TWO OF THE SMALLER HALLS
"To London hence, to Cambridge thence,
With thanks to thee, O Trinity!
That to thy hall, so passing all,
I got at last.
There joy I felt, there trim I dwelt,
Then heaven from hell I shifted well
With learned men, a number then,
The time I past.
When gains were gone and years grew on,
And Death did cry, from London fly,
In Cambridge then I found again
A resting plot:
In College best of all the rest,
With thanks to thee, O Trinity!
Through thee and thine for me and mine,
Some stay I got!"
--THOMAS TUSSER.
The Foundation of Trinity Hall by Bishop Bateman of Norwich--On the
Site of the Hostel of Student-Monks of Ely--Prior Crauden--Evidence
of the Ely Obedientary Rolls--The College Buildings--The Old
Hall--S. Edward's Church used as College Chapel--Hugh Latimer's
Sermon on a Pack of Cards--Harvey Goodwin--Frederick Maurice--The
Hall--The Library--Its ancient Bookcases--The Foundation of S.
Catherine's Hall.
Thus sang Thomas Tusser--the author of "Five Hundred Points of Good
Husbandry united to as many of Good Housewifery"--of Trinity Hall and
his residence there about the year 1542. And the words of the homely old
rhymer--the most fluent versifier, I suppose, among farmers since
Virgil, wise in his advice to others, most unlucky in the application of
his own maxims--have been echoed in spirit by many generations of "Hall"
men from his time onwards. And indeed there is hardly perhaps another
College in Cambridge which stirs the hearts of its members with a more
passionate enthusiasm of loyalty than this, which yet never speaks of
itself as a "College," but always proudly as "The Hall." It was founded
by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, in 1350, but it had an earlier
origin than this. On the southern part of the present site there stood
an old house, which had been provided some thirty years earlier for the
use of the student-monks of Ely attending the University by the then
Prior. This was John of Crauden, Prior of Ely from 1321 to 1341, a man
of noble personal character, a model administrator of the great
possessions of his abbey, a patron of art and learning, the friend on
the one hand of Queen Philippa, and on the other of the greatest
cathedral builder of the fourteenth century, Alan de Walsingham. The
portrait bust of him, which may still be seen carved at the end of one
of the hood moulds of the great octagon arches in the Minster, shows a
strong, handsome face, dignified, benignant, pleasant; a full, frank,
eloquent eye; a mouth intelligent and firm, and yet with a merry smile
lurking unmistakably in its corner; altogether such a man as we may well
feel might not only rightly be Queen Philippa's friend, as the
chronicler says, "propter amabilem et graciosam ipsius affabilitatem et
eloquentiam,"[59] but one also who one might expect to find anxious
to maintain among his convent brothers the Benedictine ideal of
knowledge and learning. It was no doubt to that end that somewhere about
the year 1325 he had purchased the house at Cambridge as a hostel for
the use of the Ely monks. In the Obedientary Rolls of the monastery,
still treasured in the muniment room of the cathedral, there is evidence
that from his time onwards three or four of the Ely monks were
constantly residing at Cambridge at the convent expense, taking their
degrees there, and then returning to Ely.[60]
[Illustration: The Chapel, Trinity Hall]
It is probable, however, that the residence of the Ely monks was,
shortly after Crauden's time, transferred from this hostel to the rooms
provided in Monk's College on the present site of Magdalene, for a
register among the Ely muniments shows that in the twenty-fourth year of
Edward III. John of Crauden's hostel was conveyed by the Prior and
Convent to the Bishop of Norwich for the purpose of his proposed
college. The old Monk's Hall was still standing in 1731, for it is
contained in a plan of the College of that date preserved in the College
library. A note in Warren's "History of Trinity Hall" informs us that a
part of it was destroyed in 1823. Warren himself speaks of it as "Y^{e}
Old Building for y^{e} Monks, where y^{e} Pigeon House is." Now all has
vanished unless perhaps some underground foundations in the garden of
the Master's Lodge.
The buildings of the College, in their general arrangement, have
probably been little altered since their completion in the fourteenth
century. They had the peculiarity of an entrance court between the
principal court and the street, like the outer court of a monastery. The
original gateway, however, of this entrance--the Porter's Court, as it
was called at a later date--has been removed, and the College is now
entered directly from the street.
It is probable that the Hall, forming one half of the western side of
the principal court, was built during the lifetime of the founder, as
also was the original eastern range, rebuilt in the last century. This
would give a date, 1355, for these two ranges. The buttery and the
northern block of buildings belong to 1374. In early days Trinity Hall
shared with Clare Hall the Church of S. John Zachary as a joint College
chapel. When in connection with the building of King's College the
Church of S. John was removed, two aisles were added to the chancel of
S. Edward's Church for the accommodation of "The Hall" students. The
present chapel appears to date from the end of the fourteenth, or
probably the early part of the fifteenth century. The only architectural
features, however, at present visible of mediæval character are the
piscina and the buttresses on the south side.
The advowson of the Church of S. Edward, the north aisle of the chancel
of which was for a time used as the College chapel, was acquired by the
College in the middle of the fifteenth century, and has thus remained to
our own day.
"The complete control," says Mr. Walden in his lately published
"History of Trinity Hall," "of the Church by a College whose
Fellows, in course of time, were more and more a lay body, while
other Colleges continued to be exclusively clerical, might be
expected to give opportunity for the ministrations of men whose
opinions might not be those preferred by the dominant clerical
party at the moment. In 1529, for instance, during the mastership
of Stephen Gardiner be it observed, Hugh Latimer, who is said to
have become a reformer from the persuasions of Bilney, Fellow of
Trinity Hall, preached in S. Edward's on the Sunday before
Christmas. He preached there often, but on this occasion he
surpassed himself in originality, taking apparently a pack of cards
as his text, and illustrating from the Christmas game of Triumph,
with hearts as 'triumph,' or _trumps_ as we say, the superiority of
heart-religion over the vain outward show of the superstitious
ornaments of the other court cards. Buckenham, Prior of the
Dominicans, answered him from the same pulpit, and preached on
dice. Latimer answered him again. The whole must have been more
entertaining than edifying."
This tradition of independence, at any rate in pulpit teaching, though
in less eccentric ways, has been retained by S. Edward's down to our own
time. Here in 1832, Henry John Rose, the brother of Hugh James Rose, the
Cambridge Tractarian, represented the moderate wing of the new Anglican
party. Here, during the years preceding his promotion to the Deanery of
Ely in 1858, Harvey Goodwin preached that series of sermons, simple,
pithy, robust, which Sunday by Sunday crowded with undergraduates the
Church of S. Edward for nearly eight years, as a church in a university
city has seldom been crowded. Here, also, in 1871 Frederick Denison
Maurice--the most representative churchman probably of the nineteenth
century, for it was he rather than Pusey or Newman, who, by his
interpretation of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, has most profoundly
moulded, inspired, and transfigured the Church ideals of the
present--found an opportunity of preaching when too many of the
parochial pulpits of England were closed to him.
The grave and the trivial mingle in college as in other human affairs.
And so it came about that the possession of the spiritualities of S.
Edward's parish compelled the Fellows of the Hall to keep an eye on its
temporalities, and from time to time to beat its bounds. Here is one
record of such "beating." It was May 23rd, viz., Ascension Day in 1734,
when the Fellows deputed for the purpose started from the Three Tuns and
went by the Mitre, the White Horse, and the Black Bull before reaching
S. Catherine's Hall. They penetrated King's, but regretted to find that
here the Brewhouse was shut up. They encircled Clare and Trinity Hall,
therefore, and came back to the Three Tuns whence they had started two
hours before. They had not, quite evidently--for the full circuit is not
great--been walking all the time. The account ends:--
"N.B.--One bottle of white wine given us at y^{e} Tuns, and one
bottle of white wine given us at the Mitre. Ale and bread and
cheese given by the Minister of St. Edward's at y^{e} Bench in our
College Backside. _Mem._--To be given by y^{e} Minister twelve
halfpenny loaves, sixpenny worth of Cheshire cheeses, seven
quarts and a half of ale in y^{e} great stone bottle for y^{e}
people in general, and a tankard of ale for each church
warden."[61]
[Illustration: Oriel Window, Jesus College]
It will be remembered that in the last chapter, in speaking of the books
left to Corpus Christi College by Archbishop Parker, we mentioned that
provision of his deed of gift by which under certain contingencies the
books were to be transferred from Corpus to Trinity Hall. It is quite
probable that this provision drew the attention of the authorities of
the latter college to the possible need of a library. It is unknown,
however, when exactly the present library was built. The style proclaims
Elizabeth's reign or thereabouts. Professor Willis conjectured about
1600. But whatever the date may be it is very fortunate that the hand of
the restorer which fell so heavily upon so many other of the College
buildings should have mercifully spared the library, which to this day
retains its early simplicity of character, leaving it one of the most
interesting of the old book rooms in the University. Mr. J. G. Clark in
his valuable essay on the Development of Libraries and their fittings,
published two years ago under the title "The Care of Books," has thus
spoken of the library of Trinity Hall:--
"The Library of Trinity Hall is thoroughly mediæval in plan, being
a long narrow room on the first floor of the north side of the
second court, 65 feet long by 20 feet wide, with eight equi-distant
windows in each side wall, and a window of four lights in the
western gable. It was built about 1600, but the fittings are even
later, having been added between 1626 and 1645 during the
mastership of Thomas Eden, LL.D. They are therefore a deliberate
return to ancient forms at a time when a different type had been
adopted elsewhere.
"There are four desks and six seats on each side of the room,
placed as usual, at right angles to the side walls, in the
interspaces of the windows, respectively.
"These lecterns are of oak, 6 feet 7 inches long, and 7 feet high,
measured to the top of the ornamental finial. There is a sloping
desk at the top, beneath which is a single shelf. The bar for the
chains passes under the desk, through the two vertical ends of the
case. At the end furthest from the wall, the hasp of the lock is
hinged to the bar and secured by two keys. Beneath the shelf there
is at either end a slip of wood which indicates that there was once
a movable desk which could be pulled out when required. The reader
could therefore consult his convenience, and work either sitting or
standing. For both these positions the heights are very suitable,
and at the bottom of the case was a plinth on which he could set
his feet. The seats between each pair of desks were of course put
up at the same time as the desks themselves. They show an advance
in comfort, being divided into two so as to allow of support to the
readers' backs."[62]
The garden of the Hall was laid out early in the last century, with
formal walks and yew hedges and a raised terrace overlooking the river.
The well-known epigram quoted by Gunning in his "Reminiscences"[63] has
for its topic not this garden but the small triangular plot next to
Trinity Hall Lane, which was planted and surrounded by a paling in 1793,
by Dr. Joseph Jowett, the then tutor.
[Illustration: Gateway in Great Court St Catharine's College]
"A little garden little Jowett made
And fenced it with a little palisade,
But when this little garden made a little talk,
He changed it to a little gravel walk;
If you would know the mind of little Jowett
This little garden don't a little show it."
It has usually been attributed to Archdeacon Wrangham. There are several
versions of it, and a translation into Latin, which runs as follows:--
"Exiguum hunc hortum, fecit Jowettulus iste
Exiguus, vallo et muniit exiguo:
Exiguo hoc horto forsan Jowettulus iste
Exiguus mentem prodidit exiguam."
At the end of the fifteenth century, just twenty years after the fall of
Constantinople, Dr. Robert Woodlark, third Provost of King's College and
some time Chancellor of the University, founded the small "House of
Learning," which he called S. Catherine's Hall, possibly because Henry
VI., whose mother was a Catherine, was his patron, or possibly because
at this time S. Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of scholars,
was a popular saint. In the statutes he says, "I have founded and
established a college or hall to the praise, glory, and honour of our
Lord Jesus Christ, of the most glorious Virgin Mary, His mother, and of
the Holy Virgin Katerine, for the exaltation of the Christian faith, for
the defence and furtherance of the Holy Church, and growth of science
and faculties of philosophy and sacred theology." In the autumn of 1473
a Master and three Fellows took up their residence in the small court
which had just been built on a site in Milne Street, close to the Bull
Inn. The chapel and library, however, do not appear to have been
completed until a few years later. In 1520 a second court was added, and
a century later, in 1634, some new buildings were commenced to the north
of the principal court, and adjacent to Queen's Street. These buildings,
which are the only old buildings that still remain, were completed two
years later. Between 1673-97 all the rest of the old buildings were
pulled down and the College rebuilt. In 1704 the new chapel was built on
the site of the stables of Thomas Hobson, whose just but despotic method
of dealing with his customers gave rise to the phrase "Hobson's Choice."
In 1757, the houses which hitherto had concealed the College from the
High Street were removed.