Oxford and Oxford Life

Front matter

THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD: Their History and their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A. CLARK, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College. 8vo. 12s, 6d,

** A delightful book, learned and lively.”—Academy. “ A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on the Colleges of Oxford.”—Athengum.

RIXAE OXONIENSES: An Account of the Battles of the Nations, The Struggle between Town and Gown, &c. By 8. F. Hutton, M.A. Crown 8vo. 5s.

Contents

CHAP, PAGE I. Oxrorp in THE Past. Rev. H. H. cae late Fellow of All Souls’ College woe a : 1° II. Oxrorp 1n THE Present. J. WELLS . : 32 Il]. Expenses or Oxvorp Lire. J. WELLS : : 51

IV. Tue Inrettectuat Lire. F. G. Brasant, late Scholar of ©.C.C. . . , ‘ 3 : 58

V.'THe SoctaL Lirr, J. S. G. Pemberton, Fellow of All Souls’ College... : : - . 89

Preface

[t is now more than two years since I agreed with Messrs

Methuen & Co. to re-edit “ Oxford, its Life and Schools,” which was edited by Mr Stedman in 1887. But the important and widely-supported movement for a radical change in the degree system of Oxford, which was set on foot by the President of Corpus, seemed at one time likely to be successful: it was useless to think of publishing anything on Oxford while this uncertainty as to future changes prevailed, and hence the delay in the appearance of the book.

I have spoken of it as a new edition of an old work ;. if would be more true to call it a new book. Chapters 11., IIL, V., VI., and 1x. are entirely new, while ehapters Iv., vL, and vii. have been most carefully revised, and considerable additions have been made to them. Unfortunately my friend, Mr Henson, was too busy to spare any time to complete chapter 1, and left it entirely in my hands. I have therefore republished it as before (with the correction of two or three obvious misprints), adding, however, some pages to it (pp. 25 to 30) dealing with the history of the present century,

It only remains for me to thank the late editor, Mr Stedman, for courteously consenting to hand over his work to me, and for valuable suggestions, and my contributors

Vili PREFACE.

for their respective chapters. While the merit of these belongs entirely to their authors, I fear I must share anv blame which the reviewers see fit to bestow upon them, as their chapters have of course passed through my hands.

I hope that the book may be useful to the large and rapidly inereasing class of those who are interested in Oxford ; and that it may thereby do something to promote the interests of that Alma Mater, of whom it may be truly said, that to know her is to love her, and that to love her is itself a liberal education.

CuHapter I.

OXFORD IN THE PAST.

HE Universities formed one of the most characteristic elements of medieval life. They held an important and peculiar position, Intimately connected with the Church, to which indeed they owed their existence, they were by no means included in the Church’s organization ; nay, they stood outside it, not always in an attitude of friendliness. The Universities were the main-stays of orthodoxy ; they were also the chosen haunts of heresy. Free thought on the most sacred subjects—elsewhere proscribed—tlourished among the citjzons of these studentrepublics. The great movement of the eleventh century to which the Universities of Europe owed their origin, is entified with the name of an heresiarch—Abelard. The nfluence of Oxford, of Paris, and of Prague reached its highest level when their destinies were swayed by heretics ——Wycliffe, and Gerson, and Huss, respectively. The case was not far different with the relations between the Universities and the temporal power. They must be reckoned with the municipal corporations, the monastic orders, and the civic leagues as one of the great forces hostile to feudalism. Fiercely democratic in tone, in government republican, they stood in dramatic antithesis to the prevailing social and political system.

If Oxford must yield in point of antiquity to Bologna, and in that of cosmopolitan influence to Paris, yet it may claim to be more truly national than either. Of English

A institutions there are few which have entered so deeply into the national life as the University of Oxfurd. For centuries past it has mirrored that life, alike in greatness and shame, in faith and sin, with unvarying fidelity. To Englishmen, then, the history of the University must always be deeply interesting. If, however, an inquirer demand the time when first that history began, he can obtain no definite answer to his question. The beginnings of the University of Oxford are buried in a profound obscurity. A century ago it was not so. Then—unless ill chance brought a sceptic from the sister University on the scene—the Oxonian could, without fear of contradiction, claim the iuamortal Alfred as the first “ Founder and Benefactor ” of his Alma Mater. In these days of enlightenment nobody believes in the “ Aluredian fiction,” and the exact date at which the University entered on its history must be relegated to the region of things unknown.

It seems fairly certain that the town of Oxford! can claim an antiquity of at least a thousand years. The story of Saint Frideswide, though itself a mere legend, and existing in documents of a comparatively late date, seems to embody an historic fact. In the eighth? century, it may be fairly believed, a community of nuns established themselves “on the site, which in later times has borne the name of Oxford. As for the name itself, it first makes its appearance in the Saxon Chronicle under the year 912.

In the last quarter of the eleventh century (a.p. 1086), there was compiled that famous survey which is known as the Domesday Book. It contains a very careful and detailed account of Oxford, but in that account there is not a single word to indicate the existence of the University. Yet the

“ 1“ The Early History of Oxford,” by J. Parker, chap. iv. (Oxford Hist. joc. 185).

2 Remains of what is probably the original Saxon church have been discovered to the east of the Lady Uhapel of the Cathedral by Mr Park Harrison, Some account of these may be read in the Transactions of the Oxford Historical and Architectur:] Society for 14d7 (p. 88, seq.).

statements of the Survey are not without interest to the student of academic history, for-the Church appears to hold a very prominent position ; out of 297 “mansions” of which the owners are recorded, no less than 115 are said to be the property of ecclesiastics, This fact is important, for there can be no doubt that the University owed its origin to the Church,

Around the foundation of Saint Frideswide there gathered a settlement of wooden houses, from which came in after times the historic town. Out of the schools which were attached to the same foundation, there developed by slow degrees the historic University. The exact date when the schools became the University cannot be certainly determined, but there would seem to be good reason for assigning the reign of Henry II. as the period at which the transition was accomplished. It is indeed true that Robert Pullus is said to have lectured on Theology as early as 1133, and Vacarins on the Civil Law, a few years later, but both the one and the other were probably “either mere teachers in the royal court, or private tutors under the Canons of St Baiduswide.”! In the year 1187, however, at the very end of Jlenry IL’s reign, there is definite evidence that the University was in existence. Giraldus Cambrensis records how he came to Oxford in that year, and read his new work on the “Conquest of Ireland” to mixed audiences of citizens and scholars, whom he entertained sumptuously. In 1187, then; and for some time before, how long is uncertain, there was an University in Oxford.

But what was an University ? One of the most distinctive features of the Middle Age was the tendency to association which operated in every sphere of life. The existence of this tendency can be traced in the rise of religious orders, of orders of chivalry, of municipal corporations, of tradeguilds, and craft-guilds, and, also, of universities. An

1** Lectures on Medisval and Modern History,” by Bishop Stubbs, p. 141. (Clarendon Press, 1856.)

University, in fact, was precisely a “scholastic guild, whether of masters or students.” A degree was a “ license to teach;” a formal declaration of competence, and a solemn admission into a society.

The early years of the University were not years of peace. Indeed, throughout the whole medieval period disturbances were of frequent occurrence. These disturbances were of three kinds, as the scholars directed their enmity against the townsfolk, or against the external powers of Church and king, or against one another.

The scholars were necessarily brought into close contact with the citizens of the town where they dwelt : there were sufficient reasons for rendering that contact the occasion of quarrel. To begin with, there was the great question of rent in all ages of the world a source of ill-feeling, markedly so in medieval Oxford. It must be remembered that the students-were not, so to say, housed by the University in Colleges and Halls, but dwelt in rooms hired from the townsfolk. These latter fleeced the students, who retaliated. Hence heartburnings, reprisals, riots. Then there was the even greater question of jurisdiction, The University, as has been shown, was essentially ecclesiastTo ‘The students were all “ clerks,’ and as such claimed exemption from the ordinary tribunals. This exemption was intolerable to the townspeople, who suspected, not unnaturally, that the riotous student would find more lenient treatment in the Court of the Chancellor than in the Court of the Mayor. This question of jurisdiction, then, was the fruitful source of “ town-and-gown ” commotions, some of which assumed the most serious dimensions.

In 1208? there broke out in Oxford a famous disturbance, which at one time threatened the very existence of its University, and left its mark on the subsequent relations

: “English Historical Review,” No. iv. p. 644, 2 This account is taken from Matthew aris, ‘*Chrcnica Majora,” vol. ii, p. 525, sg. (Rolls edition.)

of scholars and citizens, It happened on this wise. A certain clerk accidentally killed a woman and fied, The Mayor and townsfolk found the corpse, and at ouce instituted an inquiry as to the author of the outrage. They succeeded in discovering his name and residence. It appeared that he occupied a house in conjunction with two companions. Thither the Mayor and his followers proceeded, and when they could not find the guilty clerk, laid hands on his two guiltless comrades and cast them into prison. It so happened, unfortunately for the clerks, that King John then reigned in England, and he was well known to be an enemy of clerks. Indeed, he was reported to have remarked, when he heard of the murder of a priest, “that he had been relieved of an enemy.” The townsmen of Oxford, then, were sure to meet with sympathy from King John. In fact, the King ordered the unhappy students to be hanged, which order the townsfolk at once carried into effect. The consternation among the students was immense. “ When this deed was done,” says the old chronicler, “ the masters and their disciples, to the number of 3000 clerks, departed forthwith from Oxford, so that not one out of the whgle University remained.” The citizens had triumphed for the moment ; with victory came repentance. They had veritably “slain the goose which lay the golden eggs.”+ Without the scholars, “ the hope of their gains” was gone. They made haste to solicit the return of the exiles. But that was not easy to secure, for the scholars were greatly incensed, and demanded hard terms. Years passed before the final settlement could be arranged! At last, however, the Papal Legate, Nicholas of Tusculum, dictated the terms on which the citizens should be admitted to pardon, and the University return to Oxford. The townsmen who let halls to students were to remit half of the rent for two years ; to pay a sum of fifty-two shillings every year to be expended on poor scholars ; to feast a hundred poor scholars

1“ Munimenta Academica,” vol. i. p. 1, sg. (Rolls Series.)

every year on St Nicholas’ Day on bread, beer, “ potage,” and one dish of fish or flesh ; to swear that they would sell provisions to the students at a reasonable price, and to surrender any clerks, whom they might have occasion to arrest, to the Bishop of Lincoln or his deputy. These were hard terms, and they fell with equal severity on guilty and innocent alike. A further condition was added to mark the distinction between them. “ Let all those of you,” says the Cardinal, “who have confessed and been convicted of hanging the clerks, come at the bidding of Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, as soon as the interdict is released, with bare feet, without cloaks, and bare-headed, the whole commonalty following you, and take up their bodies and bury them in the cemetery, where the clergy shall appoint.” This sentence of the Cardinal may be said to have founded the jurisdiction of the Chancellor, which has ever since been admitted to extend over the members of the University. The Chancellor is said to be nominated by the Bishop of Lincoln, whose immense diocese then stretched from the Humber to the Thames, It is not without significance that Oxford was never during the Middle Ages the seat of a bishop. The bishops of Lincoln took the greatest inTtttse in the University, watching over its interests and guarding its privileges against king, pope, and townspeople with admirable constancy ; but they could not at such a distance exercise that dominant influence which was exercised in the parallel instance of Paris, by the bishop of that city. The Chancellor of Oxford was at first like the Chancellor of Paris, the bishop’s official, The Chancellor of Paris? never became anything else, for the constant presence of the bishop prevented him from becoming, so to say, de~ tached from the see. The University of Paris found its natural head in the Rector. The Chancellor of Oxford— not subject to the influence of a present bishop—identified

1 For the position of the Chancellor of Paris, see an article hy the Rev. H, Rashdall, in the ‘‘ English Historical Review,” No. iv. p. 639, sy, himself increasingly with the University until he came to be, and to be regarded as its natural head: he was in fact in Oxford what the Rector was in Paris.

The contests which the students waged against the townsfolk were not comparable in violence and pertinacity with those which they waged against one another. In the Middle Ages provincial feeling was far more intense than it is to-day. Communications were difficult. The general tendency of medievalism was towards permanence. That fruitful source of mutual antipathy, mutual ignorance, was integral to theage. North countrymen hated South countrymen, Welshmen detested Englishmen with an enduring hostility. Oxford University drew together to a common centre all the various sections of the nation. From all parts of the country the students flocked thither: bringing with them to their new home their traditional antipathies, their local, personal, and political rivalries, Foreigners, also, were not uncommonly included among the members of the University : though, in this particular, Oxford never seems to have at all approximated to the position of Paris, which formed the intellectual centre of the West. In effect, Eng-

PRT throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed, more or less throughout her whole history, has stood very much outside the community of Europe. This isolation, the inevitable result of geography and history, has had great results in many directions, and among them in the direction of her Academic life. Oxford was, perhaps, less cosmopolitan than any other first-class University. Yet even so, the divisions among the students were alinost as deep as those which severed into “ Nations” the students of Paris. And thus, the organization of Paris was adopted as the model on which to construct the organization of Oxford. The basis of both was the division into Nations. As Paris had its four Nations each represented by its rectors, or proctors, so Oxford had its two Nations, ranged under their respective “ proctors.” The “ Northern Nation” carried on an incessant feud with the “Southern Nation,” in which were included the Welsh and Jaish students, The two proctors into whose hands is given the charge of the discipline of the modern University perpetuate the memory of its medieval contests. These contests were many and serious, Sometimes the royal power had to be invoked before peace could be restored. Perhaps the most critical of these civil wars was that which broke out early in the fourteenth century, and which left permanent traces on the subsequent history of the University.

In the year 1333 there happened a great fight between Northerners and Southerners! In vain the Chancellor exerted himself to restore order. The prisons in the castle were full; the sheriff was at his wits’ end to find room for more rioters: and still the disturbance went on. The more studious members of the University were quite unable to pursue their studies, and in despair of ever attaining the tranquillity for which they longed, a number of northern students resolved to depart from Oxford and seek a home elsewhere. The place which they selected was Stamford, already the seat of flourishing conventual schools. A tesfjjits all went well. The exiles received a warm welcome from the townsfolk of Stamford. Their first act was to address the King; they declared the reason of their conduct. Oxford was no place for scholars by reason of its perpetual commotions. But the University of Oxford had likewise appealed to the King. The representations of the University were strongly supported by Queen Philippa and the Bishop of Lincoln. Edward III. ordered the schismatic students to leave Stamford: an order which was only carried into effect by the employment of positive violence. The University was thoroughly frightened; and we find among the obligations imposed upon Masters of Arts at their inception, a solemn oath never to lecture or read at Stamford.? It was the last occasion on which the Univer-

1 ¢Collectanea” (Oxford Hist. Society), vol. i. part 1. 2 « Munimenta Academica,” vol. ii p. 375. (Rolls Series.)

sity found itself face to face with the danger of dispersion. Already the Colleges were taking a prominent position ; the ties of material interest which bound the students to the banks of the Isis were becomiug strong enough to resist the strain of any internal disturbances. The University, in fact, was becoming wealthy, and with the Colleges came better order among the students. The great plague of 1347 did not spare Oxford: the number of members is said to have been reduced to one-fifth of what it had formerly been. Then the great struggle with France drew the interest of Englishmen into another channel, and for many years Oxtord was in comparative quiet.

In the thirteenth century the students of Oxford were engaged in a famous contest with the Papacy. The origin of this contest is perhaps to be traced to the intense sympathy which existed between the University and the nation. It has always been an honourable characteristic of Oxford that it has thrown itself heart and soul into the great interests which, wisely or madly, have absorbed the attention of the English people. In no period of its history was

eadsiieecharacteristic more marked than in the period of the Misldle Age.

During the reign of Henry III., the Papacy had a magnificent opportunity of recovering the position in the affections of Englishmen which the rash conduct of Innocent III. had forfeited. The government was virtually in the hands of the Papal Legates. They had good intentions : so far as was possible they were loyal to their trust, but the time was not propitious. The Papacy was entering on its fatal contest with Frederick TI. It was indeed a contest

‘* Where he that winneth, loseth most ; who trophies boasts, hath none; Where he who dies, the victor’s prize, and he alone, hath won."1

1K. A. Freeman. “ Original Ballads by Living Authors,” published by Joseph Musters, 1550.

That most unhappy contest worked evil to the Papacy in every direction. The need for money to carry on the “ Crusade ” compelled the popes to fling to the winds all considerations of rectitude, and to strain every effort to make full use of every chance in order to wring money out of the nations of Christendom. Such a chance was given by the devotion of Henry III., and such was the conduct of the legates that throughout England the deepest indignation was felt against the Papacy. This indignation found expression in various ways—in the anti-Papalism of Matthew Paris, and the ballad writers, in the firni resistance to Papal assumptions made by the great Bishop of Lincoln, Grosseteste——in the organized lawlessness of Robert Twenge, and also, and not least important, in the conduct of the students of the University of Oxford. The feelings of the students found expression in 1238, and as is not infrequent, the immediate occasion was sufficiently trivial.) The legate, Cardinal Otho, visited Oxford, and took up his residence in Oseney Abbey. Some members of the University took occasion of his visit to address to him certain petitions. Their reception was anything but courtgous. The doorkeeper, who happened to be a foreigner, refugee them admission. Irritated at the refusal, and strengthened by the accession of many students who came flocking from all parts of the city, they made a determined attack on the door. In the course of the combat, the Legate’s chief cook, who happened to be his own brother, poured a cauldron of boiling noel upon. the face of an Irish beggar, and was at once shot dead by a Welsh student. The rest made efforts to fire the monastery. This decided the Legate, who, covering himself in his cope, fled into the belfry, and there lay concealed, until help came from Abingdon, where King Henry was residing. Under the escort of the soldiers, whom

1 Matthew Paris, ‘‘ Chronica Majora,” vol. iii. p. 481. (Rolls Series.) ang sory is well told by Mr Maxwell Lyte, ‘‘ Histury of the University,” p. o4.

the King had at once sent to the scene of disorder, the Legate managed to make his escape, but as he rode away he could distinguish amid the din, the ominous words, “ Usurer,” “‘Simoniac,” “Spoiler,” “Money-grubber,” and the like. The contest having come to an end, the rioters had to pay the penalty. They were placed under excommunication, and it would have fared ill for the University if the English bishops had not interfered in its behalf, and bluntly told the incensed Cardinal that the root of the mischief was the insolence of his own servants.

The students of Oxford took the deepest interest in the great constitutional struggle of Henry III.’s reign ; they seem to have thrown themselves vigorously into the cause of the barons, and by consequence they brought down upon the University the wrath of the King. There is nothing surprising in this. The constitution of the University was eminently adapted to develop a love of freedom, for it was essentially republican. The immense value of this fact can scarcely be over-stated. Feudalism has had many admirers; it is not without attractive features; but at bottom it was a veritable slave system. It tended to “WTivel away into a dull tyranny of caste. It was a great thing that there should be in the University of Oxford an emphatic and perpetual protest against this. The University, then as now, was the centre of the higher education of the nation. Thither came the sons of barons as well as the students of humbler birth. Within the charmed circle of the University the servile distinctions of social status faded into insignificance. There liberty reigned, and, as inseparable from true liberty, there merit was supreme. It was in itself a most precious education for the youth of medieval England that they should during the most impressionable period of life be brought under the influence of free ideas, and be enabled to make practical acquaintance with -Liberty. And during the thirteenth century there was a special reason, apart from these general considerations, which tended to make the University of Oxford devoted to the cause of freedom. About the year 1221, the Dominicans, or Preaching Friars, first took up their residence in Oxford ;.and in 1224 they were followed by the Franciscans, or Mendicant Friars. Both these Orders were in the first energy of their institution. The force that had created them was a burning love for men. That all men are equal before their Maker was @ cardinal article of their faith, Wherever they came they infused into the Church a freer spirit, the true spirit of Christian democracy. Their influence was apparent in every direction—in religion, in art, in science, in politics,

Almost at once they took up a prominent position in the Universities, and’ among them, in Oxford. Perhaps the three most distinguished of English churchmen, certainly the most famous members of the University of Oxford during the thirteenth century, were intimately connected with the Franciscan Order—Robert Grosseteste, Adam de Marsh, and Roger Bacon. ‘The first was through a long life a most constant friend to the University, and the recognized leader of the English Chr Alike against domestic traitors and foreign oppressogs, Grosseteste presented a firm front. None of his contemporaries made so permanent an impression upon the national mind. Even after death the belief of Christendom regarded him as the scourge of a too mundane Pontiff; and though he was never formally canonized, the devotion of his countrymen attributed to him all the powers and prerogatives of a canonized saint. Miracles were wrought at his tomb, and his name was invoked in the prayers of the faithful. For centuries after his death his authority was almost absolute in the schools. Adam de Marsh was regarded in his own day as the glory of the University. According to the custom of the time he received the title of the “Illustrious Doctor.” Among his personal friends were Grosseteste and the great Earl Simon de Montfort, and

Roger Bacon, whose judgment of contemporaries is not usually too kindly, speaks of him’ with enthusiasm, In later times the fame of both the Bishop of Lincoln and of the great Oxford Doctor has been surpassed hy that of their mutual friend—the friar, Roger Bacon. The wide range of his studies, the extraordinary audacity of his speculations, his indomitable courage in overcoming obstacles before which a meaner man would have given way, his unmerited misfortunes, the long oblivion to which his name was consigned—all combine to invest the “ Wonderful Doctor” with a peculiar interest. Without doubt Roger Bacon wis the greatest Oxonian of the Middle Age, and yet great Oxonians were then numerous.

If the thirteenth century is distinguished in the annals of Oxford by the glorious trinity of whom mention has been made, the fourteenth century can boast the names of the three great schoolmen—John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and John Wycliffe. Of these, the latter is better known as a Church Reformer, “the morning star of the: Reformation.” The life of Wyclitfe brings out very clearly the intensely national character of the University of which wire was the chief ornament. In taking up the position of a Church Reformer, he was but giving expression to the wishes and beliefs of the mass of Englishmen. His doctrinal views may have been more or less. heretical. They were not thought so important in the fifteenth century as they are, apparently, in the nineteenth. It was as the exponent of the national dislike of the Papacy, as the exponent of the national yearning for greater spirituality in religion, that Wycliffe gained his great position in the minds and hearts of his contemporaries. He has been called “ the last of the Schoolmen,” atu. with reason ; for after his time the grand succession of “ Doctors” ceased. There is a peculiar fitness in the position of the “Evangelic Doctor” as the last of the series. ‘ The labours of the Middle Age rendered possible the Renaissance, of which the most fruitful result was the Reformation. Wycliffe stands midway between the Middle Age and the Refurmation. With him ends the greatness of mediwval Oxford. The next age was base, brutal, and sordid: the “ darkest hour” which is said to precede the dawn of day. The entire character of the University underwent a transformation.

In European history the fifteenth century is memorable as an age of wat: in English history it is the age of Agincourt and the Wars of the Roses. Yet, while itis true that battles and sieges crowd the record of the contemporary writers, it is not less true that the fifteenth century is important in universal history, not as an age of war, but as an epoch of transition. Then began, or, to speak more truly, then became manifest that Revolution, which men have agreed to call the Renaissance, or New Birth. It was so indeed ; but it was also, and not less definitely, the Dissolution, or ending of things. The young life of] modern times springs into existence. Yes, but it springs out of a grave.