THE EARLIEST COLLEGE FOUNDATION: PETERHOUSE
"Re unius
Exemplo omnium quoquot extant
Collegiorum, fundatori."--_Epitaph of Walter de Merton._
The Early Monastic Houses in Cambridge--Student Proselytising by
the Friars--The Oxford College of Merton a Protest against this
Tendency--The Rule of Merton taken as a Model by Hugh de Balsham,
Founder of Peterhouse--The Hospital of S. John--The Scholars of
Ely--Domestic Economy of the College--The Dress of the Mediæval
Student--Peterhouse Buildings--Little S. Mary's Church--The Perne
Library--The College Chapel.
The first beginnings of the University of Cambridge are, as we have seen
in the preceding chapters, largely traceable to a monastic inspiration.
The first beginnings of the Cambridge Colleges, on the other hand, are
as certainly traceable to the protest which, as early as the middle of
the thirteenth century, it became necessary to make against the
proselytising tendencies of the monastic Orders. At a time when, as we
have seen, the University authorities took no cognisance whatever of the
way in which the student was lodged, and when even the unsatisfactory
hostel system--eventually organised, as it would appear, by voluntary
action on the part of the students themselves--did not exist, the houses
of the monastic Orders were already well established. We have described
the fully-equipped house of the Augustinian Canons at Barnwell. Within
the town the Franciscans had established themselves, as early as 1224,
in the old synagogue, and fifty years later had erected, on the present
site of Sydney College, a spacious house, which Ascham long afterwards
described as an ornament to the University, and the precincts of which
were still, in the time of Fuller, to be traced in the College grounds.
In 1274 the Dominicans had settled where Emmanuel now stands. About the
middle of the century the Carmelites, who had originally occupied an
extensive foundation at Newnham, but were driven from thence by the
winter floods, settled near the present site of Queens. Towards the
close of the century the Augustinian Friars took up their residence near
the site of the old Botanic Gardens. Opposite to the south part of the
present gardens of Peterhouse, on the east side of Trumpington Street,
were the Gilbertines, or the Canons of S. Gilbert of Sempringham, the
one purely English foundation. In 1257 the Friars of the Order of
Bethlehem settled also in Trumpington Street, and in 1258 the Friars of
the Sack, or of the Penitence of Jesus Christ, settled in the parish of
S. Mary the Great, removed soon afterwards to the parish of S. Peter
without the Trumpington Gate.
It was natural, therefore, that these well-equipped houses should hold
out great attractions and opportunities to the needy and houseless
student, and that complaint should shortly be made that many young and
unsuspicious boys were induced to enrol themselves as members of
Franciscan, or Dominican, or other Friars' houses long before they were
capable of judging the full importance of their action. One cannot read
the biographies of even such strong personalities as those of Roger
Bacon or William of Occam without surmising that their adoption of the
Franciscan vow was the result rather of the exigency of the student and
the proselytising activity to which they were exposed, than of any
distinct vocation for the monastic life, or of their own deliberate
choice. "Minors and children," as Fuller says in his usual quaint vein,
"agree very well together." To such an extent at any rate had the evil
spread at Oxford that, in a preamble of a statute passed in 1358, it is
asserted, as a notorious fact, that "the nobility and commoners alike
were deterred from sending their sons to the University by this very
cause; and it was enacted that if any mendicant should induce, or cause
to be induced, any member of the University under eighteen years of age
to join the said Friars, or should in any way assist in his abduction,
no graduate belonging to the cloister or society of which such friar was
a member should be permitted to give or attend lectures in Oxford or
elsewhere for the year ensuing."[24] It is not perhaps, therefore,
surprising to find that the earliest English Collegiate foundation--that
of Walter de Merton at Oxford in 1264--should have expressly excluded
all members of the religious Orders. The dangers involved in the
ascendency of the monks and friars were already patent to many sagacious
minds, and Bishop Walter de Merton, who had filled the high office of
Chancellor of England, and was already by his position an adversary of
the Franciscan interest, was evidently desirous of establishing an
institution which should not only baffle that encroaching spirit of Rome
which had startled Grosseteste from his allegiance, but should also give
an impulse to a system of education which should not be subservient to
purely ecclesiastical ideas. This is obviously the principle which
underlies the provisions of the statutes of his foundation of Merton
College. Bishop Hobhouse in his _Life of Walter de Merton_ has thus
carefully interpreted this principle:--
"Our founder's object I conceive to have been to secure for his own
order in the Church, for the secular priesthood, the academical
benefit which the religious orders were so largely enjoying, and to
this end I think all his provisions are found to be consistently
framed. He borrowed from the monastic institutions the idea of an
aggregate body living by common rule, under a common head, provided
with all things needful for a corporate and perpetual life, fed by
its secured endowments, fenced from all external interference,
except that of its lawful patron; but after borrowing thus much, he
differenced his institution by giving his beneficiaries quite a
distinct employment, and keeping them free from all those perpetual
obligations which constituted the essence of the religious life....
His beneficiaries are from the first designated as _Scholares in
scholis degentes_; their employment was study, not what was
technically called "the religious life" (_i.e._ the life of a
monk).... He forbade his scholars even to take vows, they were to
keep themselves free of every other institution, to render no one
else's _obsequium_. He looked forward to their going forth to
labour _in seculo_, and acquiring preferment and property.... Study
being the function of the inmates of his house, their time was not
to be taken up by ritual or ceremonial duties, for which special
chaplains were appointed; neither was it to be bestowed on any
handicrafts, as in some monastic orders. Voluntary poverty was not
enjoined, though poor circumstances were a qualification for a
fellowship. No austerity was required, though contentment with
simple fare was enforced as a duty, and the system of enlarging the
number of inmates according to the means of the house was framed to
keep the allowance to each at the very moderate rate which the
founder fixed. The proofs of his design to benefit the Church
through a better educated secular priesthood are to be found, not
in the letter of their statutes, but in the tenour of their
provisions, especially as to studies, in the direct averments of
some of the subsidiary documents, in the fact of his providing
Church patronage as part of his system, and in the readiness of
prelates and chapters to grant him impropriation of the rectorial
endowments of the Church."
Such was the _Regula Mertonensis_, the Rule of Merton, as it came to be
called, which served as the model for so many subsequent statutes.
This _Regula_ Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely (1257-1286), evidently had
before him, when some twenty years after his consecration to the
bishopric, he proceeded, by giving a new form to an earlier benefaction
of his own, to open a new chapter in the history of the University of
Cambridge.
Hugh de Balsham, before his elevation to the bishopric, had been
sub-prior of the Ely monastery, and at first sight therefore it might
seem a little surprising that he should have thought of encouraging a
system of education which was not to be subject to the monastic rule.
But Hugh de Balsham was a Benedictine monk, and the Benedictines in
England at this time were the upholders of a less stringent and ascetic
discipline than that of the mendicant orders, and were, in fact,
endeavouring in every way to counteract their influence. It had been the
aim of Bishop Balsham, in the first instance, to endeavour to bring
about a kind of fusion between the old and the new elements in
university life, between the Regulars and the Seculars. But this first
effort was not fortunate. About the year 1280 he introduced a body of
secular scholars into the ancient Hospital of S. John. This Hospital of
the Brethren of S. John the Evangelist had been founded, in the year of
1135, by Henry Frost, a wealthy and charitable burgess of the city, and
placed under the management of a body of regular canons of the
Augustinian Order. At a somewhat later time, Bishop Eustace, the fifth
Bishop of Ely, added largely by his benefactions to the importance of
the house. It was he who appropriated to the hospital the Church of S.
Peter, without the Trumpington Gate. Hugh of Northwold, the eighth
bishop, is said, at least by one authority, to have placed some secular
scholars there, who devoted themselves to academical study rather than
to the services of the Church, and he certainly obtained for the
Hospital certain exemptions from taxation in connection with their two
hostels near S. Peter's Church. The endowment of the secular students
was still further cared for by Bishop Hugh de Balsham. In the preamble
to certain letters patent of Edward I. (1280) authorising the
settlement, the Bishop, after a wordy comparison, in mediæval phrase, of
King Edward's wisdom with that of King Solomon, is credited with the
intention of introducing "into the dwelling place of the secular
brethren of his Hospital of S. John studious scholars who shall in
everything live together as students in the University of Cambridge,
according to the rule of the scholars of Oxford who are called of
Merton."[25] This document fixes the date of the royal license, on which
there can be little doubt that action was immediately taken. The change
of system was most unpalatable to the original foundationers and led to
unappeasable dissension. The regulars, it may be conjectured, were
absorbed in their religious services and in the performance of the
special charitable offices of the Hospital; while the scholars were,
doubtless, eager to be instructed in the Latin authors, in the new
Theology, in the civil and the canon law, perhaps in the "new
Aristotle," which at this time was beginning to excite so much
enthusiasm among western scholars. Anyhow, the two elements were too
dissimilar to combine. Differences arose, feuds and jealousies sprang
up, and eventually the good bishop found himself under the necessity of
separating the Ely scholars from the Brethren of the Hospital. This he
did by transplanting the scholars to the two hostels (_hospicia_)
adjoining the Church of S. Peter, without the Trumpington Gate,
assigning to them the Church itself and certain revenues belonging to
it, inclusive of the tithes of the church mills. This was in the year
1284, and marks the foundation of Peterhouse as the earliest of
Cambridge colleges. The Hospital of S. John, thus freed from the
scholarly element, went quietly on its career, to become, as we shall
see later, the nucleus of the great foundation of S. John's College. It
may have been a disappointment to Bishop Hugh that he had not been able
to fuse together the two dissimilar elements--"the scholars too wise,
and the brethren possibly over-good"--in one corporation. But, as Baker,
the historian of S. John's College, has said: "Could he but have
foreseen that this broken and imperfect society was to give birth to two
great and lasting foundations, he would have had much joy in his
disappointment."
In the year 1309 the new foundation of "the Scholars of the Bishops of
Ely" obtained certain adjoining property hitherto occupied by the Friars
of the Sack (_De Penetentia Jesu_), an Order doomed to extinction by the
Council of Lyons in 1274. Its slender resources were further added to on
the death of its founder by his bequest of 300 marks for the erection of
new buildings. With this sum a considerable area to the west and south
of the original hostels was acquired, and a handsome hall (_aulam
perpulchram_) was built. This hall is substantially the building still
in use. It was left, however, to his successor in the Bishopric of Ely,
Simon Montagu (1337-1345), to give to the new college its first code of
statutes. Bishop Simon, one is glad to think, did not forget the good
intentions of Bishop Hugh, for in his code of statutes, dated April
1344, he thus speaks of his predecessor:--
"Desirous for the weal of his soul while he dwelt in this vale of
tears, and to provide wholesomely, as far as in him lay, for poor
persons wishing to make themselves proficient in the knowledge of
letters, by securing to them a proper maintenance, he founded a
house or College for the public good in our University of
Cambridge, with the consent of King Edward and his beloved sons,
the prior and chapter of our Cathedral, all due requirements of law
being observed; which House he desired to be called the House of S.
Peter or the Hall (_aula_) of the scholars of the Bishops of Ely at
Cambridge; and he endowed it and made ordinances for it (_in
aliquibus ordinavit_) so far as he was then able; but not as he
intended and wished to do, as we hear, had not death frustrated his
intention. In this House he willed that there should be one master
and as many scholars as could be suitably maintained for the
possessions of the house itself in a lawful manner."[26]
There can be little doubt that the statutes which Bishop Montagu gave to
the college represent the wishes of his predecessor, for the Peterhouse
statutes are actually modelled on the fourth of the codes of statutes
given by Merton to his college, and dated 1274. The formula "_ad instar
Aulæ de Merton_" is a constantly recurring phrase in Montagu's statutes.
The true principle of collegiate endowments could not be more plainly
stated, and certainly these statutes may be regarded as the embodiment
of the earliest conception of college life and discipline at Cambridge.
A master and fourteen perpetual fellows,[27] "studiously engaged in the
pursuit of literature," represent the body supported on the foundation;
the "pensioner" of later times being, of course, at this period provided
for already by the hostel. In case of a vacancy among the Fellows "the
most able bachelor in logic" is designated as the one on whom, _cæteris
paribus_, the election is to fall, the other requirement being that, "so
far as human frailty admit, he be honourable, chaste, peaceable, humble,
and modest." "The Scholars of Ely" were bound to devote themselves to
the "study of Arts, Aristotle, Canon Law, Theology," but, as at Merton,
the basis of a sound Liberal Education was to be laid before the study
of theology was to be entered upon; two were to be admitted to the study
of the civil and the canon law, and one to that of medicine. When any
Fellow was about to "incept" in any faculty, it devolved upon the master
with the rest of the Fellows to inquire in what manner he had conducted
himself and gone through his exercises in the schools, how long he had
heard lectures in the faculty in which he was about to incept, and
whether he had gone through the forms according to the statutes of the
university. The sizar of later times is recognised in the provision,
that if the funds of the Foundation permit, the master and the two
deacons shall select two or three youths, "indigent scholars well
grounded in Latin"--_juvenes indigentes scholares in grammatica
notabiliter fundatos_--to be maintained, "as long as may seem fit," by
the college alms, such poor scholars being bound to attend upon the
master and fellows in church, on feast days and other ceremonial
occasions, to serve the master and fellows at seasonable times at table
and in their rooms. All meals were to be partaken in common; but it
would seem that this regulation was intended rather to conduce towards
an economical management than enacted in any spirit of studied
conformity to monastic life, for, adds the statute, "the scholars shall
patiently support this manner of living until their means shall, under
God's favour, have received more plentiful increase."[28]
An interesting feature in these statutes is the regulation with regard
to the distinctive dress of the student, showing how little regard was
paid at this period, even when the student was a priest, to the wearing
of a costume which might have been considered appropriate to the staid
character of his profession.
"The Students," writes Mr. Cooper,[29] "disdaining the tonsure, the
distinctive mark of their order, wore their hair either hanging
down on their shoulders in an effeminate manner, or curled and
powdered: they had long beards, and their apparel more resembled
that of soldiers than of priests; they were attired in cloaks with
furred edges, long hanging sleeves not covering their elbows, shoes
chequered with red and green and tippets of an unusual length;
their fingers were decorated with rings, and at their waists they
wore large and costly girdles, enamelled with figures and gilt; to
the girdles hung knives like swords."
In order to repress this laxity and want of discipline, Archbishop
Stratford, at a later period in the year 1342, issued an order that no
student of the university, unless he should reform his "person and
apparel" should receive any ecclesiastical degree or honour. It was
doubtless in reference to some such order as this that one of the
statutes of Peterhouse ran to this effect:--
"Inasmuch as the dress, demeanour, and carriage of scholars are
evidences of themselves, and by such means it is seen more clearly,
or may be presumed what they themselves are internally, we enact
and ordain, that the master and all and each of the scholars of our
house shall _adopt the clerical dress and tonsure_, as becomes the
condition of each, and wear it conformally in respect, as far as
they conveniently can, and not allow their beard or their hair to
grow contrary to canonical prohibition, nor wear rings upon their
fingers for their own vain glory and boasting, and to the
pernicious example and scandal of others."[30]
[Illustration: Peterhouse College]
"The Philosophy of Clothes," especially in its application to the
mediæval universities, is no doubt an interesting one, and may even--so,
at least, it is said by some authorities--throw much light upon the
relations of the universities to the Church. The whole subject is
discussed in some detail in the chapter on "Student Life in the Middle
Ages," in Mr. Rashdall's "History of the Universities of Europe," to
which, perhaps, it may be best to refer those of our readers who are
desirous of tracing the various steps in the gradual evolution of modern
academic dress from the antique forms. There it will be seen how the
present doctor's scarlet gown was developed from the magisterial "cappa"
or "cope," a sleeveless scarlet cloak, lined with miniver, with tippet
and hood attached of the same material--a dress which, in its original
shape, is now only to be seen in the Senate House at Cambridge, worn
by the Vice-Chancellor on Degree days; how the present gown and hood of
the Master of Arts and Bachelor is merely a development of the ordinary
clerical dress or "tabard" of the thirteenth century, which, however,
was not even exclusively clerical, and certainly not distinguished by
that sobriety of hue characteristic of modern clerical
tailordom--clerkly prejudice in the matter of the "tabard" running in
favour of green, blue, or blood red; and how the modern "mortar-board,"
or square college cap,--now usurped by undergraduates, and even
choristers and schoolboys--was originally the distinctive badge of a
Master of Faculty, being either a square cap or "biretta," with a tuft
on the top, in lieu of the very modern tassel, or a round cap or
"pileum," more or less resembling the velvet caps still worn by the
Yeomen of the Guard, or on very state occasions by the Cambridge or
Oxford doctors in medicine or law. The picturesque dress of university
students of the thirteenth century, still surviving in the long blue
coat and yellow stockings, and red leather girdle and white bands of the
boys of Christ's Hospital, is sufficient to show how much we have lost
of the warmth and colour of mediæval life by the almost universal change
to sombre black in clerical or student costume, brought about by the
Puritan austerity of the sixteenth century.
To return to the fabric of Bishop Hugh de Balsham's College. We have
seen how a handsome hall (_aulam perpulchram_) was built with the 300
marks of the Bishop's legacy. This is substantially the building of five
bays, which still exists, forming the westernmost part of the south
side of the Great Court of the College. The three easternmost bays are
taken up by the dining-hall or refectory, the westernmost is devoted to
the buttery, the intervening bay is occupied by the screens and passage,
at either end of which there still remain the original north and south
doorways, interesting as being the earliest example of collegiate
architecture in Cambridge. The windows of this hall on the south side
date from the end of the fifteenth century. The north-east oriel window
and the buttresses on the north side of the hall were added by Sir
Gilbert Scott in 1870, who also built the new screen, panelling, and
roof. At about the same time the hall was decorated and the windows
filled with stained glass of very great beauty by William Morris. The
figures represented in the windows are as follows (beginning from the
west on the north side): John Whitgift, John Cosin, Rd. Tresham, Thos.
Gray, Duke of Grafton, Henry Cavendish; in the oriel--Homer, Aristotle,
Cicero, Hugh de Balsham, Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton; on
the south side--Edward I., Queen Eleanor, Hugh de Balsham, S. George, S.
Peter, S. Etheldreda, John Holbroke, Henry Beaufort, John Warkworth.
After the building of this hall the College evidently languished for
want of funds for more than a century. But in the fifteenth century the
College began to prosper, and a good deal of building was done. The
character of the work is not expressly stated in the Bursar's Rolls--of
which there are some thirty-one still existing of the fifteenth
century, and a fairly complete set of the subsequent centuries--but the
earliest buildings of this date are probably the range of chambers
forming the north and west side of the great court. The kitchen, which
is immediately to the west of the hall, dates from 1450. The Fellows'
parlour or combination room, completing the third side of the
quadrangle, and immediately east of the dining-hall, was built some ten
years later.
Cole has given the following precise description of this room:--
"This curious old room joins immediately to the east end of the
dining-hall or refectory, and is a ground floor called The Stone
Parlour, on the south side of the Quadrangle, between the said hall
and the master's own lodge. It is a large room and wainscotted with
small oblong Panels. The two upper rows of which are filled with
paintings on board of several of the older Masters and Benefactors
to the College. Each picture has an Inscription in the corner, and
on a separate long Panel under each, much ornamented with painting,
is a Latin Distic." ...[31]
Then follows a description of each portrait--there are thirty in
all--with its accompanying distich. As an example, we may give that
belonging to the portrait of Dr. Andrew Perne:
Bibliothecæ Libri Redditus pulcherrima Dona Perne, pium Musiste,
Philomuse, probant.
_Andreas Perne, Doctor Theol. Decanus Ecclesiæ Eliensis, Magister
Collegii, obiit 26 Aprilis, Anno Dom. 1573._
These panel portraits were removed from their framework in the
eighteenth century, and framed and hung in the master's lodge, but have
since been re-hung for the most part in the college hall, and their
Latin distichs restored according to Cole's record of them. The windows
of the Combination Room have been filled with stained glass by William
Morris, representing ten ideal women from Chaucer's "Legend of Good
Women."
On the upper storey of the combination room was the master's lodge. The
situation of these rooms at the upper end of the hall is almost as
invariable in collegiate plans as that of the buttery and kitchen at the
other end. The same may be said of that most picturesque feature of the
turret staircase leading from the master's rooms to the hall, parlour,
and garden, which we shall find repeated in the plans of S. John's,
Christ's, Queen's, and Pembroke Colleges. About the same period (1450)
the range of chambers on the north side of the court was at its
easternmost end connected by a gallery with the Church of S. Mary, which
remained in use as the College chapel down to the seventeenth century.
This gallery, on the level of the upper floor of the College chambers,
was carried on arches so as not to obstruct the entrance to the
churchyard and south porch from the High Street, by a similar
arrangement to that which from the first existed between Corpus Christi
College and the ancient Church of S. Benedict.
The Parish Church of S. Peter, without the Trumpington Gate, had from
the first been used as the College Chapel of Peterhouse. Indeed, the
earliest college in Cambridge was the latest to possess a private chapel
of its own, which was not built until 1628. All that remains, however,
of the old Church of S. Peter is a fragment of the tower, standing at
the north-west corner of the present building and the arch which led
from it into the church. This probably marks the west end of the old
church, which, no doubt, was much shorter than the present one. It is
said that this old church fell down in part about 1340, and a new church
was at once begun in its place. This was finished in 1352 and dedicated
to the honour of the blessed Virgin Mary. The church is a very beautiful
one, though of an unusual simplicity of design. It is without aisles or
any structural division between nave and chancel. It is lighted by lofty
windows and deep buttresses. On the south side and at the eastern gable
are rich flowing decorated windows, the tracery of which is designed in
the same style, and in many respects with the same patterns, as those of
Alan de Walsingham's Lady Chapel at Ely. Indeed, a comparison of the
Church of Little S. Mary with the Ely Lady Chapel, not only in its
general conception, but in many of its details, such as that of the
stone tabernacles on the outer face of the eastern gable curiously
connected with the tracery of the window, would lead a careful observer
to the conclusion that both churches had been planned by the same
architect. The change of the old name of the church from S. Peter to
that of S. Mary the Virgin is also, in this relation, suggestive. For
we must remember that it was built at a time--the age of Dante and
Chaucer--when Catholic purity, in the best natures, united to the
tenderness of chivalry was casting its glamour over poetic and artistic
minds, and had already led to the establishment in Italy of an
Order--the _Cavalieri Godenti_--pledged to defend the existence, or,
more accurately perhaps, the dignity of the Virgin Mary, by the
establishment everywhere throughout western Europe of Lady Chapels in
her honour. Whether Alan de Walsingham, the builder of the Ely Lady
Chapel, and the builder of the Church of Little S. Mary at Cambridge--if
he was not Alan--belonged to this Order of the Cavaliers of S. Mary, we
cannot say; but at least it seems probable that the Cambridge Church
sprang from the same impulse which inspired the magnificent stone poem
in praise of S. Mary, built by the sacrist of Ely.
At this period Peterhouse consisted of two courts, separated by a wall
occupying the position of the present arcade at the west end of the
chapel. The westernmost or principal court is, save in some small
details, that which we see to-day. The small eastern court next to the
street has undergone great alteration by the removal of certain old
dwelling-houses--possibly relics of the original hostels--fronting the
street, which left an open space, occupied at a later period partly by
the chapel and by the extension eastward of the buildings on the south
side of the great court to form a new library, and subsequently by a
similar flanking extension on the north.
The earliest of these buildings was the library, due to a bequest of Dr.
Andrew Perne, Dean of Ely, who was master of the College from 1553 to
1589, and who not only left to the society his own library, "supposed to
be the worthiest in all England," but sufficient property for the
erection of a building to contain it. Perne had gained in early life a
position of importance in the University--he had been a fellow of both
S. John's and of Queen's, bursar of the latter College and five times
vice-chancellor of the University--but his success in life was mainly
due to his pliancy in matters of religion. In Henry's reign he had
publicly maintained the Roman doctrine of the adoration of pictures of
Christ and the Saints; in Edward VI.'s he had argued in the University
pulpit against transubstantiation; in Queen Mary's, on his appointment
to the mastership of Peterhouse, he had formally subscribed to the fully
defined Roman articles then promulgated; in Queen Elizabeth's he had
preached a Latin sermon in denunciation of the Pope, and had been
complimented for his eloquence by the Queen herself. No wonder that
immediately after his death in 1589 he should be hotly denounced in the
Martin Marprelate tracts as the friend of Archbishop Whitgift, and as
the type of fickleness and lack of principle which the authors
considered characteristic of the Established Church. Other writers of
the same school referred to him as "Old Andrew Turncoat," "Old Father
Palinode," and "Judas." The undergraduates of Cambridge, it is said,
invented in his honour a new Latin verb, _pernare_, which they
translated "to turn, to rat, to change often." It became proverbial in
the University to speak of a cloak or a coat which had been turned as
"perned," and finally the letters on the weathercock of S. Peter's,
A.P.A.P., might, said the satirists, be interpreted as Andrew Perne, a
Protestant, or Papist, or Puritan. However, it is much to be able to say
that he was the tutor and friend of Whitgift, protecting him in early
days from the persecution of Cardinal Pole; it is something also to
remember that he was uniformly steadfast in his allegiance to his
College, bequeathing to it his books, with minute directions for their
chaining and safe custody, providing for their housing, and moreover,
endowing two college fellowships and six scholarships; and perhaps
charity might prompt us to add, that at a time when the public religion
of the country changed four times in ten years, Perne probably trimmed
in matters of outward form that he might be at hand to help in matters
which he truly thought were really essential.
The Perne Library at Peterhouse has no special architectural features of
any value; its main interest in that respect is to be found in the
picturesque gable-end with oriel window overhanging the street, bearing
above it the date 1633, which belongs to the brickwork extension
westward at that date of the original stone building. The building of
the library, however, preluded a period of considerable architectural
activity in the college, due largely to the energy of Dr. Matthew Wren,
who was master from 1625 to 1634. It is recorded of him that "seeing the
public offices of religion less decently performed, and the services of
God depending upon the services of others, for want of a convenient
oratory within the walls of the college," he began in 1629 to build the
present chapel. It was consecrated in 1632. The name of the architect is
not recorded. The chapel was connected as at present with the buildings
on either side by galleries carried on open arcades. Dr. Cosin, who
succeeded Wren in the mastership, continued the work, facing the chapel
walls, which had been built roughly in brick, with stone. An elaborate
ritual was introduced into the chapel by Cosin, who, it will be
remembered, was a friend and follower of Archbishop Laud. A Puritan
opponent of Cosin has written bitterly that "in Peter House Chappell
there was a glorious new altar set up and mounted on steps, to which the
master, fellows, and schollers bowed, and were enjoyned to bow by Dr.
Cosens, the master, who set it up; that there were basons, candlesticks,
tapers standing on it, and a great crucifix hanging over it ... and on
the altar a pot, which they usually call the incense pot.... And the
common report both among the schollers of that House and others, was
that none might approach to the altar in Peter House but in
sandalls."[32]
It is not surprising, therefore, to read at a little later date in the
diary of the Puritan iconoclast, William Dowsing:--
"We went to Peterhouse, 1643, Decemb. 21, with officers and
souldiers and ... we pulled down 2 mighty great Angells with wings
and divers others Angells and the 4 Evangelists and Peter, with his
keies, over the Chapell dore and about a hundred chirubims and
Angells and divers superstitious Letters...."
These to-day are all things of the past. The interior of the Chapel is
fitted partly with the genuine old mediæval panelling, possibly brought
from the parochial chancel of Little S. Mary's, or from its disused
chantries, now placed at the back of the stalls and in front of the
organ gallery, partly with oakwork, stalls and substalls, in the
Jacobæan style. The present altar-piece is of handsome modern wainscot.
The entrance door is mediæval, probably removed from elsewhere to
replace the doorway defaced by Dowsing. The only feature in the chapel
which can to-day be called--and that only by a somewhat doubtful
taste--"very magnifical," is the gaudy Munich stained-glass work
inserted in the lateral windows, as a memorial to Professor Smythe, in
1855 and 1858. The subjects are, on the north side, "The Sacrifice of
Isaac," "The Preaching of S. John the Baptist," "The Nativity"; and on
the south side, "The Resurrection," "The Healing of a Cripple by SS.
Peter and John," "S. Paul before Agrippa and Festus." The east window,
containing "The History of Christ's Passion," is said by Blomefield to
have been "hid in the late troublesome times in the very boxes which now
stand round the altar instead of rails."