Chapter XXI: Keble College 461 (8)

(5) A rector (William Chamberleyn) had been named by the founder, but no Fellows; so that when Chamberleyn died (7th March, 1433-4) Fleming’s successor, Bishop William Grey, finding it impossible to supply the vacancy by election, according to Fleming’s ordinances, himself nominated (on 7th May, 1434) Dr. John Beke.

In Beke’s rectorship (1434-1460) the orphan College found good patrons to carry out the intentions of its deceased founder.

Before 1437 John Forest, Dean of Wells, built the Hall, the Kitchen, the Library (now the Subrector’s room), the Chapel (now the Senior Library), with living rooms above and below the Library and below the Chapel, so that he deservedly was recognized by the College as its “co-founder.”

In 1444 William Finderne, of Childrey, gave a large sum of money towards the buildings, and his estate of Seacourt, a farm at Botley near Oxford; in return the College was to appoint an additional Fellow (“_sacerdos et collega_”) to pray for Finderne.

In 1436, we have evidence of a Rector, seven Fellows, and two Chaplains of Lincoln College. An account-book of 1456 has been preserved, showing the Rector and five Fellows in residence and in receipt of commons.

Beke resigned in 1460, and was succeeded in Jan. 1460-1 by the third Rector, John Tristrop, who had been resident in College as a Commoner in 1455, and had probably at one time been Fellow.

In the first year of Tristrop’s rectorship the dissolution of the College was threatened. The charter of incorporation had been obtained from Henry VI.; and now that he had been deposed (on 4th March, 1460-1) by Edward IV., some powerful person seems to have coveted the possessions of the College, and suggested that Edward IV. should not grant it a charter, but seize it into his own hands. The College besought the protection of George Nevill, Bishop of Exeter, Lord High Chancellor, himself a graduate of Oxford. By Nevill’s influence the College secured from Edward IV., on 23rd Jan., 1461-2, pardon of all offences and release of all amercements incurred by them, and on 9th Feb., 1461-2, a charter confirming the College and extending its right to hold lands in mortmain. The reality of the danger and the gratitude of the College for preservation are sufficiently apparent by the way in which the Rector and Fellows tendered their thanks to Bishop Nevill: although he had given nothing to the College, yet by a solemn instrument, dated 20th Aug., 1462, they assigned him the same place in their prayers as the founder himself, “because he had delivered the College from being torn to pieces by dogs and plunderers.”

This danger averted, and confidence in the legal position of the College restored, the stream of benefactions again began to flow.

In 1463 the College purchased from University College three halls lying next to it in St. Mildred’s (now Brasenose) Lane and in Turl Street, thus doubling its original ground-plot.

In 1464 Bishop Thomas Beckington’s executors, out of the monies he had left to be applied by them to charitable uses, gave £200 to build a house for the Rector at the south end of the hall, consisting of a large room on the ground-floor and another on the first floor (the dining-room and drawing-room of the present Rector’s Lodgings), with cellar and attic. On the west front of this building was carved Beckington’s rebus[161]--a flourished T, followed by a beacon set in a barrel (_i. e._ “beacon”--“tun”) for “T. Beckington”--and his coat of arms, with the rebus, on the east front.

In 1465 the founder’s nephew, Robert Fleming, Dean of Lincoln, gave the library thirty-eight MSS., chiefly of classical Latin authors, comprising Cæsar, Cicero, Aulus Gellius, Horace, Juvenal, Livy, Plautus, Quintilian, Sallust, Suetonius, Terence, Virgil. Most of these, along with the old plate of the College, were embezzled by Edward VI.’s commissioners, under pretence of purging the library of Romanist books.

Some years afterwards the very existence of the College was a second time brought into danger. The scribe who wrote out the charter of 1461-2 (1 Edward IV.), had done his work in a most slovenly manner, dropping here and there words required by the grammatical structure. Unfortunately for the College, in one important place the words “_et successoribus_” were omitted; and some one in authority, fastening on this omission, suggested that the grant was only to the Rector and Fellows for the time being, and on their death or removal would lapse to the Crown. The College appealed, in 1474, for protection to Thomas Rotheram, Bishop of Lincoln and therefore Visitor of the College, and (from May 1474 to April 1475, and again from Sept. 1475) Lord High Chancellor of England.

The manner of this appeal, as recounted by Subrector Robert Parkinson about 1570, in the College register, is sufficiently dramatic. When Rotheram, in the visitation of his diocese, was at Oxford, the Rector or one of the Fellows of Lincoln College preached before him from the text, Ps. lxxx. (lxxxi.), vers. 14, 15, “Behold and visit this vine, and complete it which thy right hand hath planted.” The preacher described the desolate condition of the College, founded by Rotheram’s predecessor, unprotected from the enemies who sought to destroy it; and his words so moved the bishop that he at once rose up and told the preacher that he would perform his desire.[162]

Rotheram was not slow in fulfilling his promise. To relieve the present necessities of the College he gave, in July 1475, a grant of £4 per annum during his life. Thereafter he completed the front quadrangle by building its southern side;[163] and he very greatly increased the endowments by impropriating[164] the rectories of Long Combe in Oxfordshire and Twyford in Bucks. He increased the number of Fellowships by five; but at least three of these had been provided for by earlier benefactors, one by Finderne, one by Forest and Beckington’s executors, and one (for the study of Canon Law) by John Crosby, Treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral.

To secure the legal position of the College, he obtained from Edward IV., 16th June, 1478, a larger charter. In this the king recites his former charter; mentions the doubt which had arisen by reason of its omitting the words “_et successoribus_”; and then sets the position of the College as a _perpetua persona_ for ever at rest. In the same charter the king still further increased the amount of lands which the College might hold in mortmain.

On 11th Feb., 1479-80, Rotheram provided for the internal government of the College by the giving of a full body of statutes. Rotheram therefore is justly regarded as our restorer and second founder.

The later years of the fifteenth and the earlier years of the sixteenth centuries increased the estates of the College by four great benefactions. By an agreement with Margaret Parker, widow of William Dagville, a parishioner of All Saints parish, the College in 1488 (5 Henry VIII.) came into possession of considerable property in Oxford,[165] which had been bequeathed by Dagville, subject to his widow’s life interest, by his will dated 2nd June, 1474, and proved 9th Nov., 1476. In 1508 William Smith, Bishop of Lincoln, gave his manors of Senclers in Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, and of Elston (or Bushbury) in Staffordshire. In 1518 Edmund Audley, Bishop of Sarum, gave £400, with which lands in Buckinghamshire were bought. And in 1537 Edward Darby, Fellow in 1493, and now Archdeacon of Stowe, gave a large sum of money, with which lands in Yorkshire were bought. Darby directed that the number of Fellowships should be increased by three, to be nominated by himself in his lifetime (one of the first three whom he nominated as Fellows was Richard Bruarne, afterwards Regius Professor of Hebrew); and afterwards, one to be nominated by the Bishop of Lincoln, the other two to be elected by the College.

In connection with Bishop Smith’s benefaction, we may note here the singular fatality which has led the College in successive ages to quarrel with its benefactors. Writing in 1570, Subrector Robert Parkinson says, “Bishop Smith would have given to our College all that he afterwards gave to Brasenose (founded by him in 1509) had he agreed with the Rector and Fellows that then were.” With Smith’s change of plans, part of Darby’s benefaction went, for he also founded a Fellowship in Brasenose. Sir Nathaniel Lloyd was a chief benefactor in the early eighteenth century to All Souls in Oxford, and to Trinity Hall in Cambridge: in three successive drafts of his will he takes the trouble to write, “I gave £500 to Lincoln College, which was not applied as I directed: so no more from me!” Lord Crewe, our greatest benefactor of modern times, well deserving the title of “our third founder,” was almost provoked[166] to recalling his benefaction. A quarrel with John Radcliffe diverted from Lincoln College the munificence which doubled the buildings of University College and provided for the erection of the Radcliffe Library, the Infirmary, and the Observatory. Other instances, both remote and recent, might also be cited.

Having now brought the history of the endowments of the College to that point where their application within its walls can be conveniently described, it is necessary to leave the annals of the College for a time and consider its organization, as it was arranged for by Rotheram’s statutes, modified slightly by subsequent benefactions.

The College was to consist of (I) the Rector; (II) Fellows; (III) Chaplains; (IV) Commoners; (V) and Servants.

(I) To the Rector was, of course, in general terms committed the government of the College and its members. But he was allowed large limits of absence from College; and he was to be capable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice in conjunction with his rectorship. In the founder’s intention, therefore, the headship of the College was to be an office of dignity, and the holder set free from the ordinary routine of college work. It was also to be a reward of past services to the College, because only a Fellow, or ex-Fellow, was eligible for the office.

(II) The Fellows were to be thirteen in number, counting the Rector as holding a Fellowship; and consequently, when augmented by Darby, sixteen. Provision was made for the increase of their number if the revenues of the College could bear it; but this provision seems never to have been acted on. The corresponding provision for diminution of the number of Fellowships to eleven, to seven, to five, and even to three, was, however, from time to time had recourse to; and as a rule, the circumstances of the College have not permitted of the extreme number of Fellowships being filled up.[167]

The Fellows were to be elected from graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, born within the counties or dioceses described below; and if not already in priest’s orders were to take them immediately they were of age for them. A Bachelor of Arts was not to be elected unless there was no Master of Arts possessed of the proper county or diocese qualification. When, however, Darby in 1537 gave his three additional Fellowships, he recognized the fact that there might be no graduate in the University eligible, and provided that they might be filled up by the election of an undergraduate Fellow[168] either from undergraduates in Oxford, or by taking a boy from some grammar school in Lincoln diocese; but the person so elected was to have no voice in College business until he had taken his degree.

Taking the full number of Rector, twelve Foundation Fellows, and three Darby Fellows, the sixteen places on the foundation of Lincoln College were assigned as follows--

One Fellowship was to be filled up from the diocese of Wells (_i. e._ county of Somerset), in memory of the benefactions of John Forest, dean, and Thomas Beckington, bishop, of Wells; but this Fellow was specially excluded from election to the Rectorship or Subrectorship. All the other places were to be apportioned between the dioceses of York and Lincoln. It is not known whether Fleming, himself a native of Yorkshire and bishop of Lincoln, had made any such limitations; but Rotheram, possessed of the same twofold interest, draws particular attention to the fact that his College is designed to make provision for natives of these two dioceses which had hitherto been neglected by the founders of colleges. Four places were assigned for natives of the county of Lincoln, with a preference to natives of the archdeaconry of Lincoln; four places were open to natives of the diocese of Lincoln; two places were assigned for natives of the county of York, with a preference to natives of the Archdeaconry of York, and within that with a more particular preference to the parish of Rotherham, in which the second founder was born; two places were to be open to natives of the diocese of York. Of the Darby Fellowships, one was to be for a native of the Archdeaconry of Stowe, one for a native of Leicestershire or Northamptonshire (with a preference to the former), and one for a native of Oxfordshire.[169]

The next point which we may consider is the duties of the Fellows. These may be classified as follows:--

(1) They were to be “theologi” (students of theology), with the single exception of the holder of the Fellowship founded by John Crosby for the study of Canon Law. Their orthodoxy was ensured by a very stringent clause directed against heretical opinions:--“if it be proved by two trustworthy witnesses that any Fellow, _in public or in private_, has favoured heretical tenets, and in particular that pestilent sect, lately sprung up, which assails the sacraments, divers orders and dignities, and property of the Church,” the College is to compel him to immediate submission and correction, or else to expel him.

(2) They were to pray for the souls of founders and benefactors, at the celebration of mass, in bidding-prayers, in the graces in hall, after disputations, and on the anniversaries of their death. This was the chief duty contemplated by all pre-Reformation benefactors.

(3) They had considerable duties to perform with regard to their four Churches which may be classified thus:--

(_a_) As regards spiritualities. Although the ordinary services of the Churches throughout the year were to be discharged by four salaried Chaplains, yet, during Lent, a Fellow of the College was to assist the Chaplain of All Saints in hearing confessions and in other ministerial functions; another, similarly, to assist the Chaplain of St. Michael’s; another, to assist the Chaplain at Combe; and the Rector, or a Fellow appointed by him, to assist the Chaplain at Twyford. On all greater festival days, the Rector or his representative (in an amice, if he had one, and if not, in surplice, and the hood of his degree), accompanied by all the Fellows (except one who was to attend as representative of the College at St. Michael’s), was to go to service at All Saints.[170] St. Mildred’s Church was to be commemorated on her day (13th July) by a celebration in the College chapel; and the benefaction of John Bucktot by a Fellow going to Ashendon to say mass on St. Matthias day, and that of William Finderne by a similar service in Childrey parish church.[171] Sermons in English were to be preached at All Saints on Easter Day and on All Saints Day,[172] by the Rector, and on the dedication day of that Church, by one of the Fellows; and at St. Michael’s on Michaelmas Day, by one of the Fellows.[173]

(_b_) As regards temporalities. On the 6th of May a “Rector chori” was to be appointed for All Saints and a “Rector chori” for St. Michael’s; their duties were to occupy the Rector’s stall in the chancel, and to collect all alms, fees, etc., for the bursar of the College. These duties at Twyford belonged to the Rector of the College, and at Combe were supervised by him.

(4) As regards the ordinary academical curriculum, the founder’s requirements were by no means exacting.

(_a_) The College disputations were to be weekly during Term, in Logic and Philosophy on Wednesdays, for those members who had taken B.A. and not yet proceeded to M.A. (there being no undergraduates, according to the founder’s scheme); and in Theology on Fridays, for all members of M.A. standing. Both sets of disputations were to cease during Lent, when the Fellows were engaged in their ministerial duties.

(_b_) Fellows, elected as B.A., were to proceed to M.A. as soon as possible; Fellows were to take B.D. (or B. Can. L. in case of the Canonist Fellow) within nine years from M.A.; and, unless the College approved of an excuse, to proceed to D.D. (or D. Can. L.) within six years later. The last of these provisions, however, was practically a dead letter, for the College never forced any Fellow to the expensive dignity of the Doctorate.

(5) Study, however, as distinct from formal academical exercises, was inculcated as a virtue both by persuasions and punishments. The Subrector was charged to rebuke Fellows not merely for offences against morality and decorum, but for being neglectful of books; and unless the Fellows so admonished submitted and mended their ways, they were to be expelled.

The founder and later benefactors, as has been from time to time noted, made gifts of “books” (_i. e._ MSS.) for the use of the Fellows; and John Forest built a library for their reception. According to Rotheram’s statutes, two classes of books were to be recognized--

(_a_) Those which were to be chained in the library, and which the reader had therefore to consult there. According to the Catalogue of 1474, this library then contained 135 MSS., arranged on seven desks.

(_b_) Those which were to be considered as “in the common choice” of the Rector and Fellows. On each 6th November a list of these was to be made out; the Rector was to choose one, and after him the Fellows one each, according to their seniority,[174] and so on till the books were all taken out; thereafter, the Fellows were to take the books to their own rooms, depositing a bond for their safe custody and return. In 1476 there were 35 books in this “lending library,” different from the 135 above-mentioned. A record is also found of the books (18 in number) thus borrowed by the Fellows in 1595 and (17 in number) in 1596; among them are two copies of Augustine _De civitate Dei_, and one of Servius _In Virgilium_.

(6) The Fellows had to take their share in the ordinary routine of College business, especially in the two chief meetings on 6th May and 6th November, called “chapters” (_capitula_), and to serve when called upon in the College offices. These were three in number, all held for one year only.

(_a_) The Subrector was charged with the general management of the College during the Rector’s absence, the supervision of the conduct of the Fellows and commoners, the presiding over disputations, and the writing of all letters on College business. The emblem of his office was a whip, which, with his alternative title (Subrector _sive_ Corrector[175]), is eloquent as to his original duty of correcting faults of conduct by corporal punishment. This scourge of four tails, made of plaited cord after the old fashion, is still extant and perfect, is solemnly laid down by the Subrector at the conclusion of his term of office, and restored to him next day on his re-election. It has been coveted for the Pitt-Rivers anthropological museum, as a genuine example of the “flagellum” of mediæval discipline.

(_b_) The Bursar (_thesaurarius_) was charged with the duties of paying bills, collecting rents, and keeping accounts; of seeing that commons were duly and sufficiently supplied; and of governing the College servants (over whom he had the power, with the consent of the Rector, of appointment and dismissal).

(_c_) The Key-keeper (_claviger_) was to keep one of the three keys with which the Treasury was locked, and one of the three keys of the chest in the Treasury which contained the College money, the other keys of these sets being in the charge of the Rector and Subrector. This “chest of three keys” corresponds to the balance to the credit of the College at its bankers and its investments in the public stocks; in it were placed any surplus money or donations to meet sudden calls for payment or to wait investment; and the idea of appointing a key-keeper was that the chest might never be approached by any person at random or singly, but always by responsible officers, protected against themselves by the presence of others.

(7) The Fellows were strictly required to reside in Oxford and within College. During the Long Vacation they might be absent from College for six weeks; at other times not for more than two days, without special leave: the Rector and Subrector had, however, general directions given them in the statutes not to be niggardly in granting leave in cases where the presence of the applicant was required by no College duties.

On several occasions of the visitation of the city by the plague, this requirement of residence was relaxed; and the Fellows were permitted to have all their allowances if they lived in common at some place near Oxford. Thus, in the pestilence of 1535, commons were allowed to the Rector, Subrector, and five Fellows in residence at Launton, for a fortnight in some cases, for a month in others; and in that of 1538, commons were allowed to the Rector, Subrector, and twelve Fellows in residence at Gosford (near Kidlington), during a period of no less than fifteen weeks.

During Elizabeth’s reign, leaves of absence become frequent and continuous, and are practically equivalent to non-residence. The Fellows in this reign, and later, developed a bad habit of asking for leave when their turn for disputing, or other duties, came round; and several Visitors’ Injunctions are directed against granting leaves unless a substitute has been provided to perform all duties.

From this statement of the duties of the Fellows, we pass on to discuss their emoluments. These can best be understood if we group them together under separate heads.

(_a._) Commons (_communiæ_), the weekly allowance for food at the common table in the hall of the College, and at the regular time of meals. Rotheram provided that in each week there should be allowed for each Fellow in residence (counting the Rector as a Fellow), the sum of sixteen-pence; fixing the allowance at that amount, and not more, because, as he says, “clerks” should avoid luxury.

Several festivals of the Church’s year were to be honoured by an addition to the ordinary table-allowance. In the weeks in which the following Holy-days occurred, the allowance for commons for each Fellow was to be increased by the sum named:--Epiphany (6th Jan.), 4_d._; Purification of Mary (Feb. 2nd), 2_d._; _Carnis privium_ (Septuagesima Sunday), 2_d._; Annunciation of Mary (25th Mar.), 2_d._; Easter, 8_d._; Ascension, 4_d._; Whitsun day, 8_d._; Corpus Christi, 4_d._; St. Mildred (13th July), 2_d._; Assumption of Mary (15th Aug.), 2_d._; Nativity of Mary (8th Sept.), 2_d._; Michaelmas (29th Sept.), 2_d._; dedication of St. Michael’s Church (in Oct.), 2_d._; All Saints’ Day (1st Nov.), 4_d._; dedication of All Saints’ Church (in Nov.), 4_d._; Conception of Mary (8th Dec.), 2_d._; Christmas, 8_d._

An incidental, and therefore very striking, indication of the plagues which then infected the country is the care the statutes take to provide for cases of leprosy or other noisome disease. The Fellow so afflicted is to live away from the College, and to receive yearly forty shillings in lieu of all allowances.

(_b._) Salary (_salarium_), payments in money. Rotheram made no grants for these, except to the Rector and the College officers; but he gave liberty to other benefactors to make them. The first distinct mention of such grants is in 1537, when Edmund Darby directs that 3_s._ 4_d._ shall be paid annually to each Fellow, and 6_s._ 8_d._ to the Rector. The dividends of the College rents, after payment of all charges, known as “provision,” date no doubt from a very early period, but their history cannot now be traced.

(_c._) Livery (_vestura_), allowance for clothing. For this also Rotheram made no provision, except to permit it if given by later benefactors. Edmund Audley, Bishop of Sarum, in giving his benefaction in 1518, directed that forty shillings per annum should be allowed _pro robis_ to the Rector, and to each of the four senior Fellows.

(_d._) The Fellows in common were entitled to the services of the common servants; for which see below.

(_e._) The Fellows were entitled to have rooms (_cameræ_) rent-free. These were to be chosen, according to seniority, on the May chapter. About 1600 we find that along with his room, the Fellow received also the attic (“loft,” or “cock-loft”) over it, into which he might put a tenant from whom he might receive rent. How far this custom had come down from antiquity we have no means of saying.

(_f._) Obits (_obitus_), allowances for being present at Mass on the anniversary-day of a benefactor. A considerable benefactor invariably made a bargain with the College, that his name should be kept in remembrance, and his soul’s health prayed for in a special Mass, yearly on the anniversary of his death, or, if that should clash with some very solemn season of the Church’s year, on the nearest convenient day. To insure the presence of the Rector and Fellows, he generally ordered that each Fellow present at the Commemoration Service should receive a stipulated sum, which was called by the same name as the day itself, an “obit.”

The following are the dates of the obits in Lincoln College, and the amount paid to each Fellow; the Rector as celebrant, receiving in each case double the amount which a Fellow received:--Jan. 10th, Edward Darby, 1_s._; Jan. 16th, Bishop Beckington, 6_d._; Feb. 23rd, Archdeacon Southam, 1_s._; March 21st, John Crosby, 8_d._; March 26th, Dean Forest, 1_s._; April 11th, Cardinal Beaufort, 8_d._; May 29th, Rotheram, the second founder, 1_s._; Aug. 23rd, Bishop Audley, 1_s._; Oct. 10th, Bishop William Smith, 1_s._; Oct. 29th, William Dagvill, 1_s._; Nov. 16th, William Bate, 6_d._--all of them early benefactors. The obit of the first founder, Fleming, was fixed for Jan. 25th; but no allowances made for it, gratitude alone being strong enough to ensure the attendance of all the Fellows.

At the Reformation, the celebration of Mass and, consequently, the observance of these anniversary services in the form directed by the statutes, became illegal, and the chapel services ceased. The allowances still continued to be paid to each Fellow who was present in College on the particular day, the test of “presence” being now dining in hall at the ordinary hour of dinner.

(_g._) Pittances (_pietantia_). Besides the sum given to the Rector and each Fellow on a benefactor’s anniversary day, it is sometimes directed that a sum shall be paid to them in common for “a pittance,” _i. e._ as I suppose, to provide a better dinner on that day. Thus Cardinal Beaufort gave a pittance of 3_s._ 4_d._; Rotheram, one of 2_s._; Edward Darby, one of 3_s._ 4_d._

(III) The Chaplains were four in number. Two were to serve the churches of All Saints and St. Michael in Oxford, one of whom must be of the diocese of York, the other of the diocese of Lincoln. They were to be appointed by the Rector, and to be removed by him when he chose; and each to receive from the College a stipend of £5 per annum. A third Chaplain was to serve the church of Twyford under the same conditions, except that his stipend was to be paid by the Rector; a fourth was to serve the church of Combe Longa.

It was clearly no part of the founder’s intention that the chaplaincies should be served by the Fellows: and we find, down to the Civil War and the Commonwealth, instances of Chaplains who were not Fellows. But after the Restoration, when £5 per annum no longer represented a reasonable year’s income, there was a growing feeling that it was for the honour of the College that the duties of Chaplain of All Saints, St. Michael’s, and Combe should be undertaken by Fellows. And so long as there were Fellows in orders enough for the duties, this was done. In the last half century, recognizing the changed circumstances of the times, the College has provided a more adequate endowment for each of its four chaplaincies.

(IV) The Servants. Rotheram’s statutes provided that the Rector and each Fellow should have free of charge his share of the services of the “common” servants (_i. e._ of the College servants). These were (1) the manciple, whose duty it was to buy in provisions and distribute them in College; (2) the cook; (3) the barber;[176] (4) the laundress. From an account-book of 1591, it appears that the salary of the manciple and of the cook was £1 6_s._ 8_d._ per annum; of the barber, 10_s._; and of the laundress £2.

There was also the bible-clerk (_bibliotista_, contracted _bita_), who was to be the Rector’s servant when he was in residence. At dinner in hall he was to read, from the Bible, or some expositor, or some other instructive book, a portion appointed by the Rector or Subrector; and at dinner and supper he was to wait at the Fellows’ table. For these services he was to receive food and drink; a room; and washing and shaving (the latter referring to the tonsure probably, and not suggesting that he was old enough to grow a beard). Different benefactors made additions to his emoluments; and at last, until divided by the 1855 statutes into two “Rector’s Scholarships,” the Bible-clerkship was the best paid office in College, being worth three times the Subrectorship, twice the Bursarship, or once and a half a Tutorship.

(V) The Commoners, or Sojourners (_commensales seu sojornantes_). Almost from the first there had been graduates resident in College, attracted by its quiet and by its social life, but not on the foundation, and therefore receiving no allowances from the College. Rotheram’s statutes provided for their discipline, directing that they must take part in the disputations of the Fellows, and so on. Undergraduates are by implication excluded; and this presumption is increased to a certainty by the fact that no provision is made in the statutes for tuition.

In its beginnings, therefore, Lincoln College differs from our modern conceptions of a College alike in its aims and in its constitution. In all external features, and partially also in its domestic arrangements, it resembles a monastic house; but it differs from a convent in two important, though not obvious, points; first, that its inmates are not bound by a rule, and are free to depart from the College into the wider service of the Church; secondly, that the duty of prayer for benefactors and the Christian dead is co-ordinate with two other duties, the duty of serving certain churches, and the duty of studying for study’s sake and for the truth. We have next to inquire how the College changed its original character, and was made, like other Oxford Colleges, a place of residence for undergraduates, with a body of Fellows engaged in tuition. This was one of the indirect results of the Reformation.

Under Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, the old freedom of the University was taken away, lest, if the immunities of the place continued, Oxford should become an asylum for disaffected persons.[177] No undergraduate was to be allowed in the University, unless he had the protection of a graduate tutor; and residence was to be restricted to residence within the walls of a College or Hall. There was thus an external pressure forcing undergraduates to enter Colleges. There was also a readiness from within the College to receive them. The proceedings of the Reformers had been a violent shock to the adherents of the old faith in Lincoln College; and now that the routine of chapel services, masses, anniversaries, obits, could no longer be pursued, these adherents devoted themselves to training up young students in opposition to the new movement. And when, under John Underhill (Rector 1577-1590), the College was purged of the old leaven, the pressure of poverty (which then began to be felt in the University) made the Fellows glad to have undergraduates resident in College to keep up the establishment and pay tuition fees.

Unfortunately, there are no statistics of the stages of this change: the intervals between the years in which statements of the numbers in College occur being too great. In 1552 there were in College, the Rector, eleven Fellows, one B.A. Commoner, and thirteen persons not graduates, of whom some were certainly servitors, and some probably servants. In 1575 the Rector and the greater part of the Fellows have undergraduate pupils assigned to them in grammar and logic. In 1588 there were in College, the Rector and twelve Fellows, sixteen undergraduate Commoners, and nine servitors. In 1746, there were the Rector and twelve Fellows, eight Gentlemen-commoners, eighteen Commoners, and eight Servitors.

What provision was made for their instruction?

From about 1592 the College appointed annually these instructors for its undergraduates: (_a_) two “Moderators,” to preside over the disputations in “Philosophy” and in “Logic” (occasionally when the College was full, an additional “Moderator” was appointed in Logic); (_b_) a Catechist, or theological instructor. Also, from 1615, a lecturer in Greek, annually appointed, was added. Of these the catechetical lecture disappears after 1642; the others continued to be annually filled up till 1856, but for many years these had been merely nominal appointments, the work of tuition devolving on regularly appointed Tutors, as in other Colleges. But at what date these last had been introduced into Lincoln College, is nowhere stated. In some few years, exceptional appointments are made; as, for example, in 1624 a Fellow is appointed to teach Hebrew; in 1708, £6 per annum is paid to Philip Levi, the Hebrew master.

Among these lecturers two may be noted. In 1607, and again in 1609 and 1610, Robert Sanderson was Logic lecturer; and began that vigorous course of Logic, which was published in 1615, and long dominated the Schools of Oxford: indeed, its indirect influence survived into the present half century, if, as Rector Tatham wrote to Dean Cyril Jackson, “Aldrich’s logic is cribbed from Sanderson’s.” In 1615 Sanderson was Catechist, and perhaps at that time turned his attention to those questions of casuistry, in which he was to gain enduring fame. John Wesley was appointed to give the Logic and Greek lectures in 1727, 1728, 1730; and the Philosophy and Greek lectures in 1731, 1732, and 1733.

What provision was made for the maintenance of undergraduates in the College?

In 1568, Mrs. Joan Traps, widow of Robert Traps, goldsmith of London, bequeathed to the College lands at Whitstable in Kent for the maintenance of four poor scholars. One scholar was to be nominated from Sandwich School by the Mayor and Jurats of that town, but not to be admitted unless the College thought him fit; in defect of such nomination, Lincoln College was to fill this place up (as it did the other three) from any grammar school in England. Each of these four scholars was to receive fifty-three shillings and fourpence half-yearly. Mrs. Traps was also, in her husband’s name, a benefactor to Caius College, Cambridge, in which College their portraits hang. Descendants of R. Traps’ brother are still found in Lancashire, Catholics; and one of them has told me his belief that the Traps had bought Church lands at the dissolution of the monasteries, intending to return them to the Church when the nation was again settled on its old lines; but this hope failing, devoted them to education,[178] as so many other conscientious purchasers of Church lands did. If this be so, it is fitting that the first recorded Traps’ Scholar, William Harte (elected 25th May, 1571), should have been one of those sufferers for the old faith, whose cruel and barbarous murders are so dark a stain on the “spacious times” of Elizabeth. Mrs. Joyce Frankland, daughter of the Traps, augmented the stipend of these “scholars.” She was afterwards a considerable benefactress to Brasenose College, and a most munificent donor to Caius College, Cambridge. Is she also to be numbered among those “offended benefactors” who have been mentioned above? Or had Lincoln College in her time been “reformed”? These four Traps’ scholars,[179] commonly called the “Scholars of the House” (being distinguished, as I suppose, by that name from the servitors maintained privately by any Fellow), were for a century the only undergraduates in Lincoln College in receipt of any endowment.

In 1640, Thomas Hayne left £6 per annum in trust to the corporation of Leicester for the maintenance of two scholars in Lincoln College to be elected by the Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen of that city. The corporation received this benefaction, but never sent any scholar to the College. Numerous educational benefactions throughout England were lost, like this, in the anarchy of the Civil War.

In 1655, a Chancery suit was begun against Anthony Foxcrofte, who had destroyed a codicil of Charles Greenwood, Rector of Thornhill and Wakefield, by which two Fellowships (or perhaps Scholarships) were bestowed on Lincoln College. What the issue of the suit was, I cannot say; nothing, certainly, came to the College.

About 1670, Edmund Parboe left a rent-charge of £10 per annum issuing out of the Pelican Inn in Sandwich, of which £4 was to be paid to the master of the grammar-school there, £1 to the Mayor and Juratts for wine “when they keep their ordinary there,” £5 to Lincoln College for the increase of the scholarship from Sandwich school; if no scholar is in College, it is to be funded till one is sent, and the arrears paid to him. From that date the corporation of Sandwich never nominated a scholar. I suspect the Mayor and Juratts treated the £5, like the £1, as a _pour boire_.

May the College still hope that the towns of Leicester and Sandwich, or some one for them, will remember the long arrears of these endowments, thus diverted from education? Even at simple interest, they would be now a great benefaction; and at compound interest, how great!

Later Scholarships and Exhibitions were founded by Rectors Marshall (four, in 1688), Crewe (twelve, 1717), Hutchins (several, 1781), Radford (several, 1851); also by Mrs. Tatham, widow of Rector Tatham (one, 1847). In 1857, Henry Usher Matthews, formerly Commoner of the College, founded a Scholarship in Lincoln College, and an Exhibition in Shrewsbury School to be held in Lincoln College: but the Public Schools Commissioners unjustly took the latter from the College. Since that date no Scholarship benefaction has come to the College; but Scholarships and Exhibitions have been created from time to time, under the provisions of the Statutes of 1855, out of suspended Fellowships.

The consideration of this change in the aims of the College has led us beyond the point to which we had come in its annals; it is therefore necessary to go back, and pass rapidly in review its post-Reformation history.

John Cottisford, the eighth Rector of the College (elected in March 1518-19), resigned on 7th Jan., 1538-9, probably[180] in dismay at the course of events in the nation. His successor, Hugh Weston, elected on 8th Jan., was possibly supposed to be on the reforming side; for he was undisturbed by Edward VI.’s Commissioners; but had to resign in 1555 to the Visitors appointed by Cardinal Pole. Christopher Hargreaves, elected on 24th Aug., 1555, and confirmed in his place by Cardinal Pole’s Visitors, died on 15th Oct., 1558. His successor, Henry Henshaw or Heronshaw, was hardly elected on 24th Oct., when the hopes of the Romanist party were shattered. The College register, in the greatness of its anxiety, breaks, on this one occasion, the silence it observes as to affairs outside the College.[181] “In the year of our Lord 1558, in November, died the lady of most holy memory, Mary, Queen of England, and Reginald Poole, Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury; the body of the former was buried in Westminster, the body of the latter in his cathedral church of Canterbury, both on the same day, namely 14th December. At this date the following were Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College,” and then follows a list of them. Clearly the writer of this note did not look forward to remaining long in College. Nor did he; within two years Henshaw had to resign to Queen Elizabeth’s Visitors. Francis Babington, who had just been made Master of Balliol by these Visitors, was transferred to the Rectorship of Lincoln. In this appointment we can detect the sinister influence which was to direct elections at Lincoln for some time to come; Babington was chaplain to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Chancellor of the University after 1564. The election was in flagrant violation of the Statutes which required that the Rector should be chosen from the Fellows or ex-Fellows of the College. But it was the policy of the Court to break College traditions, by thrusting outsiders into the chief government: the same thing was done in other Colleges, the case of Lincoln being peculiar only in the frequency of the intrusion. Doubts began to be cast on Babington’s sincerity; he was accused of secretly favouring Romanism; and in 1563 he found it advisable to betake himself beyond sea.[182] Leicester was ready with another of his chaplains, John Bridgwater, who had been Fellow of Brasenose, and was not statutably eligible for the Rectorship of Lincoln. Again the Court was mistaken in its man. Under Bridgwater the College became a Romanist seminary, and continued so for eleven years; and then Bridgwater had to follow his predecessor across the seas, retiring to Douay, where, Latinising his name into “Aquapontanus,” he became famous as a theologian. He is still held in honour among his co-religionists, and I remember several visits paid to the College in recent years by admirers of his, in hopes of seeing a portrait of him (but the College has none) or his handwriting (which we have). Still another of his chaplains was thrust into Lincoln College by the over-powerful Leicester; this time John Tatham, Fellow of Merton. But Tatham’s Rectorship was destined to be a brief one: elected in July 1574, he was buried in All Saints’ Church on 20th Nov., 1576.

Then there took place a very remarkable contest, six candidates seeking the Rectorship. Only one, John Gibson, Fellow since 1571, was statutably qualified; although of only six years’ standing as a Fellow he was still senior Fellow, a fact eloquent as to the removal of the older Fellows from the College. Edmund Lilly, of Magd. Coll., another candidate, relied apparently on his popularity in the University. The other four candidates relied on compulsion from outside, William Wilson, of Mert. Coll., being recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, while the Chancellor (Lord Leicester) and the Bishops of Lincoln and Rochester tried to secure the election of their respective Chaplains. Leicester’s candidate, John Underhill, was specially unacceptable to the College, having been removed from his Fellowship at New College by the Bishop of Winchester (the Visitor there), because of some malpractices with the College moneys. The Fellows elected John Gibson; the Bishop of Lincoln refused to admit him. Leicester wrote threatening letters to the College; summoned several of the Fellows to London, and browbeat them there. Then, thinking he had now gained his point, he proceeded to frighten off the other candidates, in order to leave a clear field for Underhill. The Fellows again elected Gibson; and the Bishop of Lincoln again refused to admit him. Then the Fellows elected Wilson; but the Bishop refused to admit him. So that, there being no help for it, they met again on 22nd June, 1577, and elected Underhill.

These proceedings caused great indignation in the University; and a petition was drawn up, worded in very strong terms, entreating the Archbishop of Canterbury to undertake the defence of the University against the “iniquity, wrong, and violence” which had been done. This was signed by resident B.D.’s and M.A.’s, and presented to his Grace, who passed it on to Leicester. Leicester thereupon wrote a long letter to Convocation, trying to justify his action, and threatening to resign his Chancellorship of the University if further attacked in this matter.

Underhill’s first step after his election was to begin a new register, and to tear out of the old register all records of the proceedings since the death of Tatham; so that the only entry in the College books concerning this controversy is that Underhill was “unanimously elected.” Leicester visited the College in 1585, and the Latin congratulatory verses on that occasion are among the earliest printed of Oxford contributions to that particularly dull form of literature. Underhill remained rector till 1590. By that time the see of Oxford had been vacant twenty years; and, as the leases of the episcopal estates were running out, Sir Francis Walsingham required a bishop who would make new leases and give him a share of the fines. He selected Underhill for this purpose, who was consecrated Bishop of Oxford in December 1589, and resigned the Rectorship of the College in 1590. His patron, having no further use for him after the renewal of the leases, neglected him; and Underhill died in poverty and disgrace in May 1592.

Leicester being now dead, the College at this vacancy was left to choose its own head; and Richard Kilby, Fellow since 1578, was elected sixteenth rector on 10th December, 1590. Kilby’s Rectorship proved one continuous domestic struggle, which has left its mark in the College register in scored-out pages and blotted entries, as plainly as an actual battle leaves its mark in fields of grain trampled down by contending armies. The question was about the number of Fellows. In Underhill’s Rectorship the College appears to have been impoverished, and unable to pay the full body of Fellows their allowances. Kilby’s policy was to leave the Fellowships vacant, in order to keep up the income of the present holders; the opposition in College desired to fill up the Fellowships and to submit to a reduction of stipend all round.

In April 1592 the number of Fellows had fallen to nine. On 24th April three Fellows were elected; this election was quashed by the Visitor on 8th December of the same year. But the Fellows returned to the charge, and elected three Fellows on 15th December, and five others on 16th December, 1592; so that in 1593 the College consists of the Rector and the full number of Fellows (_i. e._ fifteen). Vacancies occur rapidly, the Fellowships being so small in value. In 1596, and again in 1599, elections of one Fellow are made, are appealed against, but confirmed by the Visitor. In 1600 the number of Fellows had again fallen as low as ten, and the Fellows wished to proceed to an election; but the Rector (Kilby) tried to prevent their doing so by retiring to the country. The Subrector, (Edmund Underhill) called a meeting, and on 3rd November, 1600, the Fellows, in the Rector’s absence, elected into two vacancies. Kilby induced the Visitor to quash these elections; Edmund Underhill appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury as primate of the southern province. This was against the statutes, which directed that no Fellow should invoke any other judge than the Visitor; and on this ground, on 4th May, 1602, Kilby procured Underhill’s expulsion. At the end of 1605 there were only five Fellows remaining; by 2nd May, 1606, two more had resigned. On the next day the Rector and the three Fellows remaining elected eight new Fellows, the last of the eight being certainly not the least, but the most illustrious Lincoln name of the century, Robert Sanderson, the prince of casuists.

The years which follow, from this election to the breaking out of the Civil War, present two aspects. Externally tokens of prosperity are not wanting. The buildings were considerably increased. In 1610 Sir Thomas Rotheram, probably the same who had been Fellow from 1586 to 1593 and Bursar[183] in 1592, and apparently of kin to the second Founder,[184] built the west side of the chapel quadrangle. The chapel itself, with its beautiful glass (said to be the work of an artist Abbott, brother of the Archbishop), was the gift of John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and Visitor of the College. Bishop Williams at the same time (1628-1631) built the east side of the chapel quadrangle. The work cost more than he had promised to give, and the College had to complete it at its own charges; £90 being spent on this work in 1629, “as being all the sum that my lord our benefactor did require or the College could spare.” It is curious to find[185] the same benefactor doing exactly the same thing in the fixed sum he gave (and would not increase) for building the library at St. John’s College in Cambridge. If we turn, however, to the domestic annals of the College during this period we find an unlovely picture of turbulence and disorder. Fellows and Commoners alike are accused of boorish insolence, of swinish intemperance, of quarrelling and fighting. Bursars mismanage their trust and fail to render account of the College moneys they have received. Fellows try to defraud the College by marrying in secret and retaining their Fellowships. Two or three of the less scandalous scenes will be sufficient to indicate the violence of the times. On 20th November, 1634, Thomas Goldsmith, B.A., had to read a public apology in chapel for “a most cruel and barbarous assault” on William Carminow, an undergraduate. In December 1634 Thomas Smith, an M.A. commoner, made “a desperate and barbarous assault” on Nicholas North, another M.A. commoner, in the room of the latter. The same Thomas Smith a month before had been ordered by the Rector “to take his dogs[186] out of the College,” which order he had treated with contempt. In October 1636 Richard Kilby and John Webberley, two Fellows, fell out and fought; and “Mr. Kilbye’s face was sore bruised and beaten.” The College ordered Webberley “to pay the charge of the surgeon for healing of Mr. Kilbye’s face.”

We must pass very hastily over the period from 1641 to the Restoration, not because the annals of Lincoln are lacking in interest during these years, but because space presses and the chief incidents have been noted in Wood’s _History of the University_ and in Burrows’ _Register of the Parliamentary Visitation_. Paul Hood, the Rector, being a Puritan, kept his place under the Commonwealth, and having been constitutionally elected before the Civil War, retained it at the Restoration. Ten Fellows were ejected by the Parliamentary Visitors, and ten put into their place, at least six of them being persons of unsatisfactory character. At the Restoration Hood got the King’s Commissioners to eject those of the ten who remained, and seven Fellows were elected in their place, the only name of interest among these being that of Henry Foulis, famous in his own age for his violent and bulky invectives against Presbyterianism and Romanism.

Lincoln College was singularly fortunate during the latter half of the seventeenth and for the greater part of the eighteenth centuries. Hood, at the Restoration, was in extreme old age, and left the whole management of the College to Nathaniel Crewe (Subrector 1664-1668), so that it fairly escaped the break-down in manners, morals, and studies which the Restoration brought to many Colleges. Crewe, after a short Rectorship of four years (1668-1672), was raised to the Episcopal Bench; and at the close of his long life proved our greatest benefactor. When he resigned Crewe used his influence to get Thomas Marshall elected Rector, a good scholar and a good governor; who, on his death in 1685, left his estate to the College. His successor, Fitz-herbert Adams, was also a considerable benefactor. Of John Morley and Euseby Isham, who followed, John Wesley speaks in the highest terms. Richard Hutchins, twenty-third Rector (1755-1781), was a model disciplinarian and an excellent man of business; and, following Marshall’s example, left his estate for the endowment of scholarships.

During this happy period much was done to improve the College, which can only be touched on in the briefest outline here. In 1662 John Lord Crewe of Steane (father of Nathaniel) converted the old chapel--which since the consecration of the new chapel on 15th September, 1631, had lain empty--into a library, which it still remains, and changed the library into a set of rooms. In 1662 the room under the library westwards was set aside as a room where the Fellows might have their common fires and hold their College meetings;[187] it is still the Fellows’ morning-room. In 1684 the common-room was wainscotted at a cost of £90, Dr. John Radcliffe subscribing £10, and George Hickes and John Kettlewell each £5. In 1686 Fitz-herbert Adams spent £470 on repairing and beautifying the chapel. In 1697-1700 the hall was wainscotted at a cost of £270, to which Lord Crewe gave £100. Rector Hutchins bought from Magdalen College some of the houses between the College and All Saints’ Church, and left money to purchase the others, so as to form the present College garden.