Chapter II: The Colleges (1)

The university and the colleges--the collegiate system--eras of
college building--Peterhouse--Michaelhouse--_collegium_ and
_aula_--Clare--college statutes--architectural scheme of a
college--Pembroke--founders of colleges--Gonville--Trinity
Hall--Corpus Christi--Cambridge in 1353--Chaucer at Cambridge--the
schools, library, the university printers and the Pitt Press, the
senate house--King’s--King’s College chapel--Cambridge college
chapels--Queens’--English sovereigns at Cambridge--S.
Catherine’s--Jesus--Christ’s--Lady Margaret and Bishop Fisher--S.
John’s--Magdalene--King’s Hall and Trinity College--college
libraries--gateways--Caius--monks in Cambridge--Emmanuel--Sidney
Sussex--Downing--public hostels--nationality of founders and
general scope of their foundations--university and college
revenues.

The college is an endowed foundation providing for the residence and maintenance of teachers--masters or graduates, and for the free education of a certain number of poor scholars, to whose company are added, according to the capacity of the building, other students who are able to live at their own charges.

[Sidenote: Relation of the college to the university.]

Much has been said about the relation of the college to the university. By some it is supposed that the latter is nothing but the aggregate of the former; that somewhere in the time of the Georges “the university” arrogated to itself a separate existence, and that since that time university offices have taken precedence of collegiate offices.[97] The _universitas_, the corporation of scholars, must and did precede any college foundation: at the same time we cannot distinguish the development of either of our universities from the rise of these foundations, whose history has, ever since, been the history of the academic society. Each college is independent and autonomous, and though the aggregate of colleges does not constitute the university, each collegiate foundation forms part and parcel of it in virtue of its union with the incorporated society of Chancellor Masters and Scholars which formed at first and still forms “the university.”

[Sidenote: The college the distinguishing characteristic of Cambridge and Oxford].

It is the collegiate system which distinguishes the English universities from all others. Everywhere else in Europe students live in their own private lodgings and have complete control of their lives, subject to no supervision whatever; the university has no rights over them and no means of ensuring their good behaviour during the period in which they choose to attend its lectures. In many parts of Europe the student passes from a school curriculum in which he has been treated as a complete dependent, on whose sense of common fairplay and honour, even, no reliance can be placed, to a curriculum in which he at once becomes his own absolute master. English instinct is against this--against abandoning a young man at a critical moment of his life to his own devices, his own unsupported endeavours, as it is against ruling him by a system of espionage in his school days. It is in favour in both cases of the moral support to be found in an external guarantee for order, orderliness--and of a tacit assistance to good instincts, a tacit resistance to bad; and the result is the university college.

[Sidenote: The origin of the college system.]

The result, as we say, is an English result, and is the development of a scheme to which shape was first given by Walter de Merton, Chancellor of England and afterwards Bishop of Rochester, and Hugh de Balsham Bishop and formerly subprior of Ely, in the reign of Henry III.[98] An endowed house and college statutes formed part of this fine academic scheme, which, in all its amplitude and completeness, sprang Athena-like from the brain of Walter de Merton, and was destined from the first to be realised in a university. It must, nevertheless, be clearly borne in mind that the original college dwellings--and the college statutes--were designed for adult scholars, they were, in fact, the earliest training colleges for teachers, and it is only later that their advantages were extended in equal measure to the taught.[99]

[Sidenote: The era of college building.]

College building began in the xiii century and ended with the xvith. The first great period of building, however, belongs to the second quarter of the xiv century, and no less than seven colleges and halls were founded between the years 1324 and 1352. Ninety years elapsed before the second period, which began with the foundation of King’s College in 1441 and ended with the foundation of S. John’s in 1509. The third and last period opened a hundred years after the foundation of King’s and closed with the foundation of the first Protestant colleges fifty years later (1595):

First period. Second period. Third period.

Peterhouse 1284
(28 years) (68 years) (50 years)
Michaelhouse 1324 King’s College 1441 Magdalene 1542
Clare 1326-38 Queens’ 1448 Trinity 1546
King’s Hall 1337 S. Catherine’s 1473 (Caius 1557)
Pembroke 1347 Jesus 1495 Emmanuel 1584
Gonville Hall 1348 Christ’s 1505 Sidney Sussex 1595
Trinity Hall 1350 S. John’s 1509
Corpus Christi 1352

There were therefore 8 colleges in Cambridge by the middle of the xiv century; when the xvi century opened there were 14, and at its close 12 of the previous buildings remained and 4 new had been added. Downing College (built 1805) must be added to these, making at the present day a total of 17 colleges.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Peterhouse.]

Peterhouse was founded by Hugh de Balsham[100] for his Ely scholars whom he had in vain attempted to unite, with a separate endowment of their own, under the same roof as the canons of S. John’s Hospital.[101] In 1284 he removed the Ely clerks to two hostels by S. Peter’s church at the other end of the town, and at his death two years later left three hundred marks for the erection of a hall. This was built in 1290 on the south-west and formed with the scholars’ chambers the only collegiate building at Peterhouse till the close of the xiv century. Here then were the primitive elements of a college; the hostel or scholars’ lodging house to which was added a common meeting and dining room, or hall. The little parish church of S. Peter served for prayers and gave its name to the college. College chapels were not built till considerably later: the example first given by Pembroke College in the next century not being followed for another hundred years. The quadrangle was not begun till 1424. A combination room[102] opening out from the hall, and a library, were added along the south side. Over the former was the master’s room, over the latter the students’ quarters; and all looked upon the ancient lawn, the meadow with its elms beyond and, stretching to the right, with its water gate, Coe fen.

Ye brown, o’er-arching groves,
That contemplation loves,
Where willowy Camus lingers with delight!
Oft at the blush of dawn
I trod your level lawn

* * * * *

With Freedom by my side, and soft-eyed Melancholy.[103]

The Tower of the Congregational Church in the distance.]

Hostels and church, facing the Trumpington road, were just without Trumpington gate. In 1309 the college area was extended southwards, over the ground occupied by Jesu hostel.[104] The property of the Gilbertine canons was added in the xvi century. The college area covers the space between Trumpington Street and Coe fen, and Little S. Mary’s church and Scroope Terrace; two-thirds of the site of the Fitzwilliam Museum being ground purchased from Peterhouse. The new Gisborne building (1825) is built on the west beyond the hall. The frontage of Peterhouse on Trumpington Street is unpromising; nothing suggests the charm of the buildings on the south side or the open country beyond, stored with historical memories. From the hall, a site unrivalled in the university, opens the panelled combination room,[105] the “Good Women” of Chaucer limned in one of its bays, recalling

The chambres and parlers of a sorte
With bay windowes

described by the poet’s contemporary.

Above the xvi century library (of which Balsham’s own books were the nucleus, enriched by Whittlesey, Bottlesham, Arundel, Warkworth, Gray, Perne, and Cosin)[106] a charming corner room in the students’ quarters has been set apart by the present Master for evening study, a veritable _solarium_ where the readers are surrounded by the portraits of the great sons of Peterhouse.

[Sidenote: The chapel A.D. 1628.]

Old S. Peter’s church was perhaps burnt down in 1338-1340 by a fire which is supposed to have also destroyed the chapel of S. Edmund. On its site rose the present church of Little S. Mary.[107] But in the early xvii century a movement was set afoot at Peterhouse which resulted in the erection of a college chapel. It now stands in the midst of the college buildings, and one of the two ancient hostels, “the little ostle,” was demolished to provide a site. Matthew Wren, uncle of Sir Christopher and then Master of the college, afterwards Bishop of Ely, was the builder. The desire of the fellows of Peterhouse for a chapel of their own coincided with the movement in the English Church for an elaborate ritual. As it stands it is a perfect specimen of a xvii century chapel, with its dark oak stalls, and its east window spared from Commonwealth marauders by the expedient of removing the glass piece by piece and hiding it till the

The entrance to the chapel faces the spectator. On the right is seen the Combination Room (1460) and the Hall. Through the Cloisters we get a view into the street. This is the oldest college in Cambridge.]

iconoclastic fever had spent itself. But still we have only the shell of the original chapel, the roof of which was adorned with figures of a hundred and fifty angels the statue of S. Peter presiding from the west. Nine years later all this was pulled down by the Commonwealth men and the ritualist movement it embodied came to an end.[108]

[Sidenote: Hall portraits.]

Peterhouse hall, in common with the halls of all other colleges, contains the portraits of its great men: here, however, they look down upon us not only from the wall above the high table but from the stained glass of the windows. Holbroke Master of the college, chancellor of the university during the Barnwell process, and an early student of science; Cardinal Beaufort scholar of the house who represented Henry V. at the Council of Constance, and was himself, perhaps, _papabile_; Warkworth writing his Lancastrian Chronicle--are in their doctor’s scarlet: here also are Whitgift, Cosin, and Crashaw, who is depicted as a canon of Loreto; the poet Gray, the third duke of Grafton chancellor of the university and Prime Minister, and Henry Cavendish the physicist. The panel portraits were removed here from the Stone parlour. The painting of Bishop Law by Romney (?) reminds us that many of the Laws were at Peterhouse, including the first Lord Ellenborough. Over the high table is Lord Kelvin the latest famous son of the house. Among these must also be noted Thomas Heywood “a prose Shakspeare,” Hutchinson “the regicide” one of the first Puritan gentlemen and one of the best, Peter Baro, Markland the classical critic, and Sherlock who measured himself against Bossuet.

Peterhouse owes nothing to royal endowments but it has not lived outside the stir of national movements either political or religious. There were fervent Lancastrians within its walls in the xv century, fervent partisans of the Stuarts in the xviith. It was, second to none in England, the anti-Puritan college, numbering among its masters Wren and Cosin, and that Doctor Andrew Perne who was among its most munificent benefactors.[109] Perne was a Petrean first and a theologian afterwards, and, as vice-chancellor, was to be found burning the remains of Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius[110] in order to ingratiate the university with Mary, and signing the Thirty-nine Articles on the accession of Elizabeth. The letters AP AP on the weather cock of his college are said to mean: Andrew Perne, “a Papist” or “a Protestant,” as you will; and in Cantabrigian language a coat that has been turned is a coat that has been _perned_, and _pernare_ signifies to change your opinions with frequency.

Since the xvii century Peterhouse has been connected with no great movements. In the xv century and again in the early xixth it produced eminent physical and mathematical students; and in the xviii century Sir William Browne, President of the College of Physicians, learnt here his science. Scotchmen have a predilection for the college; and a nucleus of history men is being formed under the present Master’s guidance.

[Sidenote: Little S. Mary’s.]

The patronage of the historical church which was for three or four centuries the chapel of Peterhouse remains in the hands of the college. It is indeed an integral part of Peterhouse for every Petrean. But its interest does not end here; it reaches across the Atlantic and binds the new continent to the home-hearth of learning in England. A monument in the chapel to Godfrey Washington who died in 1729 bears the arms _argent two bars gules, in chief three estoiles_--the origin of the Stars and Stripes. The Washington crest is an eagle issuant from a crown--affirming sovereignty or escaping from a monarchy?[111]

[Sidenote: Cherry Hinton.]

The Rectory of Cherry Hinton two and a half miles south-east of Cambridge, on the way to the village of Balsham, is no less important in the history of the Ely scholars. In the xiv century the endowment of the college was not sufficient for their maintenance all the year round: the college nevertheless had made rapid progress since its separate existence at Peterhouse began, and Fordham Bishop of Ely (1388-1426) decided to confirm to them the greater tithes of Cherry Hinton of which the college is to this day rector; but which had indeed been first assigned them by Bishop Simon Langham as early as 1362.[112]

A visit to this interesting church completes our picture of the college which “his affection for learning and the state of the poor scholars who were much put to it for conveniency of lodging” persuaded Balsham to endow.

[Sidenote: Peterhouse lodge.]

The lodge of Peterhouse is on the opposite side of Trumpington Street, and is the only example of a lodge outside the college precincts in the university. The house belonged to Charles Beaumont, nephew of the metaphysical poet Joseph Beaumont who was Master of Peterhouse, and was bequeathed by him for the college lodge in 1727.

Peterhouse has always been one of the small colleges. Balsham founded it for a master, 14 fellows, and a few Bible clerks.[113] In the time of Charles I. (1634) it maintained 19 fellows, 29 Bible clerks, and 8 scholars, making with the college officers and other students a total of 106. Sixty years earlier, when Caius wrote, there were 96 inmates, and in the middle of the xviii century, 90. To-day there are 11 fellowships, and 23 scholarships varying from £20 to £80 a year in value.

On the right is the Combination Room (1460), while farther back in the picture is the Hall, a continuation of this range of most ancient and picturesque buildings.]

The bishops of Ely have never ceased to be the visitors of the college.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Michaelhouse.]

Nearly forty years elapsed before a second college was projected. On September 27 1324 Hervey de Stanton, who like other founders in both universities--like Merton, Alcock, Wykeham, and Wolsey--was a notable pluralist,[114] opened Michaelhouse on the present site of Trinity. His purchases for the site had been made in 1323-4, and as was the case with the foundations preceding and succeeding it, Michaelhouse was an adaptation of edifices already existing. It remained one of the principal collegiate buildings until the xvi century and was successively enlarged by absorbing both Crouched and Gregory’s as students’ hostels.

[Sidenote: _Domus aula collegium._]

As Peterhouse was called “the House-of-Scholars of S. Peter,” so was Michaelhouse called “the House-of-Scholars of S. Michael.” It will be seen that _domus_ and _aula_ were the earliest appellations. As _hospitia_ or _diversoria literarum_ signified the unendowed house, so _domus_ or _aula scholarium_ signified the endowed house. Such compound titles as “house of S. Peter or hall-of-scholars of the Bishop of Ely” precede, as they explain, the later title _college_. A college denotes not a dwelling but a community: precisely the same distinction is to be drawn between _domus_ and _collegium_ as between _monasterium_ and _conventus_. Every university _domus_ was intended for a college of scholars, as every religious house was intended for a convent of religious; the transition was easy, though not logical, from “college of the hall of Valense-Marie” to Valence-Marie College, and to-day the word is used indiscriminately to mean both the building and the community.[115]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Clare Hall 1326-1338.]

Clare Hall was erected on the site of University Hall, a house for scholars founded during the chancellorship of Richard de Badew who obtained the king’s licence for it on February 20 1326, when he was lodged at Barnwell.[116] In the next reign (1344, 18th of Edward III.) it is referred to as “the hospice belonging to Cambridge university.” This hall, like Peterhouse, originated in two hostels purchased for the university in the street running parallel to the High Street, from the present site of Queen’s to the back gate of Trinity.[117] Twelve years later Elizabeth de Burgh[118] sister and co-heiress of

Gilbert Earl of Clare founded her college and in 1340 she obtained possession of University Hall,[119] and decreed in 1359 that it should thenceforth be known as the “House of Clare.”[120]

The scheme of building of Clare Hall was quadrangular; but no college was longer in the building. A hall, combination room, and Master’s room were on the west, while the chapel at the north-east angle was not built till 1535.[121] The scholars had till then kept their prayers in the parish church of S. Zachary and in the south chancel aisle of S. Edward’s. The present chapel was not begun till 1764. As we see it now Clare is a homogeneous piece of work of the time of Charles I., and in its classical beauty is one of the finest in Cambridge. This complete rebuilding occupied twenty-six years--from 1635 to 1661. There is no record of the architect, though an unsupported tradition points to Inigo Jones.

When one pictures Clare Hall it is to recall “the Backs,” the characteristic feature of Cambridge scenery which rivals the beauty of “the gardens” in the sister university. The grounds of the succession of collegiate buildings fronting the ancient High Street, with sloping lawns, bowling green, and fellows’ garden, extend along the backs of the colleges beyond the narrow river over which each college throws its bridge, and beyond again runs the well known road and the college playgrounds.

Clare is supposed to have been the “Soler hall” of Chaucer’s Tale.[122] It has enjoyed the reputation of a fashionable college, and indeed of a “sporting college.” It no doubt enjoyed the former reputation from the first, as a foundation under the patronage of the great house of Clare, and furnished some of the overdressed dandies who flocked to Cambridge in Chaucer’s time, as well as his “pore” Yorkshire “scolers” or others like them. Ralph Cudworth was Master of the college; Tillotson Archbishop of Canterbury, the martyr bishop Latimer, and Whiston the successor of Newton were its fellows; and Nicholas Heath primate of York, Sir George Downing, Cole the antiquary, Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first Marquis Cornwallis, Brodrick Archbishop of Cashel, and Whitehead the laureate were its _alumni_. It was founded for 20 fellows or scholars, 6 of whom were to be in priests’ orders. In 1634 there were 15 fellows and 32 scholars, in all 106 inmates. In the time of Caius there had been 129, and in the middle of the xviii century there were about 100. There are

King’s College Chapel is seen through the trees.]

now 18 fellowships and 31 scholarships ranging in value from £20 to £60.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: College statutes.]

The statutes of Clare Hall were written by the founder in 1359, a year before her death. The statutes of Peterhouse[123] and of Pembroke do not exist in their original form--and those of Hervey de Stanton for Michaelhouse and of Elizabeth de Burgh for Clare must be held to be the two types of Cambridge college statutes. Of these the latter rank as the most enlightened original code framed for a Cambridge college. Stanton’s contain little more than directions for the conduct of a clerical seminary, and this type was followed by the framers of the statutes of Corpus Christi and in their general intention by Gonville in statutes afterwards modified by Bateman. The statutes of King’s Hall framed for Richard II. reverted to the Merton type; Henry VI.’s statutes for King’s follow, as we shall see, the type already laid down by William of Wykeham, while Lady Margaret Countess of Richmond, and John Fisher Bishop of Rochester framed statutes which contain some original elements.

Elizabeth de Burgh’s originality consists in her realisation of the value of learning and of general knowledge for all kinds of men and for its own sake. “In every degree, whether ecclesiastical or temporal, skill in learning is of no mean advantage; which although sought for by many persons in many ways is to be found most fully in the university where a _studium generale_ is known to flourish.”[124] Thence it sends forth its “disciples,” “who have tasted its sweetness,” skilled and fitted, to fill their place in the world. She wishes to promote, with the advancement of religious worship and the welfare of the state, “the extension of these sciences”; her object being that “the pearl of knowledge” “once discovered and acquired by study and learning” “should not lie hid,” but be diffused more and more widely, and when so diffused give light to them that walk in the darkness of the shadow of ignorance.[125]

The statutes of Marie Valence were written twelve years earlier and even in the form in which they have come down to us have a character of their own and conform to none of the three types of Merton, Michaelhouse, or Clare.[126]

Merton’s statutes were issued in 1264, 1270, and 1274, and the 1274 statutes exist in the university library in a register of the Bishops of Lincoln. Mr. J. Bass Mullinger has printed Hervey de Stanton’s in Appendix D. to his “History of the University of Cambridge”; they are contained in the Michaelhouse book in the muniment room of Trinity.

* * * * *

For King’s Hall, founded in 1337, see page 131.

The notable features of this interior are the plaster ceiling and the large oak figures over the fireplace, the latter designed by Sir M. Digby Wyatt 1870-72.]

[Sidenote: Pembroke College A.D. 1347.]

Pembroke Hall was founded in 1347 by Marie daughter of Guy de Chatillon comte de Saint-Paul and of Mary grand-daughter of Henry III. She was of the blood of that Walter de Chatillon who in the retreat from Damietta during the 7th crusade, held a village alone against successive assaults of the Saracen; and having drawn forth their missiles from his body after each sally, charged afresh to the cry of _Chatillon! Chevaliers!_--and the widow of Aymer de Valence Earl of Pembroke the inexorable enemy of Robert Bruce in Edward’s wars against the Scottish king. Pembroke stands opposite Peterhouse and several hostels were destroyed to make room for it. It was called by the founder the hall of Valencemarie, and in Latin documents _aula Pembrochiana_.

[Sidenote: Architectural scheme of a college.]

With Pembroke the first college foundation stone was laid in Cambridge. Here for the first time we have a homogeneous collegiate house and not a mere adaptation of pre-existing buildings, and may therefore enquire what was the architectural plan of a college. The principle of the quadrangle, although it underwent considerable architectural development, was recognised with the first attempt at college architecture.[127] The special collegiate buildings at first occupied one side of the court only. Here, facing the gateway, were to be found the hall with its buttery and kitchen, above the hall the Master’s lodging, with perhaps a garret bedroom above it--the _solarium_. The combination room attiguous to the hall makes its appearance in the next century, and at right angles or parallel to this main block stretch the students’ chambers and studies. A muniment room or treasury is over the gate; the library, occupying a third side,[128] and the chapel, come later; and last of all the architectural gateway is added.[129] Meadows and fields and the Master’s plot of ground are soon developed into the Master’s garden, the fellows’ garden, the bowling green, and tennis court. By the xv century the buildings round a courtyard easily assume the plan of the new domestic dwelling of that epoch, of which the type is Haddon Hall Derbyshire and, in Cambridge, Queens’ College: the college _domus_ of the xiv century becomes the quadrangular manor-house of the xvth and xvith. In such a scheme of public buildings only a few scholars could be lodged in the main court, and smaller quadrangles for their accommodation were therefore added. University Hostel formed one side of such a second court in Pembroke; Clare and Queens’ had also second courts, and their example was followed at Christ’s and S. John’s.

Here then we have a scheme of building which is neither monastic nor feudal. It may with propriety be called scholastic but it is also essentially domestic architecture. The college quadrangle as we see it evolved in Cambridge is the earliest attempt at devising a dwelling which should resemble neither the cloister nor the castle, should suggest neither enclosure nor self-defence--a scholastic dwelling. The college is the outcome of that moment in our history when feudalism had played its part and monasticism was losing its power; it represents what the rise of the universities themselves represents and its architectural interest is unique. No monastic terms are retained; the hall is not a refectory, the one constant monastic and canonical feature, the church, has no part at all in the scheme--the scholars were men not separated from their fellows and they used the parish church.

The first collegiate dwelling houses, like the English manor-house, consciously or unconsciously followed one of the oldest house-plans known to civilisation--the scheme of dwelling-rooms round a court was that of the Roman house. The _aula seu domus scholarium_ had moreover as its starting point--like the earliest _domus ecclesiae_--a hall in a house; the hall is the nucleus of the college.[130]

[Sidenote: The site of Pembroke.]

Marie de Saint-Paul, like her predecessor Elizabeth de Burgh, purchased university property for the site of her college. “University hostel” which stood here formed one side of the narrow quadrangle the building of which was at once begun, and a messuage of Hervey de Stanton’s formed the other. Within five years the complete area had been acquired, and it is probable that the south side was also partly built before the founder’s death in 1377. On the west were the hall and kitchen, on the east, abutting on the street, was the gate with students’ chambers on either side of it. With the hostel the founder bought an acre of meadowland which she converted into an orchard--“the orchard against Pembroke Hall” it is called in her lifetime. She also obtained permission from two of the Avignon popes--Innocent VI. and Urban V.--to erect a chapel and bell tower, and these were built, after the middle of the xiv century, at the north west corner of the closed quadrangle. This interesting site was used later as a library and is still a reference library and lecture room. Traces of fresco remain under the panelling, and the chaplain’s room with its hagioscope for the altar is on the east. The lower part of the bell tower also still exists.

In 1389 the college acquired Cosyn’s Place, and later Bolton’s, and in 1451 a perpetual lease of S. Thomas’s hostel. University hostel retained its name till the last quarter of the xvi century, and it was only pulled down in 1659 to make room for the Hitcham building which now forms the south side of the second court. There is nothing left of the xiv and xv century structures. The present lodge, hall, and library and the other new buildings in stone and red brick have all been erected since 1870. The chapel occupies part of the site of S. Thomas’s hostel, and was built by Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely and Master of

The Dining Hall is seen on the right of the picture.]

Peterhouse, at his own charges; the architect being his nephew Christopher Wren. The bishop had already built Peterhouse chapel and this new work was undertaken in fulfilment of his intention to make some pious offering if he were ever liberated from the Tower, where the Parliament kept him between the years 1642 and 1658. The fine combination room is panelled with the oak from the xvii century hall. The portrait of Marie de Saint-Paul presides in the present hall with that of Henry VI. flanked by busts of Pitt, Gray, and Stokes.

Two spiritual relationships were bequeathed by the founder to the college. One with the Franciscan friars, the other with the Minoresses of Denney. The former connexion ceased almost as soon as it was devised, for the existing edition of the statutes (made after the founder’s death) omits all mention of it.[131]

No college but Trinity outshines Pembroke for the fame of its scholars and none for the antiquity of its fame. Henry VI. in a charter granting lands speaks of it as “this eminent and most precious college, which is and ever hath been resplendent among all places in the university.”[132] The king so favoured it that it was called his “adopted daughter”; and when Elizabeth rode past it on her way to her lodging at King’s she saluted it with one of those happy phrases characteristic of the Tudors: “_O domus antiqua et religiosa!_” words which sum its significance in university history.

Pembroke is the _alma mater_ of Edmund Spenser,[133] of Gray,[134] of the younger Pitt,[135] of Thixtil, fellow in 1519, whose extraordinary erudition is praised by Caius, of Wharton the anatomist, Sydenham the xvii century physician, Gabriel Harvey the “Hobbinoll” of the _Shepherd’s Calendar_,[136] Sir George Stokes the mathematician, and Sir Henry Maine.[137] *Grindal and *Whitgift[138] of Canterbury, *Rotherham and *Booth of York, *Richard Fox Master of the college, Bishop of Winchester, and founder of Corpus Christi Oxford, the two Langtons Bishops of *S. David’s and Winchester, *Ridley the martyr Bishop of London, *Lancelot Andrewes Bishop of Ely, then of Winchester, with

This represents the First or Entrance Court of the College. Beyond the Cloisters is the Chapel designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1664.]

Felton and *Wren of Ely, are on its honour roll. The second Master was Robert Thorpe of Thorpe-next-Norwich, knighted by Edward III. and afterwards Lord Chancellor.[139] The old college garden, loved by Ridley, is much despoiled, but “Ridley’s walk” remains. Pembroke gave two other martyrs for their religious opinions, Rogers and Bradford.[140] Two fellows of the college[141] in the reign of Edward III. died in Rome where they had gone to obtain from Innocent VI. possession of part of the original endowment of the college; a statute prescribes that mass shall be said for them each July.

In the library are Gower’s _Confessio Amantis_ and the _Golden Legend_, printed by Caxton. It is this last book which brought him the promise of “a buck in summer and a doe in winter” from the Earl of Arundel, for its great length had made him “half desperate to have accomplished it.” There, too, is Gray’s MS. of the “Elegy.” The college also possesses Bishop Andrewes’ library. Matthew Wren is buried in the chapel, and his staff and mitre are preserved in the college, the latter being a solitary specimen of a post-reformation mitre; it was worn over a crimson silk cap.

The college was founded for 30 scholars, if the revenues permitted.[142] In the time of Caius it housed 87 members; in Fuller’s time 100 (including 20 fellows and 33 scholars); in the middle of the xviii century the number of students averaged 50 or 60. There are now 13 fellowships and 34 scholarships of the value of £20 to £80.

[Sidenote: Founders of Cambridge colleges.]

The Cambridge colleges are remarkable for the large proportion of them founded and endowed by women. Of the 16 colleges built between the xiii and xvi centuries, now in existence, 6 are due to the munificence of women--Clare, Pembroke, Queens’, Christ’s, S. John’s, and Sidney Sussex. Next as college builders come the chancellors of England, the bishops, and the kings who have each endowed the university with three colleges. Hervey de Stanton, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the reign of Edward II., Thomas Lord Audley chancellor to Henry VIII., and Sir Walter Mildmay Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth, all founded colleges, two of which still remain--Magdalene and Emmanuel.[143] Hugh Balsham of Ely, Bateman of Norwich, and Alcock of Ely founded three existing colleges--Peterhouse, Trinity Hall, and Jesus.[143a] The kings of England account for some of the finest work in the university, King’s Hall, King’s College, and Trinity College.[144]

[Sidenote: The early series of colleges.]

In the series of Cambridge colleges the 3 foundations of the early xiv century which followed Peterhouse were all merged in other colleges. Pembroke which was the sixth foundation was the first piece of collegiate building to be carried through in Cambridge, and Corpus Christi must rank as the second.

The colleges from Peterhouse to Pembroke:--

Peterhouse 1284
Michaelhouse 1324 (Gonville 1348 )
{University Hall 1326 (Trinity Hall 1350)
{Clare 1338
King’s Hall 1337 Corpus 1352
Pembroke Hall 1347

Michaelhouse and King’s Hall went to swell the greatness of Trinity; University Hall became the foundation stone of Clare: and all of them, with Gonville and Trinity Hall, were incomplete adaptations of earlier buildings at the time when Pembroke and Corpus were finished.

* * * * *

We now come to two colleges which formed an East Anglian corner in the university.

[Sidenote: Gonville Hall 1348.]

Within a month of the licence granted to Marie de Saint-Paul, Edmund Gonville obtained his for the erection of the hall which is called after him. Gonville was an East Anglian parson, rector of two Norfolk parishes and sometime vicar-general of the diocese of Ely. In one of these parishes his elder brother Sir Nicholas Gonville of Rushworth had already established a college of canons, and Edmund Gonville himself was a great favourer of the Dominicans. Edward III.’s licence enabled him to found a hall for 20 scholars in Lurteburgh (now Free school) Lane, between S. Benet’s and great S. Mary’s, in 1348. In 1352 this site was exchanged with Benet College for another on the other side of the High Street,[145] the present site of Gonville and Caius. The Hall was dedicated in honour of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and enjoyed a great reputation among East Anglians and various proofs of papal favour up to the eve of the Reformation.[146] Like Corpus its object was the education of the clergy and theology was to be their study. Alexander VI. (1492-1503) licensed annually two of its students to preach in any part of England, apparently a unique permission.[147] Humphrey de la Pole--who resided for many years--and his brother Edward, sons of the second Duke of Suffolk, were students here; so was Sir Thomas Gresham. Gonville was refounded as Gonville and Caius by Doctor Keys (Caius) two hundred years later.[148]

[Sidenote: Trinity Hall A.D. 1350.]

Edmund Gonville left William Bateman Bishop of Norwich his executor in the interests of his new foundation. Bateman, a notable

The nearer building seen in the picture is the old Library, and beyond it are the Latham Buildings.]

figure in the xiv century, set forth as Edward’s ambassador to the King of France in the month that the Black Death made its appearance in East Anglia (March 1350), and died at Avignon on an embassy from the king to the Pope. In 1350 on his return from France,[149] he founded Trinity Hall, near Gonville, on the site of the hostel of the monks of Ely[150] which he obtained for that purpose.[151]

If Gonville’s foundation was intended for the country parson, Bateman’s was intended for the _prete di carriera_. Both were designed to repair the ravages in the ranks of the clergy left by the plague, but while Gonville’s clerks were to devote their time to the study of theology Bateman’s were to study exclusively civil and canon law. The college was built round a quadrangle,[152] and the religious services were kept in the church of S. John the Baptist (or Zachary) and afterwards in the north aisle of S. Edward’s church; these two churches being shared with the students of Clare. Indeed it was owing to Gardiner’s policy and Ridley’s advice that Trinity Hall escaped incorporation with Clare College in the reign of Edward VI. The library remains as it was in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, and was founded by Bateman with the gift of his own collection. The Norfolk men were famous litigants. Doctor Jessopp has shown that neither the Black Death nor any lesser tragedy could hold them from an appeal to the law on every trivial pretext. That the first college of jurists should have been founded by a native of Norwich is certainly therefore a fitting circumstance.

Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England was Master of Trinity Hall in the reign of Edward VI. and again in the first year of Mary. He used to say “if all his palaces were blown down by iniquity, he would creep honestly into that shell”--the mastership of Trinity Hall. Other distinguished Masters were Haddon,[153] Master of the Requests to Elizabeth, and Sir Henry Maine who had been fellow and tutor. Bishop Sampson, a pupil of Erasmus, Thirlby, Glisson,[154] Bilney, one of the early reformers, Lord Chesterfield, Bulwer Lytton, and Leslie Stephen were all members of Trinity Hall, which is still the college of the larger number of Cambridge law students. There are 13 fellowships, and about 12 scholarships varying in value from £80 to £21 a year, besides exhibitions of the same value.

* * * * *

In the middle of the xiv century there were two important guilds in Cambridge, the one under the invocation of _Corpus Christi_ “keeping their prayers in S. Benet’s church,” the other dedicated to the

ST. BOTOLPH’S CHURCH AND CORPUS COLLEGE FROM THE STEPS OF THE PITT
PRESS, TRUMPINGTON STREET

King’s College is seen in the distance.]

Blessed Virgin “observing their offices in S. Mary’s church.” These guilds or confraternities--which existed all through the middle ages as they had existed in classical Rome with precisely similar features--were to be found, as we know, especially among the artisan class, and took the place of our modern trades unions and mutual insurance societies. Like every enterprise of the ages of faith they had a semi-religious character, were usually attached as its “sisters and brethren” to some church, and owed their members not only material assistance but spiritual, paying for masses to be offered for the repose of the souls of all deceased brethren.

[Sidenote: Corpus Christi A.D. 1352.]

It was two such guilds which forgetting their differences and laying aside all emulations, joined together in the middle of the xiv century in order to found and endow a college in their town. The brethren of the guilds had been planning this enterprise since 1342, and in the following years those who possessed contiguous tenements in the parishes of S. Benet and S. Botolph pulled them down “and with one accord set about the task of establishing a college there.”[155] “By this means _they cleared a site for their college square in form_.”[156] Here then, as in the case of King’s Hall and Pembroke, the earliest collegiate buildings designed as such, the plan was quadrangular. Sometimes, as in the case of Trinity Hall, the adjacent buildings for completing the court could not be at once obtained, in others, as at Corpus itself and Clare, the courts are irregular, owing to the same difficulty of getting the foursquare space. Corpus Christi college presents us, indeed, with the unique and perfect example in Cambridge of the ancient college court. By March 1352 a clear space, 220 feet long by 140 wide, had been cleared, and the guilds worked with so much good will that they had nearly finished the exterior wall of their college in the same year. “The building of the college as it appears at the present day,” writes John Jocelyn, “with walls of enclosure, chambers arranged about a quadrangle, hall, kitchen, and Master’s habitation, was fully finished in the days of Thomas Eltisley, the first Master [1352-1376] and of his successor” [1376-1377]. This original court is what we see also to-day: the buildings are in two floors, the garrets were added later. The hall range contains the Master’s lodging with a _solarium_ above it, a door and passage leading thence to the hall. The three other sides were devoted to scholars’ chambers. S. Benet’s served as the scholars’ church, and the gate was on this side of the court.

Before the reign of Henry VIII. there was but little glass or panelling in either story of the building. But in Jocelyn’s time the Master’s and fellows’ rooms were “skilfully decorated” with both. The fellows and scholars together panelled, paved, decorated, plastered, and glazed the public rooms of the college, in one case

This is the oldest court in Cambridge. The Tower of the old Saxon Church of St. Benedict is seen in the background.]

“the college paying for the material and the scholars for the labour.” Thus was this college born of the democratic spirit and the sentiment of union nurtured in the same spirit. The college was called “of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin” but was familiarly known from the close of the xiv century to modern times as Benet College. It lay in the heart of the Saxon town, between the Saxon church of S. Benet and the church of the Saxon Botolph which also served the scholars for their prayers. The former was used until the year 1500, when a small chapel communicating with the south chancel of the church was built. In 1579 Sir Nicholas Bacon gave the college a chapel; and the modern chapel is on its site. Sir Francis Drake was the largest contributor next to Bacon. The queen gave timber, and the scholars of the college again toiled side by side with the workmen.

On March 21, 1353 the guilds made over to their college Gonville’s house in Lurteburgh Lane which they had exchanged with his executor Bateman. More ground was purchased facing the street and in time two large neighbouring hostels S. Mary’s and S. Bernard’s were acquired for students. The second court has all been built since 1823, and contains the modern hall, lodge, library and chapel, and muniment room, and the Lewes collection. The ancient hall serves as the present kitchen.

In the Library is one of the most valuable collections of MSS. in the country, the spoils of the dissolved monasteries gathered together by Archbishop Parker. Here is the oldest or “Winchester” Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (to A.D. 892), and Jerome’s version of the four gospels sent by Gregory to Augustin--“the most interesting MS. in England.” Here is the splendid Peterborough psalter and “bestiary”; a _penitentiale_ of Archbishop Egbert’s (A-S. translation); a Pontifical, probably written before 1407; a xv century MS. Homer rescued by Parker from the whilom baker of S. Augustine’s Abbey; Matthew Paris’ own copy of his history; the Sarum missal of 1506, and a copy of the great English bible of 1568. Here also is the first draft (1562) of the Articles of Religion, 42 in number, scored over by Matthew Parker’s red chalk; the 3 articles which were finally omitted (dealing with the state of the departed, the last containing the statement “That all shall not be saved”) are here struck out by Parker. The clause concerning the transubstantiation of the eucharist he has similarly overscored.

Corpus also houses some of the most interesting plate in the university.

[Sidenote: Candle rents.

Corpus Christi procession.

College arms.]

The college was the chief sufferer in the peasant revolt of 1381 principally on account of the wealth which accrued to it from “candle rents,” a tax chargeable on the tenants of all houses which had been guild property.[157] On the festival of Corpus Christi--the

Its Saxon tower is the oldest building left in Cambridge, and close by is the oldest piece of College building, the wall of Corpus Christi.]

Thursday in the Octave of Trinity--a great procession which included the officers of the united guild, the civic dignitaries, and the university authorities, perambulated the town from Benet Church to the bridge, the Master bearing the pyx under a rich canopy. Even after the dissolution of the guild the Master of Corpus continued the procession until it was abolished by Henry VIII. in the 27th year of his reign (1535/6). The ancient arms of the college consisted of the shields of the two guilds--the emblems of the Passion for Corpus Christi; the triangle symbol of the Trinity for the guild of the Blessed Virgin, above, Christ crowning the Madonna and below, the guilds dedicating their college. Exception was taken to them in Parker’s time as too papistical, and he got the heralds to change them. The new arms still however recorded the two guilds: quarterly, gules and azure, in the first and fourth a pelican, with her young, vulning herself; in the second and third three lilies proper

_Signat avis Christum, qui sanguine pascit alumnos;_
_Lilia, virgo parens, intemerata refert._

Among its great names Corpus counts Sir Nicholas Bacon the father of Francis Lord Bacon, Matthew Parker who was Master of the college and its great benefactor in later times, Christopher Marlowe and Fletcher, Archbishop Tenison, Sir William Paston and a group of xvii century antiquaries, and Boyle ‘the great earl’ of Cork. Roger Manners was a considerable benefactor. In the time of Henry VII. Elizabeth Duchess of Norfolk founded a bible clerkship and a fellowship, and placed the buttresses of the college.[158]

The college soon maintained 8 fellows, 6 scholars, and 3 bible clerks. All the inmates were destined by the founders for priests’ orders, this being one of the four foundations in Cambridge due in whole or in part to the dearth of clerks consequent on the black death.[159] In the time of Caius Corpus held 93 persons and in Fuller’s time 126. In the xviii century about 60. There are to-day 12 fellowships, about 15 scholarships varying from £80 to £30 in value, 3 sizarships worth £25 each, and 6 exhibitions for students from S. Paul’s school, Canterbury, and the Norwich Grammar school varying from £18 to double this sum.[160]

* * * * *

The building of Corpus Christi marks an historical and closes an architectural epoch at Cambridge. The university had indeed two golden ages--the reign of Edward III. and the reign of the Tudors. It has not been sufficiently realised that Cambridge had no European rival in scholastic activity in either period. In Edward’s reign six colleges were built there--King’s Hall, Clare, Pembroke, Gonville, Trinity Hall, and Corpus; only one college--Queens’--was founded at Oxford during the same time. Three of these six foundations signalise local enterprise, but the three earlier are a record of the affection of Edward’s house for the university; and it is their preference for Cambridge in the xiv century and the preference of the Tudors for it in the xvth and xvith which marks its two great epochs.

[Sidenote: Cambridge in 1353.]

Let us look at the university as it was in the middle of the xiv century, and let it be the year 1353. It is 250 years since Henry I. began to reign; 150 before Erasmus lived here, and 550 before our own time. It is the eve of that great change in the mental and moral _venue_ of humanity which ushered in the modern world. The Oxford friar Occam, and with him scholasticism, had died four years before, Petrarch was mourning Laura, and Chaucer was walking the streets of Cambridge the man who was to be our link with the early Italian renascence and to clasp hands across the century with Erasmus. Lastly, it was at this moment in our history that the final adjustment of Norman and Saxon elements went hand in hand with the creation of an English language--a period of which Chaucer is our national representative. The town and university were just emerging from the havoc wrought by the “black death,” but the royal and noble foundations which had sprung up on all sides before the appearance of the scourge had already attracted the youth round Edward’s court to Cambridge; necessitating in 1342 Archbishop Stratford’s injunction against the curls and rings of the young coxcombs studying there.

Cambridge had in fact the reputation of the fashionable university, while its fame is extolled by Lydgate--a younger contemporary of Chaucer who had himself studied at Oxford--in words which show that at this date it was believed also to be the older university.[161] Let us suppose that Chaucer is returning from his first walk to Grantchester, along the Trumpington road, past the scene he describes in the _Reeve’s Tale_, and let us follow him up the Saxon High street. He skirts Coe fen and reaches Peterhouse, its greater and its “little ostle” on the street, with Balsham’s hall behind; and as he proceeds he sees on either hand conspicuous signs of the love of the Edwards for Cambridge--to the right the narrow quadrangle of Pembroke, beyond it, off the high road, past S. Botolph’s and two hostels, lay the limestone walls of Corpus which had just passed under the protection of Henry of Lancaster;[162] its old court, then the newest of new courts at Cambridge, nestling against the Saxon church of S. Benet. Behind lay the Austinfriars, and across the road the Whitefriars from which Austin’s Lane led to Austin’s hostel, occupying with Mill street the site of the future King’s College and King’s College chapel. To the north of S. Benet’s he sees the university church of Great S. Mary’s, just rebuilt after the fire, and opposite are the schools begun a few years previously, with University, Clare, and Trinity Halls behind, and “le Stone house” of Gonville. Then still to his left, where now we see the buildings of Trinity, he beholds the “gret colledge” King’s Hall which Edward III. has just built, Michaelhouse with Crouched hostel which passed into its possession in the February of this year, and its satellite hostels Ovyng’s and Garret’s.

Just beyond King’s Hall is the building which forms the nucleus of the university in the Norman town--the hospital of S. John, bordering on Bridge street. As soon as this road is reached, which leads to the Great Bridge, we see the crusaders’ round church of S. Sepulchre, and following the road to the right we come to the Greyfriars, to the site of the future God’s House, and past Preachers’ street to the Friars Preachers or Blackfriars. On our left, across in the Greencroft, we have left the Benedictine nunnery of S. Rhadegund. Returning past S. Sepulchre’s we cross the river and come to the heart of the Norman town--the Conqueror’s castle with the Norman manor house bought by Merton in its shadow, and the churches of S. Giles and S. Peter.

Many of the hostels had recently disappeared to make room for the colleges, but they were still as regards these latter nearly in the proportion of three to one--and these latter, with the sole exception of Peterhouse, had all arisen in the previous thirty years.

The sights and sounds in the streets suggested a new epoch--something already achieved and something about to be achieved. Something of stir before an awakening. The English language which was to prove in the hands of its masters one of the finest vehicles of literary expression began everywhere to be heard in place of the French of Norfolk and Stratford-atte-Bowe. The softer southern speech prevailed over

The Gateway and Screen on the left hand, and beyond it the Chapel. In the distance the Senate House, Caius College, and the Tower of St. John’s College Chapel.]

the northern, but the dialects of East Anglia and the Ridings of Yorks were perhaps most frequently heard. The canons of S. John and S. Giles, from the Norman side of the town, might be met in their black cloaks, the Gilbertine canons, from the Saxon side, all in white with the homely sheepskin cape. The Carmelites had already exchanged their striped brown and white cloak--representing Elijah’s mantle singed with fire as it fell from the fiery chariot--for the white cloak to which they owe their name of Whitefriars. The Romites of S. Austin wore a hermit’s dress.[163] Benedictine monks from Ely and Norwich could certainly be seen in the streets of Cambridge,[164] and the Benedictine nuns of S. Rhadegund rode and walked abroad in the black habit as it was the universal custom in that great order for nuns to do. The Dominicans looked like canons in their black _cappa_, the Franciscans like peasants in their coarse grey tunic roughly tied with cord.