The scholar, who must wear a larger gown with wide sleeves, is known by

various names at various colleges. At Merton he is a post-master, at

Magdalen a demy, so-called because he was entitled to half the commons

of a fellow.

The history of the commoner, the growth of an accretion that now forms

the greater part of a college, may be illustrated by the records of the

latter foundation.

The statutes of New College had not made any provision for the admission

of _commensales_, but William of Waynflete, in drawing up the statutes

of Magdalen, was the first definitely to recognise the system that had

grown up by which men who were not on the foundation lived as members of

the college. Waynflete limited the number of non-foundationers to

twenty. They were to live at the charges of their own kindred; they were

to be vouched for by "creancers"; and the privilege of admission was to

be reserved for the sons of noble and powerful friends of the college.

But within a hundred years the number of the commoners or battelers

increased far beyond that allowed by the statutes. The position of these

commoners was anomalous and led to "disorder and confusion," as certain

fellows did most bitterly complain to the Visitor. No provision, it

appears, was made either for the instruction or the discipline of these

supernumeraries. They were, in fact, regarded as the private pupils of

the President or of one of the fellows. In attendance upon the wealthier

of them or upon other members of the college came numerous "poore

scholars," acting as their servants and profiting in their turn from

such free teaching as the Grammar School and the college lecturers might

afford.

The system, however, was already justified to some extent by the fact

that among the pupils of the President were numbered Bodley, Camden,

Lyly and Florio. The Visitor, therefore, contented himself with

enforcing the observation of the limits imposed by the statutes. The

poor scholars were in future not to be more than thirteen in number, and

were to be attached to the thirteen senior fellows. Before long,

however, the matriculations of non-foundationers began to increase very

rapidly. A new block of buildings even was erected near the Cherwell for

their accommodation by 1636. This is that picturesque group of gables

which nestles under the great tower and forms so distinct a feature of

the view from Magdalen Bridge. The number of "poore scholars" had also

increased--servitors whose office forestalled that of the college

"scout." They bridged the days when the junior members of a foundation

"did" for themselves and the modern days of an

[Illustration: Gables and Tower Magdalen College.]

organised college service. It was decided, and this is where the scout

has the advantage of his forerunners, that they should be required to

attend the Grammar School, and afterwards to perform all disputations

and exercises required of members of the foundation. All commoners,

also, "the sonnes of Noblemen and such as are of great quality only

excepted" were to be "tyed to the same rules."

Little more than a hundred years later Edward Gibbon matriculated at

Magdalen (1752) as a "gentleman commoner," and as a youth of fifteen

commenced those fourteen months which he has told us were the most idle

and unprofitable of his whole life. There are prigs of all ages. Gibbon

must have been intolerable in a common room. One can forgive the "Monks

of Magdalen" for not discussing the Early Fathers with him after dinner,

but one has no inclination on the other hand to revere the men who had

already (1733), in their enthusiasm for the Italian style, begun the

"New Buildings," and were still threatening to pull down the cloisters

and to complete a large quadrangle in the same style, of which the New

Buildings were to form one end. The damage done by the succeeding

generation was directed chiefly against the chapel and the hall, where

under the guidance of the outrageous James Wyatt, plaster ceilings were

substituted for the old woodwork. The generosity of a late fellow has

enabled Mr Bodley, with the aid of Professor Case, to repair this error

by an extraordinarily interesting and successful restoration (1903).

Magdalen Hall is now worthy of its pictures, its "linen-fold" panelling

and splendid screen. Bitter as is the account which Gibbon has left us,

it cannot be denied that there was much reason in his quarrel with the

Oxford of his day. I say Oxford, for the state of Magdalen was better

rather than worse than that of the University at large. It should,

however, in fairness be pointed out that as a gentleman commoner in

those days he was one of a class which was very small and far from

anxious to avail itself of the intellectual advantages of a University

training. The commoners at Magdalen were now very few in number. The

founder's limitation was now so interpreted as to restrict them to the

particular class of gentlemen commoners, sons of wealthy men, at liberty

to study, but expected to prefer, and as a matter of fact usually

preferring, to enjoy themselves.

But the efforts of the more liberal-minded fellows were at length

crowned with success. By the first University Commission the college was

allowed to admit as many non-foundationers as it could provide with

rooms. The last gentleman commoner had ceased to figure in the

_Calendar_ by 1860. The system of licensed lodgings introduced by the

University soon caused the numbers of the ordinary commoners to

increase, so that in 1875 one-third of the resident undergraduates were

living in lodgings outside the college. It was clearly time for the

college to provide accommodation for as many of these as possible within

its own walls. The change which took place in Magdalen during the last

century, a change "from a small society, made up almost wholly of

foundation-members and to a great extent of graduates, to a society of

considerable numbers, made up of the same elements, in about the same

proportion as most of the other Colleges," is recorded therefore in the

architecture of Oxford. For it was to lodge the commoners that the

buildings which are known as S. Swithun's (so-called from the statue in

a niche on the west side of the tower which is placed at the entrance of

these buildings, and which reminds one that S. Swithun was buried in

Winchester Cathedral close to the beautiful shrine of William of

Waynflete) were designed by Messrs Bodley & Garner and completed in

1884. They face the High Street, and you will pass them on your left as

you come down to the new entrance gateway, which is in the line of the

outer wall, parallel to the High. The old gateway, which was designed by

Inigo Jones, stood almost at right angles to the site of the present

gateway and lodge, looking west. It was removed in 1844, and a new one

designed by A. W. Pugin erected in its stead. The present gateway (1885)

follows the lines of the old design of Pugin, and the niches are filled

with statues of S. John the Baptist, S. Mary Magdalen and of the

founder, William of Waynflete. S. John the Baptist was the patron Saint

of the old hospital, and after S. John the quadrangle into which you now

enter is called. Opposite to you are the President's lodgings, built by

Messrs Bodley & Garner in 1887 on the site of the old President's

lodgings. With the exquisite architecture of the chapel and cloisters on

the right to guide them, these famous architects have not failed to

build here something that harmonises in style and treatment with the

rest. One might wish that S. Swithun's were a little quieter. There is a

slight yielding to the clamorous desire for fussy ornamentation which is

so typical of this noisy age. But the President's lodgings are perfect

in their kind. As you stand, then, in S. John's Quadrangle you have, in

the chapel and founder's tower, and the cloisters on your right, and in

the picturesque old fragment of the Grammar School, known as the Grammar

Hall, facing you on your left, an epitome, as it were, of the old

college foundations of Oxford; and in those buildings of S. Swithun and

the gateway, which faces in a new direction, an epitome of the new

Oxford that has been grafted on the old. On the extreme right you see a

curious open-air pulpit of stone, from which the University sermon used

to be preached on S. John the Baptist's Day. On that occasion the

pulpit, as well as the surrounding buildings, was strewn with rushes and

boughs in token of S. John's preaching in the wilderness.

[Illustration: Open Air Pulpit Magdalen]

In the Middle Ages the chief executive officers of the University were

the Proctors, who are first mentioned in 1248. The origin of their

office is obscure. They were responsible for the collection and

expenditure of the common funds of the University, and as a record of

this function they still retain in their robes a purse, a rudimentary

organ, as it were, atrophied by disuse, but traceable in a triangular

bunch of stuff at the back of the shoulder. Apart from this duty and

that of regulating the system of lectures and disputations, their chief

business was to keep order. One can imagine that a Proctor's life was

not a happy one. He had to endeavour not only to keep the peace between

the students and the townsmen, but also between the numerous factions

among the scholars themselves. The Friars and the secular clergy, the

Artists and the Jurists, the Nominalists and the Realists, and, above

all, the Northerners and Southerners were always ready to quarrel, and

quarrels quickly led to blows, and blows to a general riot. For the

rivalry of the nations was a peculiar feature of mediæval Universities.

At Bologna and Paris the Masters of Arts divided themselves into "Four

Nations," with elective officers at their head. At Oxford the main

division was between Northerners and Southerners, between students, that

is, who came from the north or the south of the Trent. Welshmen and

Irishmen were included among the Southerners. And over the northern and

southern Masters of Arts presided northern and southern Proctors

respectively, chosen by a process of indirect election, like the rectors

of Bologna and Paris. Contests and continual riots arising out of the

rivalry of these factions took the place of modern football matches or

struggles on the river.

In 1273, for instance, we read of an encounter between the Northerners

and the Irish, which resulted in the death of several Irishmen. So

alarming, apparently, was this outbreak that many of the leading members

of the University departed in fear, and only returned at the stern

command of the King. The bishops, too, issued a notice, in which they

earnestly exhorted the clerks in their dioceses to "repair to the

schools, not armed for the fight, but rather prepared for study." But

the episcopal exhortation had about as much effect as a meeting of the

Peace League in Exeter Hall would have now. Quarrel after quarrel broke

out between the rival nations. They plundered each others' goods and

broke each others' heads with a zest worthy of an Irish wake.

In spite of their reputation for riotousness, however, the Irish

students were specially exempted by royal writ from the operation of the

statute passed by Parliament in 1413, which ordered that all Irishmen

and Irish clerks, beggars called Chamberdekens, should quit the realm.

Graduates in the schools had been exempted in the statute. This

exemption does not appear to have conduced to the state of law and order

painfully toiled after by the mere Saxon. For a few years later, in the

first Parliament of Henry VI., the Commons sent up a petition

complaining of the numerous outrages committed near Oxford by "Wylde

Irishmen." These turbulent persons, it was alleged, living under the

jurisdiction of the Chancellor, set the King's officers at defiance, and

used such threatening language, that the bailiffs of the town did not

dare to stir out of their houses for fear of death. The Commons

therefore prayed that all Irishmen, except graduates in the schools,

beneficed clergy, professed monks, landowners, merchants and members of

civic corporations, should be compelled to quit the realm. It was also

demanded that graduates of Irish extraction should be required to find

security for their good behaviour, and that they should not be allowed

to act as principals of halls. This petition received the royal assent.

But it was stipulated that Irish clerks might freely resort to Oxford

and Cambridge, if they could show that they were subjects of the English

king.

It was in vain that students were compelled to swear that they would not

carry arms; in vain were seditious gatherings and leagues for the

espousal of private quarrels forbidden.

In vain, after one great outbreak in 1252, were formal articles of peace

drawn up; in vain were the combatants bound over to keep the peace, and

to give secret information to the Chancellor if they heard of others

who were preparing to break it. In vain was the celebration of the

national festivals forbidden, and the masters and scholars prohibited,

under pain of the greater excommunication, from "going about dancing in

the churches or open places, wearing masks or wreathed and garlanded

with flowers" (1250). In vain was it decreed that the two nations should

become one and cease, officially, to have a separate existence (1274).

Though the Faculty of Arts might vote from this time forward as a single

body, yet one Proctor was always a Borealis and the other an Australis;

and when, in 1320, it was decreed that one of the three guardians of the

Rothbury Chest should always be a Southerner and another a Northerner,

the University admitted the existence of the two rival nations within

its borders once more. Only a few years after this, in fact (1334), its

very existence was threatened by the violence of the factions. The

Northerners gave battle to the Southerners, and so many rioters were

arrested that the Castle was filled to overflowing. Many of the more

studious clerks resolved to quit this riotous University for ever, and

betook themselves to Stamford, where there were already some flourishing

schools.

They were compelled at last to disperse or to return by the King, who

refused to listen to their plea, that their right to study in peace at

Stamford was as good as that of any other person whatever who chose to

live there. So serious was this secession, and so much was the rivalry

of Stamford feared, that all candidates for a degree were henceforth

(till 1827) required to swear that they would not give or attend

lectures there "as in a University."

It was on the occasion of this migration that the members of Brasenose

Hall, which adjoined S. Mary's Entry, Salesbury Hall, Little University

Hall and Jussel's Tenement, carried with them, as a symbol of their

continuity, the famous Brazen Nose Knocker to Stamford. There the little

society settled; an archway of the hall they occupied there still

exists, and now belongs to Brasenose College. The knocker itself was

brought back in 1890 to a place

[Illustration: Quadrangle Brasenose]

of honour in the college hall. For in the meantime the old hall, after a

career of over two hundred years, had been converted into a college,

founded by William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, and Master Sotton, very

much as a protest against the new learning which was then being

encouraged at Corpus Christi. The continuity of the society is indicated

by the fact that the first Principal of the college was the last

Principal of the old "Aula Regia de Brasinnose." The foundation stone

was laid in 1509, as the inscription in the old quadrangle, to which a

story was added in the time of James I., records.

They were a turbulent crew, these Oxonian forbears of ours. Dearly they

loved a fight, and they rose in rebellion against the masters when they

were bringing in new statutes for the preservation of the peace. Several

were slain on both sides. Nor was it easy to punish the unruly students.

Sometimes, after a brawl in which they were clearly in the wrong, the

delinquents would flee to Shotover, and there maintain themselves in the

forest. At other times, when they had gone too far, and the thunder of

the Chancellor's sentence of excommunication had fallen on their heads

as a punishment for attempting to sack the Abbey of Abingdon, or

defiling the Church of S. Mary with bloodshed, for sleeping in a tavern,

or fighting with the King's foresters, they would simply leave the

University altogether and get away scathless. For the Chancellor's

jurisdiction did not extend beyond Oxford.

A joust or tourney was a certain cause of riot. The passions are easily

roused after any athletic contest, whether it be a football match or a

bull-fight. Remembering this, we shall best be able to understand why

the King found it necessary to forbid any joust or tournament to be held

in the vicinity of Oxford or Cambridge (1305).

"Yea, such was the clashing of swords," says Fuller, "the rattling

of arms, the sounding of trumpets, the neighing of horses, the

shouting of men all day time with the roaring of riotous revellers

all the night, that the scholars' studies were disturbed, safety

endangered, lodging straitened, charges enlarged. In a word, so

many war-horses were brought thither that Pegasus was himself

likely to be shut out; for where Mars keeps his terms, there the

Muses may even make their vacation."

Any excuse, indeed, was good enough to set the whole town in an uproar.

A bailiff would hustle a student; a tradesman would "forestall" and

retail provisions at a higher price than the regulations allowed; a

rowdy student would compel a common bedesman to pray for the souls of

certain unpopular living townsmen on the score that they would soon be

dead. The bailiffs would arrest a clerk and refuse to give him up at the

request of the Chancellor; the Chancellor, when appealed to by the

townsmen to punish some offending students, would unsoothingly retort:

"Chastise your laymen and we will chastise our clerks." The records of

town and University are full of the riots which arose from such

ebullitions of the ever-present ill-feeling; of the appeals made by

either party; and of the awards given by the King, who might be some

English Justinian, like Edward I., or might not.

The answer of the townsmen (1298) to the Chancellor's retort quoted

above was distinctly vigorous. They seized and imprisoned all scholars

on whom they could lay hands, invaded their inns, made havoc of their

goods and trampled their books under foot. In the face of such

provocation the Proctors sent their bedels about the town, forbidding

the students to leave their inns. But all commands and exhortations were

in vain. By nine o'clock next morning, bands of scholars were parading

the streets in martial array. If the Proctors failed to restrain them,

the mayor was equally powerless to restrain his townsmen. The great bell

of S. Martin's rang out an alarm; ox-horns were sounded in the streets;

messengers were sent into the country to collect rustic allies. The

clerks, who numbered three thousand in all, began their attack

simultaneously in various quarters. They broke open warehouses in the

Spicery, the Cutlery and elsewhere. Armed with bows and arrows, swords

and bucklers, slings and stones, they fell upon their opponents. Three

they slew, and wounded fifty or more. One band, led by Fulk de Neyrmit,

Rector of Piglesthorne, and his brother, took up a position in High

Street between the Churches of S. Mary and All Saints, and attacked the

house of a certain Edward Hales. This Hales was a long-standing enemy of

the clerks. There were no half measures with him. He seized his

crossbow, and from an upper chamber sent an unerring shaft into the eye

of the pugnacious rector. The death of their valiant leader caused the

clerks to lose heart. They fled, closely pursued by the townsmen and

country-folk. Some were struck down in the streets, and others who had

taken refuge in the churches were dragged out and driven mercilessly to

prison, lashed with thongs and goaded with iron spikes.

Complaints of murder, violence and robbery were lodged straightway with

the King by both parties. The townsmen claimed three thousand pounds'

damage. The commissioners, however, appointed to decide the matter,

condemned them to pay two hundred marks, removed the bailiffs, and

banished twelve of the most turbulent citizens from Oxford. Then the

terms of peace were formally ratified.

Following the example of their Chancellor, who was gradually asserting

his authority more and more in secular matters, and thought little of

excommunicating a mayor for removing a pillory without his leave (1325),

the clerks became continually more aggressive. Quarrels with the

townsmen were succeeded by quarrels with the Bishop of Lincoln, when the

latter, in his turn, tried to encroach upon the jurisdiction of the

Chancellor. Peace, perfect peace, it will be seen, had not yet descended

upon the University. The triumph of Dulness had not arrived, when the

enraptured monarch should behold:

"Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport,

And Alma Mater lie dissolved in port."

Certainly the elders gave their pupils sport enough after their kind,

but the intellectual quarrels of the schoolmen, the furious

controversies of the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Scotists and

the Thomists, the Nominalists and the Realists, were a part of it. When

the excitement of local riots, theological disputes and political

dissension failed, there were the exactions of a Papal representative to

be resisted. And when such resistance led to the citation of the

Chancellor and Proctors and certain masters to appear within sixty days

before the Cardinal appointed by the Pope to hear the case at Avignon,

there was the whole principle that no Englishman should be dragged

across the seas to judgment to be fought for (_circa_ 1330). For every

man was a politician in those days, and the scholars of Oxford not

least. Their quarrels and riotings were therefore not without political

significance. Thus when the Mad Parliament met in the "new house of the

Black Friars at Oxford," the behaviour of the barons was reflected by

that of students. The "nations" pitched their field in "Beaumont," and

after a fierce fight in battle array, divers on both sides were slain

and pitifully wounded. The Northerners and Welshmen were at last

acknowledged to be conquerors.

The position of the students with regard to the country, is indicated by

the old rhyme:

"Mark the Chronicles aright

When Oxford scholars fall to fight

Before many months expired

England will with war be fired."

It was Oxford, the centre of English ecclesiasticism, which, by the riot

that hounded the Papal Legate out of the city, gave the signal for a

widespread outbreak of resistance to the wholesale pillage of excessive

Papal taxation.

Regardless of the gathering storm, the Legate Cardinal Otho had arrived

at Oxford with his retinue of Italians, and taken up his abode at

Osney.

Some members of the University, having sent him some delicacies for his

table, went to pay their respects in person, and to ask of him a favour

in return. The doorkeeper, however, a suspicious Italian, absolutely

refused to admit them to the guests' hall. Irritated by this unexpected

rebuff, they collected a great number of their comrades, and made a

determined attack on the foreigners, who defended themselves with

sticks, swords and flaming brands plucked from the fire. The fury of the

clerks reached its height when the Legate's chief cook took up a

cauldron full of boiling broth, and threw its contents in the face of a

poor Irish chaplain, who had been begging for food at the kitchen door.

A student thereupon drew his bow, and shot the cook dead on the spot,

whilst others tried to set fire to the massive gates which had been

closed against them. The terrified Legate, hastily putting on a

canonical cope, fled for refuge to the belfry of the abbey, and there

lay hid for several hours, while the clerks assailed the building with

bows and catapults.

News of the fray soon reached Henry III., who happened to be staying at

Abingdon, and he lost no time in despatching some soldiers to the

rescue. Under their powerful escort the Legate managed to ford the river

by night, accompanied by the members of his suite. Still as he galloped

away, he seemed to hear the shouts of his adversaries ringing in his

ears, "Where is that usurer, that simoniac, that spoiler of revenues,

and thirster after money, who perverts the King, overthrows the realm,

and enriches strangers with plunder taken from us?"

It was not long before the Papal Legate was forbidden the English

shores, and his bulls of excommunication were flung into the sea.

Simon de Montfort was the friend of Adam Marsh, and the confidant of

Grossetete, and it was appropriately enough at Oxford that the great

champion of English freedom secured the appointment of a council of

twenty-four to draw up terms for the reform of the State. Parliament

met at Oxford; the barons presented a long petition of grievances, the

council was elected, and a body of preliminary articles known as the

Provisions of Oxford was agreed upon. In the following year Henry

repudiated the Provisions; civil war ensued, and ended by placing the

country in the hands of Simon de Montfort.

The struggle between Henry and the barons then did not leave Oxford

unaffected. For any disturbance without was sure to be reflected in a

conflict between clerks and laymen, in a town and gown row, of some

magnitude. In the present case the appearance of Prince Edward with an

armed force--he took up his quarters at the King's Hall--in the northern

suburb gave occasion for an outbreak. The municipal authorities closed

the gates against him, and he resumed his march towards Wales.

The scholars now thought it was time that they should be allowed to go

out of the city, and finding themselves prevented by the closed wooden

doors of Smith Gate, they hewed these down and carried them away, like

Samson, into the fields, chanting over them the office of the dead:

"A Subvenite Sancti fast began to sing

As man doth when a dead man men will to pit bring."

The mayor retorted by throwing some of them into prison, in spite of the

Chancellor's protest. Further arrests were about to be made by the irate

townsmen, but a clerk saw them advancing in a body down the High Street,

and gave the alarm by ringing the bell of S. Mary's. The clerks were at

dinner, but hearing the well-known summons they sprang to arms and

rushed out into the street to give battle. Many of the foe were wounded;

the rest were put to flight. Their banners were torn to pieces, and

several shops were sacked by the victorious students, who, flushed with

victory, marched to the houses of the bailiffs and set them on fire.

"In the South half of the town, and afterwards the Spicery

They brake from end to other, and did all to robberie."

The mayor, they then remembered, was a vintner. Accordingly a rush was

made for the vintnery; all the taps were drawn, and the wine flowed out

like water into the streets.

Their success for a moment was complete, but retribution awaited them.

The King was appealed to, and refused to countenance so uproarious a

vindication of their rights. When they saw how the wind blew, they

determined to leave Oxford. It was a question whither they should go and

where pitch their scholastic tents. Now it happened that at Cambridge, a

town which had ceased to be famous only for eels and could boast a

flourishing University of its own, similar disturbances had recently

occurred with similar results. Many masters and scholars had removed to

Northampton, and to Northampton accordingly, to aid them in their avowed

intention of founding a third University, the disconsolate Oxford

scholars departed. The situation was evidently serious. But the King

induced the Oxonians to return by promising that they should not be

molested if they would only keep the peace.

They returned, but almost immediately all scholars were commanded by a

writ from the King to quit the town and stay at home until he should

recall them after the session of Parliament then about to be held at

Oxford. The King, it was officially explained, could not be responsible

for the conduct of the fierce and untamed lords who would be assembled

together there and would be sure to come into conflict with the

students. Perhaps the more urgent motive was fear lest the students

should openly and actively side with the barons, with whom, it was

known, the majority of them were in sympathy.

The fact was that in the great struggle against the Crown in which

England was now involved, the clergy and the Universities ranged

themselves with the towns on the side of Simon de Montfort. Ejected from

Oxford, many of the students openly joined his cause and repaired at

once to Northampton.

For a time all went well with the King. As if to demonstrate his faith

in the justice of his cause, he braved popular superstition and passing

within the walls of Oxford paid his devotions at the shrine of S.

Frideswide. The meeting of Parliament failed to bring about any

reconciliation. Reinforced by a detachment of Scottish allies--"untamed

and fierce" enough, no doubt--Henry left Oxford and marched on

Northampton. Foremost in its defence was a band of Oxford students, who

so enraged the King by the effective use they made of their bows and

slings and catapults, that he swore to hang them all when he had taken

the town. Take the town he did, and he would have kept his oath had he

not been deterred by the reminder that he would by such an act lose the

support of all those nobles and followers whose sons and kinsmen were

students. But the victorious career of the King was almost at an end.

The vengeance of S. Frideswide was wrought at the battle of Lewes. Simon

de Montfort found himself head of the State, and one of his first acts

was to order the scholars to return to their University.

Such keen, occasionally violent, interest in politics seems, in these

days, characteristic of the German or Russian rather than the English

University student. Nowadays the political enthusiasm of the

undergraduate is mild, and his discussion of politics is academic. In

the debating hall of the Union, or in the more retired meeting-places of

the smaller political clubs, like the Canning, the Chatham, the

Palmerston or the Russell, he discusses the questions of the day. But

his discussions lack as a rule the sense of reality, and they suffer

accordingly. Occasionally, when a Cabinet Minister has been persuaded to

dine and talk with one or other of these clubs, or when the speaker is

one who is deliberately practising for the part he means to take in

after-life, the debates are neither uninteresting nor entirely

valueless. And at the worst they give those who take part in them a

facility of speech and some knowledge of political questions. But it is

not so that the University exercises any influence on current events.

Nor, except in so far as they warn practical men to vote the other way,

are those

[Illustration: Magdalen College.]

occasional manifestoes, which a few professors sign and publish, of any

great importance. But it is through the press and through Parliament

that the voice of young Oxford is heard. It is through the minds and the

examples of those statesmen and administrators, who have imbibed their

principles of life and action within her precincts, and have been

trained in her schools and on her river or playing-fields, that the

influence of the University is reflected on the outer world. Nor is it

only the men like Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery and Mr Gladstone, who

guide the country at home, or like Lord Milner and Lord Curzon, who give

their best work to Greater Britain, that are the true sons of the

University; it is the plain, hard-working clergymen and civilians, also,

who, by their lives of honest and unselfish toil, hand on the torch of

good conduct and high ideals which has been entrusted to them.

Oxford had some share in the events which led to the deposition of

Edward II. The King wrote to the Chancellor, masters and scholars

calling upon them to resist his enemies. On the approach of Roger de

Mortimer, a supporter of the Queen, he wrote again enjoining them not to

allow him to enter the city, but to keep Smith Gate shut, lest he should

enter by that way. But when the King was a refugee in Wales, the Queen

came to Islip. She would not come to Oxford till "she saw it secure."

But when the burghers came to her with presents she was satisfied. She

took up her residence at the White Friars, and the Mortimers theirs at

Osney. And a sermon was preached by the Bishop of Hereford, who

demonstrated from his text, "My head grieveth me," that an evil head,

meaning the King, not otherwise to be cured, must be taken away. The

majority of scholars apparently agreed with him.

The terrible scourge of the Black Death, which carried off half the

population of England, fell hardly on Oxford. Those who had places in

the country fled to them; those who remained behind were almost totally

swept away. The schools were shut, the colleges and halls closed, and

there were scarcely men enough to bury the dead. The effect upon

learning was disastrous. There were not enough students forthcoming to

fill the benefices, and the scarcity of students affected the citizens

severely.

The disorder of the time, which was to issue in Wat Tyler's Rebellion,

was shadowed forth at Oxford by the extraordinary riot of S.

Scholastica's Day (1355). The story of this riot, which was to bear

fruit in further privileges being vouchsafed to the University at the

expense of the town, has been recorded with infinite spirit by Wood.

"On Tuesday, February 10, being the feast of S. Scholastica the

Virgin, came Walter de Springheuse, Roger de Chesterfield, and

other clerks to the Tavern called Swyndlestock (the Mermaid Tavern

at Quatervoix), and there calling for wine, John de Croydon, the

vintner, brought them some, but they disliking it, as it should

seem, and he avouching it to be good, several snappish words passed

between them. At length the vintner giving them stubborn and saucy

language, they threw the wine and vessel at his head. The vintner

therefore receding with great passion, and aggravating the abuse to

those of his family and neighbourhood, several came in, who out of

propensed malice seeking all occasions of conflict with the

scholars, and taking this abuse for a ground to proceed upon,

caused the town bell at S. Martin's to be rung, that the commonalty

might be summoned together in a body. Which being begun, they in an

instant were in arms, some with bows and arrows, others with divers

sorts of weapons. And then they, without any more ado, did in a

furious and hostile manner suddenly set upon divers scholars, who

at that time had not any offensive arms, no, not so much as

anything to defend themselves. They shot also at the Chancellor of

the University, and would have killed him, though he endeavoured to

pacify them and appease the tumult. Further, also, though the

scholars at the command of the Chancellor did presently withdraw

themselves from the fray, yet the townsmen thereupon did more

fiercely pursue him and the scholars, and would by no means desist

from the conflict. The Chancellor, perceiving what great danger

they were in, caused the University bell at S. Mary's to be rung

out, whereupon the scholars got bows and arrows, and maintained the

fight with the townsmen till dark night, at which time the fray

ceased, no one scholar or townsman being killed, or mortally

wounded, or maimed.

"On the next day albeit the Chancellor of the University caused

public proclamation to be made in the morning both at S. Mary's

church in the presence of the scholars there assembled in a great

multitude, and also at Quatervois among the townsmen, that no

scholar or townsman should wear or bear any offensive weapons, or

assault any man, or otherwise disturb the peace (upon which the

scholars, in humble obedience to that proclamation, repaired to the

Schools, and demeaned themselves peaceably till after dinner) yet

the very same morning the townsmen came with their bows and arrows,

and drove away a certain Master in Divinity and his auditors, who

were then determining in the Augustine Schools. The Baillives of

the town also had given particular warning to every townsman, at

his respective house, in the morning, that they should make

themselves ready to fight with the scholars against the time when

the town bell should ring out, and also given notice before to the

country round about, and had hired people to come in and assist the

townsmen in their intended conflict with the scholars. In dinner

time the townsmen subtily and secretly sent about fourscore men

armed with bows and arrows, and other manner of weapons into the

parish of S. Giles in the north suburb; who, after a little

expectation, having discovered certain scholars walking after

dinner in Beaumont, issued out of S. Giles's church, shooting at

the same scholars for the space of three furlongs: some of them

they drove into the Augustine Priory, and others into the town. One

scholar they killed without the walls, some they wounded mortally,

others grievously, and used the rest basely. All which being done

without any mercy, caused an horrible outcry in the town: whereupon

the town bell being rung out first, and after that the University

bell, divers scholars issued out armed with bows and arrows in

their own defence and of their companions, and having first shut

and blocked up some of the gates of the town (lest the country

people, who were then gathered in innumerable multitudes, might

suddenly break in upon their rear in an hostile manner and assist

the townsmen who were now ready prepared in battle array, and armed

with their targets also) they fought with them and defended

themselves till after Vesper tide; a little after which time,

entered into the town by the west gate about two thousand

countrymen, with a black dismal flag, erect and displayed. Of which

the scholars having notice, and being unable to resist so great and

fierce a company, they withdrew themselves to their lodgings: but

the townsmen finding no scholars in the streets to make any

opposition, pursued them, and that day they broke open five inns or

hostels of scholars with fire and sword. Such scholars as they

found in the said halls or inns they killed or maimed, or

grievously wounded. Their books and all their goods which they

could find, they spoiled, plundered and carried away. All their

victuals, wine and other drink they poured out; their bread, fish,

&c. they trod under foot. After this the night came on and the

conflict ceased for that day, and the same even public proclamation

was made in Oxen, in the King's name, 'that no man should injure

the scholars or their goods under pain of forfeiture.'

"The next day being Thursday (after the Chancellor and some

principal persons of the University were set out towards Woodstock

to the King, who had sent for them thither) no one scholar or

scholar's servant so much as appearing out of their houses with any

intention to harm the townsmen, or offer any injury to them (as

they themselves confessed) yet the said townsmen about sun rising,

having rung out their bell, assembled themselves together in a

numberless multitude, desiring to heap mischief upon mischief, and

to perfect by a more terrible conclusion that wicked enterprize

which they had begun. This being done, they with hideous noises and

clamours came and invaded the scholars' houses in a wretchless

sort, which they forced open with iron bars and other engines; and

entering into them, those that resisted and stood upon their

defence (particularly some chaplains) they killed or else in a

grievous sort maimed. Some innocent wretches, after they had

killed, they scornfully cast into houses of easement, others they

buried in dunghills, and some they let lie above ground. The crowns

of some chaplains, viz. all the skin so far as the tonsure went,

these diabolical imps flayed off in scorn of their clergy. Divers

others whom they had mortally wounded, they haled to prison,

carrying their entrails in their hands in a most lamentable manner.

They plundered and carried away all the goods out of fourteen inns

or halls, which they spoiled that Thursday. They broke open and

dashed to pieces the scholars' chests and left not any moveable

thing which might stand them in any stead; and which was yet more

horrid, some poor innocents that were flying with all speed to the

body of CHRIST for succour (then honourably carried in procession

by the brethren through the town for the appeasing of this

slaughter) and striving to embrace and come as near as they could

to the repository wherein the glorious Body was with great devotion

put, these confounded sons of Satan knocked them down, beat and

most cruelly wounded. The Crosses also of certain brethren (the

friers) which were erected on the ground for the present time with

a 'procul hinc ite profani,' they overthrew and laid flat with the

cheynell. This wickedness and outrage continuing the said day from

the rising of the sun till noon tide and a little after without any

ceasing, and thereupon all the scholars (besides those of the

Colleges) being fled divers ways, our mother the University of

Oxon, which had but two days before many sons, is now almost

forsaken and left forlorn."

The casualty list was heavy. Six members of the University were killed

outright in the fray; twenty-one others, chiefly Irishmen, were

dangerously wounded, and a large number was missing. The Bishop of

Lincoln immediately placed the town under an interdict. The King sent a

commission to inquire into the cause of the riot. The sheriff was

summarily dismissed from his office, two hundred of the townsmen were

arrested, and the mayor and bailiffs committed to the Tower. With a view

to settling the deep-rooted differences, which, it was perceived, were

the origin of this bloody combat, the University and the city were

advised to surrender their privileges into the King's hands. Edward III.

restored those of the University in a few days. The town was kept some

time in suspense, whilst the King and the Archbishop were striving to

induce the scholars to return to Oxford. In the end all their ancient

rights were restored to the citizens, with the exception of those which

had been transferred to the University. For by the new charter the King

granted to the latter some of the old liberties of the town.

This charter (27th June 1355) granted a free pardon to all masters and

scholars and their servants who had taken part in the great riot. The

University, the King declared, was the main source and channel of

learning in all England, more precious to him than gold or topaz. To the

Chancellor, then, or his deputy, was granted the assay of bread and

ale, the supervision of weights and measures, the sole cognisance of

forestallers, retailers and sellers of putrid meat and fish; the power

of excommunicating any person who polluted or obstructed the streets,

and of assessing the tax to be paid by scholars' servants. It was also

decreed that the sheriff and under-sheriff of the county should

henceforth swear, on taking office, to uphold the privileges of the

University. In compensation for the damage done in the recent riot, the

city had to restore the goods and books of all scholars wherever found,

and to pay down £250 in cash. Such was the price, in money and rights,

that the commonalty had to pay before they could satisfy the civil

authorities. From that time forth the University practically governed

the town. The wrath of the Church was not so soon appeased. It was not

till 1357 that the interdict was removed, nor were the offences of the

citizens against the Holy Church forgiven even then, except at the price

of further humiliation. The mayor and bailiffs, and sixty of the

chiefest burghers, such were the conditions, were to appear personally,

and defray the expenses of a mass to be celebrated every year in S.

Mary's on S. Scholastica's Day, when prayers should be said for the

souls of the clerks and others slain in that conflict. The mayor and

these sixty substantial burghers were also to offer on that occasion one

penny each at the great altar. Forty pence out of this offering were to

be given by the proctors to forty poor scholars, and the remainder to

the curate.

So humiliating did this condition appear, that it gave rise to the

popular saying and, perhaps, belief that the mayor was obliged, on the

anniversary of the riot, to wear round his neck a halter or, at best, a

silken cord. It may well be imagined that the procession, as it took its

way to S. Mary's, did not escape the taunts and jeers of the jubilant

clerks. Under Elizabeth, when prayer for the dead had been forbidden,

this function was changed for a sermon, with the old offering of a

penny. The service was retained in a modified form down to the time of

Charles II.

The political and religious divisions introduced by the Lollard

doctrines found their expression, of course, in students' riots. For the

Northerners sided with Wycliffe, himself a Yorkshireman, and the

Southerners, supported by the Welsh, professed themselves loyal children

of the Church. A general encounter took place in 1388; several persons

were killed, and many Northerners left Oxford. The Chancellor was

deposed by Parliament for failing to do his duty in the matter. The

strife was renewed at the beginning of Lent next year. A pitched battle

was arranged to be fought between the contending parties in the open

country. This was only prevented by the active interference of the Duke

of Gloucester. Some turbulent Welshmen were expelled. But this

banishment only gave rise to a fresh outbreak. For as the Welshmen knelt

down to kiss the gates of the town, they were subjected to gross

indignities by their exultant adversaries. And a party of Northerners,

headed by a chaplain named Speeke, paraded the streets in military

array, threatening to kill anyone who looked out of the window, and

shouting, "War, war. Slay the Welsh dogs and their whelps." Halls were

broken open, and the goods of Welsh scholars who lodged there were

plundered. The Welshmen retaliated, and the University only obtained

peace, when, on the outbreak of Owen Glendower's rebellion, the Welsh

scholars returned to Wales.

The effect of the lawlessness of these mediæval students upon the

history of the University was considerable. It is reflected in the

statute book. It came to be recognised that their riotous behaviour was

not only scandalous but also a veritable danger, which threatened the

very existence of Oxford as a seat of learning. Politically, too, their

behaviour was intolerable. Each outbreak, therefore, and each revelation

of the licence of unattached students, who were credited with the chief

share in these brawls, were arguments in favour of the college system

inaugurated by the founder of Merton College.

As early as 1250 it had been found necessary to provide that every

scholar should have his own master, on whose roll his name should be

entered, and from whom he should hear at least one lecture daily. And in

1420 Henry V. issued some ordinances for academical reform, with the

object of tightening the bonds of discipline. They were reduced to a

statute of the University immediately. Fines were imposed for threats of

personal violence, carrying weapons, pushing with the shoulder or

striking with the fist, striking with a stone or club, striking with a

knife, dagger, sword-axe or other warlike weapon, carrying bows and

arrows, gathering armed men, and resisting the execution of justice,

especially by night.

All scholars and scholars' servants, it was enacted, were, on first

coming to Oxford, to take the oath for keeping the peace, which had

hitherto been taken by graduates only; they were no longer to lodge in

the houses of laymen, but must place themselves under the government of

some discreet principal, approved by the Chancellor and regents.

Chamberdekens were to lodge at a hall where some common table was kept.

Thus the "unattached student," who has been recently revived, was

legislated out of existence.

It is not, then, surprising to find that, whilst the thirteenth century

saw the beginning of the college system, the fourteenth was the era

which saw its great development. Already, sixteen years after the

foundation of Oriel, a North Country priest, Robert Eglesfield, chaplain

of Queen Philippa, had anticipated in conception the achievement of

William of Wykeham by proposing to establish a college which should be a

Merton on a larger scale. But the ideas of the founder of Queen's were

greater than his resources. In the hope of assistance, therefore, and

not in vain, he commended his foundation to the Queen and all future

Queens-consort of England. He himself devoted his closing years and all

his fortune to the infant society, for whose guidance he drew up

statutes of an original character. His aim seems to have been to endow

a number of students of Theology or Canon Law; to provide for the

elementary education of many poor boys, and for the distribution of alms

to the poor of the city. The ecclesiastical character of the college was

marked by the endowment of several chaplains, and by precise directions

for the celebration of masses, at which the "poor boys" were to assist

as choristers, besides being trained in Grammar and afterwards in Logic

or Philosophy. The bent of Eglesfield's mind is further indicated by the

symbolism which pervades his ordinances. The fellowships, which were

tenable for life and intended to be well endowed, were practically

restricted to natives of the North Country. And as there had been twelve

apostles, so it was ordained that there should be twelve fellows, who

should sit in hall on one side of the High Table, with the provost in

their centre, even as Christ and His apostles, according to tradition,

sat at the Last Supper. And, as a symbol of the Saviour's blood, they

were required to wear mantles of crimson cloth. The "poor boys," who

were to sit at a side-table clad in a distinctive dress, from which they

derived their name of tabarders, and who were to be "opposed" or

examined by one of the fellows at the beginning of every meal,

symbolised the Seventy Disciples.

Some traces of the symbolism which pleased the founder still survive at

Queen's. The students are still summoned to hall, as the founder

directs, by the blasts of a trumpet; still on Christmas Day the college

celebrates the "Boar's Head" dinner (see p. 23); still on 1st January

the bursar presents to each guest at the Gaudy a needle and thread

(aiguille et fil = Eglesfield), saying, "Take this and be thrifty." And

the magnificent wassail cup given to the college by the founder is still

in use. But of the original buildings scarcely anything remains. The old

entrance in Queen's Lane has been supplanted by the front quadrangle

opening on the High (1710-1730), in which Hawksmoor, Wren's pupil,

achieved a fine example of the Italian style. Wren himself designed the

chapel. The magnificent library in the back quadrangle (late

seventeenth century) is housed in a room, which, with its rich plaster

ceiling and carving by Grinling Gibbons, is a remarkable specimen of the

ornate classical style.

Eglesfield had attempted a task beyond his means. Forty years later

William of Wykeham adopted his ideas, developed them and carried them

out. It is the scale on which he founded S. Mary College, or New

College, as it has been called for five hundred years to distinguish it

from Oriel, the other S. Mary College, and the completeness of its

arrangements that mark an era in the history of college foundations. Son

of a carpenter at Wickham, William had picked up the rudiments of

education at a grammar school and in a notary's office. Presently he

entered the King's service. He was promoted to be Supervisor of the

Works at Windsor; and made the most of his opportunity. _Hoc fecit

Wykeham_ were the words he inscribed, according to the legend, on the

walls of the castle at Windsor; and it is equally true that he made it

and that it made him, for so, to stop the mouths of his calumniators, he

chose to translate the phrase. The King marked the admirable man of

affairs; and rewarded him, according to custom, with innumerable

benefices. Wykeham became the greatest pluralist of his age. He grew in

favour at court, until soon "everything was done by him and nothing was

done without him." He was "so wise of building castles," as Wycliffe

sarcastically hinted, that he was appointed Bishop of Winchester and

Chancellor of England. Yet in the midst of the cares of these offices he

found time (1370) to set about establishing his college. His great

genius as an architect, and his astonishing powers of administration

under two kings, point him out as one of the greatest Englishmen of the

Middle Ages. He has left his mark on his country, not only in such

architectural achievements as Windsor and Queenborough Castles, the

reconstruction of the nave of Winchester Cathedral (where is his altar

tomb) or the

[Illustration: The Bell Tower & Cloisters New College.]

original plan of his Collegiate Buildings, but also as the founder of

the public school system and the new type of college.

It was as a lawyer-ecclesiastic that he had succeeded. But it was

against the administration of ecclesiastical statesmen that the

discontent of the time was being directed by the Wycliffites and John of

Gaunt. Himself a staunch supporter of the old régime in Church and

State, Wykeham set himself to remedy its defects and to provide for its

maintenance as well as for his own soul's health after death.

Oxford had reached the height of its prosperity in the fourteenth

century. Then the Black Death, the decadence of the Friars, the French

Wars, the withdrawal of foreign students and the severance of the ties

between English and foreign Universities, commenced a decay which was

accelerated by the decline of the ecclesiastical monopoly of learning,

by the Wycliffite movement and, later, by the Wars of the Roses.

Wykeham marked some of these causes and their effect. He believed in

himself, and therefore in the Canon Law and lawyer-ecclesiastics; he

noted the falling off in the number of the students, and therefore of

the clergy, caused by the Black Death; he knew the poverty of those who

wished to study, and the weak points in the system of elementary

education. He wished to encourage a secular clergy who should fight the

Wycliffites and reform the Church. Therefore he determined to found a

system by which they might be trained, and by which the road to success

might be opened to the humblest youths--a system which should pay him in

return the duty of perpetual prayers for his soul.[29]

As early as 1370, then, he began to buy land about the north-eastern

corner of the city wall; and ten years later, having obtained licence

from Richard II., he enclosed a filthy lane that ran alongside the

north wall and began to build a home for the warden, seventy scholars,

ten stipendiary priests or chaplains, three stipendiary clerks and

sixteen chorister boys of whom his college was to be composed.

Eglesfield had proposed to establish seventy-two young scholars on his

foundation. Wykeham borrowed and improved upon the idea. He provided a

separate college for them at Winchester, and in so doing he took a step

which has proved to be of quite incalculable consequence in the history

of the moral and intellectual development of this country. For he

founded the first English public school.

From the scholars of Winchester, when they had reached at least the age

of fifteen years, and from them only the seventy scholars of "S. Marie

College" were to be chosen by examination. A preference was given to the

founder's kin and the natives of certain dioceses. These young scholars,

if they were not disqualified by an income of over five marks or by

bodily deformity, entered at once upon the course in Arts, and, after

two years of probation and if approved by examination, might be admitted

true and perpetual fellows. Small wonder if golden scholars became

sometimes silver bachelors and leaden masters!

A fellow's allowance was a shilling a week for commons and an annual

"livery." But it was provided that each young scholar should study for

his first three years under the supervision of one of the fellows, who

was to receive for each pupil five shillings. This was a new step in the

development of the college system. Though designed merely to supplement

the lectures of the regents in the schools, the new provision of tutors

was destined to supplant them. Another step of far-reaching consequence

taken by Wykeham was the acquisition of benefices in the country,

college livings to which a fellow could retire when he had resided long

enough or failed to obtain other preferment.

The government of the college was not entrusted to the young fellows,

but to the warden, sub-warden, five deans, three bursars and a few

senior fellows. But even the youngest of the fellows was entitled to

vote on the election of a warden.

[Illustration: In New College]

The warden of this new foundation was to be a person of no small

importance. Wykeham intended him to live in a separate house, with a

separate establishment and an income (£40) far more splendid than the

pittance assigned to the Master of Balliol or even the Warden of Merton.

The buildings of Merton had been kept separate; only by degrees, and as

if by accident, had they assumed the familiar and charming form of a

quadrangle. The genius of Wykeham adopted and adapted the fortuitous

plan of Merton. At New College we have for the first time a group of

collegiate buildings, tower-gateway (the tower assuredly of one "wise of

building castles!") chapel, hall, library, treasury, warden's lodgings,

chambers, cloister-cemetery, kitchen and domestics offices, designed and

comprised in one self-sufficing quadrangle (1380-1400). Just as the

statutes of New College are the rule of Merton enormously elaborated, so

the plan of the buildings is that of Merton modified and systematised.

The type of New College served as a model for all subsequent

foundations. The most noticeable features in this arrangement are that

the hall and chapel are under one roof, and that the chapel consists of

a choir, suitable to the needs of a small congregation, and of a nave

of two bays, stopping short at the transepts, and forming an ante-chapel

which might serve both as a vestibule and as a room for lectures and

disputations. The chapel, which contains much very beautiful glass and

the lovely if inappropriate window-pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, must

have been in Wykeham's day, when it was adorned with a magnificent

reredos and "works of many colours," a thing of even greater beauty than

it now is. The chapels of Magdalen, All Souls' and Wadham were directly

imitated from it. But, with the hall, it suffered much at the hands of

Wyatt and Sir Gilbert Scott. The latter was also responsible for the

atrocious New Buildings. The proportions of the front quadrangle were

spoilt by the addition of a third story and the insertion of square

windows in the seventeenth century.

The importance of the chapel architecturally, dominating the quadrangle

as it does and absorbing the admiration of the visitor or the dweller in

those courts, is indicative of the ecclesiastical aspect of the new

foundation, which the great opponent of Wycliffe intended to revivify

the Church by training secular priests of ability. This ecclesiastical

aspect is still more prominent in the case of All Souls', which, like

Magdalen, may fitly be described as a daughter of New College, so much

do they both owe, as regards their rule and their architectural design,

to the great foundation of Wykeham. The deterioration and ignorance of

the parochial clergy were amongst the most serious symptoms of the

decadence of the fifteenth century. Himself a Wykehamist and a

successful ecclesiastical lawyer, the great Archbishop Chichele

therefore followed Wykeham's example and founded a college which might

help to educate and to increase the secular clergy. Out of the revenues

of the suppressed alien priories he endowed a society consisting of a

warden and forty fellows, of doctors and masters who were to study

Philosophy, Theology and Law. His college was not, therefore, and

happily is not (though now it takes its full share of educational work),

a mere body of teachers, but of graduate students. The prominence given

to the study of Law and Divinity resulted in a close connection with the

public services which has always been maintained. But "All Souls'" was a

chantry as well as a college. As head of the English Church and a

responsible administrator of the Crown, Chichele had devoted all his

powers to the prosecution of that war with France, for which

Shakespeare, following Hall, has represented him as being responsible.

The college is said to have been the Archbishop's expiation for the

blood so shed. Whatever his motive, his object is stated clearly enough.

It was to found a

"College of poor and indigent clerks bounden with all devotion to

pray for the Souls of the glorious memory of Henry V., lately King

of England and France, the Duke of Clarence and the other lords and

lieges of the realm of England, whom the havoc of that warfare

between the two realms hath drenched with the bowl of bitter death,

and also for the souls of all the faithful departed."

Chichele had already undertaken the foundation of S. Bernard's College.

He now (September 1437) purchased Bedford Hall, or Charleton's Inn, at

the corner of Cat Street,[30] directly opposite the eastern end of S.

Mary's Church. On this site, in the following February, was laid the

foundation stone of the college afterwards incorporated under the title

of "The Warden and All Soulen College," or "The Warden and College of

All Faithful Souls deceased at Oxford." As Adam de Brome had persuaded

Edward II. to be the foster-founder of Oriel, so Chichele asked Henry

VI. to be the nominal founder of his college. The royal patronage proved

advantageous in neither case.

The front quadrangle of All Souls' remains very much as the founder left

it; the hall and the noble Codrington Library in the Italian style, the

cloister of the great quadrangle and the odd twin towers belong to the

first half of the eighteenth century. The latter are curious specimens

of that mixture of the Gothic and Renaissance styles (Nicholas

Hawksmoor), of which the best that can be said is that "the architect

has blundered into a picturesque scenery not devoid of grandeur"

(Walpole).

The political and social troubles of the fifteenth century brought about

a period of darkness and stagnation in the University. The spirit of

independence and reform had been crushed by the ecclesiastics. Oxford

had learnt her lesson. She took little part in politics, but played the

time-server, and was always loyal--to one party or the other. She

neglected her duties; she neither taught nor thought, but devoted all

her energies and resources to adorning herself with beautiful colleges

and buildings. And for us the result of this meretricious policy is the

possession of those glorious buildings which mark the interval between

the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For the University now built

herself schools that were worthy of her dower of knowledge.

There was a vacant spot at the end of Schools Street belonging to

Balliol College, lying between the town wall on the north and Exeter

College on the west. On this site it was determined to erect a School of

Divinity (1424). Donations flowed in from the bishops and monasteries.

But in spite of all economy funds ran short. The building had to be

discontinued for a while (1444). The gift of 500 marks from the

executors of Cardinal Beaufort, a former Chancellor, enabled the

graduates to proceed with their work. They made strenuous efforts to

raise money. They put a tax on all non-resident masters and bachelors;

they offered "graces" for sale; they applied to the Pope and bishops for

saleable indulgences. In return for a contribution of one hundred pounds

from the old religious orders, they agreed to modify the ancient

statutes concerning the admission of monks to academical degrees. Some

of these methods of raising the necessary monies are doubtless open to

criticism, but we cannot cavil when we look upon the noble building

which the graduates were thus enabled to raise. The Divinity School, to

which, Casaubon declared, nothing in Europe was comparable, was, with

its "vaulting of peculiar skill," used, though not completed, in 1466.

It remained to construct an upper story where the books belonging to the

University might be kept and used. For generous gifts of books

(1439-1446) by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, uncle of Henry VI., had

greatly increased the University Library. The fashion of large and

gorgeous libraries was borrowed by the English from the French princes.

The duke had taken his opportunity during his campaigns in France. He

seized the valuable collection of books at the Louvre, and many of them

had now found their way to Oxford. They were stored at first in the

Cobham Library, but more room was needed. Accordingly, in 1444, the

University addressed a letter to the duke in which they informed him of

their intention to erect a new building suitable to contain his

magnificent gift, and on a site far removed from the hum of men. Of this

building, with that gratitude which is in part at least a lively sense

of favours to come, they asked permission of the very learned and

accomplished duke to inscribe his name as founder. The Duke Humphrey

Library forms now the central portion of the great Reading Room of the

Bodleian Library. It still answers, by virtue of its position and the

arrangement of its cubicles, to the description and intention of the

promotors--to build a room where scholars might study far removed _a

strepitu sæculari_, from the noise of the world.

The three wheat-sheaves of the Kempe shield, repeated again and again on

the elaborate groined roof of the Divinity School, commemorate the

bounty of Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London, who (1478) promised to give

1000 marks for the completion of the school and the library. A grateful

University rewarded him with anniversary services; his name is still

mentioned in the "bidding prayer" on solemn occasions. Nor was Duke

Humphrey forgotten. His name still heads the list of benefactors recited

from time to time in S. Mary's. Religious services were instituted also

for his benefit. He was more in need of them, perhaps, than the bishop.

For the "Good Duke Humphrey" was good only so far as his love of

learning and his generosity to scholars may entitle him to be considered

so. The patron of Lydgate and Occleve, and the donor of hundreds of rare

and polite books to the University was as unscrupulous in his political

intrigues as immoral in his private life. But in his case the good he

did lived after him.

The "Good Duke" was a reader as well as a collector. It was not merely

the outsides of books or the title-pages which attracted him.

"His courage never doth appal

To study in books of antiquity."

So wrote Lydgate, who knew. Even when he presented his books to the

University, he took care to reserve the right of borrowing them, for

were they not, according to the inscription which he was wont to insert

lovingly in them, all his worldly wealth (_mon bien mondain_)? It is

perhaps not surprising to find from the list of books which he gave to

the University, that the duke's taste in literature was for the

Classics, for the works of Ovid, Cato, Aulus Gellius and Quintilian, for

the speeches of Cicero, the plays of Terence and Seneca, the works of

Aristotle and Plato, the histories of Suetonius and Josephus, of Beda

and Eusebius, Higden and Vincent of Beauvais. A fancy for medical

treatises and a pretty taste in Italian literature are betrayed by the

titles of other books, for the duke gave seven volumes of Boccaccio,

five of Petrarch and two of Dante to the University.

Duke Humphrey promised to give the whole of his collection to the

University, together with a hundred pounds to go towards the

[Illustration: Kemp Hall]

building of the library. But he died suddenly, and the University never,

as it appears, received full advantage of his generosity. It was not

till 1488 that the books were removed from S. Mary's. For the completion

of the library was delayed by an order from Edward IV. The workmen

employed upon the building were summoned by him to Windsor, where he had

need of them, to work at S. George's Chapel. Those who were not employed

on the chapel were handed over to William of Waynflete, who restored

them to the University along with some scaffolding which had been used

in the building of Magdalen. William Patten or Barbour of Waynflete, an

Oxford man, who had been master of the school at Winchester, had been

appointed first master and then Provost of Eton by the founder, Henry

VI., and was rewarded for his success there by the Bishopric of

Winchester. In 1448 he had founded a hall for the study of Theology and

Philosophy, situated between the present schools and Logic Lane, and

called it, probably after the almshouse at Winchester, of which he had

been master, the Hall of S. Mary Magdalen. When he became Lord

Chancellor he immediately took steps to enlarge this foundation,

transferred it to the site of the Hospital of S. John, and styled it the

College of S. Mary Magdalen (September 1457).

Waynflete resigned the Chancellorship just before the battle of

Northampton. After some years, during which he was "in great dedignation

with Edward IV.," he received full pardon from his late master's

conqueror. The Yorkist monarch (whose fine statue is over the west

doorway of the chapel) also confirmed the grants made to Waynflete's

College in the last reign. After an interval, then, the foundation stone

of the most beautiful college in the world, "the most absolute building

in Oxford," as James I. called it when his son matriculated there, was

laid "in the midst of the High Altar" (5th May 1474).

Already enclosing walls had been built about the property, which was

bounded on the east by the Cherwell, on the south by the High Street,

on the west by what is now Long Wall Street, and on the north by the

lands of Holywell. The "Long Wall" bounded the "Grove," famous, since

the beginning of the eighteenth century, for its noble timber and herd

of deer. Most of the trees in the present grove are elms planted in the

seventeenth century, but there are two enormous wych elms, measured by

Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1886, which would have dwarfed that venerable

oak which stood near the entrance into the water-walk, and was blown

down "into the meadow" in 1789. It was over seven hundred years old

(girth 21 ft. 9 in., height 71 ft. 8 in.), and thought to be the same as

that named by the founder for a northern boundary.

In the arrangement of his buildings Waynflete followed Wykeham. Chapel,

hall and library were designed on the same plan. But the beautiful

"Founder's Tower," rendered now still more lovely by the drapery of

creepers which hangs about it, formed the principal entrance into

cloisters, which were part of the buildings of the main quadrangle,

carried an upper story of chambers, and were adorned with grotesques

symbolical of the Vices and Virtues. The entrance now used was

originally meant to serve only as the entrance from the cloister to the

chapel. It was adorned (_circa_ 1630) with a gateway similar to that

designed by Inigo Jones for the main entrance to the college.

The statutes were based on those of New College, but, in addition to

those of which we have already had occasion to speak, there were certain

notable improvements. The society was to consist of a President and

seventy scholars besides four chaplains, eight clerks and sixteen

choristers. Forty of these scholars were fellows forming one class, and

thirty were demies, forming another, whose tenure was limited and who

were given half the allowance of the fellows. They had no special claim

to promotion to fellowships. For their instruction a Grammar Master and

an usher were provided; when they were well skilled in Grammar, they

were to

[Illustration: The Founder's Tower Magdalen College]

be taught Logic and Sophistry by the college lecturers, whilst three

"Readers," in Natural and Moral Philosophy and Theology, chosen out of

the University, were to provide the higher teaching in Arts and

Theology. And all this teaching, in Theology and Philosophy and also in

Grammar, was to be given free to all comers at the expense of the

college.

In 1481 Waynflete, full of pride in his new foundation, "the most noble

and rich structure in the learned world," persuaded Edward IV. to come

over from Woodstock and see it. The King came at a few hours' notice.

But as the royal cavalcade drew near the North Gate of the town, a

little after sunset, it was met by the Chancellor and the masters of the

University and a great number of persons carrying lighted torches. The

King and his courtiers were hospitably received at Magdalen. On the

morrow the President delivered a congratulatory address, and the King

made a gracious reply; then he and his followers joined in a solemn

procession round the precincts and the cloisters of the college.

Two years later Richard III. was very similarly welcomed by the

University and entertained at Magdalen. On this occasion the King was

regaled with two disputations in the hall. Richard declared himself very

well pleased; and it is just possible that he was. For one of the

disputants was William Grocyn, who was rewarded with a buck and three

marks for his pains.

The University continued its policy of political time-serving, and,

after the battle of Bosworth Field, congratulated Henry VII. as

fulsomely as it had congratulated Richard III. a few months before.

Henry retorted by demanding the surrender of Robert Stillington, Bishop

of Bath and Wells, who was staying within the limits of the University.

This prelate was accused of "damnable conjuracies and conspiracies,"

which may have included complicity in the rebellion of Lambert Simnel.

For the future scullion was a native of Oxford. The University

prevaricated for a while; and at last, when hard pressed, they explained

that they would incur the sentence of excommunication if they used

force against a prelate of the Catholic Church. The King then took the

matter into his own hands, and committed the offender to prison at

Windsor for the remainder of his life. He soon afterwards visited

Oxford, offered a noble in the chapel of Magdalen College, and, by way

of marking his approval of the University, undertook the maintenance of

two students at Oxford. In 1493 he established at University College an

obit for the widow of Warwick the king-maker.

Some years later, in 1504, he endowed the University with ten pounds a

year in perpetuity for a religious service to be held in memory of him

and his wife and of his parents. On the anniversary of his burial a

hearse, covered with rich stuff, was to be set up in the middle of S.

Mary's Church before the great crucifix, and there the Chancellor, the

masters and the scholars were to recite certain specified prayers. Among

the articles in the custody of the verger of the University is a very

fine ancient pall of rich cloth of gold, embroidered with the arms and

badges of Henry VII., the Tudor rose and the portcullis, that typify the

union of the houses of York and Lancaster. Penurious in most matters,

Henry VII. showed magnificence in building and in works of piety. In

Westminster Abbey he erected one of the grandest chantries in

Christendom; and it was for the exclusive benefit of the monks of

Westminster that he established at Oxford three scholarships in

Divinity, called after his name, and each endowed with a yearly income

of ten pounds (Maxwell Lyte).

Of Henry's parents, his mother, the Lady Margaret, Countess of

Richmond,[31] took a warm interest in Oxford as in Cambridge, where she

founded two colleges. It was she who founded the

[Illustration: Magdalen Bridge & Tower]

two Readerships in Divinity at Oxford (1497) and Cambridge, the oldest

professorial chairs that exist in either University.

His characteristically frugal offering was not the only sign of his

favour which Henry vouchsafed to Magdalen. He sent his eldest son,

Prince Arthur, frequently to Oxford. When there the boy stayed in the

President's lodgings and the purchase of two marmosets for his amusement

is recorded in the college accounts. One of the old pieces of tapestry

preserved in the President's lodgings represents the marriage of the

prince with Catherine of Aragon. It was probably presented to the

President (Mayhew) by him.

It is possible that Henry VII. also contributed to the cost of building

that bell tower, which is the pride of Magdalen and the chief ornament

of Oxford.

The tower was built between the years 1492 and 1505. Wolsey was a junior

fellow when the tower was begun, and though popular tradition ascribes

to him the credit of the idea and even the design of that exquisite

campanile, the fact that not he, but another senior fellow (Gosmore by

name) was appointed to superintend the work, is evidence, so far as

there is any evidence, that Wolsey had no particular share in the

design. He was, however, senior bursar in 1499. But the story that he

left the college because he had wrongly applied some of its funds to the

building of the tower, is not borne out by any evidence in the college

records. He ceased to be a fellow of Magdalen about 1501, having been

instituted to the Rectory of Lymington. But he had filled the office of

Dean of Divinity after his term as senior bursar was over.

We have referred to the close connection of the house of Lancaster with

Waynflete's foundation. By a curious freak of popular imagination the

name of Henry VII. as well as that of the future cardinal has been

intimately connected with this tower. Besides other benefactions, he

granted a licence for the conveyance to the college of the advowsons of

Slymbridge and of Findon.

In return the college undertook to keep an obit for him every year. This

celebration was originally fixed on the 2nd or 3rd of October, but it

has been held on the 1st of May since the sixteenth century. The

coincidence of this ceremony with the most interesting and picturesque

custom of singing on Magdalen Tower has given rise to the fable that a

payment made to the college by the Rectory of Slymbridge was intended to

maintain the celebration of a requiem mass for the soul of Henry VII.

And the hymn that is now sung is the survival, says the popular myth, of

that requiem.

For in the early morning of May Day all the members of Waynflete's

foundation, the President and fellows and demies with the organist and

choir, clad in white surplices ascend the tall tower that stands sombre,

grey and silent in the half-light of the coming day. There are a few

moments of quiet watching, and the eye gazes at the distant hills, as

the white mists far below are rolled away by the rising sun. The clock

strikes five, and as the sound of the strokes floats about the tower,

suddenly from the throats of the well-trained choir on the morning air

rises the May Day hymn.

The hymn is finished, and a merry peal of bells rings out. The tower

rocks and seems to swing to the sound of the bells as a well made bell

tower should. And the members of the college having thus commemorated

the completion of their campanile, descend once more to earth, to bathe

in the Cherwell, or to return to bed.

For a repetition of an inaugural ceremony is what this function probably

is, and it has nothing to do, so much can almost certainly be said, with

any requiem mass. The hymn itself is no part of any use. It was written

by a fellow of the college, Thomas Smith, and set to music as part of

the college "grace" by Benjamin Rogers, the college organist, towards

the end of the seventeenth century.

Whether or no the origin and meaning of the singing was to commemorate

the completion of the tower, the singing itself would appear to have

borne originally a secular character.

"The choral ministers of this house," says Wood, "do, according to

an ancient custom, salute Flora every year on the First of May, at

four in the morning, with vocal music of several parts. Which

having been sometimes well performed, hath given great content to

the neighbourhood, and auditors underneath."

The substitution of a hymn from the college grace for the "merry concert

of both vocal and instrumental music, consisting of several merry

ketches, and lasting almost two hours," which was the form the

performance took in the middle of the eighteenth century, was made on

one occasion when the weather was very inclement. Once made it was found

easier and more suitable to continue it, and the observance came to be

religious.[32]

Magdalen Tower is one of those rarely beautiful buildings, which strike

you with a silent awe of admiration when first you behold them, and ever

afterwards reveal to your admiring gaze new aspects and unsuspected

charms. It is changeable as a woman, but its changes are all good and

there is nothing else about it that is feminine. It conveys the

impression that it is at once massive and slender, and its very

slenderness is male.

The chaste simplicity of the lower stories carries the eye up unchecked

to the ornamented belfry windows, the parapet and surmounting pinnacles,

and thus enhances the impression of perfect and reposeful proportion.

The growth of the colleges had influenced the halls. Statutes imposed by

the authority of the University, began to take the place of the private

rule of custom and tradition approved and enforced by the authority of

the self-governing scholars. The students quickly ceased to be

autonomous scholars and became disciplined schoolboys. The division

between don and undergraduate began to be formed and was rapidly

accentuated. Thus, at the close of the mediæval period, a change had

been wrought in the character of the University, which rendered it an

institution very different from that which it had been in the beginning.

The growth of Nationalism, the separation of languages and the

establishment of the collegiate system--these and similar causes tended

to give the Universities a local and aristocratic character. The order

introduced by the colleges was accompanied by the introduction of rank,

and of academical power and influence stored in the older, permanent

members of the University. Learning, too, had ceased to be thought

unworthy of a gentleman; it became a matter of custom for young men of

rank to have a University education. Thus, in the charter of Edward

III., we even read that "to the University a multitude of nobles,

gentry, strangers and others continually flock"; and towards the end of

the century we find Henry of Monmouth, afterwards Henry V., as a young

man, a sojourner at Queen's College. But it was in the next century that

colleges were provided, not for the poor, but for the noble. Many

colleges, too, which had been originally intended for the poor, opened

their gates to the rich, not as fellows or foundation students, but as

simple lodgers, such as monasteries might have received in a former age.

This change has continued to be remarkably impressed upon Oxford and

Cambridge even down to this day.

The influence of other political classes was now also introduced. Never,

as Newman said, has a learned institution been more directly political

and national than the University of Oxford. Some of its colleges came to

represent the talent of the nation, others its rank and fashion, others

its wealth; others have been the organs of the Government of the day;

while others, and the majority, represented one or other division,

chiefly local, of opinion in the country. The local limitation of the

members of many colleges, the West Country character of Exeter, the

North Country character of Queen's or University, the South Country

character of New College, the Welsh character of Jesus College, for

instance, tended to accentuate this peculiarity. The whole nation was

thus brought into the University by means of the colleges, which

fortunately were sufficiently numerous, and no one of them

overwhelmingly important. A vigour and a stability were thus imparted to

the University such as the abundant influx of foreigners had not been

able to secure. As in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, French,

German and Italian students had flocked to Oxford, and made its name

famous in distant lands; so in the fifteenth all ranks and classes of

the land furnished it with pupils, and what was wanting in their number

or variety, compared with the former era, was made up by their splendour

or political importance. The sons of the nobles came up to the

University, each accompanied by an ample retinue; the towns were kept in

touch with the University by means of the numerous members of it who

belonged to the clerical order. Town and country, high and low, north

and south, had a common stake in the academical institutions, and took a

personal interest in the academical proceedings. The degree possessed a

sort of indelible character which all classes understood; and the people

at large were more or less partakers of a cultivation which the

aristocracy were beginning to appreciate. Oxford, in fact, became the

centre of national and political thought. Not only in vacations and term

time was there a stated ebbing and flowing of the academical youth, but

messengers posted to and fro between Oxford and all parts of the country

in all seasons of the year. So intimate was this connection, that Oxford

became, as it were, the selected arena for the conflicts of the various

interests of the nation.