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|THE first thing about this College to excite a stranger's curiosity is
its name. The explanation is trivial enough. Brasenose Hall (which was
in existence in the thirteenth century and became Brasenose College in
1509) was so called from the brass knocker--the head of a lion with a
very prominent nose--which adorned its gateway. In 1334 the members of
the Hall, from whatever reason, migrated into Lincolnshire, taking
the knocker with them, and set up their rest at Stamford. "There is in
Stamford," wrote Antony Wood, "a building in St. Paul's parish, near to
one of the tower gates, called Brazenose to this day, and has a great
gate, and a wicket, upon which wicket is a head or face of old cast
brass, with a ring through the nose thereof. It had also a fair
refectory within, and is at this time written in leases and deeds
Brazen Nose." This building was bought by "B. N. C." (to adopt Oxford
phraseology) in 1890, and the knocker brought back to Oxford, none the
worse for its prolonged rustication.
The College named after this venerable relic owes its foundation to
a pair of friends, William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Richard
Sutton of Sutton, in the county of Cheshire, an ecclesiastically-minded
layman, who became Steward of the monastery of Sion, near Brentford.
"Unmarried himself," the knight's biographer informs us, "and not
anxious to aggrandize his family, Sir Richard Sutton bestowed handsome
benefactions and kind remembrances among his kinsmen; but he wedded the
public, and made posterity his heir."
The College which grew up under the personal supervision of these two
friends, occupies the ground on which stood no less than eight Halls: a
fact which seems to shew that these institutions were not large in bulk.
The Founders purchased Brasenose Hall, Little University Hall, Salisbury
Hall, with St. Marys Entry--a picturesque lane, which appears in the
first of Mr. Matthison's illustrations; and five more. Tennyson's
phrase, "the tumult of the Halls," must have been peculiarly applicable
in mediaeval Oxford. Distinctly mediaeval were the statues of the
new Foundation; those who drew them up adhered to the training of
the schoolmen, and made no provision for the new learning. When John
Claymond, first President of Corpus, endowed six scholarships at
Brasenose (in 1536), he stipulated that the scholars appointed should
attend the lectures of the Latin and Greek Readers of his own College.
However, Brasenose had her own lecturers in these humaner studies,
before the century was out.
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If one would see the Front Quadrangle as the Founders viewed it, when
the last stones from Headington quarries were put in their places, he
must imagine it deprived of its third tier of windows and its parapet,
for these are Jacobean additions. The alteration, so far as it affected
the outside, can hardly have been for the better; for the additional
storey has certainly dwarfed the proportions of the fine Tower, which,
with its Gateway, is the most striking feature of the second picture.
As to the interior of the Quadrangle--sketched by Mr. Matthison from two
points of view--it is less easy to form an opinion; the dormer windows
are so quaintly ornamental that the severest critic may hesitate to wish
them gone.
Architecture of a totally different order meets the eye when the Inner
Quadrangle is reached, as a glance at the final illustration proves;
for the Italian style is much in evidence. The foundation stone of the
present Chapel, which represented an older one, was laid in 1656, and
tradition attributes the design of it, as well as that of the Library,
to Sir Christopher Wren, who was then quite a young man. Its windows
are Gothic, but the Corinthian pilasters and the general idea of the
structure shew that the architect's adherence was divided between the
older and newer methods. The ceiling is elaborately carved in fanwork
tracery. The Library stands between the Chapel and the south side of the
Quadrangle. There is a curious regulation in the statutes directing that
each volume it contained should be described in the catalogue by the
first word on the second leaf. The reason of this is that the first
leaf, being often splendidly illuminated, was liable to be torn out by
dishonest borrowers; and as it was important to be able to identify a
book, this could best be done by noting the first word on the second
page, because it would very seldom happen that two copyists would begin
that page with the same word. Hence the initial word of the second leaf
of a manuscript would in all probability mark that individual copy and
no other.
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Famous members of Brasenose College were Foxe, the historian of the
Martyrs; Robert Burton, author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_--we may be
sure _he_ used the Library; John Marston, satirist and dramatist, who,
along with Ben Jonson and Chapman, was thrown into prison for vilifying
the Scotch in _Eastward Ho_; Sir Henry Savile, afterwards Warden of
Merton, Founder of the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy; Bishop
Heber; Henry Hart Milman, the historian; and more noted cricketers and
oarsmen than we have space to mention.
Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, was chosen Principal of the College when in
his ninetieth year, but resigned after two months of office. That was in
the sixteenth century.