PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
[Sidenote: Europe in the fourteenth century]
The fourteenth century deserves to be regarded as the most progressive
and eventful in the history of the Middle Ages. All the kingdoms of
Europe were engaged in wars, for the most part destitute of permanent
results, yet the work of civilisation went forward with unbroken
steadiness and rapidity. The Spanish monarchies of Castile and Arragon
continued their long struggle for supremacy with each other, and for
national existence with the Mohammedan power at Granada. Germany was
distracted by civil wars and double imperial elections; Italy was torn
asunder by the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The usurpation
and avarice of the Roman Court produced an all but general revolt
against Papal authority; the seat of the Holy See was transferred
for sixty years to Avignon, and the return of the Pope to Rome was
followed by ‘the Great Schism,’ which lasted fifty years longer; Russia
was subject to the Khan of Kipchak until its southern provinces were
overrun by the hordes of Timur; Poland and Hungary were exhausting
their strength in expeditions against their neighbours or against
Venice, while the Ottoman Turks were advancing into the heart of
Eastern Europe. England was entering upon its purely dynastic crusades
for the possession of the Scotch and French crowns, which, fruitful
as they were in military glory, diverted the energies of the nation,
wasted its resources, and retarded its internal development for several
generations. Nevertheless, literature, art, and education flourished
marvellously in the midst of the storms which racked European society.
Ancient learning was revived in Italy chiefly by the influence of
Petrarch and Boccaccio; Dante became the father of modern Italian
poetry; Cimabue and his pupils founded the Italian school of painting;
scholastic philosophy culminated and gave place to a more independent
spirit of inquiry; scientific research first began to emancipate
itself from magical arts; Roman law extended its dominion everywhere
except in England, where, however, Chaucer and Wyclif gave the first
powerful impulse to native English thought; free thinking in politics
and religion penetrated deeply into the popular mind, and increasing
refinement of manners kept pace with the growth of trade and industry.
Universities sprang up one after another—in France, in Spain, in Italy,
in Poland, in Hungary, in Austria, and in Germany; nor is it unduly
rash to surmise that, if the invention of printing could have been
anticipated by a century, the Renaissance and the Reformation itself
might have preceded the capture of Constantinople and the discovery of
America.
[Sidenote: Social condition of the University]
At the commencement of this century Oxford presented strange contrasts
between the social and the intellectual aspects of its academical life.
The great riot of 1297 was scarcely over, and had left a heritage
of ill-will which bore fruit in the frightful conflict of 1354; the
encounters between the northern and southern nations were of frequent
recurrence, and there was no effective system of University discipline,
while college discipline, still in its infancy, was confined within
the precincts of Merton, University, and Balliol. The common herd of
students, inmates of halls and inns and lodging-houses, were still
crowded together in miserable sleeping-rooms and lecture-rooms, without
domestic care or comfort, and strangers to all those frank and generous
relations which naturally grow up between young Englishmen, especially
of gentle birth, in the kindly intercourse of modern college life.
They often rendered more or less menial services in return for their
instruction, and were sometimes enabled to borrow from the University
Chest; at other times they relapsed into mendicity, and asked for alms
on the public highways. There were no libraries or museums, and the
few books possessed by the University were stored in a vault under St.
Mary’s Church. The laws of health being unknown, and every sanitary
precaution neglected, the city of Oxford was constantly scourged with
pestilence from which members of the University were fain to fly into
neighbouring country villages.
[Sidenote: Intellectual vigour of the University]
Under such conditions, and in such a society, it was utterly impossible
that education or learning could flourish generally according to
our modern ideas, and yet it is certain that a restless and even
feverish activity of speculation prevailed within an inner circle of
philosophical spirits, to which there are few parallels in the history
of thought. If their treasury of knowledge was scanty in the extreme,
yet the range of their studies was truly sublime, both in its aims
and in its orbit. In the chilly squalor of uncarpeted and unwarmed
chambers, by the light of narrow and unglazed casements, or the gleam
of flickering oil lamps, poring over dusky manuscripts hardly to be
deciphered by modern eyesight, undisturbed by the boisterous din of
riot and revelry without, men of humble birth, and dependent on charity
for bare subsistence, but with a noble self-confidence transcending
that of Bacon or of Newton, thought out and copied out those subtle
masterpieces of mediæval lore, purporting to unveil the hidden laws
of Nature as well as the dark counsels of Providence and the secrets
of human destiny, which—frivolous and baseless as they may appear
under the scrutiny of a later criticism—must still be ranked among the
grandest achievements of speculative reason. We must remember that
archery and other outdoor sports were then mostly in the nature of
martial exercises reserved for the warlike classes, while music and the
fine arts were all but unknown, and the sedentary labour of the student
was relieved neither by the athletic nor by the æsthetic pastimes of
our own more favoured age. Thus driven inward upon itself, the fire
of intellectual ambition burned with a tenfold intensity, and it was
tempered by no such humility as the infinite range of modern science
imposes on the boldest of its disciples. In many a nightly vigil, and
in many a lonely ramble over the wild hill-sides beyond Cowley and
Hincksey, or along the river-sides between Godstow and Iffley, these
pioneers of philosophical research, to whom alchemy was chemistry,
and astronomy but the key to astrology, constantly pursued their
hopeless quest of Wisdom as it was dimly conceived by the patriarch
Job, pressing Aristotle into the service of mediæval theology, which
they regarded as the science of sciences, and inventing a mysterious
phraseology which to us has lost its meaning, but which they mistook
for solid knowledge, fondly imagining that it might lead them upward to
some primary law governing the whole realm of matter and of mind. They
failed, indeed, because success was hopeless, but their very failure
paved the way for the ‘new knowledge’ of the next century, and cleared
the ground for the methods and discoveries which have made other names
immortal.
[Sidenote: Foundation of Exeter, Oriel, Queen’s, and Canterbury
Colleges]
During the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III. the collegiate element
in the University was strengthened by the foundation of five new
colleges, one of which has since become extinct. The first of these
was Exeter College, founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapledon, bishop of
Exeter. Ten years later, in 1324, Adam de Brome, almoner of King Edward
II., procured from that king a charter of incorporation for a college,
to be called St. Mary’s House, and to consist of a rector and scholars
in divers sciences. In the following year, having purchased the site
of the present college, now called Oriel, he transferred it to the
king, who, by a fresh charter, erected there a collegiate society of
ten scholars for the study of divinity. Queens College was founded upon
a similar model, and under similar conditions, in the year 1340, by
Robert de Egglesfield, chaplain to Queen Philippa. The rules of study
and discipline for Oriel and Queen’s were mostly borrowed from those of
Merton, but some interesting peculiarities may be found in the Queen’s
statutes. The removal of the University from Oxford is distinctly
contemplated, but, on the other hand, able men are to be welcomed as
scholars from all parts of the world, though a preference is reserved
for applicants from Cumberland and Westmoreland, the founder’s native
county, on account of its recent devastation in border-warfare. The
securities for impartial election to fellowships are unusually minute,
and there is a great variety of regulations strongly tinged with the
mystical tendency of the founder’s own mind. Canterbury College,
founded by Archbishop Simon Islip in 1361, differed from these in its
original constitution, since it embraced both secular and ‘religious’
students, and was mainly designed to promote the study of the civil and
canon law. Two years later, however, this design was abandoned, and the
college was appropriated to secular priests only, when John Wyclif,
probably the Reformer, was appointed its first head; but he was removed
by Archbishop Langham, and the college became a monastic nursery under
the priory of Canterbury, until it was absorbed into Christ Church in
the reign of Henry VIII.
[Sidenote: Foundation of New College]
The foundation of New College by William of Wykeham, bishop of
Winchester, in 1379, has been held to mark a new departure in
collegiate history. Like Walter de Merton, William of Wykeham had
filled various high offices of State, including that of chancellor, and
is well known as the designer of several great architectural works.
His main object in founding the College of ‘St. Mary of Winchester in
Oxford,’ since known as New College, is clearly stated in his charter.
It was to repair ‘the scarcity of scholars in the nation, having been
swept away by great pestilences and wars.’ Accordingly, in 1379, he
obtained a license from Richard II. to found a college ‘for seventy
scholars studying in the faculties,’ all of whom were to have passed
through his other college for boys at Winchester itself. These scholars
were to be ‘poor indigent clerks,’ sufficiently taught in grammar, and
under twenty years of age. Ten were to study civil and ten canon law;
the remaining fifty were to study the Arts, or philosophy and theology,
though two of these might be specially permitted to devote themselves
to astronomy, and two to medicine. But the claim of William of Wykeham
to be considered the second founder of the college-system depends less
on any notable peculiarity in his statutes than on the grandeur and
regularity of the buildings which he erected on a site then vacant, and
found by a jury to be infested by malefactors, murderers, and thieves,
as well as the scene of other public nuisances. The noble quadrangle,
of which the scholars took possession on the 14th of April, 1386,
having already been lodged in Hert Hall and other tenements, doubtless
served as the model for all the later colleges, and the supremacy of
colleges over halls may fitly be dated from the end of the fourteenth
century, when New College was the most imposing centre of collegiate
life.
[Sidenote: European influence of Oxford in the fourteenth century]
The importance of Oxford in the eyes of Europe was increased during
the fourteenth century by two causes, the decline of the University
of Paris, and the vigorous protest of Oxford schoolmen against the
spiritual despotism of the Papacy, discredited by its subjection to
French influence at Avignon. The former of these causes was, in fact,
nearly connected with the latter. The University of Paris had owed much
to Papal encouragement and protection, but it had always struggled
for corporate independence, and when, in 1316, it stooped to solicit
the patronage of John XXII., by submitting to him a list of candidates
for preferment, it forfeited its unique position in the estimation of
European scholars, then a small but united brotherhood. On the other
hand, it was an English Franciscan of Oxford—William of Occham—who
not only challenged the supremacy of the Pope, but ‘proclaimed the
severance of logic from theology.’ The assertion of this bold paradox,
aggravated by the aggressive Nominalism of its author, nearly cost him
his life, for he was imprisoned by the Pope’s order at Avignon, and
only escaped death by taking refuge at Munich with the Emperor Louis
of Bavaria. His doctrines, however, found wide acceptance at Oxford,
and paved the way for the far deeper revolution in ideas of which John
Wyclif was the pioneer.
[Sidenote: Rise of Wyclif]
The biography of this remarkable man, if authentic materials for it
existed, would cover almost the whole academical history of Oxford
during the latter part of the fourteenth century. Unfortunately, many
of the facts are still involved in uncertainty. Like Duns Scotus, he is
believed to have been a Northerner, though his birthplace is doubtful;
like him, too, he was at once a Realist in metaphysics and a champion
of liberty in theology. Several colleges have claimed him as their
own; Balliol has enrolled him among its Masters, Queen’s among its
commoners, and Merton among its fellows. His name only appears in the
books of Merton in the year 1356, and though he soon afterwards took an
active part in the controversies of the day at Balliol and elsewhere,
it was not until after 1374 that he became known as the founder of a
new school in theology, and, still more, as a dauntless assailant of
the corruptions incident to Papal supremacy and priestly authority. In
asserting the right of private judgment and exposing ecclesiastical
abuses, he was a true successor of Occham, but he dissented from
Occham’s Nominalism; his sympathies were entirely with the secular
clergy; and, whereas Occham was a Franciscan, Wyclif inveighed
against all the monastic Orders, but especially against the friars.
The movement which he led was essentially academical in its origin,
and definitely marks a great academical reaction against the regular
clergy, to whose influence learning and education had owed so much in
the previous century.
[Sidenote: Career of Wyclif]
The career of Wyclif, indeed, belongs to the University quite as much
as to the Church. It was as the last of the Oxford schoolmen, and
mostly from Oxford itself, that he put forth his series of books and
pamphlets on the relations of Church and State, on the subjection
of the clergy to civil rule, civil taxation and civil tribunals, on
pardons, indulgences, the worship of saints, transubstantiation, the
supremacy of Holy Scripture, and other like topics, besides those
abstruse scholastic themes which have lost their interest for the
present age. During his earlier struggles, the open patronage of John
of Gaunt, with the occasional protection of the Court, stood him in
good stead, and enabled him to brave not only episcopal censures
but Papal anathemas. His real strength, however, consisted in the
influence which he commanded in the University itself and, through
it, in the English people. When Pope Gregory XI. despatched a Bull to
the University of Oxford, calling for an inquiry into his erroneous
doctrines, the University barely consented to receive it, and took
no steps to comply with it, though it was supported by similar Bulls
addressed to the King and the English Bishops. When he was cited for
the second time to answer for his opinions in London, the citizens were
his avowed partisans. When his tenets had become discredited among
the aristocratic party by their supposed connection with the Peasant
Revolt, and were officially denounced, in 1381, by the Chancellor of
the University, sitting with twelve doctors as assessors, his cause
was, nevertheless, stoutly maintained by his followers at Oxford.
The next Chancellor, Robert Rygge, of Merton, was at heart among
his adherents, and informed the Archbishop Courtenay, in answer to
a mandate requiring him to search all the colleges and halls for
Wycliffites, that it was as much as his life was worth. The injunctions
of the Archbishop, like those of his predecessor, were practically
defied at Oxford, until the Crown at last entered the lists against the
Reformer. In 1382, a Parliament was held at Oxford. The Convocation
which accompanied it condemned Wyclif’s teaching on the Eucharist; the
condemnation was published in the school of the Augustinian monks,
where Wyclif himself was presiding as professor, and a peremptory order
was issued for his expulsion with all his disciples. He died in 1384,
but not before he had completed his English translation of the Bible.
The spirit which he had kindled continued to animate the University
for many years after his death. In Merton College alone several
eminent fellows were known as Wycliffites in the next generation, and
after the condemnation of Lollardism by the Council of London in
1411, it was thought necessary to pass a stringent University statute
to check the propagation of Lollard doctrines. By this statute, the
penalty of the greater excommunication was imposed upon all who should
disseminate Lollardism, candidates for degrees were required to abjure
it, and heads of colleges or halls were enjoined to exclude from their
societies any person even suspected of it.
[Sidenote: Feud between Northern and Southern ‘nations’]
While the University was agitated by these philosophical and
theological storms, its external life seems to have been comparatively
uneventful during the fourteenth century. We read, however, of a brutal
faction fight between ‘the Northern and Southern clerks’ in 1319, and
this ancient feud continued to disturb the peace of the University
for several generations. The Northern party was apparently the weaker
in the University, perhaps because it had sympathised with Simon
de Montfort. Accordingly we learn from Anthony Wood that, in 1334,
Merton College, which had been suspected of favouring that party,
sought to regain popularity in the University by declining to admit
Northern scholars. Again, in 1349, a strong faction in the same college
succeeded in procuring the election of Wylliott as Chancellor by force,
driving out the Northern proctor, and committing acts of sanguinary
violence. In 1327, we hear of a ‘most bloody outrage’ committed by the
scholars and townsmen of Oxford, joined with the townsmen of Abingdon,
on the monks of Abingdon Abbey; and in 1349-50 the ravages of the
Black Death were such that Oxford was almost deserted by its students,
and the Warden of Merton is said to have died of the plague. Two
other memorable events occurred in the reign of Edward III., which
deserve more special notice, since they fill a considerable space in
the historical records of the University. The one of these was the
secession to Stamford in 1333; the other was the great riot which broke
out on St. Scholastica’s Day, 1354.[5]
[Sidenote: Early secessions to Cambridge and Northampton]
The secession to Stamford was by no means the first migration of
Oxford students to another provincial town since the foundation of the
University. In 1209 and again in 1239 bodies of discontented Oxonians
had betaken themselves to Cambridge, and in 1260 a more important
secession took place, of which two different accounts have been given.
According to one, the emigrants were Northern students who had sided
with Simon de Montfort when he summoned his Parliament to Oxford in
1258, and framed those articles which became the signal for civil
war. It is further stated that, having been joined at Northampton by
refugees from Cambridge, and distinguished themselves in defending
the town against the Royal forces, they narrowly escaped the King’s
vengeance. According to another account, supported by the authority
of Anthony Wood, the King himself, fearing the effect of political
excitement on the masters and scholars of the University, expressly
sanctioned and encouraged the new settlement at Northampton, specially
recommending the emigrants to the good offices of the mayor and
bailiffs. At all events, their stay at Northampton was short, for they
returned to Oxford in 1264 or 1265, apparently in obedience to a
Royal order, but under a safe conduct from Simon de Montfort. It was
doubtless this Northampton colony which the founder of Merton had in
view when, in his first statutes issued in 1264, he gave the rulers of
his new society power to remove the students from Oxford to some other
University town—_aut alibi, uli studium viget generale_.
[Sidenote: Secession to Stamford in 1333]
The origin of the ‘University at Stamford’ is still more obscure.
Anthony Wood tells us simply that several masters, bachelors, and
scholars of Oxford ‘did under colour of some discord among them, and
upon some pretences sought after, depart hence unto Stamford, in
Lincolnshire, and there began, or rather renewed and continued, an
academy.’ The seceders themselves, appealing to Edward III. in January
1334, for permission to continue their studies at Stamford, vaguely
attributed their withdrawal from Oxford to disputes and disorders which
had long prevailed in that University. We may conjecture that it was
a secession of Northern students, but the only certain fact is that
it was headed by one William de Barnaby. The University of Oxford,
much alarmed by the ‘schism,’ as it was called, invoked the aid of
the Queen and the Bishop of Lincoln. At last, the King intervened,
but it was not till after three Royal monitions and the seizure of
their goods, that the malcontents were ejected from Stamford, and the
short-lived University broken up in the summer of 1335. A list of
offenders was sent to Edward III., but it only contained thirty-eight
names, including those of seventeen masters. The ‘Academy’ at Stamford,
however, left traces in the local names of streets, which are not even
yet wholly effaced, and the jealousy inspired by its rivalry was
not extinguished for more than a century. An University statute of
uncertain date, but clearly later than 1425, and evidently re-enacting
an order already in force, requires every inceptor in any faculty
to swear that he will not recognise any University besides Oxford
and Cambridge, and that he will not lecture or read at Stamford.
Meanwhile, a compact was made between Oxford and Cambridge for their
mutual protection against competition, and the dual monopoly of the two
ancient Universities was henceforth established.
[Sidenote: Growth of the proctorial authority]
The peace of the University was further promoted in this turbulent age
by the gradual development of the proctorial authority. The origin of
the proctors’, like that of the Chancellor’s, office is enveloped in
much obscurity. The first proctors named in the official list, which
follows the _Fasti_ of Anthony Wood, are Roger de Plumpton and Henry de
Godfree, who are set down as having officiated in 1267. Proctors are
also mentioned by name under the dates 1281, 1286, and 1288. During the
first half of the fourteenth century the entries of proctors occur in
fifteen years only, but in one case the same two proctors are expressly
stated to have served for two years, and it is quite possible that,
even if the election was annual, others may have served for longer
periods. Whatever may have been their original functions, there can
be no doubt that in 1322, if not much earlier, they became the chief
executive officers of the University. It was a main part of their
duty to keep the peace, as best they could, not only between scholars
and townspeople, but also between the numerous factions among the
scholars themselves, between the friars and secular clergy, between
the ‘artists’ and the ‘jurists,’ the Nominalists and the Realists,
the English students and those from Wales, Scotland, or Ireland, and,
most of all, the Northern and Southern nations. The standing quarrel
between these great academic parties overshadowed and absorbed into
itself all minor rivalries, and influenced every important question for
academic action, especially the election of the Chancellor. According
to Anthony Wood, it was in order to secure fairness and good order in
these elections that, in 1343, the University agreed that one proctor
should always be a Northerner and the other a Southerner, for the
purpose of acting as scrutineers of the votes. On the other hand, the
analogy of the University of Paris might lead us to regard them as
representatives, from the very first, of the ‘nations.’ At all events,
their powers were infinitely wider and more various than those of mere
returning-officers. They kept the money and accounts of the University,
regulated the whole system of lectures and disputations, were
responsible for academical discipline, and were empowered to impeach
the Chancellor himself. Like him, they were elected by the whole body
of regents and non-regents in Congregation, but their elections never
required the confirmation of the Bishop of Lincoln as diocesan, whereas
that of the Chancellor, as we have seen, was originally held invalid
until it had been thus confirmed.
[Sidenote: Concession by the Pope of freedom in the election of the
Chancellor]
In the reign of Edward III., however, a great step was made towards
academical independence by the disuse of this practice, and thenceforth
the University chose its Chancellor as freely as its proctors.
Some years before the way had been paved for this revolt against
ecclesiastical jurisdiction by a solemn compact between the University
and the Cardinal de Mota, then Archdeacon of Oxford by Papal provision,
but permanently non-resident. This Cardinal-Archdeacon had assumed
to exercise authority over the University through certain agents who
practised extortions for his benefit. Thence arose a controversy which
lasted twenty years, the Cardinal having instituted proceedings against
the University at the Papal Court, while the University appealed first
to Edward II. and afterwards to Edward III., both of whom, following
the settled policy of the Plantagenet kings, vigorously intervened
on its behalf. At last, after tedious negotiations, a compromise,
very favourable to University rights, was effected by the mediation
of William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich. The Chancellor was declared
to have archidiaconal jurisdiction over all doctors, masters, and
scholars, religious and lay, and even over all rectors, vicars, and
chaplains within the University, unless they should hold cures of souls
in Oxford, in which case they should pay canonical obedience to the
archdeacon. Moreover, in 1368, a Bull was procured from Pope Urban,
solemnly ordaining that thenceforth the election of a Chancellor by
the University itself should be sufficient, without the confirmation
of the diocesan. The reason alleged is a very practical one—that
great inconvenience and even danger to the peace of the University
had resulted from the necessity of sending a deputation to follow the
Bishop into distant parts, while in the meantime there was no resident
officer to keep turbulent persons in order.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] See Chapter IV.