains of what is represented in Loggan’s well-known
print is the ancient doorway of the College, surmounted by two shields,
(there used to be three, bearing respectively the arms of Gloucester,
Glastonbury and St. Alban’s,) and the adjoining buildings, which are
of the same character as the tenements on the south side. The first
lodgings on the north side were allotted, we are told, to the monks of
Abingdon: the next were built for the monks of Gloucester. These in
later days became the lodgings of the Principal of Gloucester Hall,
an arrangement followed in the position of the present lodgings of
the Provost of the College. On the five lodgings of the south side
one may see still in place the shields described by A. Wood. Over the
door at the S.W. corner is a shield bearing a mitre over a comb and a
tun, with the letter W (interpreted as the rebus of Walter Compton, or
else in reference to Winchcombe Abbey). Another shield bears three
cups surmounted by a ducal coronet. Between these is a small niche.
The chambers next in order were assigned by tradition to Westminster
Abbey; and the central lodgings of the five were “partly for Ramsey and
Winchcombe Abbies.” Over the doors of the easternmost lodgings again
are shields, the first bearing a “griffin sergreant,” the other a plain
cross. Another plain shield remains _in situ_ in the small quadrangle;
one has been removed and built into the garden wall of the present
kitchen.
A. Wood gives a list of the abbies which sent their monks to Gloucester
College. These were Gloucester, Glastonbury, St. Alban’s, Tavistock,
Burton, Chertsey, Coventry, Evesham, Eynsham, St. Edmondsbury,
Winchcombe, Abbotsbury, Michelney, Malmesbury, Rochester, Norwich. It
may be presumed that other Houses of the Order made use of the place,
among those whose representatives were present at the Chapter held at
Salisbury the day after the interment of Queen Eleanor, 1291, when
the Prior for the time being, Henry de Helm, was invested with the
government of the College, and provision was made for the election of
his successor.
We do not at this early date find any mention of Refectory or Chapel.
The parish church was, no doubt, as in other cases, frequented by the
student-monks for divine services, but they also had licence to have
a portable altar. It was not till 1420, in the prioralty of Thomas de
Ledbury, that John Whethamsted, Abbot of St. Alban’s, formerly Prior,
contributed largely to the erection of a chapel, which stood upon the
site of the present chapel. Its ruins are figured in Loggan’s sketch.
He built also a Library on the south side of the chapel, at right
angles to it, the five windows of which, giving upon Stockwell Street,
are also depicted in Loggan’s sketch. Upon this Library he bestowed
many books both of his own collection and of his own writing; and at
his instance Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, besides other benefactions,
gave many books to the Library. The benefits conferred by Whethamsted
were such that a Convocation of the Order styled him “chief benefactor
and second founder of the College.” One other name, a name of local
interest, we find associated with the place as its benefactor--that of
Sir Peter Besils, of Abingdon. Thus a century of dignified prosperity
was assured to the College, during which period it numbered among its
_alumni_ John Langden, Bishop of Rochester; Thomas Mylling, Abbot of
Westminster and afterwards Bishop of Hereford; Antony Richer, Abbot
of Eynsham, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff; Thomas Walsingham the
chronicler.
The dissolution of the monasteries of course involved the suppression
of the Benedictine College; Whethamsted’s Chapel and Library were
reduced to a ruin; and the books “were partly lost and purchased, and
partly conveyed to some of the other College Libraries,” where Wood
professes to have seen them “still bearing their donor’s name.”
_Bishop of Oxford’s Palace_, 1542-1557(?).
The College, its buildings and grounds, remained in the hands of the
Crown till the thirty-fourth year of Henry’s reign, when, upon his
founding the Bishoprick of Oxford, the seat of which was at Osney,
it was allotted to the Bishop for his palace, and was for a certain
time occupied by Bishop King, who had been the last Abbot of Osney.
On the transfer of the See within three years to the church of St.
Frideswyde, the endowments which had been attached to the Bishoprick
and temporarily resigned to the Crown were conveyed to the new
foundation, the intention of Henry VIII., who had died in the meantime,
being carried out by Edward VI. But there is no mention among the
endowments thus re-conveyed of Gloucester College, which remained in
the possession of the Crown until it was granted by Elizabeth, in the
second year of her reign, to William Doddington. He at once made it
over to the newly-founded College of St. John Baptist, for whom it was
purchased by the founder. The legend runs that Sir Thomas Whyte was
inclined for a while to Gloucester Hall as the site of his new College,
but that a dream directed him to the selection of St. Bernard’s College.
The Bishop of Oxford in 1604 revived his claim to the Hall, maintaining
that the surrender to the Crown had not been acknowledged by Bishop
King, nor duly enrolled in Chancery, and to try his rights he “did
make an entry by night and by water, and did drive away the horses
depasturing on the land belonging to the said Hall.” He failed however
to make good his claim against St. John’s College.
_Gloucester Hall_, 1559-1714.
Sir Thomas Whyte effected considerable repairs in his new purchase, and
converted it into a Hall with the name of the Principal and Scholars of
St. John Baptist’s Hall: the Principal was to be a Fellow of St. John’s
College, elected by that Society and admitted by the Chancellor of
the University. On St. John Baptist’s day, 1560, the first Principal,
William Stock, and one hundred Scholars took their first commons in
the old monks’ Refectory. It was in the September of this same year
that the body of Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley’s ill-fated wife, was
secretly brought from Cumnor to Gloucester College, and lay there
till the burial at St. Mary’s, “the great chamber where the mourners
did dine, and that where the gentlewomen did dine, and beneath the
stairs a great hall being all hung with black cloth, and garnished
with scutcheons.”[334] Before long the patronage of this Hall passed
with that of others into the hands of the Chancellor, this same Robert
Dudley, then become Earl of Leicester, so that the restriction to
Fellows of St. John’s College was no longer observed.
There are but few notices of the Hall to be found in the Register of
St. John’s College. Under date 1567 there is entry of the lease of a
chamber, formerly the Library, to William Stocke, Principal of the
Hall. In 1573 it was ordered that at the election of a Principal to
succeed Mr. Stocke it be covenanted that Sir Geo. Peckham may quietly
enjoy his lodging there. And again in 1608 there is entered a grant of
six timber trees out of Bagley Wood towards building a chapel. This was
in the principalship of Dr. Hawley, in whose time it was that the old
Hall for a second time, if the legend of Sir Thomas Whyte be credited,
won the regard of an intending Founder; Nicholas Wadham selected it as
the site of his projected College, and his widow, Dorothy, sought to
carry out his intention, and purchase it. But the scheme went off; for
the Principal, Dr. Hawley, refused to resign his interest in the Hall,
except upon the Foundress naming him as the first Warden of her College.
In Principal Hawley’s time it may be inferred that the Hall was
at a low ebb in point of numbers; but among its students was one
whose quaint, adventurous career had its fit commencement in those
picturesque ruins. Thomas Coryate the Odcombian--that strange amalgam
of shrewdness, buffoonery, learning, and adventure--became a member
of the Hall in 1596. He passed his life in wandering afoot--a pauper
pilgrim--through the East. He was so apt a linguist as to silence
“a laundry woman, a famous scold,” in her own Hindustani. From the
Court of the Great Mogul he dated epistles, which were the amusement
of the wits, and are now the treasures of the collector of literary
curiosities. These, and the “Crudities hastily gobbled up,” a record of
his earlier wanderings in Europe, will preserve his memory, when men of
more serious consequence have passed into oblivion.
At this low ebb of the Hall’s chequered existence, it seems to have
been a common practice to let lodgings to persons not necessarily
connected with the Hall. We have already seen how Sir George Peckham
occupied a lodging in Principal Stocke’s time; the famous Thomas Allen
again in the reign of Elizabeth and James found a refuge here for many
years; and now Degory Whear, who had been, with Camden, a member of
Broadgates Hall, and then Fellow of Exeter, retiring with his wife to
Oxford upon his patron’s death, had rooms allotted to him in Gloucester
Hall. In 1622 he was, through Allen’s interest, appointed by Camden the
first Professor on his History Foundation, and retained this chair,
together with the Principalship of the Hall to which he was nominated
in 1626, until his death in 1647. Degory Whear, though the friend and
_protégé_ of so good antiquaries as Allen and Camden, finds amusingly
scant favour in the eyes of Antony Wood, who bestows upon him the faint
praise that “he was esteemed by some a learned and genteel man, and by
others a Calvinist. He left behind him a widow and children, who soon
after became poor, and whether the Females lived honestly, ’tis not for
me to dispute it.”
The fame or vigour of Degory Whear, with the reputation of Thomas
Allen, revived the decaying fortunes of the Hall; for we are told
that “in his time there were 100 students: and some being persons of
quality, ten or twelve met in their doublets of cloth of gold and
silver.” Among other noticeable names Christopher Merritt, Fellow
of the Royal Society, was admitted in 1632, and Richard Lovelace
in 1634. At that date there were ninety-two students in the Hall
(Wood’s _Life_, ii. 246). Degory Whear not only filled his Hall with
students, but carried out many much-needed repairs of the buildings.
The chapel, for instance, to the erection of which we have seen that
St. John’s contributed six timber trees from Bagley Wood, was now by
his exertions completed; the Hall and other buildings were repaired;
books were purchased for the Library, plate for the Buttery. In a MS.
book preserved in the College Library are set forth the names of donors
to these objects between the years 1630 and 1640. Among the entries
are the following--“_Kenelmus Digby_ Eques auratus 2 li. _Johannes
Pym_ armiger 20s. _Rogerus Griffin_ civis Oxon. e Collegio pistorum
donavit 2 millia scandularum ad valorem 22 solid. _Johannes Rousæus_
publicæ Bibliothecæ præfectus 1 li. 2s. _Samuel Fell_ S. Th. Doctor 5
li. _Thomas Clayton_ Regius in Medicina Professor 2 li. _Guil. Burton_
LL. Baccalaureatus gradum suscepturus 2 li. 10s.” This last was at
first a student at Queen’s, where he was the contemporary and friend of
Gerard Langbaine, but, his means failing him, Mr. Allen brought him to
Gloucester Hall, and conferred on him the Greek Lecture there. As the
friend of Langbaine it may be supposed he would have a friendly leaning
to the plays which at this time, Wood says, were acted by stealth “in
Kettle Hall, or at Holywell Mill, or in the Refectory at Gloucester
Hall” (_Life_, ii. 148). He subsequently became the Usher to the famous
Thomas Farnaby, and at last Master of the School of Kingston-on-Thames.
His “Graecæ Linguæ Historia; sive oratio habita olim Oxoniis in Aula
Glevocestrensi ante XX & VI annos,” was published in 1657 with a
laudatory letter of Langbaine’s, and a dedication to his pupil Thomas
Thynne.
We next have an account of the expenditure upon the chapel--“Imprimis
fabro murario sive cæmentario 25 li 10s. Materiario sive fabro tignario
38 li 10s. Gypsatori et scandulario 10 li. 11s. Vitriario 4 li 6s.
fabro ferrario 7 li 10s. pictori 1 li 4s. storealatori 00 9s.”
The Hall too was put into repair; for this Thomas Allen’s legacy of £10
was employed, as also for the purchase of an _armarium_ or bookcase,
“parieti inferioris sacelli affixum.” But in spite of this safeguard,
the books, Wood says, with pathetic simplicity, “though kept in a large
press, have been thieved away for the most part, and are now dwindled
to an inconsiderable nothing.” Under the date 1637 there is an entry
of a contribution of 40 shillings to the expenses of the University
in the reception of the King and Queen. It may be noted that these
disbursements seem to have required the assent of the Masters of the
Hall as well as of the Principal.
There are two papers in the University Archives bearing the signature
of Degory Whear as Principal, which give some information as to fees
and customary observances of the Hall. Commoners upon admission paid to
the House 4_s._, to the College officers (Manciple, Butler and Cook)
4_s._ Semi-commoners or Battlers, to the House 2_s._, to the officers
1_s._ 6_d._ A “Poor Scholar” paid nothing. Every Commoner paid weekly
to the Butler 1_d._, towards the Servitors of the Hall a halfpenny. He
also paid quarterly 1_s._ for wages to the Manciple and Cook, besides
a varying sum for Decrements, a term which covered kitchen fuel,
table-cloths, utensils, &c. This item sometimes amounted to 5_s._
a quarter, never more. On taking any Degree 10_s._ was paid to the
Principal, and another 10_s._ to the House, or else there was given a
presentation Dinner. The Principal further received only the chamber
rents, out of which he kept the chambers in repair, and paid quarterly
to two Moderators or Readers the sum of £1 6_s._ 8_d._ It appears that
it was the custom for every Commoner to take his turn as Steward, go
to market with the Manciple and Cook, see the provisions bought for
ready money, apportion the amount for each meal, attend to oversee
the divisions at Dinner and Supper, and be accountable for any Commons
sent to private chambers. At the end of every quarter the accounts
were inspected by the Principal and such of the Masters as he pleased
to send for. On Act Monday it had been customary for the proceeding
Masters to keep a common supper in the Hall, but this charge had of
late years been turned to the building of an Oratory, the flooring of
the Hall, the purchase of plate and of books.
In Whear’s time then the Hall must be regarded as having attained its
highest prosperity, due no doubt partly to the energy and distinction
of the Principal, but due also in great measure to the influence and
reputation of Mr. Thomas Allen, to whom the Principal himself had
owed his promotion. This distinguished mathematician and antiquary,
“being much inclined to a retired life, and averse from taking Holy
Orders,”[335] about 1570 resigned his Fellowship at Trinity College,
and took up his residence in Gloucester Hall, where he remained until
his death in 1632. His intimate relations with the Chancellor, the
Earl of Leicester, at once marked and increased his distinction,
while it exposed him to the attacks of Leicester’s enemies. Leicester
would have nominated him to a Bishoprick, and the malignant author
of “Leycester’s Commonwealth” stigmatizes him as one of Leicester’s
spies and intelligencers in the University, and couples him with his
friend John Dee as an atheist and Leicester’s agent “for figuring and
conjuring.” Indeed his reputation as a mathematician (“he was,” says
his pupil Burton, “the very soul and sun of all the Mathematicians
of his time”) caused him to be regarded by the vulgar as a magician.
Fuller says of him that “he succeeded to the skill and scandal of Friar
Bacon,” and that his servitor would tell the gaping enquirer that “he
met the spirits coming up the stairs like bees.” Indeed in those days
when horoscopes were in fashion the mathematician merged into the
astrologer; the friend of John Dee not unnaturally was supposed to
have dealings in magical arts, and Leicester’s patronage of both would
give countenance to the reputation. But the friendship of the most
learned men of the time--of Bodley, Saville, Camden, Cotton, Spelman,
Selden--is an indication of Allen’s genuine attainments. Bodley by his
will bequeaths to Mr. Wm. Gent of Gloucester Hall “my best gown and my
best cloak, and the next gown and cloak to my best I do bequeath to
Mr. Thomas Allen of the same Hall.” Camden also leaves him in his will
the sum of £16.[336] Allen’s valuable collection of MSS. passed into
the hands of his eccentric pupil, Sir Kenelm Digby, by whom they were
placed in Sir Thomas Bodley’s newly-founded library.
On Whear’s decease in 1647 Tobias Garbrand, of Dutch descent, was made
Principal by the Earl of Pembroke as Chancellor. He was ejected at the
Restoration in 1660. From this date the fortunes of the Hall seemed to
have reached their lowest depth.[337] If a stray gleam of fortune lit
upon the place, it was only to suffer immediate eclipse. Thus, when
John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, left a foundation in 1666 for the
maintenance of four Scotch scholars to be trained as ministers, and the
Masters and Fellows of Balliol College were unwilling to receive them,
as being not in any way advantageous to the House, they were for a time
placed in Gloucester Hall. But when Dr. Good became Master of Balliol
in 1672, Gutch remarks with quiet humour, “he took order that they
should be translated thither, and there they yet continue.”
The fortunes of the Hall sank lower and lower, till a time came when
it remained for several years entirely untenanted by students. It
shared in the general depression of the University, to which Wood bears
evidence. “Not one Scholar matric. in 1675, 1676, 1677, 1678, not one
Scholar in Gloucester Hall, only the Principal and his family, and two
or three more families that live there in some part to keep it from
ruin, the paths are grown over with grass, the way into the Hall and
Chapel made up with boards.”
Prideaux, writing to Ellis (Sept. 18, 1676), says--“Gloucester Hall
is like to be demolished, the charge of Chimney money being so great
that Byrom Eaton will scarce live there any longer. There hath been no
scholars there these three or four years: for all which time the hall
being in arrears for this tax the collectors have at last fallen upon
the principal, who being by the Act liable to the payment, hath made
great complaints about the town and created us very good sport; but the
old fool hath been forced to pay the money, which hath amounted to a
considerable sum.”