Chapter VI: Girton and Newnham (5)

[163] Augustinians never enjoyed their habit in comfort; in the xiii c. they were obliged to make their leather girdle long and their tunic short because they were suspected of a desire to pass as corded and sandalled Franciscans, and to cover over their white tunic with black in the streets lest they should be taken for friars preachers.

[164] pp. 127, 128 _n._, and p. 143, 143 _n._

[165] _Recorda et placita coram cancellario Ric. le Scrope in le Tollebouth. 2 Ric. II. 1378-9._ MS. No. 49 in the Cambridge Registry.

[166] Stephen le Scrope was chancellor in 1400 and 1414, Richard Scroop (who had been Master of King’s Hall) in 1461, and Lady Anne Scroope was one of the early benefactors of Gonville’s hall; see vi. p. 325, 325 _n._

[167] Edward himself speaks of it as “so important a college” in 1342. See p. 132. Since going to press I see that Mr. Rouse Ball identifies King’s Hall as ‘Solar Hall’ in his monograph on Trinity College, published in March 1906. Prof. Willis conjectured that ‘Solar Hall’ = Garrett Hostel.

[168] King’s Hall statutes name 14 as the age.

It will be remembered that Pembroke, Clare, Corpus, and King’s Hall were all directly or indirectly connected with the reigning house. For the group of great names connected with Edward’s household and with Cambridge at this time cf. v. pp. 291-295.

[169] The main artery of the xiv and xv century university was not, as now, the High street, but the Mill street (Milne street). It lay in a direct line between Clare Hall and Queens’ Lane, and 7 colleges had their entrances on it: Michaelhouse, Trinity Hall, Clare, old King’s College, S. Catherine’s, and Queens’. Gonville was approached from the north end, and King’s Hall lay on the same side. The church and property of the Knights of S. John and Garret’s and Ovyng’s hostels were in the same street. Mill street began at Queens’ Lane, and led northwards from the King’s and the Bishop’s Mills, which gave it its name. The larger part was alienated in 1445 to build the second King’s College.

Another characteristic feature of old Cambridge was the _King’s Ditch_ made by Henry III. in 1267, which starting from Castle Mound, with a walk beside it, formed the western boundary of King’s Hall, Michaelhouse, and Trinity Hall, and polluted the water supply of Peterhouse even in Andrew Perne’s time.

[170] Temp. Laurence Booth, chancellor.

[171] See Loggan’s print, 1688. The great schools in the School street are first mentioned 1346-7. The divinity schools were the first to be completed, by Sir _William_ Thorpe’s executors, in 1398. The quadrangle was completed _c._ 1475. The eastern front was rebuilt in 1755. The buildings lie under the present library and are now used for the keeping of “acts” and for discussions, but not for lectures in the various faculties. The new Divinity schools are in S. John’s street, and were erected by friends as a memorial of Bishop Selwyn. The Science schools, school of Human Anatomy, chemical laboratories, etc. are on the site of the university botanical garden which was once Austinfriars’ property.

[172] The room where these were treasured was the _libraria communis_ or _magna_ (in the time of Caius the “old” or “public” library), which still exists on the south side, with Chancellor Rotherham’s library on the east. The ancient two-storeyed building on the west which existed as early as 1438 still contains the old Canon Law (now the Arts) school, with the original library and the university chapel (disused for centuries) above (p. 97).

[173] Fuller and Caius both record this fact.

[174] It consists of 700 MSS. and 30,000 volumes. Other and earlier benefactors to the library were Perne (1574), Fulke Greville, Stephen Perse of Caius, and George Villiers Duke of Buckingham.

There is a library “Chest” and endowments, amounting to about £2000, plus the income of £4500 from the common university Fund.

[175] A copy of every book and pamphlet published in England is sent here, to the British Museum, and to the Bodleian.

[176] The printing of bibles and of the Book of Common Prayer is still confined to the king’s printer and the 2 universities. Until 1779 the printing of almanacks was also restricted to the universities and the Stationers’ Company.

[177] See iii. p. 183, and iv. p. 205.

[178] Cf. the laying of the foundation stone of the Norman church of S. Giles in 1092, when Anselm of Canterbury and the Bishop of Lincoln (then the diocesan) were present.

[179] In 1439. Its site was the present ante-chapel, see Christ’s College p. 117.

[180] The king’s design did not at first include the connexion of Eton and King’s. The foundations of a college and chapel for a rector and 12 scholars were first laid opposite Clare, between Mill Street and the Schools, on April 2, 1441. Within three years this foundation was changed into a society which, like Eton, is under a Provost and which was bound to provide the free education of poor Etonians. Here Henry imitated William of Wykeham, and the statutes which he drew up follow the lines laid down by the founder of Winchester and New College. The original “mean quadrant” was used till 1828 when it was sold to the university for the library extension on that side. The chapel fell down in 1536. A wall and gateway on the west, remain. The new design had the original court and Clare on the north, Austin’s hostel and Whitefriars on the south: the chapel was to form the north side of a quadrangle measuring 230 × 238 feet (cf. the measurements of Corpus); and, as in previous colleges, the west side was to contain the hall and provost’s lodging, a library and lecture rooms. The south and east sides were to be for the chambers and the latter was to have a gateway and tower. The present Queens’ College is on the site of the Whitefriars’ house; and the old gate of King’s which led from the chapel yard to Queens’ Lane used to be known as “Friars’ gate.” (For a full account of this most interesting design the reader is referred to Messrs. Willis and Clark’s book.)

For the modern buildings four _separate_ ranges were designed, the first to be erected being the Gibbs’ building on the west: the southern side and the screen have been built since 1824, Wilkins being the architect; on this side are the hall, combination room, and library, and the Provost’s lodge. Sir Gilbert Scott erected the building on the south east, which was projected after 1870.

[181] The Norfolk name of Boleyn is found at the university in the xv c. Henry Boleyn was proctor in 1454-5, and Anne’s uncle was churchwarden of S. Clement’s.

[182] It has been suggested that Tudor architecture might be styled Heraldic architecture, so freely does heraldry and blazonry enter into its plan and the scheme of decoration. England’s two great specimens of the Perpendicular--King’s College chapel and Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster--are pervaded by a “gorgeous display of heraldry.” The west and south entrances of King’s are decorated with bold carvings of the badges of Henry VII.--the crowned rose and portcullis. “No person ever glanced his eye over the wonders around and above him, without being awestruck at the daring of the architect that could plan, and the builders that could erect such a structure. The whole of the lower part of the Chapel beneath the windows is divided into panels, and every panel is filled with the arms of the king who erected the building.” “The immense pendants hanging from the gorgeous roof are ornamented with the rose, the royal badge of both the king and queen at this period.” (Clark’s _Introduction to Heraldry_, edited by J. R. Planché, Rouge Croix.) The arms and supporters of Eton, Henry VI. and VIII., Richard II., Edward IV. and VIth, Mary and Elizabeth, appear also. The gateway towers of Christ’s and John’s afford other examples of heraldic display as the exclusive scheme of decoration--they bear the arms, supporters, and badges of their founder, the mother of Henry VII. Finally the Entrance Gateway tower of Trinity exhibits the arms of Edward III. and his six sons (William of Hatfield being represented by a blank shield); above is a statue of Henry VIII. No street--no town--in England presents anything like this “boast of heraldry” which Gray had always under his eyes in Cambridge. It is a permanent record of the two royal groups in England who preferred this university; the gateway at Trinity being the _trait d’union_ between them.

[183] “The scholars of King’s enjoyed the questionable privilege of drifting into their degrees without examination. Lectures and rare compositions in Latin were the only demands upon their time,” writes Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. The same arrangements obtained at New College Oxford until 50 years ago.

[184] The “13 poor men” who are to form part of the foundation at Eton are an addition of Henry’s own; they do not appear on Wykeham’s foundation.

[185] For the Days, see v. p. 273 _n._ Wickham was vice-provost of Eton.

[186] Somerset returned to Cambridge in later life, after he had fallen into disgrace and poverty, and met, like Metcalfe of John’s, with small gratitude. Dr. Philip Baker, though a Catholic, retained the provostship under Elizabeth till 1570. For King’s men see also pp. 174-5, 272-3-4 _n._, 283.

[187] Eton is the only public school joined from its foundation with a Cambridge college. Merchant Taylors’ used however to be related to Pembroke (which owes Spenser’s presence there to this circumstance) and the ancient school of Bury used, it is said, to send its _alumni_ to Gonville. S. Paul’s school has tied scholarships and exhibitions at Corpus Christi and Trinity: Corpus was connected with Norwich school and Norfolk by Bacon, Parker, and other Norfolk benefactors, and has tied scholarships with King’s School, Canterbury, and Westminster; the last being also closely connected with Trinity College. Harrow has two tied scholarships at Caius; Magdalene holds the Latimer Neville scholarships for Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Uppingham, and Fettes schools, and tied exhibitions from Wisbech school. Uppingham is similarly connected with Emmanuel; Peterhouse with Huntingdon Free Grammar School, and S. John’s with 18 schools all over England and with several towns as well.

[188] A chapel of S. Lucy (erected 1245) came into the possession of Peterhouse with the property of the friars of the Sack (1309) and was used by the fellows towards the end of that century. The licences obtained by Bateman (1352 and 1353) for chapels in Trinity Hall and Gonville were never acted upon. Gonville however had a house chapel in 1393. At this date Clare also had a chapel, which was used at the primate’s visitation in 1401. The Clare Statutes (1359) direct that S. John Baptist’s church be used. For ritual in the college chapels, see pp. 59, 145. Organs were placed in most of the chapels in the reign of Charles I., at a time when the courts, gates, and frontage of colleges underwent repair and decoration.

[189] Cf. with the dimensions of Corpus old court which was considerably larger (220 by 140), of the proposed quadrangle at King’s p. 102 _n._, and with the frontage of some of the hostels p. 50.

[190] Haddon Hall in Derbyshire; the first owners of which were those Peverels (”of the Peak”) who figure in Cambridge history at the time of the Conquest (i. p. 17). The house passed to the Bassetts, a name which was also well known in the university; and from there--so the old story runs--Dorothy Vernon, a daughter of the last owners of the manor, ran away with Sir John the first Lord Manners.

[191] For the marriage of a xvi c. President of Queens’, see iv. pp. 209, 212.

[192] Pearson was educated here, then at King’s of which he became fellow, and was Master of Jesus and, in 1662, of Trinity.

[193] See Bernard’s hostel p. 109.

[194] Margaret had however called it “the quenes collage of sainte Margarete and S. Bernard.” In her petition for a charter she tells the king: “in the whiche vniuersitie is no college founded by eny quene of Englond hidertoward.” The statutes were drawn up by Millington first Provost of King’s, and others.

[195] Accounts of King’s Hall. Here, too, the king was to have been lodged for the parliament of 1447.

[196] Henry VII. was on his way to the same celebrated shrine when he came to Cambridge in 1506.

[197] He was at S. John’s Oxford, which he left without his degree.

[198] “Hall of S. Katerine,” the only foundation since King’s College founded as a _hall_ not a _college_.

[199] Willis and Clark.

[200] It was the gift of Malcolm “the Maiden” of Scotland. The monastery was much enlarged and enriched by him _circa_ 1160. Dugdale dates the house to the middle of Stephen’s reign or perhaps as early as 1130. In the xiii c. Constantia wife to Earl Eustace granted to the nuns all the fisheries and water belonging to the town of Cambridge, and the convent at that time shared with the canons of S. John’s and the Merton scholars the fame of being the greatest landlords in the town. See i. pp. 16, 18 and 36 _n._, vi. p. 311 and ii. p. 109. On a stone by the south-eastern corner of the south transept in the church there is this inscription (A.D. 1261):

_Moribus ornata
Facet hic bona Berta Rosata._

[201] Fuller.

[202] See iii. p. 165 _n._ Dyer points out that William Byngham is called “proctor and Master of God’s House,” but not founder: he considers that Hen. VI. was the founder, Byngham being its procurator as Doket was procurator of Queens’ and Somerset of King’s colleges. The facts recorded here and in chap. iii. appear to support this conclusion. At the same time Byngham in his letter to the king in 1439 distinctly claims to have built the house: “Goddeshous the which he hath made and edified in your towne of Cambridge.” In the case of every Cambridge college the founder is the man who endows it. A college may owe its existence (as certainly in Byngham’s case) to the energies of some one else, but its founder remains the man by whom it was built and endowed. A God’s House at Ewelme in Oxfordshire was founded about the same time by William de la Pole and Alice his wife, Earl and Countess of Suffolk. “It is still in being,” writes Tanner, “but the Mastership is annexed to the King’s professor of Physic in the university of Oxford.” A God’s house was an almshouse for some object of mercy. Thirteen poor men were maintained at Ewelme.

[203] Founder of Emmanuel College. Fuller says he was “a serious student in” and benefactor of this college.

[204] Refer to iv. p. 217 _n._

[205] p. 153, iii. p. 165 _n._

[206] She diverted some of her gifts to Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster, with the king’s consent, in favour of S. John’s College Cambridge.

[207] “Fryvelous things, that were lytell to be regarded, she wold let pass by, but the other that were of weyght and substance, wherein she might proufyte, she wolde not let for any payne or labour, to take upon hande. All Englonde for her dethe had cause of wepynge ... the students of both the unyversytees, to whom she was as a moder; all the learned men of Englonde, to whom she was a veray patroness ... all the noblemen and women to whom she was a myrroure and exampler of honoure; all the comyn people of this realme, for whom she was in their cause a comyn medyatryce, and toke right grete displeasure for them.”

Fisher was created cardinal priest of S. Vitalis, in the modern Via Nazionale (the ancient _titulus Vestinae_) by Paul III. When Henry VIII. heard that the Hat had been conferred, he exclaimed that he would not leave the bishop a head to wear it on. The following prayer appears in the Roman breviary for the feast day of Blessed John Fisher (June 22):--_Deus, qui beato pontifici tuo Joanni pro veritate et justitia magno animo vitam profundere tribuisti; da nobis ejus intercessione et exemplo; vitam nostram pro Christo in hoc mundo perdere, ut eam in coelo invenire valeamus._

“The most inflexibly honest churchman who held a high station in that age.“--Hallam. Fisher was confessor to Catherine of Aragon and to Lady Margaret.

[208] See i. 38; ii. 55-6. An old Ely Chartulary says: “Henry Frost ought never to be forgot, who gave birth to so noted a seat of religion, and afterwards to one of the most renowned seats of learning in Europe.”

[209] _History of the College of S. John the Evangelist_, Baker-Mayor, pp. 22-3.

[210] _Lit. Pat. 9 Edw. I. membr. 28_ (23 Dec. 1280). Printed in Commission Documents vol. ii. p. 1.

[211] Willis and Clark.

[212] See p. 103 _n._

[213] v. p. 278.

[214] Overall had been a scholar at Trinity, and was Master of S. Catherine’s.

[215] Metcalfe was the Catholic Master who made the great reputation of S. John’s, but whom “the young fry of fellows” combined to oust in 1534. “Did not all the bricks of the college that day double their dye of redness to blush at the ingratitude of those that dwelt therein?” (Fuller.)

[216] He was buried by the side of Sir Thomas More in the chapel of S. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower.

[217] Constitutions for the reform of the Black Benedictine, Cistercian, and Augustinian Orders, issued in 1335, 1337, 1339.

[218] i. p. 27. The university for English and Irish monks provided by papal authority and by the Cistercian Constitutions was Oxford. The licence for Monks’ hostel Cambridge stipulates that all monks of the order of S. Benedict in England or in other the king’s dominions shall henceforth dwell there together during the university course. There was a small recrudescence of monastic studies in Cambridge in the xiv c. when Ely hostel was built, and from this time forward 3 or 4 Ely monks were regularly to be found pursuing the university course there (Testimony of John of Sudbury, prior of students, at the Northampton chapter in 1426). But there was no prior of students at Cambridge till towards the end of that century; Ely hostel itself was dismantled before the middle of the century; the black monks of Norwich however came to Cambridge under Bateman’s influence with what the bull of Sixtus IV. 150 years later shows to have been considerable constancy. See Caius pp. 143-4, 144 _n._

[219] Chambers for Crowland were built by its abbot John of Wisbeach in 1476. John de Bardenay had preceded John of Sudbury as prior of Benedictines in 1423, and both were probably Crowland monks.

[220] Dugdale. When Charles V. heard that Stafford Duke of Buckingham had been beheaded through the machinations of the butcher’s son Wolsey, he exclaimed: “A butcher’s dog has killed the fairest buck in England!”

[221] It is clear from the masonry of the chapel that this was anterior to the college of 1519. See Willis and Clark ii. 362, 364.

[222] Corpus hall is the only one in Cambridge not provided with a musicians’ gallery.

[223] The retired position of the earlier college had been, he held, a salutary assistance to study: it “stood on the transcantine side, an anchoret in itself, severed by the river from the rest of the university.”

[224] Fuller and Carter say the college site was purchased by the convents of Ely, Ramsey, and Walden. Cf. p. 128.

[225] Grindal is a good instance of a migrating student: he entered at Magdalene, and subsequently migrated to Christ’s and Pembroke, where he became fellow and Master.

[226] The university statute providing for the commemoration of benefactors and others, directs that mass be said every 5th of May for Edward II. as founder of King’s Hall.

[227] Which is on the site of the hall, pulled down in 1557 to make room for the chapel.

[228] For changes made in the Mill Street district in the xv c. when the School’s Quadrangle and King’s College were built, cf. pp. 24, 24 _n._, 25 _n._, 97 _n._, 101.

[229] There was a fellows’ “parloure” in King’s Hall as early as 1423-4.

[230] There is a fine series of most valuable portraits in the Lodge; among them one of Mary, and the standing portrait of the young Henry VIII. which Wordsworth made the subject of a poem. A careful list of university portraits appears at the end of Atkinson’s volume, but such a list--useful and valuable as it is--tucked away somewhere in a book on Cambridge is not an adequate homage to so important a source of university history as these portraits. The loan exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1884-5 was the first attempt to collect the Cambridge pictures: the example was followed by Oxford in 1904-6, and the Catalogue of portraits then published is a model of what can and should be done.

No complete list of the portraits of either university, however, at present exists. Many canvasses remain unidentified or misidentified; some are doubtless perishing for want of care, and the artist’s name has long disappeared from many more. The work therefore that remains to be done is a big one, but is eminently worth the doing.

[231] A sedan coach is preserved in the entrance hall of Trinity Lodge, and is used to transport visitors from the Gateway to the Lodge when the Master entertains. It is the college tradition that the coach was presented by Mrs. Worsley, wife of the then Master of Downing, to Christopher Wordsworth Master of Trinity, and brother of the poet (1820-41).

[232] This is the largest college library but it is not the most ancient. Peterhouse led the way in the xiii century with divinity and medicine books of Balsham’s. In 1418, 380 volumes were catalogued, containing “from six to seven hundred distinct treatises.” Here were to be found books on law, medicine, astrology, and natural philosophy, as well as the preponderating theological tomes. Trinity Hall was another famous xiv century library, and Pembroke has a catalogue of books in that and the next century amounting to 140 volumes. In the xv century Queens’ had 224, and S. Catherine’s 137 (in 1472 and 1475). In 1571 the French ambassador to this country deemed the library at Peterhouse “the worthiest in all England” Cf. the university library, p. 98.

[233] His name appears in the House List of King’s Hall.

[234] The tithes of Great S. Mary’s and Chesterton both belonged to King’s Hall, on which the advowson of S. Peter’s Northampton was bestowed, as Cherry Hinton had been bestowed on Peterhouse. The rectory of Chesterton, which had pertained till then to the monastery of Vercelli, was given by Eugenius IV.

[235] Removed to its present position by Nevile in 1600; see p. 132.

[236] p. 102 _n._

[237] See p. 133.

[238] Willis and Clark.

[239] iii. p. 179.

[240] iii. p. 174.

[241] iii. p. 180.

[242] Closed courts, however, continued to be built at Oxford; a late instance being the second court of S. John’s built by Laud so that his college should not be outshone by its Cambridge namesake.

[243] Bull of Sixtus IV. 1481. The bull recites that in the time of William Bishop of Norwich the Norwich Benedictines had been accustomed to lodge at Gonville and Trinity Hall where Bateman had made convenient arrangements for them. When the pope proceeds to say that Benedict XI. had required all Benedictines who wished to study in Cambridge to live _in certo alio collegio dictae universitatis_, “deputed ad hoc,” he is mistaking the authorisation of Monks’ hostel 50 years before for the papal Constitution of 150 years before, as he mistakes Benedict XI. for Benedict XII. The suggestion that he refers to University Hall (the _hospicium universitatis_) is certainly erroneous: the words above quoted simply mean “in the said university” and not “the college called university college“: there was no such house for monks in Cambridge between 1347 and 1428, when “the college deputed in the said university ad hoc“--Monks’ College--was founded. Benedict’s Constitution does not specify whether the religious are to dwell in common, or not.

[244] Cf. Magdalene, p. 127.

[245] v. p. 286. Cudworth was afterwards Master of Clare, then of Christ’s; Whichcote became Provost of King’s.

[246] p. 126.

[247] The spot is marked by the black tombstone in the present farmyard, half way between Cambridge and Ely.

[248] At her own request made to Louis XI. The tomb was destroyed during the Revolution.

[249] The seat of the Bedfordshire Beauchamps, her mother’s family.

[250] A headless skeleton found, before the middle of last century, near the spot where tradition says that Henry Duke of Buckingham suffered, is presumed to be that of the duke, of whose burial there is no other record. Hatcher’s _History of Salisbury_, 1843.

[251] Elizabeth Clare was heir to her brother who fell at Bannockburn: Marie Chatillon was widow of Valence Earl of Pembroke who fell in the wars against Bruce. The only Scotch benefactor was Malcolm the Maiden who endowed the nunnery of S. Rhadegund; but this was before colleges were built.

[252] “_Ex omni dioecesi et qualibet parte hujus regni nostri Angliae, tam ex Wallia quam ex Hibernia._” There were, however, Scotchmen at Cambridge in the xiv c., i. p. 37.

[253] To this day Pembroke fellowships are open to men “of any nation and any county,” whereas at other colleges (as e.g. Corpus) the restriction is to “any subjects of the king, wherever born.” Cf. Jebb’s “_Bentley_,” p. 92.

[254] See divinity, canon and civil law, medicine, arts, and grammar in the next chapter, pp. 164-7.

[255] To these must be added: insurance, rates, and taxes, repairs, legal expenses, printing, and stationery, gifts made by the university, and the _honorarium_ paid to the university preacher.

[256] Fuller.

[257] Magdalene, S. Catherine’s, Downing, Queens’, Peterhouse, Corpus, and Trinity Hall are the small and least wealthy colleges, and in this order. All the others have a gross income of over £10,000 a year. The income of all the colleges is published annually in Whitaker.

[258] University College contributed £50.

[259] See p. 167.

[260] A man’s university and the faculty in which he has graduated are shown by the hood: the Cambridge master’s hood is black silk lined with white silk; the bachelor’s black stuff hood is trimmed with white rabbit fur. The doctors in the three faculties wear scarlet silk hoods lined with pink and violet shot silk (_D.D._), cherry silk (_LL.D._) and magenta silk (_M.D._).

_B.D.’s_ wear a hood of black silk inside and out; _LL.M.’s_ wear an _M.A.’s_ hood; _LL.B.’s_, a _B.A.’s_ hood; _M.B.’s_ a black hood lined with scarlet.

The _Mus.Doc._ wears a brocaded hood lined with cherry satin; _Mus.Bac._ black silk lined with cherry silk and trimmed with rabbit fur; _Litt.D._ scarlet silk inside and out; _D.Sc._ scarlet, lined with shot pink and light blue silk.

[261] Thus the _knight bachelor_ is one enjoying the titular degree and rank of knighthood, without membership of any knightly order, to the companionship of which he is supposed to be an aspirant.

[262] The study of sophistry or dialectic, which preceded Aristotle’s analytical logic.

[263] Junior and senior sophister and bachelor: Fuller writing of Northampton says: “But this university never lived to commence Bachelor of Art, Senior Sophister was all the standing it attained unto. For, four years after,” etc.

On tutors’ bills a century ago the style of _dominus_ was always given to bachelors, that of “Mr.” to masters; the undergraduate had to be content with “freshman” or “sophister.” The bachelors are still designated _dominus_ in the degree lists; a style which reminds us of the clerical “dan” of Chaucer’s time, and the Scotch “dominie” for a schoolmaster. For the degree ceremonies and processions see _Peacock_, _Appendix A_.

[264] Regent: _regere_ like _legere_, to teach; cf. the _doctores legentes_ and _non-legentes_ of Bologna: _regere scholas_, and _officium regendi_ occur in Bury school records, xii c. (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 14,848, fol. 136). A congregation of the Cambridge masters, regents and non-regents, met in S. Mary’s church as early as 1275.

[265] It must be realised that the degree in arts always differed from degrees in theology law and medicine inasmuch as these latter implied competence to exercise the corresponding professions. There was no such corresponding profession in the case of arts, except that of the schoolmaster. The clergyman, lawyer, or doctor at least exercised himself in these subjects, but the “artist” unless he was a regent-master, or a _magister scholarum_ elsewhere, left his studies when he left his university.

[266] “The Tripos is a paper containing the names of the principal graduates for the year. It also contains 2 copies of verses written by two of the undergraduates, who are appointed to that employment by the proctors.“--Dyer. An extract from one of these sets of tripos verses is given in Dyer, _Hist. Camb._ ii. 89.

[267] It was at this time that the moderators were substituted for the proctors, see p. 183.

[268] pp. 168, 169.

[269] Cf. p. 189, the lecture.

[270] The derivation is Prof. Skeat’s.

[271] The school of glomery was nourishing in 1452 (Ely Register _anno_ 1452); but a few years previously, when the statutes of King’s College were written, it was understood that grammar would be studied at Eton not at Cambridge. A century later (1549) the parliamentary commissioners introduced mathematics into the _trivium_ where it replaced grammar. A school of grammar existed at the university side by side with the school of glomery [see the provision for the teaching of grammar at God’s House (below) and Peterhouse and Clare p. 153 of the last chapter]. As late as 1500 there was a _magister grammaticae_ and a _magister glomeriae_, who, _in ejus defectu_, is represented by proctors (_Stat. Cant._). “The Master of Grammar shall be browght by the Bedyll to the Place where the Master of Glomerye dwellyth, at iij of the Clocke, and the Master of Glomerye shall go before, and his eldest son nexte him.” A.D. 1591 (_Stokys in G. Peacock_). By Fuller’s time the master of glomery had ceased to exist. His work seems to have resembled the preparatory work of the Previous Examinations at the university to-day.

In the Curteys Register of Bury-St.-Edmund’s (in the time of Abbot Sampson xii c.) we have the students of dialectic distinguished from the students of grammar and the latter from other scholars--“_dialecticos glomerellos seu discipulos_,” and “_glomerellos seu discipulos indistincte_”; surely a clear reference to two branches of the _trivium_. The use of the word _glomerel_ in O.E. law to signify an officer who adjusts disputes between scholars and townsmen, is obviously the result of a misinterpretation of Balsham’s rescript of 1276 “_Inprimis volumus et ordinamus quod magister glomeriae Cant. qui pro tempore fuerit, audiat et dicedat universas glomerellorum ex parte rea existentium.... Ita quod sive sint scholares sive laici qui glomerellos velint convenire ... per viam judicialis indaginis, hoc faciat coram magistro glomeriae...._” The form of the latter’s oath to the Archdeacon of Ely and the functions which fell to the master of glomery when the school became decadent, may also have led to the mistake (which was made by Spelman as regards the Cambridge glomerels). Cf. i. p. 14, iv. p. 207 _n._, and Fuller, Prickett-Wright Ed. pp. 52-4. The second of these editors, indeed, was the first to call attention (in 1840) to the irrefutable evidence in the Cole and Baker MSS. as to the meaning of master and school of glomery, and to light on the confirmation from the university of Orléans in the verses of the troubadour Rutebeuf. For glomery, see also _Peacock, Appendix A, xxxii-xxxvi_.

The foundation of God’s House in 1439 was due to Parson Byngham’s zealous desire to remedy “the default and lack of scolemaisters of gramer,” following on the Black Death. In a touching letter to the king (Henry VI.) Byngham points out “how greatly the clergy of your realm is like to be empeired and febled” by the default, and relates that “over the est parte of the wey ledyng from Hampton” to Coventry alone, “and no ferther north yan Rypon,” _70 schools_ were empty for lack of teachers. “For all liberall sciences used in your seid universitees certein lyflode is ordeyned, savyng only for gramer.”

[272] See chapter i. p. 33.

[273] _Royal Injunctions_ to the university of 1535, requiring the denial of papal supremacy. “King Henry stung with the dilatory pleas of the canonists at Rome in point of his marriage, did in revenge destroy their whole hive throughout his own universities,” _Fuller_. The last Cambridge doctor in canon law “commenced” in this reign.

[274] The usual course is to take the special medical examinations with the First Part of the natural sciences tripos. Sometimes however these are taken in addition to the ordinary _B.A._ degree. The last of the three _M.B._ examinations is divided into two parts, of which Part I. is taken at the end of the fourth year of medical study, and Part II. after six years, three of which must have been spent in medical and surgical practice and hospital work. The keeping of the “act” is not intended to be a mere form, and students are advised to prepare for it during the years of their hospital practice.

[275] The degrees of bachelor of surgery (a registrable qualification) and master of surgery require no separate examination; the candidate must have done all that is required of a bachelor of medicine; but bachelors of surgery who are not also masters of arts cannot incept until three years have passed since they took the _B.C._, and masters of arts must have become legally qualified surgeons.

[276] Whitgift’s thesis for the _D.D._ degree (1570) was “_Papa est ille anti-Christus_“--‘the pope is himself anti-Christ.’

[277] _Erasm. Epist._ (London 1642), _Liber secundus, Epist. 10_. Letter to Bullock dated from the Palace at Rochester, August 31, 1516.

[278] Or were relegated to the previous examinations.

[279] Till then it had meant Aristotle: the statutes of Queens’ and Christ’s, framed within 50 years of one another, provide for its teaching--“the natural, moral, and _metaphysical_ philosophy of Aristotle”; and even in Fuller’s time these metaphysics were the study of the bachelor of arts: “Let a _sophister_ begin with his axioms, a _batchelor of art_ proceed to his _metaphysicks_, a _master_ to his _mathematicks_, and a _divine_ conclude with his _controversies_ and _comments_ on scripture....”

Philosophy, meaning Aristotle, had come in to disturb the peace and the sufficiency of the old ‘seven arts.’

[280] William Everett, _M.A._, 1865.

[281] It has been said that senior wranglers are hidden in country rectories and are never heard of again. In a hundred and sixty years (1747-1906) there have been eight senior wranglers who could be placed in the first rank as mathematicians and physicists:

Herschell 1813
Airy 1823
Stokes 1841
Cayley 1842
Adams 1843
Todhunter 1848
Routh 1854
Rayleigh 1865

Paley, in 1763, was the first distinguished senior wrangler. On the other hand Colenso Whewell and Lord Kelvin were second wranglers, so was the geometrician Sylvester; de Morgan and Pritchard were fourth wranglers; the learned Porteous was tenth wrangler, Lord Manners (Lord Chancellor of Ireland) was 5th, Lord Ellenborough (Lord Chief Justice) 3rd, Lord Lyndhurst (Lord Chancellor) second.

[282] Another distinguished Oxonian, and East Anglian, Grosseteste, attempted in the xiii c. the re-introduction of Greek into England; but the foreign linguists whom he invited to St. Albans left no successors.

[283] The west countryman Grocyn (b. 1442) who learnt his Greek in Italy and returned to teach it in Oxford was, chronologically, the first English classical scholar since the revival of learning.

[284] “All students equally contributed to his” (Croke’s) “lectures, whether they heard or heard them not.” _Fuller_.

[285] REVIVERS OF GREEK IN CAMBRIDGE.

[Sidenote: First period: Early patrons of Greek learning, and the group round Erasmus.]

1. John Fisher, b. Beverley, Yorks, 1459. Chancellor of the
university, Master of Michaelhouse, President of Queens’, a
co-founder of S. John’s. Though not himself a Greek classic, one
of the chief instruments of its introduction into Cambridge. See
also ii. pp. 120-21.

2. John Tonnys, _D.D._ prior at Cambridge and provincial of the
Augustinians. Ob. 1510. One of the first men in the university to
desire to learn Greek.

3. John Caius, ii. pp. 141-2 (lectured in Greek at Padua after
leaving Cambridge).

4. Erasmus, _D.D._ Queens’, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge, and lecturer in Greek. Befriended by Fisher, Warham,
Tunstall, and Fox, but opposed by the Oxonian Lee, Abp. of York.
Left Cambridge 1513.

5. Richard Fox (Bishop of Winchester) Master of Pembroke College.
Introduces Greek learning into his college of Corpus Christi,
Oxford, and founds the first Greek lectureship at the sister
university.

6. Cuthbert Tunstall (Balliol Oxford, King’s Hall Cambridge, and
university of Padua) b. 1474. Ob. 1559. Bishop of Durham.

7. Henry Bullock, fellow of Queens’ and vice-chancellor.

8. John Bryan, fellow of King’s, ob. 1545. Lectured on Greek
before the appointment of Croke.

9. Robert Aldrich, fellow of King’s, senior proctor 1523-4, Bp. of
Carlisle.

10. Richard Croke or Crooke, scholar of King’s 1506; later a pupil
of Grocyn’s; studied Greek in Italy at the charges of Abp. Warham.
Greek tutor to Henry VIII. Appointed first Reader in Greek at
Cambridge 1519; and was first Public Orator. Afterwards professor
of Greek at Oxford.

11. Tyndale, b. circa 1486, ob. 1536 (resided at Cambridge between
1514-1521, and owed his Greek to that university). Left Oxford for
Cambridge, as Erasmus had done, probably on account of the sworn
hostility at Oxford to classical learning. See his “Answer” to
Sir Thomas More, written in 1530 (Mullinger, _The University of
Cambridge_ p. 590).

[Sidenote: Greek Classics, Second period.]

Roger Ascham, b. 1515, fellow of S. John’s. Reader in Greek and
Public Orator in the university. Tutor to Mary, Elizabeth, and
Lady Jane Grey.

Sir Thomas Smith, b. 1514, _LL.D._ Queens’. Regius Professor of
Law and Reader in Greek at Cambridge, and Public Orator.

Sir John Cheke, b. 1514 at Cambridge, fellow of S. John’s. First
Regius Professor of Greek. [”Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir
John Cheek | Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, | When
thou taught’st Cambridge, and King Edward, Greek” (Milton).]

Nicholas Carr, fellow of Pembroke, who replaced Cheke. Ob. Cambs.
1568-9. (As with other Cambridge men he joined science and
classics, and afterwards became a doctor of physic.)

Richard Cox, scholar of King’s (v. pp. 272-4). One of the
introducers of Greek and the new learning into Oxford.

Francis Dillingham, fellow of Christ’s. One of the translators of
the English bible.

Dr. Thomas Watts, of Caius, who endowed 7 “Greek scholars” at
Pembroke College in the xvi century.

[Sidenote: A few later names.]

Augustine Bryan, ob. 1726, Trinity College,

Jeremiah Markland, b. 1693, fellow and tutor of Peterhouse.

Richard Bentley, 1662-1742, of S. John’s, Master of Trinity.

Richard Porson, 1759-1808, scholar and fellow of Trinity, Regius
Professor of Greek.

Thirlwall, b. 1797, fellow of Trinity, Bishop of S. David’s.

W. H. Thompson, ob. 1886, Trinity. Regius Professor of Greek,
Master of Trinity.

Sir R. C. Jebb, ob. 1906, Trinity, Regius Professor of Greek.

REVIVERS OF GREEK IN OXFORD.

1. William Selling. Got his love of Greek from Italy. Taught at
Canterbury. Afterwards of All Souls’ Oxford.

2. Linacre, b. _circa_ 1460 and studied at Canterbury with
Selling, and at Oxford under Vitelli, but learnt his Greek in
Italy. Lectured in Oxford on physic. Tutor to Prince Arthur. Ob.
1524.

{ 3. Grocyn b. Bristol 1442. New and Exeter Colleges,
Inspired by { Oxford. The first to lecture on Greek.
Linacre to start { 4. William Latymer, educated at Padua, but afterwards
for Italy to { a fellow at Oxford.
learn Greek. { 5. William Lily, b. Hants. 1468, learnt Greek at Rhodes
{ and Rome.

6. Colet, b. 1466. At Oxford and Paris; learnt Greek in Italy.

7. Thomas More, b. 1480. Learnt Greek with Linacre and Grocyn.

8. Richard Pace.

[286] Namely “in King’s Hall, King’s, S. John’s and Christ’s Colleges, Michaelhouse, Peterhouse, Gonville, Trinity Hall, Pembroke Hall, Queens’, Jesus, and Buckingham Colleges, Clare Hall and Benet College.” Royal Injunctions of 1535.

[287] The ancient pronunciation of Latin (so far as it can be recovered) has been taught, as an alternative, at Cambridge for the last 25 years, and has of late been widely adopted there, as elsewhere. Perhaps at the bottom of the preference for English Latin there lies the notion that without it Latin would no longer be the English scholar’s second tongue. The simple retort is that with it Latin is no longer (has not been for centuries) a common medium, the second tongue, of European scholars. Anglicised Greek is due to Sir John Cheke and Sir Thomas Smith, though it was promptly abolished at the time by Stephen Gardiner then chancellor of the university, and opposed also by Caius. “Nor mattereth it if foreigners should dissent, seeing hereby we Englishmen shall understand one another,” so Fuller explains the position.

[288] Paley continued to keep his traditional hold on Cambridge through the divinity paper in the “Little Go” which is based upon the “Evidences for Christianity.” On the other hand logic has recaptured the place which Aristotle held in the general curriculum by being admitted, since 1884, as the alternative subject for Paley’s “Evidences.”

[289] Lord Maynard of Wicklow (S. John’s College) endowed a professor of logic at Cambridge in the reign of James I., with £40-50 a year.

For university activity in philosophy in the xvii c. see chapter v. pp. 284-90.

[290] One must not forget, however, that both the remarkable men who planted the study of the experimental sciences in Cambridge were distinguished ‘classics’ as well as scientists.

[291] Letter of Vice-Chancellor Byng to Burleigh then chancellor of the university, 14 Dec. 1572, in which he advises him of a “greate oversighte of Dr. Caius” who had long kept “superstitious monuments in his college.” “I could hardly have been perswadid,” he continues, “that suche things by him had been reservid.”

“Some since have sought to blast his memory by reporting him a papist; no great crime to such who consider the time when he was born, and foreign places wherein he was bred: however this I dare say in his just defence, he never mentioneth protestants, but with due respect, and sometimes, occasionally, doth condemn the superstitious credulity of popish miracles.... We leave the heat of his faith to God’s sole judgment, and the light of his good works to men’s imitation,” writes old Fuller.

[292] Chairs of anatomy, botany, geology, and astronomy had been created in the first quarter of that century. See also Peterhouse p. 153.

[293] For the natural sciences professorships, see pp. 190-92, and _n._ p. 192.

[294] “In barb’rous Latin doom’d to wrangle” writes Byron of the Cambridge of his time.

[295] The year is counted from the beginning of the academic year, _i.e._ Oct. 1747--the first degrees were taken in 1748.

[296] A classified list of civil law graduates exists from the year 1815. There used to be a university _title S.C.L._ (Student of Civil Law) in relation to the civil law classes. The Act of 20-21 Vict., disestablishing civil law in the courts, led to a revolution of law studies at Cambridge. From then dates the abolition of the old quaint ceremonies and disputations connected with this faculty.

[297] From 1870, before the creation of the history tripos, examinations were conducted in a mixed law and history tripos.

[298] Among educational reformers in the second half of the xviii c. Dr. John Jebb must not be omitted. To him is due the annual test examinations of tripos students called ‘the Mays,’ and perhaps also the “Little-Go.” He was a distinguished scientist, and member of Peterhouse.

[299] Cf. chap. ii. p. 61 and chap. iv. p. 241.

[300] “Poll,” οἱ πολλοἱ.

[301] In 1835 Goulburn (afterwards Bishop of Trinidad) was second wrangler and senior classic; in 1828 Selwyn, another bishop, was senior classic and sixth wrangler. For the 2 triposes cf. iv. p. 238 _n._

[302] “Within 2-1/2 miles in a direct line” from Great S. Mary’s. For the academic year see iv. p. 241, and _n._ p. 182.

[303] Part I. of most of the divided triposes entitles to the degree. Advanced and research students (p. 241) are entitled to the _B.A._ and higher degrees after receiving a “certificate of research” and residing for 6 terms at the university.

[304] The Previous Examination or “Little-Go,” as it is popularly called, consists of two parts, the first containing 5 papers on (_a_) one of the four Gospels in Greek (set book) (_b_) a Latin classic (set book) (_c_) a Greek classic (set book) (_d_) simple unprepared passages in Latin (_e_) simple Latin and Greek syntax. Since 1884 a Greek or Latin classic may be substituted for the Greek Gospel.