THE RENAISSANCE, THE REFORMATION, AND THE TUDOR PERIOD.
[Sidenote: Revival of academical life at the end of the fifteenth
century]
The reign of Edward IV. may be regarded as a singularly blank period in
University annals. The Wars of the Roses, in which feudalism perished
by its own hand, but which left so few traces on the national life,
hardly disturbed the academical repose; and the obscurity which hangs
over the next chapter in the history of the nation rests equally upon
that of the University. But a gradual recovery was in progress, and
soon yielded visible fruits. The close of the fifteenth century found
the University of Oxford far more complete in its outward structure,
if somewhat less vigorous in its inward life, than it had been two
centuries earlier. It was no longer a loose aggregate of students under
the paramount jurisdiction of a bishop resident at Lincoln, but an
organised institution, with a government of its own, under the special
protection of the Crown, and capable of being used as a powerful engine
for effecting or resisting changes in Church or State. While the old
order was yielding place to new, and the fountains of scholastic
thought were running dry, there had been a marked decay in academical
energy, and the declining number of students attested the decreased
activity of teaching. But the revival of classical learning, promoted
by the dispersion of Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople,
was accompanied or followed by that marvellous series of events which
divides modern from mediæval history—the invention of printing, aided
by the improvement of paper-making; the discovery of America; the
consolidation of the European monarchies; and the Reformation itself.
The first effect of the enthusiasm kindled by these new influences was
to invigorate the University; it was not until their secondary effects
were felt that a reaction manifested itself.
[Sidenote: Checked by the Reformation]
The great educational movement which sprang from the Reformation was
essentially popular rather than academical, and by no means tended to
increase the relative importance of the Universities. The cause of this
is not difficult to discover. When the only books were manuscripts, the
Universities and the very few other institutions which possessed large
collections of manuscripts attracted the whole literary class from all
parts of the country. When instruction in the sciences was only to be
obtained from the lips of a living teacher, and when schools hardly
existed elsewhere, except in connection with cathedrals or monasteries,
the lecture rooms of Oxford were thronged with students of all ages,
and represented almost the entire machinery of national education. When
the Church ruled supreme over the wide realm of thought, and learning
was the monopoly of ‘clerics,’ the great ecclesiastical stronghold of
Oxford far surpassed the metropolis itself as an intellectual centre.
When Latin was the one language of scholars, and English literature
scarcely existed, the academical masters of Latinity, especially as
they were carefully trained in disputation, maintained a peerless
supremacy over their less favoured countrymen. In the larger and
freer life which took its birth from the Reformation, the exclusive
privileges of the Universities became inevitably depreciated, and
their degeneracy in the early part of the sixteenth century presents
a humiliating contrast with their ascendency in the fourteenth. The
dissolution of monasteries, the high-handed visitations of the Tudor
Sovereigns, and the diversion of the national energies into new
careers, operated concurrently to empty Oxford of students, nor was it
until near the end of the century that its tone was gradually restored
by the wise policy of Queen Elizabeth.
[Sidenote: Pioneers of the new learning at Oxford]
During the reign of Henry VII. the University was strongly agitated
by the struggle between the old scholastic philosophy and the new
learning of the Renaissance. The credit of introducing classical
studies, and especially that of Greek literature, has sometimes been
claimed for the Reformation, but it is rather due to a liberal spirit
then springing up in the Catholic world, and especially to Italian
influences. It was from Italy that England caught the new impulse, and
that Oxford imported numerous MSS. of classical authors, while printing
was still almost a fine art. Perhaps the foundation of grammar schools
at Winchester and Eton for the special instruction of boys in Latin
may have contributed to pave the way for the classical revival at the
Universities. At all events, it was in progress before the Reformation,
and was promoted by several enlightened bishops and abbots of the old
religion, and may not improperly be regarded as a legacy of Catholic
to Protestant England. Writing in 1497, Erasmus, who is sometimes
described as the father of classical studies in England, speaks of a
‘rich harvest of classical literature’ as already flourishing at Oxford
on every side, and declares that he could well nigh forget Italy in the
society of Colet, Grocyn, Lynacre, and More. Indeed, he places England,
in respect of culture, above France or Germany, and second to Italy
alone. In fact, we soon afterwards find Richard Croke, an Englishman,
teaching Greek at Leipsic, whence he migrated, a few years later, to
succeed Erasmus himself as Professor at Cambridge.
[Sidenote: Erasmus, More, Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre]
During his first visit to Oxford, Erasmus lodged in a conventual house
of Augustin Canons, known as St. Mary’s College, opposite New Inn
Hall. Of the names thus commemorated by him, that of Sir Thomas More
belongs to the political history of England, but he also deserves to be
remembered as the young student of Canterbury College, among the most
ardent disciples and most zealous promoters of classical teaching at
Oxford. Colet, who had known More in the house of Cardinal Morton, and
who became famous as the founder of St. Paul’s School, was educated at
Magdalen College, but afterwards visited France and Italy, whence he
returned in 1497, to lecture publicly but gratuitously on St. Paul’s
Epistles, and to become a leading pioneer of Latin scholarship in
the University. Grocyn had been elected Fellow of New College as far
back as 1467, and was Divinity Reader at Magdalen College about 1483.
It was not until some years later that he went to Italy for purposes
of study, and devoted himself to Greek and Latin. On his return, he
resided in Exeter College, and delivered the first public lectures on
Greek, which seem to have been attended by Erasmus himself, who speaks
of him with unfailing respect. Lynacre was elected Fellow of All Souls
in 1484, but, like Colet and Grocyn, owed his erudition chiefly to his
residence in Italy, where he became Professor of Medicine at Padua. But
his range of studies was so wide that it was doubted of him whether he
was ‘a better Latinist or Grecian, a better grammarian or physician.’
In modern times he is chiefly known as among the founders, and as the
first President, of the College of Physicians; while his principal
claim to gratitude at Oxford consists in his posthumous foundation of
two Readerships in Physiology at Merton College, which have since been
consolidated into a Professorship of Anatomy. The new studies, however,
met with violent opposition, and several University dignitaries
publicly lectured against Erasmus. Indeed, if we are to believe Anthony
Wood, in spite of all the reformers’ efforts, academical learning was
still in a deplorable state in 1508, the last year of Henry VII.’s
reign. ‘The schools were much frequented with querks and sophistry.
All things, whether taught or written, seemed to be trite or inane.
No pleasant streams of humanity or mythology were gliding among us,
and the Greek language, from whence the greater part of knowledge is
derived, was at a very low ebb, or in a manner forgotten.’
[Sidenote: Foundation of Corpus Christi College by Bishop Fox]
The first endowed lectureship of the Greek language at Oxford was
instituted by Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, in 1516, as part of
his new foundation of Corpus Christi College. His original intention
had been to found a monastery, and in founding a college instead, with
twenty fellows and twenty scholars, he clearly showed his desire to
encourage the classics by providing also for Professors of Greek and
Latin, as well as of theology, whose lectures should be open to all the
University. By virtue of this endowment, Bishop Fox has been regarded
as the founder of the professorial system, though he must perhaps share
that honour, not only with William of Waynflete, but with Margaret,
Countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII., who had already founded the
Margaret Professorship of Divinity in 1502. But Fox’s liberal spirit
and sympathy with the Renaissance was shown in provisions, hitherto
unknown, for instruction in the classical authors, for the colloquial
use of Greek as well as Latin, and for the election of lecturers from
Greece and Southern Italy. It was upon these grounds that Erasmus
predicted a great future for the college as a stronghold of the
classical movement.
[Sidenote: Greeks and Trojans]
That movement had already provoked a strange outbreak of academical
barbarism in the University of Oxford. The faction of ‘Trojans,’ as
they called themselves, from their enmity to Greek letters, seems to
have been partly animated by a popular aversion to change, and partly
by a far-sighted appreciation of the anti-Catholic tendencies inherent
in the Renaissance. It is said to have originated in hostility to
Grocyn’s Greek lectures at Exeter College; but it reached its height
in the early part of Henry VIII.’s reign, by which time, however, the
classics had won powerful friends at Court, and the ‘Greeks’ were
protected by a peremptory Royal order, issued in 1519. It is remarkable
that no trace of these fierce controversies between Scholasticism
and the New Learning, still less of the impending revolution in the
national religion, is to be discerned in the statutes of Brasenose,
the latest of the pre-Reformation colleges, issued in 1521, nine years
after its foundation. Under these statutes the scholars were bound
to study the old subjects of the scholastic curriculum, ‘Sophistry,
Logic, and Philosophy, and afterwards Divinity ... for the advancement
of Holy Church, and for the support and exaltation of the Christian
faith.’ On the other hand, there are ample proofs that long before
the Old Learning ceased to rule the University system of disputations
and examinations, the Renaissance had already penetrated into the
University and College Libraries.
[Sidenote: Cardinal Wolsey and the foundation of Christ Church]
The great minister of Henry VIII., Cardinal Wolsey, must always be
remembered as the most discerning as well as the most generous patron
of liberal culture, which he admired for its own sake, though he
naturally regarded it as the handmaid of the Church. It was in 1518
that Wolsey came to Oxford, in company with Catharine of Aragon,
while the King remained behind at Abingdon. The University, doubtless
perceiving the danger of impending spoliation, ‘made a solemn and
ample decree, not only of giving up their statutes into the Cardinal’s
hands, to be reformed, corrected, renewed, and the like, but also their
liberties, indulgences, privileges, nay the whole University (the
colleges excepted), to be by him disposed and framed into good order.’
Wolsey did not disappoint their confidence, and some five years later
(in 1523) returned the charters, with a new and still more beneficial
one procured from the King. At this period he is believed to have
contemplated the foundation of more than one University professorship
and the erection of University lecture-rooms, but if he ever
entertained such an idea, it was abandoned. In the meantime, however,
he was projecting the foundation of a college for secular clergy on
a scale of grandeur hitherto unknown, for the purpose (as Huber well
says) of ‘cultivating the new literature in the service of the old
Church.’ In order to endow ‘Cardinal College,’ as it was to be called,
twenty-two priories and convents were suppressed, under Papal and Royal
authority, and their revenues, amounting to 2,000_l._, were diverted to
the maintenance of ten professorships, as well as of sixty canonists
and forty priests. The students were to be trained in a great school
founded at Ipswich, as those of New College were trained at Winchester.
The first stone of the building was laid in 1525; scholars had been
engaged from Cambridge and the Continent to serve on the professorial
staff; the abbey church of St. Frideswide’s had been appropriated
as the college chapel; and the splendid kitchen, still preserved,
was already completed, when the fall of Wolsey in 1529 arrested the
execution of this grand design.
[Sidenote: Action of the University on the questions of the Divorce and
the Royal Supremacy]
The King, engrossed with the question of obtaining a divorce from
Catharine of Aragon, was in no mood to indulge the sympathy which
he really felt towards learned institutions, and was rather bent
on obtaining a favourable award from Oxford and the other great
Universities of Europe on the legality of his marriage. The compliance
of the Oxford Convocation was not extorted without grievous pressure.
The younger Masters of Arts, as Wood informs us, stood firm in refusing
to sanction the divorce, and, notwithstanding a threatening letter
from the King himself, the desired vote was only secured, after
repeated failures, by the exclusion of the graduates in Arts from
the Convocation. Soon after this memorable but somewhat disgraceful
vote, in April 1530, the King again visited Oxford, and took back into
his own hands the charters both of the University and of the city,
which had again begun to challenge academical privileges. They were
not restored until 1543, and during the interval the University was
again invited to pronounce a solemn verdict—no longer upon a question
of private right, but on the gravest issue of national policy ever
submitted to its judgment. For by this time the preliminary events
which ushered in the English Reformation were following each other in
rapid succession. In July 1530, the replies of several Universities in
favour of the divorce had been forwarded to the Pope by the hand of
Cranmer, and in the following March they were laid before Parliament.
In November 1530, Cardinal Wolsey, charged with treason, died at
Leicester on his way to the Tower. At the beginning of 1531, the
clergy, having bought off the penalties of _præmunire_, were induced,
under strong pressure, to acknowledge Henry as ‘Head of the Church
and Clergy, so far as the law of Christ will allow.’ In 1532, an
Act was passed for restraining all appeals to Rome, Sir Thomas More
resigned the Chancellorship, and Henry married Ann Boleyn. In 1533,
Cranmer, having succeeded Warham as Archbishop of Canterbury, not only
pronounced the King’s marriage with Catharine to be null and void, but
that with Anne Boleyn to be good and lawful. In 1534, the clergy in
Convocation were forbidden to make constitutions except by the royal
assent, and the Act was passed forbidding the payment of _annates_ to
Rome. In the same year the formal separation of the English Church
from Rome was consummated by the great Act 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 21, which
left doctrine untouched, it is true, but abolished the authority of
the Pope in England, while it also rendered the monasteries liable to
visitation by commission under the Great Seal. In 1535, under the Act
of Supremacy (26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1), the King assumed the title of
‘Supreme Head of the Church of England’; Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas
More were executed for denying the Royal supremacy, and Thomas Cromwell
was appointed Vicar-General of England.
[Sidenote: Compliance of the University rewarded by Royal favour]
It was in 1534 that the University was invited to concur in the
foregone conclusion in favour of separation from Rome, dictated by
canonists and theologians in the King’s interest. It did so with little
hesitation, and it is probable that an honest zeal for the independence
of the National Church mingled with less worthy motives in eliciting
the required consent. Moreover, Protestant doctrines, propagated by
some of the scholars imported from Cambridge and the Continent, had
already taken root in Oxford soil, and several members of Cardinal
College had already undergone persecution. In the following year a
visitation of the University was instituted, for the double purpose
of establishing ecclesiastical conformity and supplanting the old
scholastic culture by a large infusion of classical learning. The study
of the Canon Law was suppressed, and Leighton, one of the visitors,
joyfully reported that ‘Dunce’ (Duns Scotus) was ‘set in Bocardo,’
or relegated to an academical limbo, while the leaves of scholastic
manuscripts, torn up by wholesale, might be seen fluttering about
New College quadrangle. On the other hand, the study of Aristotle was
enjoined, together with that of the Holy Scriptures, and an important
concession was made to reward the loyalty of the University, which
had cheerfully surrendered its rights and property into the King’s
hands. It was now exempted from the payment of tenths, or first fruits,
granted by statute to the Crown, on condition of such classical
lectureships being founded there ‘as the Kynge’s majestie shall assigne
or appoynte.’ The support of these lectureships was charged upon the
five colleges supposed to be the richest, including Corpus, where
classical lectureships already existed, and the students of the other
seven colleges were directed to attend some of the courses daily. At
the same time, following the example of his grandmother, the Countess
Margaret of Richmond, the King founded and endowed with a yearly
stipend of 40_l._ each five Regius Professorships of Divinity, Hebrew,
Greek, Medicine, and Civil Law. The endowment was, of course, derived
from the spoils of the Church, but Henry VIII. deserves credit for a
sincere desire to promote learning. In 1532, three years after Wolsey’s
fall, he took up his great minister’s design and refounded Cardinal
College, though on a reduced scale, under the name of King Henry the
Eighth’s College. In 1545 he dissolved it, and finally reconstituted
it under the name of Christ Church, and in the following year
transferred his new episcopal see of Oxford from Oseney Abbey to St.
Frideswide’s, blending the collegiate with the cathedral establishment
by placing it under the control of a dean and eight canons. We owe
to Holinshed the memorable reply made by the King to some of his
courtiers who fondly hoped that he would have dealt with University
endowments, and especially with this infant college, as he had dealt
with the monasteries. ‘Whereas wee had a regard onlie to pull down
sin by defacing the monasteries, you have a desire also to overthrow
all goodness by subversion of colleges. I tell you, sirs, that I
judge no land in England better bestowed than that which is given to
our Universities. For by their maintenance our realme shall be well
governed when we be dead and rotten. I love not learning so ill that I
will impair the revenewes of anie one House by a penie, whereby it may
be upholden.’
[Sidenote: The first effects of the Reformation injurious to the
University]
The reason why college revenues were spared while monastic revenues
were confiscated is not difficult to divine, without supposing that
Henry VIII. was pacified by the mediation of Catherine Parr. The
occupants of monasteries were regarded as mercenaries of a foreign
power which had become the enemy of the monarchy; the colleges were
nurseries of the secular clergy, who had never been obnoxious to the
State, who shared to a great extent the national spirit, and most
of whom adopted the new ecclesiastical order. The wise foresight of
the founders had excluded monks and friars as aliens from collegiate
societies; the constitution of these was mainly secular, and their
dissolution was not demanded by popular opinion. Nevertheless, the
general sense of insecurity and habit of servility which prevailed
under the despotic rule of Henry could not but have a blighting effect
on University life. Such acts as the execution of Sir Thomas More, one
of the brightest stars of the English Renaissance, and the arbitrary
restrictions imposed on Protestantism by the Six Articles, struck
at the root of intellectual liberty, and the early stages of the
Reformation went far to depress the academical enthusiasm kindled by
the Catholic Renaissance.
[Sidenote: Iconoclastic visitation under Edward VI.]
The dissolution of the monasteries, instead of aggrandising the
University, contributed to depopulate it, since many of the poorer
students, formerly harboured in monastic houses or lodgings, or
supported by monastic exhibitions, were now cast adrift. The Colleges
and Chantries Act, though never strictly executed, shook public
confidence in academical endowments, and at the beginning of Edward
VI.’s reign the University was far less prosperous than it had been
under Wolsey. The number of degrees continued to fall off, and the
number of halls to dwindle, as religious controversy usurped the place
of education, and the University was used as an instrument to advance
the political or ecclesiastical aims of the Sovereign. Henry VIII. had
obtained its sanction to his divorce and to his revolt against Rome;
the Protector Somerset and Cranmer determined to reform it in the
interests of the new Anglican Church. Several years before, Cranmer had
appointed commissions to regulate internal discipline in two colleges
of which he was Visitor, but the Injunctions which he issued upon their
recommendation involved no change of religious faith or ordinances.
Another royal commission or Visitation, with sweeping powers, was
issued for this purpose in 1549. A like commission was appointed for
the University of Cambridge, and the new statutes drawn up for both
Universities were framed on like principles, ‘in order that each
eye of the nation might be set in motion by similar muscles.’ The
‘Edwardine’ code, as it was afterwards called, was of course so framed
as to eliminate everything which favoured Popery from the constitution
of the University, but it was not otherwise revolutionary, and, though
it soon fell into disuse, it remained nominally in force until it
was abrogated by the ‘Caroline’ statutes under the chancellorship
of Laud. But the commissioners were not equally forbearing in their
treatment of individuals, for they proceeded to expel all academical
dignitaries found guilty of upholding the old faith. In dealing with
colleges, the spirit in which they acted was ruthlessly iconoclastic,
and not only were the old services abolished, but altars, images,
statues, ‘the things called organs,’ and everything else which
seemed to savour of ‘superstition,’ were defaced or swept away. The
demolition of the magnificent reredos in the chapel of All Souls’ was
assuredly no isolated specimen of their handiwork, though we have no
equally striking record of Vandalism in other colleges. The amount of
destruction wrought by their orders among the libraries and chapels of
colleges cannot now be estimated, but it was certainly enormous, and
‘cartloads’ of classical and scientific manuscripts were consigned to
the flames, together with many an illuminated masterpiece of scholastic
literature.
[Sidenote: Leniency towards colleges]
At the same time, while the study of canon law was virtually
suppressed, that of civil law, ancient philosophy, Hebrew, mathematics,
logic, rhetoric, and medicine was expressly encouraged by the Visitors.
Eminent theologians were invited from the continent, and the lectures
of Peter Martyr and others who accepted the invitation were crowded
with eager students. It was even designed to reconstitute All Souls’ as
a college for the special cultivation of civil law, while New College
should be devoted exclusively to ‘artists.’ Many exhibitions for poor
boys were suppressed, the Magdalen Grammar School was saved only by
earnest remonstrances from the citizens, and some new dispositions were
made of college revenues with little regard to founders’ intentions.
But the spoliation does not seem to have been so indiscriminate as
Anthony Wood represents it. The Protector Somerset, being pressed,
like Henry VIII., to sanction the general disendowment of colleges,
repelled the proposal with equal indignation; and indeed there is
some reason to believe that colleges were now regarded with peculiar
favour as seminaries of classical learning, and comparatively free
from the scholastic and mediæval spirit which still animated the
University system. Perhaps for this reason the Visitors forbore to
exercise their power of consolidating several colleges into one,
though they did not scruple to remove obnoxious Heads and fellows.
Some of their injunctions exhibit much good sense, and even anticipate
modern reforms, such as those which make fellowships terminable and
tenable only on condition of six months’ residence, which insist on
a matriculation-examination in grammar and Latin, and which require
that lectures shall be followed by examinations. It is remarkable
that at Magdalen and All Souls’ one fellowship was to be reserved
for Irishmen. Others of their injunctions were purely disciplinary,
such as those which prohibit undue expenditure on banquets after
disputations, the practice of gambling, and the use of cards in
term-time. Such regulations point to an increase of luxury consequent
on the development of colleges, originally designed for the poor but
now frequented by a wealthier class. Polemical divinity, stimulated by
Peter Martyr’s discourses on the Eucharist, continued to flourish; but,
with this exception, University studies were languishing, and while
foreign divines were being imported into England, Oxford professors
of civil law were emigrating to Louvain. The non-collegiate students
became fewer and fewer; the most experienced teachers gradually
disappeared; the impulse of the Renaissance died away; the new spirit
of inquiry failed to supply the place of the old ecclesiastical order;
the attractions of trade began to compete with those of learning, and
the Universities no longer monopolised the most promising youths in the
country who declined the profession of arms.
[Sidenote: Reaction under Mary. Martyrdom of Ridley, Latimer, and
Cranmer]
The accession of Mary, in 1553, ushered in a short-lived reaction. As
the leading Romanist divines had quitted Oxford on the proclamation of
Edward VI., so now the leading Protestants, headed by Peter Martyr,
were fain to make their escape, though not till after Jewell had been
employed to draw up a congratulatory epistle to the Queen, whose policy
was not fully revealed at the outset of her reign. Heads and fellows of
colleges were released from their obligation to renounce the authority
of the Pope, the Mass superseded the Common Prayer-book, and Gardiner,
bishop of Winchester, instituted a Visitation of the three colleges
under his own personal jurisdiction. After the execution of Lady Jane
Grey and the Queen’s marriage with Philip II. the spirit of persecution
rapidly developed itself, all statutes passed against the Papacy since
the twentieth year of Henry VIII. were repealed, the statutes passed
against heretics in the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. were revived,
and Oxford became the scene of those Protestant martyrdoms which have
left an indelible impression of horror and sympathy in the English
mind. Several victims of Catholic intolerance had already perished at
the stake, when Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were brought to Oxford
for the purpose of undergoing the solemn farce of an academical trial,
and thus implicating the University in the guilt of their intended
condemnation. At a convocation held in St. Mary’s Church a body of
Oxford doctors was commissioned to dispute against the Protestant
bishops on the Eucharist, in concert with a body of Cambridge doctors
similarly commissioned. The so-called ‘disputation’ took place in the
Divinity School. A day was assigned to each prisoner, the academical
judgment was of course given against them, the judicial sentence soon
followed, and on October 15, 1555, Ridley and Latimer were led out to
be burned in Canditch, opposite Balliol College, where a sermon was
preached before the stake by Dr. Richard Smyth on the text, ‘Though
I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me
nothing.’ Cranmer’s execution was delayed for months, since it required
the sanction of Rome, and his courage, as is well known, gave way
under the fear of death. His recantation came too late to save his
life, yet he was called upon to repeat it in St. Mary’s Church on his
way to his doom. Instead of doing so, he publicly retracted it before
the assembled University, with earnest professions of remorse. He was
not allowed to conclude his address, but hurried off with brutal
eagerness, to give at the stake that marvellous example of heroic
constancy which has atoned for all his past errors in the eyes of
Protestants, and crowned the martyrdoms of the English Reformation.
From that moment the cause of the Catholic reaction was desperate
in the University, no less than in the nation. Queen Mary conferred
upon it many benefits and favours, and won the servile homage of its
official representatives, but she never won the hearts of the students,
and the news of her death was received with no less rejoicing in Oxford
than in other parts of England.
[Sidenote: Visitation and reforms of Cardinal Pole]
In the meantime, however, a fresh Visitation of the University was set
on foot, in 1556, by Cardinal Pole, who, having succeeded Gardiner as
chancellor of Cambridge in the previous year, now succeeded Sir John
Mason, the first lay chancellor of Oxford. He was the last in that
line of cardinals, beginning with Beaufort, who, armed with the title
of _Legatus à latere_, assumed to govern the English Church, as it
had never been governed before, under the direct orders of the Pope.
The Visitors deputed by him proceeded to hunt out certain obnoxious
persons who had not withdrawn from Oxford, to burn all the English
Bibles which they could find in the common market-place, and to purge
the libraries of Protestant books. The Cardinal soon afterwards caused
the University and college statutes to be revised, chiefly for the
purpose of correcting recent innovations. For instance, while Edward
VI.’s commissioners had authorised the use of English in college halls,
Cardinal Pole restored the old rule against speaking any language but
Latin. It was also an avowed object of the revision to restore the
supremacy of Aristotle and the study of scholastic philosophy. These
changes, having scarcely been effected before they were reversed, fill
less space in University annals than an incident of comparatively
trivial importance, which must have outraged the Protestant sympathies
of the Oxford townspeople. The wife of Peter Martyr had been interred
in Christchurch Cathedral, near the relics of St. Frideswide. Pole now
directed the dean, no unwilling agent, to exhume the body and cast it
into unconsecrated ground. The Dean improved upon his instructions by
having it buried under a dunghill, whence it was again disinterred,
mingled with the relics of St. Frideswide, and finally committed to the
grave in the year 1561. No wonder that Queen Mary’s patronage proved
a poor substitute for academical freedom, that learning continued to
decline, that even sermons were rare and ill-attended, that lectures
were almost suspended, that few ‘proceeded’ in any of the faculties,
and that it was thought necessary to reduce the qualification of
standing for the M.A. degree in order to reinforce the University with
Masters.
[Sidenote: Foundation of Trinity and St. John’s Colleges]
Two colleges, it is true, Trinity and St. John’s, owe their origin to
Mary’s reign, and both were founded by Roman Catholics, but upon the
ruins of monastic institutions, and before the Marian persecutions
had borne fruit in the University. These colleges, as semi-Catholic
foundations of the Reformation era, may fitly be regarded as forming
landmarks between mediæval and modern Oxford.