"I passed beside the reverend walls
In which of old I wore the gown."
TENNYSON.
[Plate VI. Merton College : The Tower]
Merton is not only the oldest college in Oxford, it is also, as is
claimed on the monument of the founder, Walter de Merton, in his
Cathedral of Rochester, the model of "omnium quotquot extant
collegiorum." Peterhouse, the first college at Cambridge, which was
founded (1281) seven years later than Merton, had its statutes
avowedly copied from those of its Oxford predecessor.
So important a new departure in education calls for special notice.
It is interesting to see how the English college system grew out of
the long rivalry between the Regular and the Secular clergy which was
so prominent in the mediaeval church. The Secular clergy, who had in
their ranks all the "professional men" of the day, civil servants,
architects, physicians, as well as, those devoted to religious
matters in the strict sense, were always jealous of the monks and the
friars, who, living by a "rule" in their communities, were much less
in sympathy with English national feelings than the Seculars, who
lived among the laity. Hence the growing influence of the Regular
Orders, especially of the Franciscans and the Dominicans, in
thirteenth-century Oxford, excited the alarm of a far-seeing prelate
like Walter de Merton. There was a real danger that the most
prominent and best of the students might be drawn into the great new
communities, which were rapidly adding to their learning and their
piety the further attractions of great buildings and splendid
ceremonial.
The founder of Merton had the same purpose as the founder of the
College of the Sorbonne at Paris, a slightly earlier institution
(1257). He intended that his college should rival the houses of the
Dominicans and the Franciscans. These friaries were in the southern
part of Oxford, and have completely perished, leaving behind only the
names of two or three mean streets; but the college system which
Walter de Merton founded has grown with the growth of Oxford and of
England, and is to-day as vigorous and as useful as ever.
Walter de Merton provided his fellows with noble buildings, at once
for their common life and for their own private accommodation, and
also with endowments sufficient to enable them to live in comfort,
free from anxiety; most important of all, he gave them powers of
self-government, so that they might recruit their own numbers and
carry out for themselves the objects prescribed by him in his
Statutes.
In this great foundation then the three characteristic features of a
college are found--a common life, powers of self-government, with the
right of choosing future members, and endowments that enable religion
and learning to flourish, free from more pressing cares. It is these
features which distinguish the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and
which have determined their history.
Walter de Merton definitely prescribed that none of the fellows who
benefited by his foundation should be monks or friars; to take the
vows involved forfeiture of a fellowship. He also especially urged on
the members of his society that, when any of them rose to "ampler
fortune" /(uberior fortuna)/, they should not forget their /alma
mater/.
The founder died in 1277, so that none of the college buildings were
complete in his time, except perhaps the treasury, which, with its
high-pitched roof of stone, lies in the opposite corner of the Mob
Quad to that shown in our picture. Why the Quad is called "The Mob
Quad," nobody knows. As was fitting, the chapel was the first part of
the college to be finished--about 1300--and it is a splendid specimen
of early Geometrical Gothic; it retains a little of the old glass,
given by one of the early fellows.
The north side of the Mob Quad, which is shown in our picture, is
very little later than the Chapel, and the whole of the Quad was
finished before 1400; the rooms in it have been the homes of Oxford
men for more than five centuries. It is sad to think that so unique a
building was almost destroyed in the middle of the nineteenth
century, by the zeal of "reformers"; it was actually condemned to be
pulled down, to make way for modern buildings, but, fortunately,
there was an irregularity in the voting. Mr. G. C. Brodrick, then a
young fellow, later the Warden of the college, insisted on the matter
being discussed again at a later meeting, and at this the Mob Quad
was saved by a narrow majority. "He will go to Heaven for it," as
Corporal Trim said of the English Guards, who saved his broken
regiment at Steinkirk.
The "reformers" of Merton had to be content with cutting down their
beautiful "Grove" and spoiling the finest view in Oxford by erecting
the ugliest building which Mid-Victorian taste inflicted on the
University.
In the old buildings which so narrowly escaped destruction may have
lived John Wycliffe, who is claimed as a fellow of Merton in an
almost contemporary list; his activity in Oxford belongs rather to
the later time, when he was Master of Balliol. His is one of the
outstanding names in English history; the success of Merton in
producing great men of a more ordinary kind can be judged from the
fact that between 1294 and 1366 six out of the seven Archbishops of
Canterbury were Merton men.
In the great period of the seventeenth century, Merton had the
distinction of being one of the few colleges which were
Parliamentarian in sympathy. Hence the Warden was deposed by King
Charles, who installed in his place a really great man, William
Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. But the king
did more harm than good to the college; it was turned into lodgings
for Queen Henrietta Maria and her court, and ladies were intruded and
children born within college walls. These proceedings were
respectable, though unusual; but the college was even more humiliated
by the visit of Charles II, who installed there, among other court
ladies, the notorious Duchess of Cleveland. The college, however,
with the Revolution, returned to less courtly views, and its Whig
connection found an honourable representative in Richard Steele, the
founder of the /Tatler/. It is not surprising that so cheerful a
gentleman left Oxford without a degree, but "with the love of the
whole society." The college register specially notes his gift of his
/Tatler/; he was acting on the sound rule, by no means so universally
followed as it ought to be, that Oxford authors should present their
books to their college library.
Merton, as has been said, is the "type" college, if one may thus
apply a scientific term; hence it is fitting that to it belong the
two men to whom perhaps Oxford owes most. Thomas Bodley was a fellow
and lecturer in Greek there, before he left Oxford for diplomacy, and
accumulated that wealth which he used to endow the oldest and the
most fascinating, if not the largest, of British libraries. And among
the men who have gained from "the rare books in the public library" a
way to a "perfect elysium," none better deserves remembrance than the
Mertonian, Antony Wood, whose monument stands in Merton Chapel, but
who has raised /monumentum aere perennius/ to himself, in his
/History of the University of Oxford/ and his /Athenae Oxonienses/.
[Plate VII. Merton College : The Library Interior]