Chapter V: The Mediæval Student (3)

Complaints of murder, violence and robbery were lodged straightway with the King by both parties. The townsmen claimed three thousand pounds' damage. The commissioners, however, appointed to decide the matter, condemned them to pay two hundred marks, removed the bailiffs, and banished twelve of the most turbulent citizens from Oxford. Then the terms of peace were formally ratified.

Following the example of their Chancellor, who was gradually asserting his authority more and more in secular matters, and thought little of excommunicating a mayor for removing a pillory without his leave (1325), the clerks became continually more aggressive. Quarrels with the townsmen were succeeded by quarrels with the Bishop of Lincoln, when the latter, in his turn, tried to encroach upon the jurisdiction of the Chancellor. Peace, perfect peace, it will be seen, had not yet descended upon the University. The triumph of Dulness had not arrived, when the enraptured monarch should behold:

"Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport,
And Alma Mater lie dissolved in port."

Certainly the elders gave their pupils sport enough after their kind, but the intellectual quarrels of the schoolmen, the furious controversies of the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Scotists and the Thomists, the Nominalists and the Realists, were a part of it. When the excitement of local riots, theological disputes and political dissension failed, there were the exactions of a Papal representative to be resisted. And when such resistance led to the citation of the Chancellor and Proctors and certain masters to appear within sixty days before the Cardinal appointed by the Pope to hear the case at Avignon, there was the whole principle that no Englishman should be dragged across the seas to judgment to be fought for (_circa_ 1330). For every man was a politician in those days, and the scholars of Oxford not least. Their quarrels and riotings were therefore not without political significance. Thus when the Mad Parliament met in the "new house of the Black Friars at Oxford," the behaviour of the barons was reflected by that of students. The "nations" pitched their field in "Beaumont," and after a fierce fight in battle array, divers on both sides were slain and pitifully wounded. The Northerners and Welshmen were at last acknowledged to be conquerors.

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

"Mark the Chronicles aright
When Oxford scholars fall to fight
Before many months expired
England will with war be fired."

It was Oxford, the centre of English ecclesiasticism, which, by the riot that hounded the Papal Legate out of the city, gave the signal for a widespread outbreak of resistance to the wholesale pillage of excessive Papal taxation.

Regardless of the gathering storm, the Legate Cardinal Otho had arrived at Oxford with his retinue of Italians, and taken up his abode at Osney.

Some members of the University, having sent him some delicacies for his table, went to pay their respects in person, and to ask of him a favour in return. The doorkeeper, however, a suspicious Italian, absolutely refused to admit them to the guests' hall. Irritated by this unexpected rebuff, they collected a great number of their comrades, and made a determined attack on the foreigners, who defended themselves with sticks, swords and flaming brands plucked from the fire. The fury of the clerks reached its height when the Legate's chief cook took up a cauldron full of boiling broth, and threw its contents in the face of a poor Irish chaplain, who had been begging for food at the kitchen door. A student thereupon drew his bow, and shot the cook dead on the spot, whilst others tried to set fire to the massive gates which had been closed against them. The terrified Legate, hastily putting on a canonical cope, fled for refuge to the belfry of the abbey, and there lay hid for several hours, while the clerks assailed the building with bows and catapults.

News of the fray soon reached Henry III., who happened to be staying at Abingdon, and he lost no time in despatching some soldiers to the rescue. Under their powerful escort the Legate managed to ford the river by night, accompanied by the members of his suite. Still as he galloped away, he seemed to hear the shouts of his adversaries ringing in his ears, "Where is that usurer, that simoniac, that spoiler of revenues, and thirster after money, who perverts the King, overthrows the realm, and enriches strangers with plunder taken from us?"

It was not long before the Papal Legate was forbidden the English shores, and his bulls of excommunication were flung into the sea.

Simon de Montfort was the friend of Adam Marsh, and the confidant of Grossetete, and it was appropriately enough at Oxford that the great champion of English freedom secured the appointment of a council of twenty-four to draw up terms for the reform of the State. Parliament met at Oxford; the barons presented a long petition of grievances, the council was elected, and a body of preliminary articles known as the Provisions of Oxford was agreed upon. In the following year Henry repudiated the Provisions; civil war ensued, and ended by placing the country in the hands of Simon de Montfort.

The struggle between Henry and the barons then did not leave Oxford unaffected. For any disturbance without was sure to be reflected in a conflict between clerks and laymen, in a town and gown row, of some magnitude. In the present case the appearance of Prince Edward with an armed force--he took up his quarters at the King's Hall--in the northern suburb gave occasion for an outbreak. The municipal authorities closed the gates against him, and he resumed his march towards Wales.

The scholars now thought it was time that they should be allowed to go out of the city, and finding themselves prevented by the closed wooden doors of Smith Gate, they hewed these down and carried them away, like Samson, into the fields, chanting over them the office of the dead:

"A Subvenite Sancti fast began to sing
As man doth when a dead man men will to pit bring."

The mayor retorted by throwing some of them into prison, in spite of the Chancellor's protest. Further arrests were about to be made by the irate townsmen, but a clerk saw them advancing in a body down the High Street, and gave the alarm by ringing the bell of S. Mary's. The clerks were at dinner, but hearing the well-known summons they sprang to arms and rushed out into the street to give battle. Many of the foe were wounded; the rest were put to flight. Their banners were torn to pieces, and several shops were sacked by the victorious students, who, flushed with victory, marched to the houses of the bailiffs and set them on fire.

"In the South half of the town, and afterwards the Spicery
They brake from end to other, and did all to robberie."

The mayor, they then remembered, was a vintner. Accordingly a rush was made for the vintnery; all the taps were drawn, and the wine flowed out like water into the streets.

Their success for a moment was complete, but retribution awaited them. The King was appealed to, and refused to countenance so uproarious a vindication of their rights. When they saw how the wind blew, they determined to leave Oxford. It was a question whither they should go and where pitch their scholastic tents. Now it happened that at Cambridge, a town which had ceased to be famous only for eels and could boast a flourishing University of its own, similar disturbances had recently occurred with similar results. Many masters and scholars had removed to Northampton, and to Northampton accordingly, to aid them in their avowed intention of founding a third University, the disconsolate Oxford scholars departed. The situation was evidently serious. But the King induced the Oxonians to return by promising that they should not be molested if they would only keep the peace.

They returned, but almost immediately all scholars were commanded by a writ from the King to quit the town and stay at home until he should recall them after the session of Parliament then about to be held at Oxford. The King, it was officially explained, could not be responsible for the conduct of the fierce and untamed lords who would be assembled together there and would be sure to come into conflict with the students. Perhaps the more urgent motive was fear lest the students should openly and actively side with the barons, with whom, it was known, the majority of them were in sympathy.

The fact was that in the great struggle against the Crown in which England was now involved, the clergy and the Universities ranged themselves with the towns on the side of Simon de Montfort. Ejected from Oxford, many of the students openly joined his cause and repaired at once to Northampton.

For a time all went well with the King. As if to demonstrate his faith in the justice of his cause, he braved popular superstition and passing within the walls of Oxford paid his devotions at the shrine of S. Frideswide. The meeting of Parliament failed to bring about any reconciliation. Reinforced by a detachment of Scottish allies--"untamed and fierce" enough, no doubt--Henry left Oxford and marched on Northampton. Foremost in its defence was a band of Oxford students, who so enraged the King by the effective use they made of their bows and slings and catapults, that he swore to hang them all when he had taken the town. Take the town he did, and he would have kept his oath had he not been deterred by the reminder that he would by such an act lose the support of all those nobles and followers whose sons and kinsmen were students. But the victorious career of the King was almost at an end. The vengeance of S. Frideswide was wrought at the battle of Lewes. Simon de Montfort found himself head of the State, and one of his first acts was to order the scholars to return to their University.

Such keen, occasionally violent, interest in politics seems, in these days, characteristic of the German or Russian rather than the English University student. Nowadays the political enthusiasm of the undergraduate is mild, and his discussion of politics is academic. In the debating hall of the Union, or in the more retired meeting-places of the smaller political clubs, like the Canning, the Chatham, the Palmerston or the Russell, he discusses the questions of the day. But his discussions lack as a rule the sense of reality, and they suffer accordingly. Occasionally, when a Cabinet Minister has been persuaded to dine and talk with one or other of these clubs, or when the speaker is one who is deliberately practising for the part he means to take in after-life, the debates are neither uninteresting nor entirely valueless. And at the worst they give those who take part in them a facility of speech and some knowledge of political questions. But it is not so that the University exercises any influence on current events. Nor, except in so far as they warn practical men to vote the other way, are those

occasional manifestoes, which a few professors sign and publish, of any great importance. But it is through the press and through Parliament that the voice of young Oxford is heard. It is through the minds and the examples of those statesmen and administrators, who have imbibed their principles of life and action within her precincts, and have been trained in her schools and on her river or playing-fields, that the influence of the University is reflected on the outer world. Nor is it only the men like Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery and Mr Gladstone, who guide the country at home, or like Lord Milner and Lord Curzon, who give their best work to Greater Britain, that are the true sons of the University; it is the plain, hard-working clergymen and civilians, also, who, by their lives of honest and unselfish toil, hand on the torch of good conduct and high ideals which has been entrusted to them.

Oxford had some share in the events which led to the deposition of Edward II. The King wrote to the Chancellor, masters and scholars calling upon them to resist his enemies. On the approach of Roger de Mortimer, a supporter of the Queen, he wrote again enjoining them not to allow him to enter the city, but to keep Smith Gate shut, lest he should enter by that way. But when the King was a refugee in Wales, the Queen came to Islip. She would not come to Oxford till "she saw it secure." But when the burghers came to her with presents she was satisfied. She took up her residence at the White Friars, and the Mortimers theirs at Osney. And a sermon was preached by the Bishop of Hereford, who demonstrated from his text, "My head grieveth me," that an evil head, meaning the King, not otherwise to be cured, must be taken away. The majority of scholars apparently agreed with him.

The terrible scourge of the Black Death, which carried off half the population of England, fell hardly on Oxford. Those who had places in the country fled to them; those who remained behind were almost totally swept away. The schools were shut, the colleges and halls closed, and there were scarcely men enough to bury the dead. The effect upon learning was disastrous. There were not enough students forthcoming to fill the benefices, and the scarcity of students affected the citizens severely.

The disorder of the time, which was to issue in Wat Tyler's Rebellion, was shadowed forth at Oxford by the extraordinary riot of S. Scholastica's Day (1355). The story of this riot, which was to bear fruit in further privileges being vouchsafed to the University at the expense of the town, has been recorded with infinite spirit by Wood.

"On Tuesday, February 10, being the feast of S. Scholastica the
Virgin, came Walter de Springheuse, Roger de Chesterfield, and
other clerks to the Tavern called Swyndlestock (the Mermaid Tavern
at Quatervoix), and there calling for wine, John de Croydon, the
vintner, brought them some, but they disliking it, as it should
seem, and he avouching it to be good, several snappish words passed
between them. At length the vintner giving them stubborn and saucy
language, they threw the wine and vessel at his head. The vintner
therefore receding with great passion, and aggravating the abuse to
those of his family and neighbourhood, several came in, who out of
propensed malice seeking all occasions of conflict with the
scholars, and taking this abuse for a ground to proceed upon,
caused the town bell at S. Martin's to be rung, that the commonalty
might be summoned together in a body. Which being begun, they in an
instant were in arms, some with bows and arrows, others with divers
sorts of weapons. And then they, without any more ado, did in a
furious and hostile manner suddenly set upon divers scholars, who
at that time had not any offensive arms, no, not so much as
anything to defend themselves. They shot also at the Chancellor of
the University, and would have killed him, though he endeavoured to
pacify them and appease the tumult. Further, also, though the
scholars at the command of the Chancellor did presently withdraw
themselves from the fray, yet the townsmen thereupon did more
fiercely pursue him and the scholars, and would by no means desist
from the conflict. The Chancellor, perceiving what great danger
they were in, caused the University bell at S. Mary's to be rung
out, whereupon the scholars got bows and arrows, and maintained the
fight with the townsmen till dark night, at which time the fray
ceased, no one scholar or townsman being killed, or mortally
wounded, or maimed.

"On the next day albeit the Chancellor of the University caused
public proclamation to be made in the morning both at S. Mary's
church in the presence of the scholars there assembled in a great
multitude, and also at Quatervois among the townsmen, that no
scholar or townsman should wear or bear any offensive weapons, or
assault any man, or otherwise disturb the peace (upon which the
scholars, in humble obedience to that proclamation, repaired to the
Schools, and demeaned themselves peaceably till after dinner) yet
the very same morning the townsmen came with their bows and arrows,
and drove away a certain Master in Divinity and his auditors, who
were then determining in the Augustine Schools. The Baillives of
the town also had given particular warning to every townsman, at
his respective house, in the morning, that they should make
themselves ready to fight with the scholars against the time when
the town bell should ring out, and also given notice before to the
country round about, and had hired people to come in and assist the
townsmen in their intended conflict with the scholars. In dinner
time the townsmen subtily and secretly sent about fourscore men
armed with bows and arrows, and other manner of weapons into the
parish of S. Giles in the north suburb; who, after a little
expectation, having discovered certain scholars walking after
dinner in Beaumont, issued out of S. Giles's church, shooting at
the same scholars for the space of three furlongs: some of them
they drove into the Augustine Priory, and others into the town. One
scholar they killed without the walls, some they wounded mortally,
others grievously, and used the rest basely. All which being done
without any mercy, caused an horrible outcry in the town: whereupon
the town bell being rung out first, and after that the University
bell, divers scholars issued out armed with bows and arrows in
their own defence and of their companions, and having first shut
and blocked up some of the gates of the town (lest the country
people, who were then gathered in innumerable multitudes, might
suddenly break in upon their rear in an hostile manner and assist
the townsmen who were now ready prepared in battle array, and armed
with their targets also) they fought with them and defended
themselves till after Vesper tide; a little after which time,
entered into the town by the west gate about two thousand
countrymen, with a black dismal flag, erect and displayed. Of which
the scholars having notice, and being unable to resist so great and
fierce a company, they withdrew themselves to their lodgings: but
the townsmen finding no scholars in the streets to make any
opposition, pursued them, and that day they broke open five inns or
hostels of scholars with fire and sword. Such scholars as they
found in the said halls or inns they killed or maimed, or
grievously wounded. Their books and all their goods which they
could find, they spoiled, plundered and carried away. All their
victuals, wine and other drink they poured out; their bread, fish,
&c. they trod under foot. After this the night came on and the
conflict ceased for that day, and the same even public proclamation
was made in Oxen, in the King's name, 'that no man should injure
the scholars or their goods under pain of forfeiture.'

"The next day being Thursday (after the Chancellor and some
principal persons of the University were set out towards Woodstock
to the King, who had sent for them thither) no one scholar or
scholar's servant so much as appearing out of their houses with any
intention to harm the townsmen, or offer any injury to them (as
they themselves confessed) yet the said townsmen about sun rising,
having rung out their bell, assembled themselves together in a
numberless multitude, desiring to heap mischief upon mischief, and
to perfect by a more terrible conclusion that wicked enterprize
which they had begun. This being done, they with hideous noises and
clamours came and invaded the scholars' houses in a wretchless
sort, which they forced open with iron bars and other engines; and
entering into them, those that resisted and stood upon their
defence (particularly some chaplains) they killed or else in a
grievous sort maimed. Some innocent wretches, after they had
killed, they scornfully cast into houses of easement, others they
buried in dunghills, and some they let lie above ground. The crowns
of some chaplains, viz. all the skin so far as the tonsure went,
these diabolical imps flayed off in scorn of their clergy. Divers
others whom they had mortally wounded, they haled to prison,
carrying their entrails in their hands in a most lamentable manner.
They plundered and carried away all the goods out of fourteen inns
or halls, which they spoiled that Thursday. They broke open and
dashed to pieces the scholars' chests and left not any moveable
thing which might stand them in any stead; and which was yet more
horrid, some poor innocents that were flying with all speed to the
body of CHRIST for succour (then honourably carried in procession
by the brethren through the town for the appeasing of this
slaughter) and striving to embrace and come as near as they could
to the repository wherein the glorious Body was with great devotion
put, these confounded sons of Satan knocked them down, beat and
most cruelly wounded. The Crosses also of certain brethren (the
friers) which were erected on the ground for the present time with
a 'procul hinc ite profani,' they overthrew and laid flat with the
cheynell. This wickedness and outrage continuing the said day from
the rising of the sun till noon tide and a little after without any
ceasing, and thereupon all the scholars (besides those of the
Colleges) being fled divers ways, our mother the University of
Oxon, which had but two days before many sons, is now almost
forsaken and left forlorn."

The casualty list was heavy. Six members of the University were killed outright in the fray; twenty-one others, chiefly Irishmen, were dangerously wounded, and a large number was missing. The Bishop of Lincoln immediately placed the town under an interdict. The King sent a commission to inquire into the cause of the riot. The sheriff was summarily dismissed from his office, two hundred of the townsmen were arrested, and the mayor and bailiffs committed to the Tower. With a view to settling the deep-rooted differences, which, it was perceived, were the origin of this bloody combat, the University and the city were advised to surrender their privileges into the King's hands. Edward III. restored those of the University in a few days. The town was kept some time in suspense, whilst the King and the Archbishop were striving to induce the scholars to return to Oxford. In the end all their ancient rights were restored to the citizens, with the exception of those which had been transferred to the University. For by the new charter the King granted to the latter some of the old liberties of the town.

This charter (27th June 1355) granted a free pardon to all masters and scholars and their servants who had taken part in the great riot. The University, the King declared, was the main source and channel of learning in all England, more precious to him than gold or topaz. To the Chancellor, then, or his deputy, was granted the assay of bread and ale, the supervision of weights and measures, the sole cognisance of forestallers, retailers and sellers of putrid meat and fish; the power of excommunicating any person who polluted or obstructed the streets, and of assessing the tax to be paid by scholars' servants. It was also decreed that the sheriff and under-sheriff of the county should henceforth swear, on taking office, to uphold the privileges of the University. In compensation for the damage done in the recent riot, the city had to restore the goods and books of all scholars wherever found, and to pay down £250 in cash. Such was the price, in money and rights, that the commonalty had to pay before they could satisfy the civil authorities. From that time forth the University practically governed the town. The wrath of the Church was not so soon appeased. It was not till 1357 that the interdict was removed, nor were the offences of the citizens against the Holy Church forgiven even then, except at the price of further humiliation. The mayor and bailiffs, and sixty of the chiefest burghers, such were the conditions, were to appear personally, and defray the expenses of a mass to be celebrated every year in S. Mary's on S. Scholastica's Day, when prayers should be said for the souls of the clerks and others slain in that conflict. The mayor and these sixty substantial burghers were also to offer on that occasion one penny each at the great altar. Forty pence out of this offering were to be given by the proctors to forty poor scholars, and the remainder to the curate.

So humiliating did this condition appear, that it gave rise to the popular saying and, perhaps, belief that the mayor was obliged, on the anniversary of the riot, to wear round his neck a halter or, at best, a silken cord. It may well be imagined that the procession, as it took its way to S. Mary's, did not escape the taunts and jeers of the jubilant clerks. Under Elizabeth, when prayer for the dead had been forbidden, this function was changed for a sermon, with the old offering of a penny. The service was retained in a modified form down to the time of Charles II.

The political and religious divisions introduced by the Lollard doctrines found their expression, of course, in students' riots. For the Northerners sided with Wycliffe, himself a Yorkshireman, and the Southerners, supported by the Welsh, professed themselves loyal children of the Church. A general encounter took place in 1388; several persons were killed, and many Northerners left Oxford. The Chancellor was deposed by Parliament for failing to do his duty in the matter. The strife was renewed at the beginning of Lent next year. A pitched battle was arranged to be fought between the contending parties in the open country. This was only prevented by the active interference of the Duke of Gloucester. Some turbulent Welshmen were expelled. But this banishment only gave rise to a fresh outbreak. For as the Welshmen knelt down to kiss the gates of the town, they were subjected to gross indignities by their exultant adversaries. And a party of Northerners, headed by a chaplain named Speeke, paraded the streets in military array, threatening to kill anyone who looked out of the window, and shouting, "War, war. Slay the Welsh dogs and their whelps." Halls were broken open, and the goods of Welsh scholars who lodged there were plundered. The Welshmen retaliated, and the University only obtained peace, when, on the outbreak of Owen Glendower's rebellion, the Welsh scholars returned to Wales.

The effect of the lawlessness of these mediæval students upon the history of the University was considerable. It is reflected in the statute book. It came to be recognised that their riotous behaviour was not only scandalous but also a veritable danger, which threatened the very existence of Oxford as a seat of learning. Politically, too, their behaviour was intolerable. Each outbreak, therefore, and each revelation of the licence of unattached students, who were credited with the chief share in these brawls, were arguments in favour of the college system inaugurated by the founder of Merton College.

As early as 1250 it had been found necessary to provide that every scholar should have his own master, on whose roll his name should be entered, and from whom he should hear at least one lecture daily. And in 1420 Henry V. issued some ordinances for academical reform, with the object of tightening the bonds of discipline. They were reduced to a statute of the University immediately. Fines were imposed for threats of personal violence, carrying weapons, pushing with the shoulder or striking with the fist, striking with a stone or club, striking with a knife, dagger, sword-axe or other warlike weapon, carrying bows and arrows, gathering armed men, and resisting the execution of justice, especially by night.

All scholars and scholars' servants, it was enacted, were, on first coming to Oxford, to take the oath for keeping the peace, which had hitherto been taken by graduates only; they were no longer to lodge in the houses of laymen, but must place themselves under the government of some discreet principal, approved by the Chancellor and regents. Chamberdekens were to lodge at a hall where some common table was kept. Thus the "unattached student," who has been recently revived, was legislated out of existence.

It is not, then, surprising to find that, whilst the thirteenth century saw the beginning of the college system, the fourteenth was the era which saw its great development. Already, sixteen years after the foundation of Oriel, a North Country priest, Robert Eglesfield, chaplain of Queen Philippa, had anticipated in conception the achievement of William of Wykeham by proposing to establish a college which should be a Merton on a larger scale. But the ideas of the founder of Queen's were greater than his resources. In the hope of assistance, therefore, and not in vain, he commended his foundation to the Queen and all future Queens-consort of England. He himself devoted his closing years and all his fortune to the infant society, for whose guidance he drew up statutes of an original character. His aim seems to have been to endow a number of students of Theology or Canon Law; to provide for the elementary education of many poor boys, and for the distribution of alms to the poor of the city. The ecclesiastical character of the college was marked by the endowment of several chaplains, and by precise directions for the celebration of masses, at which the "poor boys" were to assist as choristers, besides being trained in Grammar and afterwards in Logic or Philosophy. The bent of Eglesfield's mind is further indicated by the symbolism which pervades his ordinances. The fellowships, which were tenable for life and intended to be well endowed, were practically restricted to natives of the North Country. And as there had been twelve apostles, so it was ordained that there should be twelve fellows, who should sit in hall on one side of the High Table, with the provost in their centre, even as Christ and His apostles, according to tradition, sat at the Last Supper. And, as a symbol of the Saviour's blood, they were required to wear mantles of crimson cloth. The "poor boys," who were to sit at a side-table clad in a distinctive dress, from which they derived their name of tabarders, and who were to be "opposed" or examined by one of the fellows at the beginning of every meal, symbolised the Seventy Disciples.

Some traces of the symbolism which pleased the founder still survive at Queen's. The students are still summoned to hall, as the founder directs, by the blasts of a trumpet; still on Christmas Day the college celebrates the "Boar's Head" dinner (see p. 23); still on 1st January the bursar presents to each guest at the Gaudy a needle and thread (aiguille et fil = Eglesfield), saying, "Take this and be thrifty." And the magnificent wassail cup given to the college by the founder is still in use. But of the original buildings scarcely anything remains. The old entrance in Queen's Lane has been supplanted by the front quadrangle opening on the High (1710-1730), in which Hawksmoor, Wren's pupil, achieved a fine example of the Italian style. Wren himself designed the chapel. The magnificent library in the back quadrangle (late seventeenth century) is housed in a room, which, with its rich plaster ceiling and carving by Grinling Gibbons, is a remarkable specimen of the ornate classical style.

Eglesfield had attempted a task beyond his means. Forty years later William of Wykeham adopted his ideas, developed them and carried them out. It is the scale on which he founded S. Mary College, or New College, as it has been called for five hundred years to distinguish it from Oriel, the other S. Mary College, and the completeness of its arrangements that mark an era in the history of college foundations. Son of a carpenter at Wickham, William had picked up the rudiments of education at a grammar school and in a notary's office. Presently he entered the King's service. He was promoted to be Supervisor of the Works at Windsor; and made the most of his opportunity. _Hoc fecit Wykeham_ were the words he inscribed, according to the legend, on the walls of the castle at Windsor; and it is equally true that he made it and that it made him, for so, to stop the mouths of his calumniators, he chose to translate the phrase. The King marked the admirable man of affairs; and rewarded him, according to custom, with innumerable benefices. Wykeham became the greatest pluralist of his age. He grew in favour at court, until soon "everything was done by him and nothing was done without him." He was "so wise of building castles," as Wycliffe sarcastically hinted, that he was appointed Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England. Yet in the midst of the cares of these offices he found time (1370) to set about establishing his college. His great genius as an architect, and his astonishing powers of administration under two kings, point him out as one of the greatest Englishmen of the Middle Ages. He has left his mark on his country, not only in such architectural achievements as Windsor and Queenborough Castles, the reconstruction of the nave of Winchester Cathedral (where is his altar tomb) or the

original plan of his Collegiate Buildings, but also as the founder of the public school system and the new type of college.

It was as a lawyer-ecclesiastic that he had succeeded. But it was against the administration of ecclesiastical statesmen that the discontent of the time was being directed by the Wycliffites and John of Gaunt. Himself a staunch supporter of the old régime in Church and State, Wykeham set himself to remedy its defects and to provide for its maintenance as well as for his own soul's health after death.

Oxford had reached the height of its prosperity in the fourteenth century. Then the Black Death, the decadence of the Friars, the French Wars, the withdrawal of foreign students and the severance of the ties between English and foreign Universities, commenced a decay which was accelerated by the decline of the ecclesiastical monopoly of learning, by the Wycliffite movement and, later, by the Wars of the Roses.

Wykeham marked some of these causes and their effect. He believed in himself, and therefore in the Canon Law and lawyer-ecclesiastics; he noted the falling off in the number of the students, and therefore of the clergy, caused by the Black Death; he knew the poverty of those who wished to study, and the weak points in the system of elementary education. He wished to encourage a secular clergy who should fight the Wycliffites and reform the Church. Therefore he determined to found a system by which they might be trained, and by which the road to success might be opened to the humblest youths--a system which should pay him in return the duty of perpetual prayers for his soul.[29]

As early as 1370, then, he began to buy land about the north-eastern corner of the city wall; and ten years later, having obtained licence from Richard II., he enclosed a filthy lane that ran alongside the north wall and began to build a home for the warden, seventy scholars, ten stipendiary priests or chaplains, three stipendiary clerks and sixteen chorister boys of whom his college was to be composed. Eglesfield had proposed to establish seventy-two young scholars on his foundation. Wykeham borrowed and improved upon the idea. He provided a separate college for them at Winchester, and in so doing he took a step which has proved to be of quite incalculable consequence in the history of the moral and intellectual development of this country. For he founded the first English public school.

From the scholars of Winchester, when they had reached at least the age of fifteen years, and from them only the seventy scholars of "S. Marie College" were to be chosen by examination. A preference was given to the founder's kin and the natives of certain dioceses. These young scholars, if they were not disqualified by an income of over five marks or by bodily deformity, entered at once upon the course in Arts, and, after two years of probation and if approved by examination, might be admitted true and perpetual fellows. Small wonder if golden scholars became sometimes silver bachelors and leaden masters!

A fellow's allowance was a shilling a week for commons and an annual "livery." But it was provided that each young scholar should study for his first three years under the supervision of one of the fellows, who was to receive for each pupil five shillings. This was a new step in the development of the college system. Though designed merely to supplement the lectures of the regents in the schools, the new provision of tutors was destined to supplant them. Another step of far-reaching consequence taken by Wykeham was the acquisition of benefices in the country, college livings to which a fellow could retire when he had resided long enough or failed to obtain other preferment.

The government of the college was not entrusted to the young fellows, but to the warden, sub-warden, five deans, three bursars and a few senior fellows. But even the youngest of the fellows was entitled to vote on the election of a warden.

The warden of this new foundation was to be a person of no small importance. Wykeham intended him to live in a separate house, with a separate establishment and an income (£40) far more splendid than the pittance assigned to the Master of Balliol or even the Warden of Merton. The buildings of Merton had been kept separate; only by degrees, and as if by accident, had they assumed the familiar and charming form of a quadrangle. The genius of Wykeham adopted and adapted the fortuitous plan of Merton. At New College we have for the first time a group of collegiate buildings, tower-gateway (the tower assuredly of one "wise of building castles!") chapel, hall, library, treasury, warden's lodgings, chambers, cloister-cemetery, kitchen and domestics offices, designed and comprised in one self-sufficing quadrangle (1380-1400). Just as the statutes of New College are the rule of Merton enormously elaborated, so the plan of the buildings is that of Merton modified and systematised. The type of New College served as a model for all subsequent foundations. The most noticeable features in this arrangement are that the hall and chapel are under one roof, and that the chapel consists of a choir, suitable to the needs of a small congregation, and of a nave of two bays, stopping short at the transepts, and forming an ante-chapel which might serve both as a vestibule and as a room for lectures and disputations. The chapel, which contains much very beautiful glass and the lovely if inappropriate window-pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, must have been in Wykeham's day, when it was adorned with a magnificent reredos and "works of many colours," a thing of even greater beauty than it now is. The chapels of Magdalen, All Souls' and Wadham were directly imitated from it. But, with the hall, it suffered much at the hands of Wyatt and Sir Gilbert Scott. The latter was also responsible for the atrocious New Buildings. The proportions of the front quadrangle were spoilt by the addition of a third story and the insertion of square windows in the seventeenth century.

The importance of the chapel architecturally, dominating the quadrangle as it does and absorbing the admiration of the visitor or the dweller in those courts, is indicative of the ecclesiastical aspect of the new foundation, which the great opponent of Wycliffe intended to revivify the Church by training secular priests of ability. This ecclesiastical aspect is still more prominent in the case of All Souls', which, like Magdalen, may fitly be described as a daughter of New College, so much do they both owe, as regards their rule and their architectural design, to the great foundation of Wykeham. The deterioration and ignorance of the parochial clergy were amongst the most serious symptoms of the decadence of the fifteenth century. Himself a Wykehamist and a successful ecclesiastical lawyer, the great Archbishop Chichele therefore followed Wykeham's example and founded a college which might help to educate and to increase the secular clergy. Out of the revenues of the suppressed alien priories he endowed a society consisting of a warden and forty fellows, of doctors and masters who were to study Philosophy, Theology and Law. His college was not, therefore, and happily is not (though now it takes its full share of educational work), a mere body of teachers, but of graduate students. The prominence given to the study of Law and Divinity resulted in a close connection with the public services which has always been maintained. But "All Souls'" was a chantry as well as a college. As head of the English Church and a responsible administrator of the Crown, Chichele had devoted all his powers to the prosecution of that war with France, for which Shakespeare, following Hall, has represented him as being responsible. The college is said to have been the Archbishop's expiation for the blood so shed. Whatever his motive, his object is stated clearly enough. It was to found a

"College of poor and indigent clerks bounden with all devotion to
pray for the Souls of the glorious memory of Henry V., lately King
of England and France, the Duke of Clarence and the other lords and
lieges of the realm of England, whom the havoc of that warfare
between the two realms hath drenched with the bowl of bitter death,
and also for the souls of all the faithful departed."

Chichele had already undertaken the foundation of S. Bernard's College. He now (September 1437) purchased Bedford Hall, or Charleton's Inn, at the corner of Cat Street,[30] directly opposite the eastern end of S. Mary's Church. On this site, in the following February, was laid the foundation stone of the college afterwards incorporated under the title of "The Warden and All Soulen College," or "The Warden and College of All Faithful Souls deceased at Oxford." As Adam de Brome had persuaded Edward II. to be the foster-founder of Oriel, so Chichele asked Henry VI. to be the nominal founder of his college. The royal patronage proved advantageous in neither case.

The front quadrangle of All Souls' remains very much as the founder left it; the hall and the noble Codrington Library in the Italian style, the cloister of the great quadrangle and the odd twin towers belong to the first half of the eighteenth century. The latter are curious specimens of that mixture of the Gothic and Renaissance styles (Nicholas Hawksmoor), of which the best that can be said is that "the architect has blundered into a picturesque scenery not devoid of grandeur" (Walpole).

The political and social troubles of the fifteenth century brought about a period of darkness and stagnation in the University. The spirit of independence and reform had been crushed by the ecclesiastics. Oxford had learnt her lesson. She took little part in politics, but played the time-server, and was always loyal--to one party or the other. She neglected her duties; she neither taught nor thought, but devoted all her energies and resources to adorning herself with beautiful colleges and buildings. And for us the result of this meretricious policy is the possession of those glorious buildings which mark the interval between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For the University now built herself schools that were worthy of her dower of knowledge.

There was a vacant spot at the end of Schools Street belonging to Balliol College, lying between the town wall on the north and Exeter College on the west. On this site it was determined to erect a School of Divinity (1424). Donations flowed in from the bishops and monasteries.

But in spite of all economy funds ran short. The building had to be discontinued for a while (1444). The gift of 500 marks from the executors of Cardinal Beaufort, a former Chancellor, enabled the graduates to proceed with their work. They made strenuous efforts to raise money. They put a tax on all non-resident masters and bachelors; they offered "graces" for sale; they applied to the Pope and bishops for saleable indulgences. In return for a contribution of one hundred pounds from the old religious orders, they agreed to modify the ancient statutes concerning the admission of monks to academical degrees. Some of these methods of raising the necessary monies are doubtless open to criticism, but we cannot cavil when we look upon the noble building which the graduates were thus enabled to raise. The Divinity School, to which, Casaubon declared, nothing in Europe was comparable, was, with its "vaulting of peculiar skill," used, though not completed, in 1466.

It remained to construct an upper story where the books belonging to the University might be kept and used. For generous gifts of books (1439-1446) by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, uncle of Henry VI., had greatly increased the University Library. The fashion of large and gorgeous libraries was borrowed by the English from the French princes. The duke had taken his opportunity during his campaigns in France. He seized the valuable collection of books at the Louvre, and many of them had now found their way to Oxford. They were stored at first in the Cobham Library, but more room was needed. Accordingly, in 1444, the University addressed a letter to the duke in which they informed him of their intention to erect a new building suitable to contain his magnificent gift, and on a site far removed from the hum of men. Of this building, with that gratitude which is in part at least a lively sense of favours to come, they asked permission of the very learned and accomplished duke to inscribe his name as founder. The Duke Humphrey Library forms now the central portion of the great Reading Room of the Bodleian Library. It still answers, by virtue of its position and the arrangement of its cubicles, to the description and intention of the promotors--to build a room where scholars might study far removed _a strepitu sæculari_, from the noise of the world.

The three wheat-sheaves of the Kempe shield, repeated again and again on the elaborate groined roof of the Divinity School, commemorate the bounty of Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London, who (1478) promised to give 1000 marks for the completion of the school and the library. A grateful University rewarded him with anniversary services; his name is still mentioned in the "bidding prayer" on solemn occasions. Nor was Duke Humphrey forgotten. His name still heads the list of benefactors recited from time to time in S. Mary's. Religious services were instituted also for his benefit. He was more in need of them, perhaps, than the bishop. For the "Good Duke Humphrey" was good only so far as his love of learning and his generosity to scholars may entitle him to be considered so. The patron of Lydgate and Occleve, and the donor of hundreds of rare and polite books to the University was as unscrupulous in his political intrigues as immoral in his private life. But in his case the good he did lived after him.

The "Good Duke" was a reader as well as a collector. It was not merely the outsides of books or the title-pages which attracted him.

"His courage never doth appal
To study in books of antiquity."

So wrote Lydgate, who knew. Even when he presented his books to the University, he took care to reserve the right of borrowing them, for were they not, according to the inscription which he was wont to insert lovingly in them, all his worldly wealth (_mon bien mondain_)? It is perhaps not surprising to find from the list of books which he gave to the University, that the duke's taste in literature was for the Classics, for the works of Ovid, Cato, Aulus Gellius and Quintilian, for the speeches of Cicero, the plays of Terence and Seneca, the works of Aristotle and Plato, the histories of Suetonius and Josephus, of Beda and Eusebius, Higden and Vincent of Beauvais. A fancy for medical treatises and a pretty taste in Italian literature are betrayed by the titles of other books, for the duke gave seven volumes of Boccaccio, five of Petrarch and two of Dante to the University.

Duke Humphrey promised to give the whole of his collection to the University, together with a hundred pounds to go towards the

building of the library. But he died suddenly, and the University never, as it appears, received full advantage of his generosity. It was not till 1488 that the books were removed from S. Mary's. For the completion of the library was delayed by an order from Edward IV. The workmen employed upon the building were summoned by him to Windsor, where he had need of them, to work at S. George's Chapel. Those who were not employed on the chapel were handed over to William of Waynflete, who restored them to the University along with some scaffolding which had been used in the building of Magdalen. William Patten or Barbour of Waynflete, an Oxford man, who had been master of the school at Winchester, had been appointed first master and then Provost of Eton by the founder, Henry VI., and was rewarded for his success there by the Bishopric of Winchester. In 1448 he had founded a hall for the study of Theology and Philosophy, situated between the present schools and Logic Lane, and called it, probably after the almshouse at Winchester, of which he had been master, the Hall of S. Mary Magdalen. When he became Lord Chancellor he immediately took steps to enlarge this foundation, transferred it to the site of the Hospital of S. John, and styled it the College of S. Mary Magdalen (September 1457).

Waynflete resigned the Chancellorship just before the battle of Northampton. After some years, during which he was "in great dedignation with Edward IV.," he received full pardon from his late master's conqueror. The Yorkist monarch (whose fine statue is over the west doorway of the chapel) also confirmed the grants made to Waynflete's College in the last reign. After an interval, then, the foundation stone of the most beautiful college in the world, "the most absolute building in Oxford," as James I. called it when his son matriculated there, was laid "in the midst of the High Altar" (5th May 1474).

Already enclosing walls had been built about the property, which was bounded on the east by the Cherwell, on the south by the High Street, on the west by what is now Long Wall Street, and on the north by the lands of Holywell. The "Long Wall" bounded the "Grove," famous, since the beginning of the eighteenth century, for its noble timber and herd of deer. Most of the trees in the present grove are elms planted in the seventeenth century, but there are two enormous wych elms, measured by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1886, which would have dwarfed that venerable oak which stood near the entrance into the water-walk, and was blown down "into the meadow" in 1789. It was over seven hundred years old (girth 21 ft. 9 in., height 71 ft. 8 in.), and thought to be the same as that named by the founder for a northern boundary.

In the arrangement of his buildings Waynflete followed Wykeham. Chapel, hall and library were designed on the same plan. But the beautiful "Founder's Tower," rendered now still more lovely by the drapery of creepers which hangs about it, formed the principal entrance into cloisters, which were part of the buildings of the main quadrangle, carried an upper story of chambers, and were adorned with grotesques symbolical of the Vices and Virtues. The entrance now used was originally meant to serve only as the entrance from the cloister to the chapel. It was adorned (_circa_ 1630) with a gateway similar to that designed by Inigo Jones for the main entrance to the college.

The statutes were based on those of New College, but, in addition to those of which we have already had occasion to speak, there were certain notable improvements. The society was to consist of a President and seventy scholars besides four chaplains, eight clerks and sixteen choristers. Forty of these scholars were fellows forming one class, and thirty were demies, forming another, whose tenure was limited and who were given half the allowance of the fellows. They had no special claim to promotion to fellowships. For their instruction a Grammar Master and an usher were provided; when they were well skilled in Grammar, they were to

be taught Logic and Sophistry by the college lecturers, whilst three "Readers," in Natural and Moral Philosophy and Theology, chosen out of the University, were to provide the higher teaching in Arts and Theology. And all this teaching, in Theology and Philosophy and also in Grammar, was to be given free to all comers at the expense of the college.