Chapter V: The Mediæval Student (4)

In 1481 Waynflete, full of pride in his new foundation, "the most noble and rich structure in the learned world," persuaded Edward IV. to come over from Woodstock and see it. The King came at a few hours' notice. But as the royal cavalcade drew near the North Gate of the town, a little after sunset, it was met by the Chancellor and the masters of the University and a great number of persons carrying lighted torches. The King and his courtiers were hospitably received at Magdalen. On the morrow the President delivered a congratulatory address, and the King made a gracious reply; then he and his followers joined in a solemn procession round the precincts and the cloisters of the college.

Two years later Richard III. was very similarly welcomed by the University and entertained at Magdalen. On this occasion the King was regaled with two disputations in the hall. Richard declared himself very well pleased; and it is just possible that he was. For one of the disputants was William Grocyn, who was rewarded with a buck and three marks for his pains.

The University continued its policy of political time-serving, and, after the battle of Bosworth Field, congratulated Henry VII. as fulsomely as it had congratulated Richard III. a few months before. Henry retorted by demanding the surrender of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was staying within the limits of the University. This prelate was accused of "damnable conjuracies and conspiracies," which may have included complicity in the rebellion of Lambert Simnel. For the future scullion was a native of Oxford. The University prevaricated for a while; and at last, when hard pressed, they explained that they would incur the sentence of excommunication if they used force against a prelate of the Catholic Church. The King then took the matter into his own hands, and committed the offender to prison at Windsor for the remainder of his life. He soon afterwards visited Oxford, offered a noble in the chapel of Magdalen College, and, by way of marking his approval of the University, undertook the maintenance of two students at Oxford. In 1493 he established at University College an obit for the widow of Warwick the king-maker.

Some years later, in 1504, he endowed the University with ten pounds a year in perpetuity for a religious service to be held in memory of him and his wife and of his parents. On the anniversary of his burial a hearse, covered with rich stuff, was to be set up in the middle of S. Mary's Church before the great crucifix, and there the Chancellor, the masters and the scholars were to recite certain specified prayers. Among the articles in the custody of the verger of the University is a very fine ancient pall of rich cloth of gold, embroidered with the arms and badges of Henry VII., the Tudor rose and the portcullis, that typify the union of the houses of York and Lancaster. Penurious in most matters, Henry VII. showed magnificence in building and in works of piety. In Westminster Abbey he erected one of the grandest chantries in Christendom; and it was for the exclusive benefit of the monks of Westminster that he established at Oxford three scholarships in Divinity, called after his name, and each endowed with a yearly income of ten pounds (Maxwell Lyte).

Of Henry's parents, his mother, the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond,[31] took a warm interest in Oxford as in Cambridge, where she founded two colleges. It was she who founded the

two Readerships in Divinity at Oxford (1497) and Cambridge, the oldest professorial chairs that exist in either University.

His characteristically frugal offering was not the only sign of his favour which Henry vouchsafed to Magdalen. He sent his eldest son, Prince Arthur, frequently to Oxford. When there the boy stayed in the President's lodgings and the purchase of two marmosets for his amusement is recorded in the college accounts. One of the old pieces of tapestry preserved in the President's lodgings represents the marriage of the prince with Catherine of Aragon. It was probably presented to the President (Mayhew) by him.

It is possible that Henry VII. also contributed to the cost of building that bell tower, which is the pride of Magdalen and the chief ornament of Oxford.

The tower was built between the years 1492 and 1505. Wolsey was a junior fellow when the tower was begun, and though popular tradition ascribes to him the credit of the idea and even the design of that exquisite campanile, the fact that not he, but another senior fellow (Gosmore by name) was appointed to superintend the work, is evidence, so far as there is any evidence, that Wolsey had no particular share in the design. He was, however, senior bursar in 1499. But the story that he left the college because he had wrongly applied some of its funds to the building of the tower, is not borne out by any evidence in the college records. He ceased to be a fellow of Magdalen about 1501, having been instituted to the Rectory of Lymington. But he had filled the office of Dean of Divinity after his term as senior bursar was over.

We have referred to the close connection of the house of Lancaster with Waynflete's foundation. By a curious freak of popular imagination the name of Henry VII. as well as that of the future cardinal has been intimately connected with this tower. Besides other benefactions, he granted a licence for the conveyance to the college of the advowsons of Slymbridge and of Findon.

In return the college undertook to keep an obit for him every year. This celebration was originally fixed on the 2nd or 3rd of October, but it has been held on the 1st of May since the sixteenth century. The coincidence of this ceremony with the most interesting and picturesque custom of singing on Magdalen Tower has given rise to the fable that a payment made to the college by the Rectory of Slymbridge was intended to maintain the celebration of a requiem mass for the soul of Henry VII. And the hymn that is now sung is the survival, says the popular myth, of that requiem.

For in the early morning of May Day all the members of Waynflete's foundation, the President and fellows and demies with the organist and choir, clad in white surplices ascend the tall tower that stands sombre, grey and silent in the half-light of the coming day. There are a few moments of quiet watching, and the eye gazes at the distant hills, as the white mists far below are rolled away by the rising sun. The clock strikes five, and as the sound of the strokes floats about the tower, suddenly from the throats of the well-trained choir on the morning air rises the May Day hymn.

The hymn is finished, and a merry peal of bells rings out. The tower rocks and seems to swing to the sound of the bells as a well made bell tower should. And the members of the college having thus commemorated the completion of their campanile, descend once more to earth, to bathe in the Cherwell, or to return to bed.

For a repetition of an inaugural ceremony is what this function probably is, and it has nothing to do, so much can almost certainly be said, with any requiem mass. The hymn itself is no part of any use. It was written by a fellow of the college, Thomas Smith, and set to music as part of the college "grace" by Benjamin Rogers, the college organist, towards the end of the seventeenth century.

Whether or no the origin and meaning of the singing was to commemorate the completion of the tower, the singing itself would appear to have borne originally a secular character.

"The choral ministers of this house," says Wood, "do, according to
an ancient custom, salute Flora every year on the First of May, at
four in the morning, with vocal music of several parts. Which
having been sometimes well performed, hath given great content to
the neighbourhood, and auditors underneath."

The substitution of a hymn from the college grace for the "merry concert of both vocal and instrumental music, consisting of several merry ketches, and lasting almost two hours," which was the form the performance took in the middle of the eighteenth century, was made on one occasion when the weather was very inclement. Once made it was found easier and more suitable to continue it, and the observance came to be religious.[32]

Magdalen Tower is one of those rarely beautiful buildings, which strike you with a silent awe of admiration when first you behold them, and ever afterwards reveal to your admiring gaze new aspects and unsuspected charms. It is changeable as a woman, but its changes are all good and there is nothing else about it that is feminine. It conveys the impression that it is at once massive and slender, and its very slenderness is male.

The chaste simplicity of the lower stories carries the eye up unchecked to the ornamented belfry windows, the parapet and surmounting pinnacles, and thus enhances the impression of perfect and reposeful proportion.

The growth of the colleges had influenced the halls. Statutes imposed by the authority of the University, began to take the place of the private rule of custom and tradition approved and enforced by the authority of the self-governing scholars. The students quickly ceased to be autonomous scholars and became disciplined schoolboys. The division between don and undergraduate began to be formed and was rapidly accentuated. Thus, at the close of the mediæval period, a change had been wrought in the character of the University, which rendered it an institution very different from that which it had been in the beginning. The growth of Nationalism, the separation of languages and the establishment of the collegiate system--these and similar causes tended to give the Universities a local and aristocratic character. The order introduced by the colleges was accompanied by the introduction of rank, and of academical power and influence stored in the older, permanent members of the University. Learning, too, had ceased to be thought unworthy of a gentleman; it became a matter of custom for young men of rank to have a University education. Thus, in the charter of Edward III., we even read that "to the University a multitude of nobles, gentry, strangers and others continually flock"; and towards the end of the century we find Henry of Monmouth, afterwards Henry V., as a young man, a sojourner at Queen's College. But it was in the next century that colleges were provided, not for the poor, but for the noble. Many colleges, too, which had been originally intended for the poor, opened their gates to the rich, not as fellows or foundation students, but as simple lodgers, such as monasteries might have received in a former age. This change has continued to be remarkably impressed upon Oxford and Cambridge even down to this day.

The influence of other political classes was now also introduced. Never, as Newman said, has a learned institution been more directly political and national than the University of Oxford. Some of its colleges came to represent the talent of the nation, others its rank and fashion, others its wealth; others have been the organs of the Government of the day; while others, and the majority, represented one or other division, chiefly local, of opinion in the country. The local limitation of the members of many colleges, the West Country character of Exeter, the North Country character of Queen's or University, the South Country character of New College, the Welsh character of Jesus College, for instance, tended to accentuate this peculiarity. The whole nation was thus brought into the University by means of the colleges, which fortunately were sufficiently numerous, and no one of them overwhelmingly important. A vigour and a stability were thus imparted to the University such as the abundant influx of foreigners had not been able to secure. As in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, French, German and Italian students had flocked to Oxford, and made its name famous in distant lands; so in the fifteenth all ranks and classes of the land furnished it with pupils, and what was wanting in their number or variety, compared with the former era, was made up by their splendour or political importance. The sons of the nobles came up to the University, each accompanied by an ample retinue; the towns were kept in touch with the University by means of the numerous members of it who belonged to the clerical order. Town and country, high and low, north and south, had a common stake in the academical institutions, and took a personal interest in the academical proceedings. The degree possessed a sort of indelible character which all classes understood; and the people at large were more or less partakers of a cultivation which the aristocracy were beginning to appreciate. Oxford, in fact, became the centre of national and political thought. Not only in vacations and term time was there a stated ebbing and flowing of the academical youth, but messengers posted to and fro between Oxford and all parts of the country in all seasons of the year. So intimate was this connection, that Oxford became, as it were, the selected arena for the conflicts of the various interests of the nation.