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diff --git a/37893.txt b/37893.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a86173 --- /dev/null +++ b/37893.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2759 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oxford and Her Colleges, by Goldwin Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Oxford and Her Colleges + +Author: Goldwin Smith + +Release Date: October 31, 2011 [EBook #37893] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD AND HER COLLEGES *** + + + + +Produced by Adrian Mastronardi and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + OXFORD AND HER COLLEGES + + [Illustration] + + + + + [Illustration: RADCLIFFE LIBRARY.] + + + + + OXFORD + AND HER COLLEGES + + A View from the Radcliffe Library + + BY + GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. + + AUTHOR OF "THE UNITED STATES: AN OUTLINE OF + POLITICAL HISTORY," ETC. + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS + + New York + MACMILLAN AND CO. + AND LONDON + 1895 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1893, + BY MACMILLAN AND CO. + + Norwood Press: + J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. + Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The writer has seldom enjoyed himself more than in showing an American +friend over Oxford. He has felt something of the same enjoyment in +preparing, with the hope of interesting some American visitors, this +outline of the history of the University and her Colleges. He would +gladly believe that Oxford and Cambridge, having now, by emancipation +and reform, been reunited to the nation, may also be reunited to the +race; and that to them, not less than to the Universities of Germany, +the eyes of Americans desirous of studying at a European as well as at +an American University may henceforth be turned. + +It was once the writer's duty, in the service of a Royal Commission of +Inquiry, to make himself well acquainted with the archives of the +University and its Colleges. But he has also availed himself of a number +of recent publications, such as the series of the Oxford Historical +Society, the history of the University by Mr. Maxwell Lyte, and the +volume on the Colleges of Oxford and their traditions, edited by Mr. +Andrew Clark, as well as of the excellent little Guide published by +Messrs. James Parker and Co. + +[Illustration] + + + + +OXFORD AND HER COLLEGES. + + +To gain a view of Oxford from a central point, we mount to the top of +the Radcliffe Library. We will hope that it is a fine summer day, that, +as we come out upon the roof, the old city, with all its academical +buildings lying among their gardens and groves, presents itself to view +in its beauty, and that the sound of its bells, awakening the memories +of the ages, is in the air. The city is seen lying on the spit of gravel +between the Isis, as the Thames is here called, which is the scene of +boat races, and the Cherwell, famed for water-lilies. It is doubtful +whether the name means the ford of the oxen, or the ford of the river +(_oxen_ being a corruption of _ousen_). Flat, sometimes flooded, is the +site. To ancient founders of cities, a river for water carriage and rich +meads for kine were prime attractions. But beyond the flat we look to a +lovely country, rolling and sylvan, from many points of which, Wytham, +Hinksey, Bagley, Headington, Elsfield, Stowe Wood, are charming views, +nearer or more distant, of the city. Turner's view is taken from Bagley, +but it is rather a Turner poem than a simple picture of Oxford. + + * * * * * + +There is in Oxford much that is not as old as it looks. The buildings of +the Bodleian Library, University College, Oriel, Exeter, and some +others, mediaeval or half mediaeval in their style, are Stuart in date. In +Oxford the Middle Ages lingered long. Yon cupola of Christ Church is the +work of Wren, yon towers of All Souls' are the work of a still later +hand. The Headington stone, quickly growing black and crumbling, gives +the buildings a false hue of antiquity. An American visitor, misled by +the blackness of University College, remarked to his host that the +buildings must be immensely old. "No," replied his host, "their colour +deceives you; their age is not more than two hundred years." It need +not be said that Palladian edifices like Queen's, or the new buildings +of Magdalen, are not the work of a Chaplain of Edward III., or a +Chancellor of Henry VI. But of the University buildings, St. Mary's +Church and the Divinity School, of the College buildings, the old +quadrangles of Merton, New College, Magdalen, Brasenose, and detached +pieces not a few are genuine Gothic of the Founders' age. Here are six +centuries, if you choose to include the Norman castle, here are eight +centuries, and, if you choose to include certain Saxon remnants in +Christ Church Cathedral, here are ten centuries, chronicled in stone. Of +the corporate lives of these Colleges, the threads have run unbroken +through all the changes and revolutions, political, religious, and +social, between the Barons' War and the present hour. The economist goes +to their muniment rooms for the record of domestic management and +expenditure during those ages. Till yesterday, the codes of statutes +embodying their domestic law, though largely obsolete, remained +unchanged. Nowhere else in England, at all events, unless it be at the +sister University, can the eye and mind feed upon so much antiquity, +certainly not upon so much antique beauty, as on the spot where we +stand. That all does not belong to the same remote antiquity, adds to +the interest and to the charm. This great home of learning, with its +many architectures, has been handed from generation to generation, each +generation making its own improvements, impressing its own tastes, +embodying its own tendencies, down to the present hour. It is like a +great family mansion, which owner after owner has enlarged or improved +to meet his own needs or tastes, and which, thus chronicling successive +phases of social and domestic life, is wanting in uniformity but not in +living interest or beauty. + + * * * * * + +Oxford is a federation of Colleges. It had been strictly so for two +centuries, and every student had been required to be a member of a +College when, in 1856, non-collegiate students, of whom there are now a +good many, were admitted. The University is the federal government. The +Chancellor, its nominal head, is a non-resident grandee, usually a +political leader whom the University delights to honour and whose +protection it desires. Only on great state occasions does he appear in +his gown richly embroidered with gold. The acting chief is the +Vice-Chancellor, one of the heads of Colleges, who marches with the +Bedel carrying the mace before him, and has been sometimes taken by +strangers for the attendant of the Bedel. With him are the two Proctors, +denoted by their velvet sleeves, named by the Colleges in turn, the +guardians of University discipline. The University Legislature consists +of three houses,--an elective Council, made up equally of heads of +Colleges, professors, and Masters of Arts; the Congregation of +residents, mostly teachers of the University or Colleges; and the +Convocation, which consists of all Masters of Arts, resident or +non-resident, if they are present to vote. Congregation numbers four +hundred, Convocation nearly six thousand. Legislation is initiated by +the Council, and has to make its way through Convocation and +Congregation, with some chance of being wrecked between the academical +Congregation, which is progressive, and the rural Convocation, which is +conservative. The University regulates the general studies, holds all +the examinations, except that at entrance, which is held by the +Colleges, confers all the degrees and honours, and furnishes the police +of the academical city. Its professors form the general and superior +staff of teachers. + + * * * * * + +Each College, at the same time, is a little polity in itself. It has its +own governing body, consisting of a Head (President, Master, Principal, +Provost, or Warden) and a body of Fellows. It holds its own estates; +noble estates, some of them are. It has its private staff of teachers or +tutors, usually taken from the Fellows, though the subjects of teaching +are those recognised by the University examinations. The relation +between the tutors teaching and that of the professor is rather +unsettled and debatable, varying in some measure with the subjects, +since physical science can be taught only in the professor's +lecture-room, while classics and mathematics can be taught in the +class-room of the tutor. Before 1856 the professorial system of teaching +had long lain in abeyance, and the tutorial system had prevailed alone. +Each College administers its domestic discipline. The University +Proctor, if he chases a student to the College gates, must there halt +and apply to the College for extradition. To the College the student +immediately belongs; it is responsible for his character and habits. The +personal relations between him and his tutor are, or ought to be, close. +Oxford life hitherto has been a College life. To his College the Oxford +man has mainly looked back. Here his early friendships have been formed. +In these societies the ruling class of England, the lay professions and +landed gentry mingling with the clergy, has been bred. It is to the +College, generally, that benefactions and bequests are given; with the +College that the rich and munificent _alumnus_ desires to unite his +name; in the College Hall that he hopes his portrait will hang, to be +seen with grateful eyes. The University, however, shares the attachment +of the _alumnus_. Go to yonder river on an evening of the College boat +races, or to yonder cricket ground when a College match is being played, +and you will see the strength of College feeling. At a University race +or match in London the Oxford or Cambridge sentiment appears. In an +American University there is nothing like the College bond, unless it be +that of the Secret, or, to speak more reasonably, the Greek Letter +societies, which form inner social circles with a sentiment of their +own. + + * * * * * + +The buildings of the University lie mainly in the centre of the city +close around us. There is the Convocation House, the hall of the +University Legislature, where, in times of collision between theological +parties, or between the party of the ancient system of education and +that of the modern system, lively debates have been heard. In it, also, +are conferred the ordinary degrees. They are still conferred in the +religious form of words, handed down from the Middle Ages, the candidate +kneeling down before the Vice-Chancellor in the posture of mediaeval +homage. Oxford is the classic ground of old forms and ceremonies. Before +each degree is conferred, the Proctors march up and down the House to +give any objector to the degree--an unsatisfied creditor, for +example--the opportunity of entering a _caveat_ by "plucking" the +Proctor's sleeve. Adjoining the Convocation House is the Divinity +School, the only building of the University, saving St. Mary's Church, +which dates from the Middle Ages. A very beautiful relic of the Middle +Ages it is when seen from the gardens of Exeter College. Here are held +the examinations for degrees in theology, styled, in the Oxford of old, +queen of the sciences, and long their tyrant. Here, again, is the +Sheldonian Theatre, the gift of Archbishop Sheldon, a Primate of the +Restoration period, and as readers of Pepys's "Diary" know, of +Restoration character, but a patron of learning. University +exercises used, during the Middle Ages, to be performed in St. Mary's +Church. In those days the church was the public building for all +purposes, that of a theatre among the rest. But the Anglican was more +scrupulous in his use of the sacred edifice than the Roman Catholic. In +the Sheldonian Theatre is held the annual commemoration of Founders and +benefactors, the grand academical festival, at which the Doctorate +appears in its pomp of scarlet, filing in to the sound of the organ, the +prize poems and essays are read, and the honorary degrees are conferred +in the presence of a gala crowd of visitors drawn by the summer beauty +of Oxford and the pleasures that close the studious year. In former +days the ceremony used to be enlivened and sometimes disgraced by the +jests of the _terrae filius_, a licensed or tolerated buffoon whose +personalities provoked the indignation of Evelyn, and in one case, at +least, were visited with expulsion. It is now enlivened, and, as +visitors think, sometimes disgraced, by the uproarious joking of the +undergraduates' gallery. This modern license the authorities of the +University are believed to have brought on themselves by encouraging +political demonstrations. The Sheldonian Theatre is also the scene of +grand receptions, and of the inauguration of the Chancellor. That +flaunting portrait of George IV. in his royal robes, by Lawrence, +with the military portraits of the Emperor of Russia and the King of +Prussia by which it is flanked and its gorgeousness is rebuked, mark the +triumphs of the monarchs, whose cause had become that of European +independence, over Napoleon. Perhaps the most singular ceremony +witnessed by these walls was the inauguration of the Iron Duke as +Chancellor of the University. This was the climax of Oxford devotion to +the Tory party, and such was the gathering as to cause it to be said +that if the roof of the Sheldonian Theatre had then fallen in, the party +would have been extinguished. The Duke, as if to mark the incongruity, +put on his academical cap with the wrong side in front, and in reading +his Latin speech, lapsed into a thundering false quantity. + +[Illustration: DIVINITY SCHOOL, FROM EXETER GARDENS.] + +[Illustration: INTERIOR OF SHELDONIAN THEATRE.] + +The Clarendon was built with the proceeds of the history written by the +Minister of the early Restoration, who was Chancellor of the University, +and whose touching letter of farewell to her, on his fall and flight +from England, may be seen in the Bodleian Library. There, also, are +preserved documents which may help to explain his fall. They are the +written dialogues which passed between him and his master at the board +of the Privy Council, and they show that Clarendon, having been the +political tutor of Charles the exile, too much bore himself as the +political tutor of Charles the king. In the Clarendon are the University +Council Chamber and the Registry. Once it was the University press, but +the press has now a far larger mansion yonder to the north-west, whence, +besides works of learning and science, go forth Bibles and prayer-books +in all languages to all quarters of the globe. Legally, as a printer of +Bibles the University has a privilege, but its real privilege is that +which it secures for itself by the most scrupulous accuracy and by +infinitesimal profits. + +[Illustration: THE BODLEIAN.] + +Close by is the University Library, the Bodleian, one of those great +libraries of the world in which you can ring up at a few minutes' notice +almost any author of any age or country. This Library is one of those +entitled by law to a copy of every book printed in the United Kingdom, +and it is bound to preserve all that it receives, a duty which might in +the end burst any building, were it not that the paper of many modern +books is happily perishable. A foundation was laid for a University +Library in the days of Henry VI., by the good Duke Humphrey of +Gloucester, who gave a collection of books. But in the rough times which +followed, the Duke's donation perished, only two or three precious +relics being saved from the wreck. Sir Thomas Bodley, a wealthy knight +and diplomatist of the time of James I., it was who reared this pile, +severely square and bare, though a skilful variation of the string +course in the different stories somewhat relieves its heaviness. In the +antique reading-room, breathing study, and not overthronged with +readers, the bookworm finds a paradise. Over the Library is the +University Gallery, the visitor to which is entreated to avert his eyes +from the fictitious portraits of founders of early Colleges, and to fix +them, if he will, on the royal portraits which painfully attest the +loyalty of the University, or, as a relief from these, on Guy Fawkes's +lantern. Beneath the Library used to be the Schools or examination-rooms +of the University, scenes of youthful hopes and fears; perhaps, as the +aspirants to honours were a minority, of more fears than hopes; and at +those doors formerly gathered the eager crowd of candidates and their +friends to read the class lists which were posted there. But the +examination system has outgrown its ancient tenement and migrated to +yonder new-built pile in High Street, more fitted, perhaps, by its +elaborate ornamentation for the gala and the dance, than for the torture +of undergraduates. In the quadrangle of the Bodleian sits aloft, on the +face of a tower displaying all the orders of classical architecture, the +learned King and royal theologian. The Bible held in his hand is +believed to have fallen down on the day that Mr. Gladstone lost his +election as Member for the University of Oxford and set forth on a +career of liberalism which has since led him to the disestablishment of +the Church. We stand on the Radcliffe, formerly the medical and physical +library, now a supplement and an additional reading-room of the +Bodleian, the gift of Dr. Radcliffe, Court Physician and despot of the +profession in the times of William and Anne, of whose rough sayings, and +sayings more than rough, some are preserved in his "Life." He it was who +told William III. that he would not have His Majesty's two legs for his +three kingdoms, and who is said to have punished the giver of a +niggardly fee by a prediction of death, which was fulfilled by the +terrors of the patient. Close at hand is the Ashmolean, the old +University Museum, now only a museum of antiquities, the most precious +of which is King Alfred's gem. Museum and Medical Library have together +migrated to the new edifice on the north side of the city. + +But of all the University buildings the most beautiful is St. Mary's +Church, where the University sermons are preached, and from the pulpit +of which, in the course of successive generations and successive +controversies, a changeful and often heady current of theology has +flowed. There preached Newman, Pusey, and Manning; there preached +Hampden, Stanley, and the authors of "Essays and Reviews." + +[Illustration: THE HIGH STREET. + + University College. + St. Mary's Church. + Queen's College.] + +Oxford and Cambridge were not at first Universities of Colleges. The +Colleges were after-growths which for a time absorbed the University. +The University of Oxford was born in the twelfth century, fully a +century before the foundation of the first College. To recall the Oxford +of the thirteenth century, one must bid vanish all the buildings which +now meet our eyes, except yonder grim castle to the west of the city, +and the stern tower of St. Michael's Church, at once the bell tower of +the Church and a defence of the city gate facing the dangerous north. +The man-at-arms from the castle, the warder from the gate, looks down +upon a city of five or six thousand inhabitants, huddled for protection +under the castle, and within those walls of which a fine remnant is seen +bounding the domain of New College. In this city there is a concourse of +students brought together to hear a body of teachers who have been led, +we know not how, to open their mart of knowledge here. Printing not +having been invented, and books being scarce, the fountain of knowledge +is the lecture-room of the professor. It is the age of an intellectual +revival so remarkable as to be called the Mediaeval Renaissance. After +the migrations and convulsions, by which the world was cast in a new +mould, ensues a reign of comparative peace and settled government, under +which the desire of knowledge has been reawakened. Universities have +been coming out all over Europe like stars in the night; Paris, famous +for theology and philosophy, perhaps being the brightest of the +constellation, while Bologna was famed for law and Salerno for medicine. +It was probably in the reign of Henry I. that the company of teachers +settled at Oxford, and before the end of the thirteenth century students +had collected to a number which fable exaggerates to thirty thousand, +but which was really large enough to crowd the little city and even the +bastions of its walls. A light had shone on youths who sat in the shadow +of feudal servitude. There is no more romantic period in the history of +human intellect than the thirteenth century. + +The teachers, after the fashion of that age, formed themselves into a +guild, which guarded its monopoly. The undergraduate was the apprentice; +the degree was a license to teach, and carried with it the duty of +teaching, though in time it became a literary title, unconnected with +teaching, and coveted for its own sake. The University obtained a +charter, elected its Chancellor, formed its academical Legislature of +graduates, obtained jurisdiction over its own members. In time it +marshalled its teachers and students into regular Faculties of theology, +law, and medicine, with arts, or general and liberal culture, if the +name can be applied to anything so rudimentary as the literature and +science of that day, forming the basis of all. At first the professors +taught where they could; in the cloisters, perhaps, of St. Frydeswide's +monastery, subsequently absorbed by Christ Church; in the porches of +houses. A row of lecture-rooms, called the Schools, was afterwards +provided in School Street, which ran north and south just under the +Radcliffe. So little anchored was the University by buildings, that when +maltreated at Oxford it was ready to pack up its literary wares and +migrate to another city such as Northampton or Stamford. Many of the +undergraduates at first were mere boys, to whom the University was a +grammar school. For the real University students the dominant study was +that of the School philosophy, logical and philosophical, with its +strange metaphysical jargon; an immense attempt to extract knowledge +from consciousness by syllogistic reasoning, instead of gathering it +from observation, experience, and research, mocking by its barrenness of +fruit the faith of the enthusiastic student, yet training the mind to +preternatural acuteness, and perhaps forming a necessary stage in the +mental education of the race. The great instrument of high education was +disputation, often repeated, and conducted with the most elaborate forms +in the tournaments of the Schools, which might beget readiness of wit +and promptness of elocution, but could hardly beget habits of calm +investigation or paramount love of truth. The great event in the +academical life was Inception, when the student performed exercises +which inaugurated his teachership; and this was commonly celebrated by a +feast, the expenditure on which the University was called upon to +restrain. Oxford produced some of the greatest schoolmen: Duns Scotus, +the "subtle," who had written thirteen folio volumes of arid metaphysics +before his early death; Bradwardine, the "profound," and Ockham, the +"invincible and unmatched." The idol was Aristotle, viewed mainly as +the metaphysician, and imperfectly understood through translations. To +reconcile Aristotelian speculation with orthodox theology was a hard +task, not always successfully performed. Theology was, of course, first +in dignity of the Faculties, but the most lucrative was the civil and +canon law practised in the ecclesiastical courts and, as Roman, misliked +by the patriotic Parliament. Philosophy complained that it had to trudge +afoot while the liegemen of Justinian rode high in the car of +preferment. Of physical science the hour was not yet come, but before +its hour came its wonderful and almost miraculous precursor, Roger +Bacon, who anticipated the invention of gunpowder and the telescope, +and whose fabled study stood over Folly Bridge, till, with Carfax's +monument and Cranmer's prison, it was cleared away by an improving city +corporation. Roger Bacon was, of course, taken for a dealer in black +arts; an astrologer and an alchemist he was, and at the same time an +illustrious example of the service indirectly rendered by astrology and +alchemy in luring to an investigation of nature which led to real +discoveries, just as Columbus, seeking a western passage to the golden +cities of the East, discovered America. + + * * * * * + +All the Universities belonged not to one nation but to Latin +Christendom, the educated population of which circulated among them. At +one time there was a migration to Oxford from the University of Paris, +which had got into trouble with the government. Of all the Universities +alike, ecclesiastical Latin was the language. The scholars all ranked +with the clerical order, so that at Oxford, scholar and clerk, townsman +and layman, were convertible terms. In those days all intellectual +callings, and even the higher mechanical arts, were clerical. The +student was exempted by his tonsure from lay jurisdiction. The Papacy +anxiously claimed the Universities as parts of its realm, and only +degrees granted by the Pope's authority were current throughout +Christendom. When, with Edward III., came the long war between England +and France, and when the confederation of Latin Christendom was +beginning to break up, the English Universities grew more national. + + * * * * * + +Incorporated with the buildings of Worcester College are some curious +little tenements once occupied by a colony from different Benedictine +Monasteries. These, with the Church of St. Frydeswide, now Christ Church +Cathedral, and the small remains of Osney Abbey, are about the only +relics of monastic Oxford which survived the Reformation. But in the +Middle Ages there were Houses for novices of the great Orders, +Benedictines, Cistercians, Carmelites, Augustinians, and most notable +and powerful of all, the two great mendicant Orders of Dominicans and +Franciscans. The Mendicants, who came into the country angels of +humility as well as of asceticism, begging their bread, and staining the +ground with the blood from their shoeless feet, soon changed their +character, and began in the interest of Holy Church to grasp power and +amass wealth. The Franciscans especially, like the Jesuits of an after +day, strove to master the centres of intellectual influence. They strove +to put the laws of the University under their feet. Struggles between +them and the seculars, with appeals to the Crown, were the consequence. +Attraction of callow youth to an angelic life seems to have been +characteristic of the Brethren of St. Francis, and it is conjectured +that in this way Bacon became a monk. Faintly patronised by a liberal +and lettered Pope, he was arraigned for necromancy by his Order, and +ended his days in gloom, if not in a monastic prison. The Church of the +Middle Ages with one hand helped to open the door of knowledge, with the +other she sought to close it. At last she sought to close it with both +hands, and in her cruel panic established the Inquisition. + + * * * * * + +Tory in its later days, the University was liberal in its prime. It took +the part of the Barons and De Montfort against Henry III., and a corps +of its students fought against the King under their own banner at +Northampton. Instead of being the stronghold of reaction, it was the +focus of active, even of turbulent aspiration, and the saying ran, that +when there was fighting at Oxford there was war in England. Oxford's +hero in the thirteenth century was its Chancellor, Grosseteste, the +friend of De Montfort and the great reformer of his day, "of prelates +the rebuker, of monks the corrector, of scholars the instructor, of the +people the preacher, of the incontinent the chastiser, of writings the +industrious investigator, of the Romans the hammer and contemner." If +Grosseteste patronised the Friars, it was in their first estate. + + * * * * * + +At first the students lodged as "Chamberdekyns" with citizens, but that +system proving dangerous to order, they were gathered into hostels, or, +to use the more dignified name, Halls (_aulae_) under a Principal, or +Master of the University, who boarded and governed them. Of these Halls +there were a great number, with their several names and signs. Till +lately a few of them remained, though these had lost their original +character, and become merely small Colleges, without any foundation +except a Principal. The students in those days were mostly poor. Their +indigence was almost taken for granted. Some of them begged; chests were +provided by the charitable for loans to them. A poor student's life was +hard; if he was earnest in study, heroic. He shared a room with three or +four chums, he slept under a rug, his fare was coarse and scanty, his +garment was the gown which has now become merely an academical symbol, +and thankful he was to be provided with a new one. He had no fire in his +room, no glass in his window. As his exercises in the University Schools +began at five in the morning, it is not likely that he read much at +night, otherwise he would have to read by the light of a feeble lamp +flickering with the wind. His manuscript was painful to read. The city +was filthy, the water polluted with sewage; pestilence often swept +through the crowded hive. + + * * * * * + +Mediaeval students were a rough set; not less rough than enthusiastic; +rougher than the students of the Quartier Latin or Heidelberg, their +nearest counterparts in recent times. They wore arms, or kept them in +their chambers, and they needed them not only in going to and from the +University over roads beset with robbers, but in conflicts with the +townspeople, with whom the University was at war. With the townspeople +the students had desperate affrays, ancient precursors of the +comparatively mild town and gown rows of this century. The defiant horns +of the town were answered by the bells of the University. Arrows flew; +blood was shed on both sides; Halls were stormed and defended; till +Royalty from Abingdon or Woodstock interfered with its men-at-arms, +seconded by the Bishop with bell, book, and candle. A Papal Legate, an +Italian on whom national feeling looks with jealousy, comes to Oxford. +Scholars crowd to see him. There is a quarrel between them and his +train. His cook flings a cauldron of boiling broth over an Irish +student. The scholars fly to arms. The Legate is ignominiously chased +from Oxford. Excommunications, royal thunders, and penitential +performances follow. Jews settle in Oxford, ply their trade among the +scholars, and form a quarter with invidiously wealthy mansions. There is +a royal edict, forbidding them to exact more than forty-three per cent +interest from the student. Wealth makes them insolent; they assault a +religious procession, and with them also the students have affrays. +Provincial feeling is strong, for the students are divided into two +nations, the Northern and the Southern, which are always wrangling, and +sometimes fight pitched battles with bows and arrows. The two Proctors, +now the heads of University police, were appointed as tribunes of the +two nations to settle elections and other matters between them without +battle. Amusements as well as everything else were rude. Football and +other rough games were played at Beaumont, a piece of ground to the +north of the city; but there was nothing like that cricket field in the +parks, nor like the sensation now created by the appearance of a +renowned cricketer in his paddings before an admiring crowd, to display +the fruit of his many years of assiduous practice in guarding his +stumps. The Crown and local lords had to complain of a good deal of +poaching in Bagley, Woodstock, Shotover, and Stowe Wood. + + * * * * * + +To this Oxford, with its crowd of youth thirsting for knowledge, its +turbulence, its vice, its danger from monkish encroachment, came Walter +de Merton, one of the same historic group as Grosseteste and +Grosseteste's friend, Adam de Marisco, the man of the hour, with the +right device in his mind. Merton had been Chancellor of Henry III. +amidst the political storms of the time, from which he would gladly turn +aside to a work of peaceful improvement. It was thus that violence in +those ages paid with its left hand a tribute to civilisation. Merton's +foundation is the first College, though University and Balliol come +before it in the Calendar in deference to the priority of the +benefactions out of which those Colleges grew. Yonder noble chapel in +the Decorated style, with its tower and the old quadrangle beneath it, +called, nobody knows why, Mob Quad, are the cradle of College life. +Merton's plan was an academical brotherhood, which combined monastic +order, discipline, and piety with the pursuit of knowledge. No monk or +friar was ever to be admitted to his House. The members of the House are +called in his statutes by the common name of Scholars, that of Fellows +(_Socii_), which afterwards prevailed here and in all the other +Colleges, denoting their union as an academical household. They were to +live like monks in common; they were to take their meals together in the +Refectory, and to study together in the common library, which may still +be seen, dark and austere, with the chain by which a precious volume was +attached to the desk. They had not a common dormitory, but they must +have slept two or three in a room. Probably they were confined to their +quadrangle, except when they were attending the Schools of the +University, or allowed to leave it only with a companion as a safeguard. +They were to elect their own Warden, and fill up by election vacancies +in their own number. The Warden whom they had elected, they were to +obey. They were to watch over each other's lives, and hold annual +scrutinies into conduct. The Archbishop of Canterbury was to visit the +College and see that the rule was kept. But the rule was moral and +academical, not cloistral or ascetic. The mediaeval round of religious +services was to be duly performed, and prayers were to be said for the +Founder's soul. But the main object was not prayer, contemplation, or +masses for souls; it was study. Monks were permanently devoted to their +Order, shut up for life in their monastery, and secluded from the world. +The Scholars of Merton were destined to serve the world, into which they +were to go forth when they had completed the course of preparation in +their College. They were destined to serve the world as their Founder +had served it. In fact, we find Wardens and Fellows of Merton employed +by the State and the Church in important missions. A Scholar of Merton, +though he was to obey the College authorities, took no monastic vow of +obedience. He took no monastic vow of poverty; on the contrary, it was +anticipated that he would gain wealth, of which he was exhorted to +bestow a portion on his College. He took no monastic vow of celibacy, +though, as one of the clerical order, he would of course not be +permitted to marry. He was clerical as all Scholars in those days were +clerical, not in the modern and professional sense of the term. The +allowances of the Fellow were only his Commons, or food, and his Livery, +or raiment, and there were to be as many Fellows as the estate could +provide with these. Instruction was received not in College, but in the +Schools of the University, to which the Scholars of Merton, like the +other Scholars, were to resort. A sort of grammar school, for boys of +the Founder's kin, was attached to the College. But otherwise the work +of the College was study, not tuition, nor did the statutes contemplate +the admission of any members except those on the foundation. + +[Illustration: MERTON COLLEGE, FROM FIELDS.] + + * * * * * + +Merton's plan, meeting the need of the hour, found acceptance. His +College became the pattern for others both at Oxford and Cambridge. +University, Balliol, Exeter, Oriel, and Queen's were modelled after it, +and monastic Orders seem to have taken the hint in founding Houses for +their novices at Oxford. University College grew out of the benefaction +of William of Durham, an ecclesiastic who had studied at Paris, and +left the University a sum of money for the maintenance of students of +divinity. The University lodged them in a Hall styled the Great Hall of +the University, which is still the proper corporate name of the College. +In after days, this Hall, having grown into a College, wished to slip +its neck out of the visitorial yoke of the University, and on the +strength of its being the oldest foundation at Oxford, claimed as +founder Alfred, to whom the foundation of the University was ascribed by +fable, asserting that as a royal foundation it was under the visitorship +of the Crown. Courts of law recognised the claim; a Hanoverian court of +law probably recognised it with pleasure, as transferring power from a +Tory University to the King; and thus was consecrated a fiction in +palliation of which it can only be said, that the earliest of our +literary houses may not improperly be dedicated to the restorer of +English learning. Oriel was founded by a court Almoner, Adam de Brome, +who displayed his courtliness by allowing his Scholars to speak French +as well as Latin. Queen's was founded by a court Chaplain, Robert +Egglesfield, and dedicated to the honour of his royal mistress, Queen +Philippa. It was for a Provost and twelve Fellows who were to represent +the number of Christ and his disciples, to sit at a table as Egglesfield +had seen in a picture the Thirteen sitting at the Last Supper, though +in crimson robes. Egglesfield's building has been swept away to make +room for the Palladian palace on its site. But his name is kept in mind +by the quaint custom of giving, on his day, a needle (_aiguille_) to +each member of the foundation, with the injunction, Take that and be +thrifty. Yonder stone _eagles_ too on the building recall it. Exeter +College was the work of a political Bishop who met his death in a London +insurrection. + +As the fashion of founding Colleges grew, that of founding Monasteries +decreased, and the more as the mediaeval faith declined, and the great +change drew near. That change was heralded by the appearance of +Wycliffe, a genuine off-spring of the University, for while he was the +great religious reformer, he was also the great scholastic philosopher +of his day. To what College or Hall his name and fame belong is a moot +point among antiquaries. We would fain imagine him in his meditations +pacing the old Mob Quadrangle of Merton. His teaching took strong and +long hold of the University. His reforming company of "poor priests" +drew with it the spiritual aspiration and energy of Oxford youth. But if +his movement has left any traces in the shape of foundations, it is in +the shape of foundations produced by the reaction against it, and +destined for its overthrow. + +[Illustration: NEW COLLEGE, CLOISTERS AND TOWER.] + +[Illustration: NEW COLLEGE CHAPEL.] + +Yonder rises the bell tower of New College over a famous group of +buildings, with ample quadrangle, rich religious chapel, a noble Hall +and range of tranquil cloisters, defaced only by the addition of a +modern upper story to the quadrangle and Vandalic adaptation of the +upper windows to modern convenience. This pile was the work of William +of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, a typical character of the Middle +Ages, prelate, statesman, and court architect in one, who negotiated the +peace of Bretigny and built Windsor Castle. The eye of the great +architect as well as of the pious Founder must have ranged with delight +over his fair creation. It is likely that New College, as a foundation +highly religious in its character, was intended to counteract Wycliffism +as well as to replenish the clergy which had been decimated by the Black +Death. Wykeham was a reformer in his way, and one of the party headed by +the Black Prince which strove to correct the abuses of the court in the +dark decline of Edward III. But he was a conservative, religious after +the orthodox fashion, and devoted to the worship of the Virgin, to whom +his College was dedicated, after whom it was named, and whose image +surmounts its gate. The College of St. Mary of Winton his foundation was +entitled. In its day it might well be called New College. New it was in +its scale, having seventy Fellows and Scholars besides ten Chaplains, +three Clerks, and sixteen Choristers for the services of the Chapel, +which is still famous for its choir. New it was in the extent and +magnificence of its buildings. New it was in the provision made for +solemn services in its Chapel, for religious processions round its +cloisters, for the daily orisons of all its members. New it was in the +state assigned to its Warden, who was not to be like the Warden of +Merton, only the first among his humble peers, living with them at the +common board, but to resemble more a great Abbot with a separate +establishment of his own, keeping a sumptuous hospitality and drawn by +six horses when he went abroad. New it was in having undergraduates as +well as graduates on the foundation, and providing for the training of +the youth during the whole interval between school and the highest +University degree. Even further back than the time of admittance to the +University, stretched the care of the reformer of education. The most +important novelty of all, perhaps, in his creation, was the connection +between his College and the school which he founded at Winchester, his +cathedral city, to feed his College with a constant supply of model +Scholars. This was the first of those great Public Schools which have +largely moulded the character of the ruling class in England. The +example was followed by Henry VI. in connecting King's College, +Cambridge, with Eton, and would have been followed by Wolsey had he +carried out his design of connecting Cardinal College with his school at +Ipswich. From the admission of an undergraduate element into the College +it naturally followed that there should be instruction of the juniors by +the seniors, and superintendence of study within the College walls. This +was yet another novelty, and Wykeham seems to have had an additional +motive for adopting it in the low condition of the University Schools, +from the exercises of which attention had perhaps been diverted by the +religious movement. In the careful provision for the study of +Grammatica, that is, the elements of Latin, we perhaps see a gleam of +the Renaissance, as the style of the buildings belonging to the last +order of mediaeval architecture indicates that the Middle Age was +hastening to its close. But it was one of Wykeham's objects to +strengthen the orthodox priesthood in a time of revolutionary peril. Ten +of his Fellows were assigned to the study of civil, ten to that of +canon, law. Two were permitted to study medicine. All the rest were to +be theologians. The Founder was false to his own generous design in +giving a paramount and perpetual preference in the election of Fellows +to his own kin, who, being numerous, became at length a fearful incubus +on his institution. It is not likely that his own idea of kinship was +unlimited, or extended beyond the tenth degree. All the Fellows and +Scholars were to be poor and indigent. This was in unison with the +mediaeval spirit of alms-giving as well as with the mediaeval theory of +poverty as a state spiritually superior, held, though not embodied, by +wealthy prelates. Study, not teaching, it is always to be remembered, +was the principal duty of those who were to eat the Founder's bread. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE, FROM STREET.] + +The Statutes of New College are elaborate, and were largely copied by +other founders. They present to us a half-monastic life, with the +general hue of asceticism which pervades everything mediaeval. Here, as +in the case of Merton, there are no vows, but there is strict +discipline, with frugal fare. The Commons, or allowances for food, are +not to exceed twelve pence per week, except in the times of dearth. Once +a year there is an allowance of cloth for a gown. There is a chest for +loans to the very needy, but there is no stipend. The Warden rules with +abbatial power, though in greater matters he requires the consent of the +Fellows, and is himself under the censorship of the Visitor, the Bishop +of Winchester, who, however, rarely interposed. Every year he goes on +"progress" to view the College estates, there being in those days no +agents, and is received by tenants with homage and rural hospitality. +The Fellows and Scholars are lodged three or four in a room, the seniors +as monitors to the juniors. Each Scholar undergoes two years of +probation. As in a baronial hall the nobles, so in the College Hall the +seniors, occupy the dais, or high table, while the juniors sit at tables +arranged down the Hall. In the dining-hall the Fellows and Scholars sit +in silence, and listen to the reading of the Bible. In speaking they +must use no tongue but the Latin. There is to be no lingering in the +Hall after dinner, except when in winter a fire is lighted on some +church festival. Then it is permitted to remain awhile and rehearse +poems, or talk about the chronicles of the kingdom, the wonders of the +world, and other things befitting clerical discourse. This seems to be +the principal concession made to the youthful love of amusement. As a +rule, it appears that the students were confined to the College and its +cloisters when they were not attending the Schools of the University. +They are forbidden to keep hounds or hawks, as well as to throw stones +or indulge in any rough or noisy sports. The injunctions against +spilling wine and slops in the upper rooms, or beer on the floor of the +Hall, to the annoyance of those who lodged beneath, betoken a rough +style of living and rude manners. The admission of strangers is +jealously restricted, and on no account must a woman enter the College, +except a laundress, who must be of safe age. There were daily prayers +for the Founder's soul, daily masses, and fifty times each day every +member of the College was to repeat the salutation to the Virgin. The +Founder's obit was to be celebrated with special pomp. Self-love in a +mediaeval ascetic was not annihilated by humility, though it took a +religious form. Thrice every year are held scrutinies into life and +conduct, at which the hateful practice of secret denunciation is +admitted, and the accused is forbidden to call for the name of his +accuser. Every cloistered society, whether monastic or academic, is +pretty sure to seethe with cabals, suspicions, and slanders. Leave of +absence from the College was by statute very sparingly allowed, and +seldom could the young Scholar pay what, in the days before the letter +post, must have been angel's visits to the old people on the paternal +homestead. The ecclesiastical and ascetic system of the Middle Ages had +little regard for domestic affection. It treated the boy as entirely a +child of the Church. In times of pestilence, then common, the inmates of +the Colleges usually went to some farm or grange belonging to the +College in the neighbourhood of Oxford, and those were probably pleasant +days for the younger members. Oaths of fearful length and stringency +were taken to the observation of the statutes. They proved sad traps for +conscience when the statutes had become obsolete, a contingency of which +the Founders, ignorant of progress and evolution, never dreamed. + + * * * * * + +In the interval between the foundation of New College and the +revolution, religious and intellectual, which we call the Reformation, +were founded Lincoln, All Souls', Magdalen, and Brasenose. Lincoln, All +Souls', and Brasenose lie immediately round us, close to what was the +centre of academical life. Magdalen we recognise in the distance by the +most beautiful of towers. Lincoln was theological, and was peculiar in +being connected with two of the Churches of Oxford, which its members +served, and the tithes and oblations of which formed its endowment. Its +Founder, Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, had as a graduate resident at +Oxford been noted for sympathy with the Wycliffites. But when he became +Bishop of Lincoln, the fact dawned upon him that the Scriptures too +freely interpreted were dangerous. He went over to the Reaction, burned +Wycliffe's body, and determined to found a little college of true +students in theology, who would "defend the mysteries of the sacred page +against those ignorant laics who profaned with swinish snouts its most +holy pearls." His successor, Bishop Rotherham, being of the same mind, +carried forward the work, and gave the College statutes enjoining the +expulsion of any Fellow convicted of favouring in public or in private +heretical tenets, and in particular the tenets of "that heretical sect +lately sprung up which assails the sacraments, diverse orders and +dignities, and properties of the Church." Rotherham had evidently a keen +and just sense of the fact, that with the talismanic sacraments of the +Church were bound up its dignity and wealth. The two orthodox prelates +would have stood aghast if they could have foreseen that their little +College of true theologians would one day number among its Fellows John +Wesley, and that Methodism would be cradled within its walls. They would +not less have stood aghast if they could have foreseen that such a chief +of Liberals as Mark Pattison, would one day be its Rector. The history +of these foundations is full of lessons for benefactors who fancy that +they can impress their will upon posterity. + +All Souls' was designed by its Founder, Archbishop Chicheley, _ad +orandum_ as well as _ad studendum_; it was to serve the purpose of a +chantry not less than of a College. The sculptured group of souls over +the gateway in High Street denotes that the Warden and Fellows were to +pray for the souls of all Christian people. But particularly were they +to pray for the souls of "the illustrious Prince Henry, late King of +England, of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, and of all the Dukes, Earls, +Barons, Knights, Esquires, and others who fell in the war for the Crown +of France." Of that unhappy war Chicheley had been the adviser; and +seeing the wreck which his folly, or, if the suspicion immortalised by +Shakespeare is true, his selfish policy, as the head of a bloated +Establishment threatened with depletion, had wrought, he may well have +felt the sting of conscience in his old age. The figures in the new +reredos of the Chapel tell the story of the foundation. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S PULPIT. + +Magdalen College, First Quadrangle.] + +Magdalen was the work of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor +of Henry VI., another statesman-prelate who turned from the political +storm to found a house of learning. Of all the houses of learning in +England, perhaps of any country, that which Waynflete founded is the +loveliest, as he will say who stands in its cloistered and ivy-mantled +quadrangle, either beneath the light of the summer's sun or that of the +winter's moon. Some American architect, captivated by the graces of +Magdalen, has reproduced them in his plan for a new University +in California. Those courts, when newly built, were darkened by the +presence of Richard III. Waynflete came to Oxford to receive the king; +and this homage, paid by a saintly man, seems to show that in those +fierce times of dynastic change, Richard, before the murder of his +nephews, was not regarded as a criminal usurper, perhaps not as a +usurper at all. The tyrant was intellectual. In him, as still more +notably in Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, nicknamed for his cruelty the +Butcher, but literary and a benefactor to the University, was something +like an English counterpart of the mixture in the Italian Renaissance of +culture with licentiousness and crime. But as he sat beside Waynflete +in the Hall wooing popularity by apparent attention to the exercises, +Richard's thoughts probably were far away. A red rose among the +architectural ornaments is found to have been afterwards painted white. +It changed, no doubt, with fortune, when she left the red for the white +rose. A new relation between College and University is inaugurated by +the institution at Magdalen of three Readers to lecture to the +University at large. + + * * * * * + +The old quadrangle of Brasenose remains much as it was left by its +co-founders, a munificent Bishop and a pious Knight. It is of no special +historic interest, and its importance belongs to later times. It +absorbed several Halls, the sign of one of which was probably the brazen +nose which now adorns its gate, and so far it marks an epoch. + + * * * * * + +The quiet and sombre old quadrangle of Corpus Christi lies yonder, by +the side of Merton, much as its Founder left it. Now we have come to the +real dawn of the English Renaissance, a gray dawn which never became a +very bright day; for in England, as in Germany and other Teutonic +countries, reawakened and emancipated intellect turned to the pursuit of +truth rather than of beauty, and the great movement was less a birth of +literature and of art than of reformation in religion. This is the age +of Grocyn, the teacher of Greek; of Linacre, the English Hippocrates; of +Colet, the regenerator of education; of Sir Thomas More, who carried +culture to the Chancellorship of the realm, and whose "Utopia" proclaims +the growth of fresh aspirations and the opening of a new era in one way, +as Rabelais did in another. Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, uncle of Henry +VI., had perhaps opened the epoch at Oxford by his princely gift of +books, in which the Renaissance literature was strongly represented, and +which was the germ of the University Library. Soon Erasmus will visit +Oxford and chant in elegant Latin the praises of the classical and +cultured circle which he finds there. Now rages the war between the +humanists of the new classical learning, called the Greeks, and its +opponents, the Trojans, who desired to walk in the ancient paths, and +who, though bigoted and grotesque, were, after all, not far wrong in +identifying heresy with Greek, since the study of the New Testament in +the original was subversive of the mediaeval faith. Again, as in the +cases of Merton, Wykeham, and Waynflete, a statesman-prelate turns in +old age from the distractions of State to found a house of learning. +Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, was the chief counsellor and diplomatist of +Henry VII., in whose service he had no doubt passed anxious hours and +trodden dark paths. It may have been partly for the good of his soul +that he proposed to found a house in Oxford for the reception of young +monks from St. Swithin's Priory in Winchester while studying in Oxford. +He was diverted from that design, and persuaded to found a College +instead, by his friend Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, who is represented +as saying, "What, my Lord, shall we build houses and provide livelihoods +for a company of bussing monks whose end and fall we ourselves may live +to see? No, no. It is more meet, a great deal, that we should have care +to provide for the increase of learning and for such as by their +learning shall do good in the Church and Commonwealth." Supposing the +prognostication embodied in these words genuine, they show that to an +enlightened Bishop the dissolution of the Monasteries seemed inevitable. +The statutes of Foxe's College are written in a style which affects the +highest classical elegance. They elaborate throughout the metaphor of a +bee-hive with its industrious insects and its store of intellectual +honey. They embody the hopes of the Renaissance and depict a College of +the Humanities. There is to be a Reader in Greek, and for the subjects +of his lectures a long list of great Greek authors is assigned. There is +to be a Reader of Latin, for whose lectures a similar list of Latin +authors is given, and who is to keep "barbarism," that mortal sin in +the eyes of a devotee of the Renaissance, out of the hive. Theology is +not forgotten. The Founder pays a due, possibly somewhat conventional, +tribute to its surpassing importance. Of this, also, there is a +Professor, but its guides in interpreting Scripture are not to be the +mediaeval textbooks, such as Aquinas and the Master of the Sentences, but +the Greek and Latin Fathers, including the daring Origen and Augustine +the favourite of Luther. The Readers are to lecture not to the College +only, but to the University at large, a new provision, connecting the +College with the University, which hardly took effect till very recent +times. One of the first Readers was the learned Spaniard, Juan Luis +Vives, whose appointment bespoke the cosmopolitan character of the +humanist republic of letters. The statutes were signed by the Founder +with a trembling hand eight months before his death, so that only in +imagination did he see his literary bees at work. + + * * * * * + +Yonder to the south is Tom Tower, where hangs the great bell, which, +"swinging slow with sullen roar," was heard by Milton at Forest Hill. It +was tolled a hundred and one times for the hundred and one students of +Wolsey's House. The Tower, or Cupola, was the work, not of Wolsey but +of Wren. Around the great quadrangle over which it rises are seen the +lines for cloisters which were never built. The balustrade on the top of +the quadrangle is an alien work of modern times. The Church of St. +Frydeswide's Monastery does duty as the College Chapel, in place of the +grand Chapel in the perpendicular style, which, had the Founder's plan +taken effect, would have stood there. Moreover, that which should have +been wholly a College is made to serve and to expend a part of its power +as the Chapter of the Diocese of Oxford, lending its Chapel as the +Cathedral, a niggardly arrangement which has been productive of strained +relations between occupants of the See and Heads of the College. Ample +and noble are the courts of Wolsey. Worthy of his magnificence is the +great Hall, the finest room, barring Westminster Hall, in England, and +filled with those portraits of _Alumni_, which, notwithstanding the +frequency of pudding sleeves, form the fairest tapestry with which hall +was ever hung. But it all falls short of Wolsey's conception. Had +Wolsey's conception been fulfilled, Ipswich would have been a nursery of +scholars for Cardinal College, as Winchester was for New College, and +Eton for King's College, Cambridge. The Cardinal was an English Leo X. +in morals, tastes, perhaps in beliefs; a true Prince, not of the Church +but of the Renaissance. For him, perhaps, as for Foxe, it was a +refreshment to turn from public life, full, as it must have been, of +care and peril for the Vizier of a headstrong and capricious despot, to +the calm happiness of seeing his great College rise, and gathering into +it the foremost of teachers and the flower of students. But in the midst +of his enterprise the sky of the Renaissance became overcast with +clouds, and the storm of religious revolution, which had long been +gathering, broke. Forewarnings of the storm Wolsey had received, for he +had found that in opening his gates to the highest intellectual activity +he had opened them to free inquiry and to heterodoxy. Himself, too, had +set the example of suppressing monasteries, though he did this not for +mere rapine or to gorge his parasites, but to turn useless and abused +endowments to a noble use. Wolsey all but drew his foundation down with +him in his fall. The tyrant and his minions were builders of nothing but +ruin. Christ Church, as at last it was called, was threatened with +confiscation and destruction, but was finally spared in its incomplete +condition, appropriated by Henry as his own foundation, and dedicated to +the honour of the king, whose portrait, in its usual attitude of +obtrusive self-conceit, occupies in the Hall the central place, where +the portrait of the Cardinal should be. The Cardinal's hat, on the +outer wall of the house, is left to speak of the true Founder. That the +College was to be called after its Founder's name, not, like the +Colleges of Wykeham and Waynflete, after the name of a Saint, seems a +symptom of the pride which went before Wolsey's fall. + + * * * * * + +Now come upon the hapless University forty years of religious +revolution, the monuments of which are traces of destruction and records +of proscription. All the monastic houses and houses for monastic novices +were forfeited to the Crown, and their buildings were left desolate, +though, from the ruins of some of them, new Colleges were afterwards to +rise. Libraries which would now be priceless, were sacked and destroyed +because the illumination on the manuscripts was Popish. It was the least +to be deplored of all the havoc, that the torn leaves of the arid tomes +of Duns Scotus were seen flying about the quadrangle of New College, +while a sporting gentleman of the neighbourhood was picking them up to +be used in driving the deer. There is a comic monument of the religious +revolution in the coffer shrine at Christ Church, in which the dust of +Catherine, wife of the Protestant Doctor, Peter Martyr, is mingled with +that of the Catholic Saint, Frydeswide. Catholicism, in its hour of +triumph under Mary, had dug up the corpse of the heretic's concubine and +buried it under a dung-hill. Protestantism, once more victorious, +rescued the remains, and guarded against a repetition of the outrage, in +case fortune should again change, by mingling them with those of the +Catholic Saint. A more tragic memorial of the conflict is yonder +recumbent cross in Broad Street, close to the spot, then a portion of +the town ditch, where Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley died. Bocardo, the +prison over the neighbouring gate of the city, from the window of which +Cranmer, then confined there, witnessed the burning of Latimer and +Ridley, was pulled down at the beginning of this century. The Divinity +School, Christ Church Cathedral, and St. Mary's Church witnessed +different scenes of the drama. St. Mary's witnessed that last scene, in +which Cranmer filled his enemies with fury and confusion by suddenly +recanting his recantation, and declaring that the hand which had signed +it should burn first. College archives record the expulsion, +readmission, and re-expulsion of Heads and Fellows, as victory inclined +to the Protestant or Catholic side. So perished the English Renaissance. +For the cultivation of the humanities there could be no room in a centre +of religious strife. + + * * * * * + +Fatal bequests of the religious war were the religious tests. Leicester, +as Chancellor, introduced subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles to +keep out Romanists; King James, that to the three articles of the +Thirty-sixth Canon to keep out Puritans. These tests, involving scores +of controverted propositions in theology, were imposed on the +consciences of mere boys. The Universities were thus taken from the +nation and given to the State Church, which, in the course of time, as +dissent from its doctrines gained ground, came to be far from identical +with the nation. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE--GARDEN FRONT.] + +In the first lull, however, new Colleges arose, partly out of the ruins +of the monastic houses of the past. Trinity College, of which the quiet +old quadrangle is curiously mated with a fantastic Chapel of much later +date, was founded out of the ruin of Durham College, a Benedictine +House. Its Founder, Sir Thomas Pope, was one of that group of highly +educated lay statesmen, eminent both in the councils of kings and among +the patrons of learning, which succeeded the great Prelates of the +Middle Ages. He was a Catholic, as his statutes show; but a liberal +Catholic, not unfriendly to light, though little knowing perhaps whither +it would lead him. Among his friends was Sir Nicholas Bacon, who +bequeathed to him the splendid whistle, then used to call servants, +which is seen round his neck in his portrait. Another of his friends was +Pole, who showed his intellectual liberality by recommending him to +enjoin in his statutes the study of Greek. St. John's College, again, +rose out of the wreck of a Bernardine House. The Founder was not a +statesman or a prelate, but a great citizen, Sir Thomas White, sometime +Lord Mayor of London, who had amassed wealth in trade, and made a noble +use of it. White also was of the olden faith. That the storm was not +over when his College was founded is tragically shown by the fate of +Campion, who, when White was laid in the College Chapel, preached the +funeral sermon, and afterwards becoming a Jesuit and an emissary of +his Order, was brought to the rack and to the scaffold. There was also a +great secession of Fellows when the final rupture took place between +Rome and Elizabeth. In the group of cultivated Knights and statesmen, +who patronised learning and education, may be placed Sir William Petre, +the second Founder of Exeter College, whose monument is its old +quadrangle, and Sir Thomas Bodley, whose monument is the Bodleian +Library. If Petre and Bodley were Protestants, while Pope and White were +Catholics, the difference was rather political than religious. In +religion the public men changed with the national government, little +sharing the passions of either theological party. + + * * * * * + +Jesus, whose old quadrangle, chapel, and hall belong to early Stuart +times, was the first distinctly Protestant College. This its name, in +contrast with Colleges named after Saints, denotes. The second +Protestant College was Wadham, the buildings of which stand in their +pristine beauty, vying with Magdalen, perhaps even excelling it in the +special air of a house of learning, and proving that to be interesting +and impressive it is not necessary to be mediaeval. At the same time +Wadham shows how long the spirit of the Middle Ages clung to Oxford; for +the style of the Chapel is anterior by a century and a half to the date. +Here we have a conscious desire, on the part of the architect, to +recall the past. The Founder, Sir Nicholas Wadham, was a wealthy Western +land-owner. We may dismiss the tradition that his first design was to +found a College of Roman Catholic priests in Italy, and his second to +found a Protestant College at Oxford, as at most significant of the +prolonged wavering of the religious balance in the minds of a number of +the wealthier class. The statutes were, in the main, like those of the +mediaeval Colleges, saving in making the Fellowship terminable after +about twenty-two years, thus more clearly designating the College as a +school for active life. The prohibition of marriage was retained, not as +an ascetic ordinance, but as a concomitant of the College system. In +the mediaeval Colleges it was not necessary to extend the prohibition to +the Heads, who, being priests, were bound to celibacy by the regulations +of their Order; but marriage being now permitted to the clergy +generally, the prohibition was in the statutes of Wadham expressly +extended, in the interest of the College system, to the Head. Hence it +is an aspersion on the reputation of Dame Dorothy Wadham, who, after her +husband's death, carried out his design, and whose effigy kneels +opposite that of her loving lord in the old quadrangle, to say that she +was in love with the first Warden, and because he would not marry her, +forbade him by statute to marry any other woman. + +[Illustration: WADHAM COLLEGE--GARDEN FRONT.] + + * * * * * + +These foundations, followed by that of Pembroke and the building of the +South quadrangle of Merton, of the South quadrangle of Lincoln, of the +West front of St. John's, of the quadrangle and hall of Exeter, of part +of the quadrangle of Oriel, of the West quadrangle of University +College, as well as of the Bodleian Library, the Schools' quadrangle, +the Convocation House, and of the gateway of the Botanic Garden, prove +that, though the old University system, with its scholastic exercises, +had become hollow, there was life in Oxford, and the interest of patrons +of learning was attracted to it during the period between the +Reformation and the Rebellion. It was also felt to be a centre of power. +Elizabeth twice visited it, once in the heyday of her youthful glory, +and again in her haggard decline. On the first occasion she exerted with +effect those arts of popularity which were the best part of her +statesmanship. On both occasions she was received with ecstatic flattery +and entertained with academical exercises at tedious length, and plays, +to our taste not less tedious, performed in College Halls. Her successor +could not fail to exhibit himself in a seat of learning, where he felt +supreme, and, to do him justice, was not unqualified, to shine. To his +benignity the University owes the questionable privilege of sending two +members to the House of Commons, whereby it became entangled in +political as well as in theological frays. + + * * * * * + +Great changes, however, had by this time passed or were passing over the +University. As in former days the Halls had absorbed the Chamberdekyns, +so the Colleges had now almost absorbed the Halls. They did this, not by +any aggression, but by the natural advantages of wealth, their riches +always increasing with the value of land, and by their reputation. Most +of them, in addition to the members on the foundation, took students as +boarders, and they got the best and wealthiest. Universities, losing +their pristine character as marts of available knowledge, and becoming +places of general education, ceased, by a process equally natural, to be +the heritage of the poor and became the resort of the rich. The mediaeval +statutes of the Colleges still limited the foundations to the poor, but +even these in time, by cunning interpretation, were largely evaded. +Already in the later Middle Ages Oxford had received, and, it seems, too +complacently received, young scions of the aristocracy and gentry, the +precursors of the noblemen and the silk-gowned gentleman-commoners of a +later day. The Black Prince had been for a short time at Queen's +College. In the reign of Henry VI., George Neville, the brother of the +King-maker, had celebrated the taking of his degree, a process which was +probably made easy to him, with banquets which lasted through two days +on a prodigious scale. At the same time and for the same causes the +system of College instruction grew in importance and gradually ousted +the lectures of University Professors. Fellows of Colleges were not +unwilling to add to their Commons and Livery the Tutor's stipend. Thus +the importance of the College waxed while that of the University waned, +and the College Statutes became more and more collectively the law of +the University. These Statutes were mediaeval and obsolete, but they +were unalterable, the Heads and Fellows being sworn to their observance, +and there being no power of amendment, since the Visitor could only +interpret and enforce. Thus the mediaeval type of life and study was +stereotyped and progress was barred. The Fellowships having been +originally not teacherships or prizes, but aids to poor students, the +Founders deemed themselves at liberty in regulating the elections to +give free play to their local and family partialities, and the +consequence was a mass of preferences to favoured counties or to kin. +With all these limitations, the teaching body of the University was now +practically saddled. Even the restrictions to particular schools--as to +Winchester in the case of New College, to Westminster, which had been +substituted for Wolsey's Ipswich, in the case of Christ Church, and to +Merchant Tailors' School in the case of St. John's--were noxious, though +in a less degree, albeit their bad influence might be redeemed by some +pleasant associations. Worst of all, however, in their effect were the +restrictions to the clerical Order. This meant little in the Middle +Ages, when all intellectual callings were clerical, when at Oxford +gownsman and clerk, townsman and laic, were convertible terms. Wykeham, +Foxe, and Wolsey themselves were thorough laymen in their pursuits and +character, though they had received the tonsure, were qualified, if +they pleased, to celebrate mass, and derived their incomes from +bishoprics and abbeys. But the Reformation drew a sharp line between the +clerical and the other professions. The clergyman was henceforth a +pastor. The resident body of graduates and the teaching staff of Oxford +belonging almost exclusively to the clerical profession, the studies and +interests of that profession now reigned alone. Whatever life remained +to the University was chiefly absorbed in theological study and +controversy. This was the more deplorable as theology, in the mediaeval +sense, was a science almost as extinct as astrology or alchemy. Oxford +was turned into the cock-pit of theological party. At the same time she +was bound hand and foot to a political faction, because her clergymen +belonged to the Episcopal and State Church, the patrons and upholders of +which, from political motives, were the Kings and the Cavaliers, or, as +they were afterwards called, the Tories. Cambridge suffered like Oxford, +though with some abatement, because there, owing to the vicinity of a +great Puritan district, high Anglicanism did not prevail, and, for +reasons difficult to define, the clergy altogether were less clerical. +Newton was near forfeiting his Fellowship and the means of prosecuting +his speculations because he was not in Holy Orders. Luckily, a Lay +Fellowship fell just in time. Let Founders, and all who have a passion +for regulating the lives of other people, for propagating their wills +beyond the reach of their foresight, and for grasping posterity, as it +were, with a dead hand, take warning by a disastrous example. + + * * * * * + +As the Colleges became the University, their Heads became the governors +of the University. They formed a Board called the Hebdomadal Council, +which initiated all legislation, while the executive was the +Vice-Chancellorship, which, though legally elective, was appropriated by +the Heads, and passed down their list in order. With a single exception, +the Headships were all clerical, and they were almost always filled by +men of temperament, to say the least, eminently conservative. Thus +academical liberty and progress slept. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: ST. MARY'S CHURCH.] + +On the eve of another great storm we have a pleasant glimpse of Oxford +life and study in Clarendon's picture of Falkland's circle, at Great +Tew, within ten miles of Oxford, whither, he says, "most polite and +accurate men of that University resorted, dwelling there as in a College +situated in a purer air, so that his was a University bound in a less +volume, whither his intellectual friends came not so much for repose as +study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which +laziness and consent made current in conversation." This indicates that, +while study was going on, liberal inquiry was also on foot. But clouds +again gathered, the storm again came, and once more from the +ecclesiastical quarter. The triumph of the Reformation, the accession of +a Protestant Queen, and the Chancellorship of Leicester, who, for +politic purposes, played the Puritan, had been attended by a general +expulsion or secession of the Romanising party, which left the +University for a time in the hands of the Calvinists and Low Churchmen. +Hooker, the real father of Anglicanism, had, for a time, studied Church +antiquity in the quiet quadrangle of Corpus, but he had come into +collision with Puritanism, and had, for a time, been driven away by it. +Perhaps its prevalence may have ultimately inclined him to exchange the +University for a far less congenial sphere. The clergy, however, of an +Episcopal Church, and one which laid claim to Apostolical succession, +was sure in time to come round to High Church doctrine. To High Church +doctrine the clergy of Oxford did come round under the leadership of +Laud, University Preacher, Proctor, President of St. John's College, and +afterwards Chancellor of the University. Of Laud there are several +memorials at Oxford. One is the inner quadrangle of St. John's College, +ornamented in the style of Inigo Jones, where the Archbishop and +Chancellor, in the noontide of his career, received with ecstasies of +delight, ecclesiastical, academical, and political, his doomed king and +master with the fatal woman at Charles's side. Another is a fine +collection of oriental books added to the Bodleian Library. A third and +more important is the new code of statutes framed for the reformation of +the University by its all-powerful Chancellor. A fourth is the statue of +the Virgin and Child over the porch of St. Mary's Church, which, as +proof of a Romanising tendency, formed one of the charges against the +Archbishop, though it was really put up by his Chaplain. The fifth is +the headless corpse which lies buried in the Chapel of St. John's +College, whither pious hands conveyed it after the Restoration. Laud was +a true friend of the University and of learned men, in whom, as in +Hales, he respected the right of inquiry, and to whom he was willing to +allow a freedom of opinion which he would not allow to the common herd. +He was not so much a bigot as a martinet. It was by playing the martinet +in ecclesiastical affairs that he was brought into mortal collision with +the nation. In the code of statutes which by his characteristic use of +autocratic power he imposed on Oxford the martinet is betrayed; so is +the belief in the efficacy of regulation. We see the man who wrecked a +kingdom for the sake of his forms. Nor had Laud the force to deliver +University education from the shackles of the Middle Ages and the +scholastic system. But the code is dictated by a genuine spirit of +reform, and might have worked improvement had it been sustained by a +motive power. + + * * * * * + +The period of the Civil War is a gap in academical history. Its +monuments are only traces of destruction, such as the defacement of +Papistical images and window paintings by the Puritan soldiery, and the +sad absence of the old College plate, of which two thousand five hundred +ounces went to the Royal mint in New Inn Hall, only a few most sacred +pieces, such as the Founder's drinking-horn at Queen's, and the covered +cup, reputed that of the Founder, at Corpus, being left to console us +for the irreparable loss. Exeter College alone seems to have shown +compunction; perhaps there had remained in her something of the free +spirit for which in the days of Wycliffe she had been noted. Art and +taste may mourn, but the University, as a centre of Episcopalianism, had +little cause to complain; for the war was justly called the Bishops' +war, and by the Episcopal Church and the Queen, between them, Charles +was brought to the block. Oxford was bound by her ecclesiasticism to +the Royal cause, and she had the ill luck to be highly available as a +place of arms from her position between the two rivers, while she formed +an advanced post to the Western country in which the strength of the +King's cause lay. During those years the University was in buff and +bandolier, on the drill ground instead of in the Schools, while the +Colleges were filled with the exiled Court and its ghost of a +Parliament. Traces of works connecting the two rivers were not long ago +to be seen, and tradition points to the angle in the old city wall under +Merton College as the spot where Windebank, a Royalist officer, was shot +for surrendering his post. There was a reign of garrison manners as +well as of garrison duties, and to the few who still cared for the +objects of the University, even if they were Royalists, the surrender of +the city to the Parliament may well have been a relief. + + * * * * * + +Then came Parliamentary visitation and the purge, with the inevitable +violence and inhumanity. Heads and Fellows, who refused submission to +the new order of things, were turned out. Mrs. Fell, the wife of the +Dean of Christ Church, deposed for Royalism, refused to quit the +Deanery, and at last had to be carried out of the quadrangle, venting +her wrath in strong language as she went, by a squad of Parliamentary +musketeers. But the Puritans put in good men: such as Owen, who was +made Dean of Christ Church; Conant, who was made Rector of Exeter; +Wilkins, who was made Warden of Wadham; and Seth Ward, the +mathematician, who was made President of Trinity College. Owen and +Conant appear to have been model Heads. The number of students +increased. Evelyn, the Anglican and Royalist, visiting Oxford, seems to +find the academical exercises, and the state of the University +generally, satisfactory to his mind. He liked even the sermon, barring +some Presbyterian animosities. Nor did he find much change in College +Chapels. New College was "in its ancient garb, notwithstanding the +scrupulosity of the times." The Chapel of Magdalen College, likewise, +was "in pontifical order," and the organ remained undemolished. The +Protectorate was tolerant as far as the age allowed. Evelyn was +cordially received by the Puritan authorities and hospitably +entertained. Puritanism does not seem to have been so very grim, +whatever the satirist in "The Spectator" may say. Tavern-haunting and +swearing were suppressed. So were May-poles and some innocent +amusements. But instrumental music was much cultivated, as we learn from +the Royalist and High Church antiquary Anthony Wood, from whom, also, we +gather that dress, though less donnish, was not more austere. Cromwell, +having saved the Universities from fanatics who would have laid low all +institutions of worldly learning, made himself Chancellor of Oxford, and +sought to draw thence, as well as from Cambridge, promising youths for +the service of the State. Even Clarendon admits that the Restoration +found the University "abounding in excellent learning," notwithstanding +"the wild and barbarous depopulation" which it had undergone; a +miraculous result, which he ascribes, under God's blessing, to "the +goodness and richness of the soil, which could not be made barren by all +the stupidity and negligence, but choked the weeds, and would not suffer +the poisonous seeds, which were sown with industry enough, to spring +up." Puritanism might be narrow and bibliolatrous, but it was not +obscurantist nor the enemy of science. We see this in Puritan Oxford as +well as in Puritan Harvard and Yale. In Puritan Oxford the scientific +circle which afterwards gave birth to the Royal Society was formed. Its +chief was Warden Wilkins, and it included Boyle, Wallis, Seth Ward, and +Wren. It met either in Wilkins's rooms at Wadham, or in those of Boyle. +Evelyn, visiting Wilkins, is ravished with the scientific inventions and +experiments which he sees. On the stones of Oxford, Puritanism has left +no trace; there was hardly any building during those years. There were +benefactions not a few, among which was the gift of Selden's Library. + +Upon the Restoration followed a Royalist proscription, more cruel, and +certainly more lawless, than that of the Puritans had been. All the good +Heads of the Commonwealth era were ejected, and the Colleges received +back a crowd of Royalists, who, during their exclusion, had probably +been estranged from academical pursuits. Anthony Wood himself is an +unwilling witness to the fact that the change was much for the worse. +"Some Cavaliers that were restored," he says, "were good scholars, but +the majority were dunces." "Before the War," he says in another place, +"we had scholars who made a thorough search in scholastic and polemical +divinity, in humane learning and natural philosophy, but now scholars +study these things not more than what is just necessary to carry them +through the exercises of their respective Colleges and the University. +Their aim is not to live as students ought to do, temperate, abstemious, +and plain in their apparel, but to live like gentry, to keep dogs and +horses, to turn their studies into places to keep bottles, to swagger in +gay apparel and long periwigs." Into the Rectorship of Exeter, in place +of the excellent Conant, was put Joseph Maynard, of whom Wood says, +"Exeter College is now much debauched by a drunken Governor; whereas, +before, in Doctor Conant's time, it was accounted a civil house, it is +now rude and uncivil. The Rector is good-natured, generous, and a good +scholar, but he has forgot the way of College life, and the decorum of a +scholar. He is much given to bibbing, and when there is a music meeting +in one of the Fellow's chambers, he will sit there, smoke, and drink +till he is drunk, and has to be led to his lodgings by the junior +Fellows." This is not the only evidence of the fact that drinking, +idling, and tavern-haunting were in the ascendant. Study as well as +morality, having been the badge of the Puritan, was out of fashion. +Wilkins's scientific circle took its departure from Oxford to London, +there to become the germ of the Royal Society. The hope was gone at +Oxford of a race of "young men provided against the next age, whose +minds, receiving the first impressions of sober and generous knowledge, +should be invincibly armed against all the encroachments of enthusiasm." +The presence of the merry monarch, with his concubines, at Oxford, when +his Parliament met there, was not likely to improve morals. Oxford sank +into an organ of the High Church and Tory party, and debased herself by +servile manifestos in favour of government by prerogative. +Non-conformists were excluded by the religious tests, the operation of +which was more stringent than ever since the passing of the Act of +Uniformity. The love of liberty and truth embodied in Locke was expelled +from Christ Church; not, however, by the act of the College or of the +University, but by Royal warrant, though Fell, Dean of Christ Church, +bowed slavishly to the tyrant's pleasure; so that Christ Church may look +with little shame on the portrait of the philosopher, which now hangs +triumphant in her Hall. The Cavaliers did not much, even in the way of +building. The Sheldonian Theatre was given them by the Archbishop, to +whom subscriptions had been promised, but did not come in, so that he +had to bear the whole expense himself. He was so deeply disgusted that +he refused ever to look upon the building. + + * * * * * + +Over the gateway of University College stands the statue of James II. +That it should have been left there is a proof both of the ingrained +Toryism of old Oxford, and of the mildness of the Revolution of 1688. +Obadiah Walker, the Master of the Colleges, was one of the political +converts to Roman Catholicism, and it was in ridicule of him that "Old +Obadiah, Ave Maria," was sung by the Oxford populace. A set of rooms in +the same quadrangle bears the trace of its conversion into a Roman +Catholic Chapel for the king. It faces the rooms of Shelley. Reference +was made the other day, in an ecclesiastical lawsuit, to the singular +practice which prevails in this College, of filing out into the +ante-chapel after the sacrament to consume the remains of the bread and +wine, instead of consuming them at the altar or communion table. This +probably is a trace of the Protestant reaction which followed the +transitory reign of Roman Catholicism under Obadiah Walker. All are +familiar with the Magdalen College case, and with the train of events by +which the most devoutly royalist of Universities was brought, by its +connection with the Anglican Church and in defence of the Church's +possessions, into collision with the Crown, and arrayed for the moment +on the side of constitutional liberty. After the Revolution the recoil +quickly followed. Oxford became the stronghold of Jacobitism, the scene +of treasonable talk over the wine in the Common Room, of riotous +demonstrations by pot-valiant undergraduates in the streets, of Jacobite +orations at academical festivals, amid frantic cheers of the assembled +University, of futile plotting and puerile conspiracies which never put +a man in the field. "The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse." But the +troop of horse was not called upon to act. There was a small Hanoverian +and constitutional party, and now and then it scored a point against its +adversaries, who dared not avow their disloyalty to the reigning +dynasty. A Jacobite Proctor, having intruded into a convivial meeting of +Whigs, they tendered him the health of King George, which, for fear of +the treason law, he was fain to drink upon his knees. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: STAIRCASE, CHRIST CHURCH.] + +In the early part of the eighteenth century there was some intellectual +life in Christ Church, to which Westminster still sent up good scholars, +and which was the resort of the nobility, in whom youthful ambition and +desire for improvement might be stirred by the influences of political +homes, and the prospects of a public life. Dean Aldrich was a scholar +and a virtuoso. The spire of All Saints' Church is a soaring +monument of his taste, if not of his genius, for architecture. In the +controversy with Bentley about the Epistles of Phalaris, Christ Church, +though she was hopelessly in the wrong, showed that she had some +learning and some interest in classical studies. Otherwise the +eighteenth century is a blank, or worse than a blank, in the history of +the University. The very portraits on the College walls disclose the +void of any but ecclesiastical eminence. That tendency to torpor, which, +as Adam Smith and Turgot have maintained, is inherent in the system of +endowments, fell upon Oxford in full measure. The Colleges had now, by +the increase in value of their estates, become rich, some of them very +rich. The estates of Magdalen, Gibbon tells us, were thought to be worth +thirty thousand pounds a year, equivalent to double that sum now. +Instead of being confined to their original Commons and Livery, the +Heads and Fellows, as administrators of the estate, were now dividing +among themselves annually large rentals, though they failed to increase +in equal proportion the stipends of the Scholars and others who had no +share in the administration. The statutes of mediaeval Founders had +become utterly obsolete, and were disregarded, notwithstanding the oath +taken to observe them, or observed only so far as they guarded the +interest of sinecurists against the public. Nor were any other duties +assumed. A few of the Fellows in each College added to their income by +holding the tutorships, the functions of which they usually performed in +the most slovenly way, each Tutor professing to teach all subjects, +while most of them knew none. In the Common Room, with which each of the +Colleges now provided itself, the Fellows spent lives of Trulliberian +luxury, drinking, smoking, playing at bowls, and, as Gibbon said, by +their deep but dull potations excusing the brisk intemperance of youth. +Even the obligation to residence was relaxed, and at last practically +annulled, so that a great part of the Fellowships became sinecure +stipends held by men unconnected with the University. About the only +restriction which remained was that on marriage. Out of this the Heads +had managed to slip their necks, and from the time of Elizabeth +downwards there had been married Heads, to the great scandal of Anthony +Wood and other academical precisians, to whom, in truth, one lady, at +least, the wife of Warden Clayton of Merton, seems to have afforded some +grounds for criticism by her usurpations. But in the case of the +Fellows, the statute, being not constructive, but express, could not be +evaded except by stealth, and by an application of the aphorism then +current, that he might hold anything who would hold his tongue. The +effect of this, celibacy being no longer the rule, was to make all the +Fellows look forward to the benefices, of a number of which each College +was the patron, and upon which they could marry. Thus devotion to a life +of study or education in College, had a Fellow been inclined to it, was +impossible, under the ordinary conditions of modern life. Idleness, +intemperance, and riot were rife among the students, as we learn from +the novels and memoirs of the day. Especially were they the rule among +the noblemen and gentlemen-commoners, who were privileged by their birth +and wealth, and to whom by the servility of the Dons every license was +allowed. Some Colleges took only gentlemen-commoners, who paid high +fees and did what they pleased. All Souls' took no students at all, and +became a mere club which, by a strange perversion of a clause in their +statutes, was limited to men of high family. The University as a +teaching and examining body had fallen into a dead swoon. Few of the +Professors even went through the form of lecturing, and the statutory +obligation of attendance was wholly disregarded by the students. The +form of mediaeval disputations was kept up by the farcical repetition of +strings of senseless syllogisms, which were handed down from generation +to generation of students. The very nomenclature of the system had +become unmeaning. Candidates for the theological degree paced the +Divinity School for an hour, nominally challenging opponents to +disputation, but the door was locked by the Bedel, that no opponent +might appear. Examinations were held, but the candidates, by feeing the +University officer, were allowed to choose their own examiners, and they +treated the examiner after the ordeal. The two questions, "What is the +meaning of Golgotha?" and "Who founded University College?" comprised +the examination upon which Lord Eldon took his degree. A little of that +elegant scholarship, with the power of writing Latin verses, of which +Addison was the cynosure, was the most of which Oxford could boast. +Even this there could hardly have been had not the learned languages +happened to have formed an official part of the equipment of the +clerical profession. Of science, or the mental habit which science +forms, there was none. Such opportunities for study, such libraries, +such groves, a livelihood so free from care could scarcely fail, now and +then, to give birth to a learned man, an Addison, a Lowth, a Thomas +Warton, an Elmsley, a Martin Routh. + + * * * * * + +The Universities being the regular finishing schools of the gentry and +the professions, men who had passed through them became eminent in after +life, but they owed little or nothing to the University. Only in this +way can Oxford lay claim to the eminence of Bishop Butler, Jeremy +Bentham, or Adam Smith, while Gibbon is her reproach. The figures of +Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, whose ponderous twin statues sit side by +side in the Library of University College, were more academical, +especially that of Lord Stowell, who was Tutor of his College, and held +a lectureship of Ancient History. Here and there a Tutor of the better +stamp, no doubt, would try to do his duty by his pupils. A rather +pathetic interest attaches to Richard Newton, who tried to turn Hart +Hall into a real place of education, and had some distinguished pupils, +among them Charles Fox. But the little lamp which he had kindled went +out in the uncongenial air. On the site, thanks to the munificence of +Mr. Baring, now stands Hertford College. Johnson's residence at Pembroke +College was short, and his narrative shows that it was unprofitable, +though his High Church principles afterwards made him a loyal son and +eulogist of the University. One good effect the interdiction of marriage +had. It kept up a sort of brotherhood, and saved corporate munificence +from extinction by the private interest of fathers of families. As the +College revenues increased, building went on, though after the false +classical fashion of the times and mostly for the purpose of College +luxury. Now rose the new quadrangle of Queen's, totally supplanting the +mediaeval College, and the new buildings at Magdalen and Corpus. A plan +is extant, horrible to relate, for the total demolition of the old +quadrangle of Magdalen, and its replacement by a modern palace of +idleness in the Italian style. To this century belong Peckwater and +Canterbury quadrangles, also in the classical style, the first redeemed +by the Library which fills one side of the square, and which has a heavy +architectural grandeur as well as a noble purpose. To the eighteenth +century we also mainly owe the College gardens and walks as we see them; +and the gardens of St. John's, New College, Wadham, Worcester, and +Exeter, with the lime walk at Trinity and the Broadwalk--now unhappily +but a wreck--at Christ Church, may plead to a student's heart for some +mitigation of the sentence on the race of clerical idlers and +wine-bibbers, who, for a century, made the University a place, not of +education and learning, but of dull sybaritism, and a source, not of +light, but of darkness, to the nation. It is sad to think how different +the history of England might have been had Oxford and Cambridge done +their duty, like Harvard and Yale, during the last century. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH--FRONT.] + +At the end of the last or beginning of the present century came the +revival. At the end of the last century Christ Church had some +brilliant classical scholars among her students, though the great scene +of their eminence was not the study but the senate. The portraits of +Wellesley and Canning hang in her Hall. In the early part of the present +century the general spirit of reform and progress, which had been +repressed during the struggle with revolutionary France, began to move +again over the face of the torpid waters. Eveleigh, Provost of Oriel, +led the way. At his College and at Balliol the elections to Fellowships +were free from local or genealogical restrictions. They were now opened +to merit, and those two Colleges, though not among the first in wealth +or magnificence, attained a start in the race of regeneration which +Balliol, being very fortunate in its Heads, has since in a remarkable +manner maintained. The examination system of Laud had lacked a motive +power, and had depended, like his policy, on his fiat instead of vital +force. There was no sufficient inducement for the examiner to be strict +or for the candidate to excel. The motive power was now supplied by a +list of honours in classics and mathematics, and among the earliest +winners in the first class in both schools was Robert Peel. + + * * * * * + +Scarcely, however, had the University begun to awake to a new life, when +it was swept by another ecclesiastical storm, the consequence of its +unhappy identification with clericism and the State Church. The liberal +movement which commenced after the fall of Napoleon and carried the +Reform Bill, threatened to extend to the religious field, and to +withdraw the support of the State from the Anglican Church. This led the +clergy to look out for another basis, which they found in the +reassertion of High Church and sacerdotal doctrines, such as apostolical +succession, eucharistical real presence, and baptismal regeneration. +Presently the movement assumed the form of a revival of the Church of +the Middle Ages, such as High Church imagination pictured it, and +ultimately of secession to Rome. Oxford, with her mediaeval buildings, +her High Church tradition, her half-monastic Colleges, and her body of +unmarried clergy, became the centre of the movement. The Romanising +tendencies of Tractarianism, as from the "Tracts for the Times" it was +called, visible from the first, though disclaimed by the leaders, +aroused a fierce Protestant reaction, which encountered Tractarianism +both in the press and in the councils of the University. The Armageddon +of the ecclesiastical war was the day on which, in a gathering of +religious partisans from all sections of the country which the +Convocation House would not hold, so that it was necessary to adjourn +to the Sheldonian Theatre, Ward, the most daring of the Tractarian +writers, after a scene of very violent excitement, was deprived of his +degree. This was the beginning of the end. Newman, the real leader of +the movement, though Pusey, from his academical rank, was the official +leader, soon recognised the place to which his principles belonged, and +was on his knees before a Roman Catholic priest, supplicating for +admission to the Church of Rome. A ritualistic element remained, and now +reigns, in the Church of England; but the party which Newman left, +bereft of Newman, broke up, and its relics were cast like drift-wood on +every theological or philosophical shore. Newman's poetic version of +mediaeval religion, together with the spiritual graces of his style and +his personal influence, had for a time filled the imaginations and +carried away the hearts of youth, while the seniors were absorbed in the +theological controversy, renounced lay studies, and disdained +educational duty except as it might afford opportunities of winning +youthful souls to the Neo-Catholic faith. Academical duty would have +been utterly lost in theological controversy, had it not been for the +Class List, which bound the most intellectual undergraduates to lay +studies by their ambition, and kept on foot a staff of private teachers, +"coaches," as they were called, to prepare men for the examinations, +who did the duty which the ecclesiastical Fellows of the University +disdained. The Oxford movement has left a monument of itself in the +College founded in memory of Keble, the gentle and saintly author of +"The Christian Year." It has left an ampler monument in the revival of +mediaeval architecture at Oxford, and the style of new buildings which +everywhere meet the eye. The work of the Oxford Architectural Society, +which had its birth in the Neo-Catholic movement, may prove more durable +than that movement itself. Of the excess to which the architectural +revival was carried, the new Library at University College, more like a +mediaeval Chapel than a Library, is a specimen. It was proposed to give +Neo-Catholicism yet another monument by erecting close to the spot where +Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley died for truth, the statue of Cardinal +Newman, the object of whose pursuit through life had been, not truth, +but an ecclesiastical ideal. Of the reaction against the Tractarian +movement the monument is the memorial to the Protestant martyrs Cranmer, +Latimer, and Ridley, the subscription for which commenced among the +Protestants who had come up to vote for the condemnation of Ward, and +which Tractarians scornfully compared to the heap of stones raised over +the body of Achan. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: GATE TOWER AND CLOISTERS, MAGDALEN.] + +Here ended the reign of ecclesiasticism, of the Middle Ages, and of +religious exclusion. The collision into which Romanising Oxford had been +brought with the Protestantism of the British nation, probably helped to +bring on the revolution which followed, and which restored the +University to learning, science, and the nation. The really academical +element in the University invoked the aid of the national government and +Legislature. A Royal Commission of Inquiry into the state of the +University and its Colleges was appointed, and though some Colleges +closed their muniment rooms, and inquiry was obstructed, enough was +revealed in the Report amply to justify legislative reform and +emancipation. An act of Parliament was passed which set free the +University and Colleges alike from their mediaeval statutes, restored the +University Professoriate, opened the Fellowships to merit, and relaxed +the religious tests. The curriculum, the examination system, and the +honour list were liberalised, and once more, as in early times, all the +great departments of knowledge were recognised and domiciled in the +University. Science, long an exile, was welcomed back to her home at the +moment when a great extension of her empire was at hand. Strictly +professional studies, such as practical law and medicine, could not be +recalled from their professional seats. Elections to Fellowships by +merit replaced election by local or school preferences, by kinship, or +by the still more objectionable influences which at one time had been +not unfelt. Colleges which had declined the duty of education, which had +been dedicated to sinecurism and indolence, and whose quadrangles had +stood empty, were filled with students, and once more presented a +spectacle which would have gladdened the heart of the Founder. A +Commission, acting on a still more recent Act of Parliament, has carried +the adaptation of Oxford to the modern requirements of science and +learning further than the old Commission, which acted in the penumbra of +mediaeval and ecclesiastical tradition, dared. The intellectual Oxford +of the present day is almost a fresh creation. Its spirit is new; it is +liberal, free, and progressive. It is rather too revolutionary, grave +seniors say, so far as the younger men are concerned. This is probably +only the first forward bound of recovered freedom, which will be +succeeded in time by the sober pace of learning and scientific +investigation. Again, as in the thirteenth century, the day of +Grosseteste and Simon de Montfort, Oxford is a centre of progress, +instead of being, as under the later Stuarts, the stronghold of +reaction. Of the College revival, the monuments are all around in the +new buildings, for which increasing numbers have called, and which +revived energy has supplied. Christ Church, New College, Magdalen, +Merton, Balliol, Trinity, University have all enlarged their courts, and +in almost every College new life has been shown by improvement or +restoration. Of the reign of mediaevalism the only trace is the +prevalence in the new buildings of the mediaeval style, which +architectural harmony seemed to require, though the new buildings of +Christ Church and Trinity are proofs of a happy emancipation from +architectural tradition. The University revival has its monument in the +new examination Schools in High Street, where the student can no longer +get his degree by giving the meaning of Golgotha and the name of the +Founder of University College. There are those who, like Mark Pattison, +look on it with an evil eye, regarding the examination system as a +noxious excrescence and as fatal to spontaneous study and research; +though they would hardly contend that spontaneous study and research +flourished much at Oxford before the revival of examinations, or deny +that since the revival Oxford has produced the fruits of study and +research, at least to a fair extent. The restoration of science is +proclaimed by the new Museum yonder; a strange structure, it must be +owned, which symbolises, by the unfitness of its style for its purpose, +at once the unscientific character of the Middle Ages, and the +lingering attachment of Oxford to the mediaeval type. Of the abolition of +the religious tests, and the restoration of the University to the +nation, a monument is Mansfield College for Congregationalists, a vision +of which would have thrown an orthodox and Tory Head of a College into +convulsions half a century ago. Even here the mediaeval style of +architecture keeps its hold, though the places of Catholic Saints are +taken by the statues of Wycliffe, Luther, John Knox, Whitefield, and +Wesley. By the side of Mansfield College rises also Manchester College +for Independents, in the same architectural style. Neither of them, +however, is in the Oxford sense a College; both are places of +theological instruction. + + * * * * * + +On the North of the city, where fifty years ago stretched green fields, +is now seen a suburb of villas, all of them bespeaking comfort and +elegance, few of them overweening wealth. These are largely the +monuments of another great change, the removal of the rule of celibacy +from the Fellowships, and the introduction of a large body of married +teachers devoted to their profession, as well as of the revival of the +Professorships, which were always tenable by married men. Fifty years +ago the wives of Heads of Houses, who generally married late in life if +they married at all, constituted, with one or two officers of the +University, the whole female society of Oxford. The change was +inevitable, if education was to be made a profession, instead of being, +as it had been in the hands of celibate Fellows of Colleges, merely the +transitory occupation of a man whose final destination was the parish. +Those who remember the old Common Room life, which is now departing, +cannot help looking back with a wistful eye to its bachelor ease, its +pleasant companionship, its interesting talk and free interchange of +thought, its potations neither "deep" nor "dull." Nor were its symposia +without important fruits when such men as Newman and Ward, on one side, +encountered such men as Whately, Arnold, and Tait, on the other side, in +Common Room talk over great questions of the day. But the life became +dreary when a man had passed forty, and it is well exchanged for the +community that fills those villas, and which, with its culture, its +moderate and tolerably equal incomes, permitting hospitality but +forbidding luxury, and its unity of interests with its diversity of +acquirements and accomplishments, seems to present the ideal conditions +of a pleasant social life. The only question is, how the College system +will be maintained when the Fellows are no longer resident within the +walls of the College to temper and control the younger members, for a +barrack of undergraduates is not a good thing. The personal bond and +intercourse between Tutor and pupil under the College system was +valuable as well as pleasant; it cannot be resigned without regret. But +its loss will be compensated by far superior teaching. Half a century +ago conservatism strove to turn the railway away from Oxford. But the +railway came, and it brings, on summer Sundays, to the city of study and +thought not a few leaders of the active world. Oxford is now, indeed, +rather too attractive; her academical society is in danger of being +swamped by the influx of non-academical residents. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: THE RIVER--BOATS RACING.] + +The buildings stand, to mark by their varying architecture the +succession of the changeful centuries through which the University has +passed. In the Libraries are the monuments of the successive generations +of learning. But the tide of youthful life that from age to age has +flowed through college, quadrangle, hall, and chamber, through +University examination-rooms and Convocation Houses, has left no +memorials of itself except the entries in the University and College +books; dates of matriculation, which tell of the bashful boy standing +before the august Vice-Chancellor at entrance; dates of degrees, which +tell of the youth putting forth, from his last haven of tutelage, on +the waves of the wide world. Hither they thronged, century after +century, in the costume and with the equipments of their times, from +mediaeval abbey, grange, and hall, from Tudor manor-house and homestead, +from mansion, rectory, and commercial city of a later day, bearing with +them the hopes and affections of numberless homes. Year after year they +departed, lingering for a moment at the gate to say farewell to College +friends, the bond with whom they vowed to preserve, but whom they were +never to see again, then stepped forth into the chances and perils of +life, while the shadow on the College dial moved on its unceasing round. +If they had only left their names in the rooms which they had occupied, +there would be more of history than we have in those dry entries in the +books. But, at all events, let not fancy frame a history of student life +at Oxford out of "Verdant Green." There are realities corresponding to +"Verdant Green," and the moral is, that many youths come to the +University who had better stay away, since none get any good and few +fail to get some harm, saving those who have an aptitude for study. But +the dissipation, the noisy suppers, the tandem-driving, the fox-hunting, +the running away from Proctors, or, what is almost as bad, the childish +devotion to games and sports as if they were the end of existence, +though they are too common a part of undergraduate life in the +University of the rich, are far from being the whole of it. Less than +ever are they the whole of it since University reform and a more liberal +curriculum have increased, as certainly they have, industry and +frugality at the same time. Of the two or three thousand lamps which +to-night will gleam from those windows, few will light the supper-table +or the gambling-table; most will light the book. Youthful effort, +ambition, aspiration, hope, College character and friendship have no +artist to paint them,--at least as yet they have had none. But whatever +of poetry belongs to them is present in full measure here. + + + + +INDEX. + + + Addison, Joseph, 136. + + Aldrich, Henry, 128. + + Alfred (King), 24, 51. + + All Souls' College, 67 _et sq._ + + Amusements, mediaeval, 43. + + Antiquity, apparent, of the buildings, 3. + + Architectural revival at Oxford, 147, 148. + + Aristotle, 31. + + Ashmolean Museum, 24. + + Augustinians, 35. + + _Aulae_, 39. + + + Bacon, Roger, 32, 33, 37. + + Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 91. + + Balliol College, 50; + intellectual revival in, 141. + + Baring, T. C., 138. + + Benedictines, 35. + + Bentham, Jeremy, 137. + + Bentley, Richard, 129. + + Black Prince, the, 100. + + Bocardo, 88. + + Bodleian Library, 19, 20, 21, 97. + + Bodley, Sir Thomas, 20, 93. + + Bologna, University of, 29. + + Botanic Garden, 97. + + Boyle, Charles, 119. + + Bradwardine, Thomas, 31. + + Brasenose College, 67 _et sq._, 74, 75. + + Broadwalk, the, 140. + + Brome, Adam de, 52. + + Buildings, dates of, 3 _et sq._ + + Butler, Bishop, 137. + + + Cardinal College, 83. + + Carmellites, 35. + + Celibacy enjoined on Heads of Colleges, 96; + effects of its withdrawal, 132, 133. + + Chamberdekyns, 39, 99. + + Charles I. at Oxford, 113, 114. + + Charles II. at Oxford, 123. + + Chicheley, Archbishop, 70, 71. + + Christ Church Cathedral, 35. + + Christ Church College, 80 _et sq._; + intellectual revival in, 128, 129, 140, 141. + + Cistercians, 35. + + Civil War, Oxford in the time of the, 112 _et sq._ + + Clarendon, Earl of, 18, 107. + + Clarendon Building, 18, 19. + + Clarendon Press, 19. + + Class Lists, 142. + + Clayton, Thos., wife of, 132. + + Clerical profession, dominance of, 104. + + Colet, John, 76. + + College life, 9 _et sq._ + + Colleges, administration and government of, 9 _et sq._; + growing importance of, 99 _et sq._; + the present intellectual revival in the, 152 _et sq._ + + Commemoration, 15. + + Common Room life, 157. + + Commons, 49. + + Commonwealth, Oxford in the time of the, 114 _et sq._ + + Conant, John, 116. + + Congregation, 8. + + Convocation, 8. + + Convocation House, 13, 14, 97. + + Corpus Christi College, 75. + + Cranmer, Archbishop, 88, 89. + + Cromwell, Oliver, Chancellor of Oxford, 118. + + + Degrees, manner of conferring, 13. + + Disputation, stress laid upon, 30. + + Divinity School, 14. + + Dominicans, 36. + + Duns Scotus, 31. + + Durham College, 91. + + + Egglesfield, Robert, 52. + + Eldon, Lord, 135, 137. + + Elizabeth (Queen), 98. + + Elmsley, Peter, 136. + + Erasmus, D., 76. + + "Essays and Reviews," authors of, 24. + + Eton, 59. + + Eveleigh, John, 141. + + Evelyn, John, 116, 119. + + Examinations, 21, 22. + + Examination system, the, 153, 154. + + Examination-rooms. _See_ Schools. + + Exeter College, 50, 53 _et sq._ + + + Faculties, 28. + + Falkland, Viscount, 107. + + Fawkes's (Guy) lantern, 21. + + Fell, John, 124. + + Fellows, 46. + + Fellowships, 102. + + Fleming, Bishop, 68. + + Founders, portraits of, 21. + + Foxe, Bishop, 77. + + Franciscans, 36. + + Frydeswide, St., 87. + + + Gibbon, Edward, 137. + + Gladstone, W. E., 22. + + Graduation. _See_ Degrees. + + Great Hall of the University, the, 51. + + Great Tew, 107. + + Grocyn, William, 76. + + Grosseteste, Robert, 38, 44. + + + Halls, 39, 98, 99. + + Hart Hall, 137. + + Hebdomadal Council, 106. + + Hertford College, 138. + + High Church Traditions at Oxford, 144 _et sq._ + + Hooker, Richard, 108. + + Houses, monastic, 50. + + Humanists, the, 77. + + Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 20, 76. + + + Inception, 31. + + + Jacobitism at Oxford, 127, 128. + + James I., 22, 98. + + James II., statue of, 125. + + Jesus College, 94. + + Jews at Oxford in the Middle Ages, 42. + + Johnson, Samuel, at Oxford, 138. + + + Keble, John, 147. + + Keble College, 147. + + + Laud, Archbishop, 109 _et sq._ + + Leicester, Earl of, 108. + + Lime Walk at Trinity College, the, 140. + + Linacre, Thomas, 76. + + Lincoln College, 67 _et sq._ + + Livery, 49. + + Locke, John, 124. + + Lowth, Robert, 136. + + + Magdalen College, 67 _et sq._, 72 _et sq._, 130. + + Magdalen College Case, 126. + + Manchester College, 155. + + Manning, H. E., 24. + + Mansfield College, 155. + + Marisco, Adam de, 44. + + Martyr, Catherine, 87. + + Maynard, Joseph, 121. + + Mendicant Orders, 36. + + Merton, Walter de, 44, 45. + + Merton College, 45 _et sq._ + + Mob Quad, 45. + + Monastic Orders, 35. + + Monastic Oxford, 35. + + Monasteries, 35, 37, 50, 53. + + Montfort, Simon de, 37, 38. + + More, Sir Thomas, 76. + + Museum, the Ashmolean. _See_ Ashmolean. + + Museum, the University, 153, 154. + + + Neo-Catholicism. _See_ Tractarianism. + + Neville, George, 101. + + Newman, J. H., 14, 24, 145, 148. + + New College, 55 _et sq._ + + Newton, Isaac, 105. + + Newton, Richard, 137. + + Non-conformists excluded, 123. + + + Ockham, 31. + + Oldham, Hugh, 78. + + Oriel College, 50, 52. + + Osney Abbey, 35. + + Owen, John, 116. + + Oxford (the name), derivation of, 2. + + Oxford Architectural Society, 147. + + Oxford (the city), situation of, 1; + environs of, 1, 2; + of the 13th century, 27 _et sq._ + + Oxford (the University), + administration and government of, 7 _et sq._, 106 _et sq._; + origin and growth of, 25 _et sq._; + political proclivities of, 28, 37, 105; + in the 18th century, 130 _et sq._; + in the 19th century, 140 _et sq._; + intellectual revival of, in the present day, 152. + + Oxford Movement, the. _See_ Tractarianism. + + Oxford University Commissions (1850 and 1876), 149, 151. + + + Papacy, the, and the Universities, 34, 37. + + Paris, University of, 27, 34. + + Pattison, Mark, 70. + + Pembroke College, 97. + + Peel, Robert, 142. + + Petre, Sir William, 93. + + Philippa, Queen, 52. + + Philosophy, Scholastic, early addiction to, 30. + + Pope, Cardinal, 92. + + Pope, Sir Thomas, 91. + + Portraits of Founders, 21. + + Press, the University (_see also_ Clarendon Press), 19. + + Proctors, 10, 13, 14. + + Professors, 10. + + Protectorate, the. _See_ Commonwealth. + + Puritanism and Oxford, 115 _et sq._ + + Pusey, E. B., 24, 145. + + + Queen's College, 50, 52. + + + Radcliffe, Dr. John, 23. + + Radcliffe Library, 23. + + Reformation, influence of, on Oxford, 108, 110. + + Religious tests, 90. + + Renaissance, the Mediaeval, 23. + + Restoration, the, and Oxford, 120 _et sq._ + + Revolution, the (1688), and Oxford, 125, 127. + + Richard III. at Oxford, 73, 74. + + Rotheram, Bishop, 69. + + Routh, Martin, 136. + + Royal Commissions. _See_ Oxford University Commissions. + + Royal Society, The, 119 _et sq._ + + + St. Frydeswide's Church, 35. + + St. John's College, 92. + + St. Mary of Winton, College of, 56. + + St. Mary's Church, 15, 24. + + St. Michael's Church, 25. + + Salerno, University of, 27. + + Scholars, 46 _et sq._ + + Schools, the, 21. + + Schools, the new examination, 153. + + Sermons, University, 24. + + Sheldon, Archbishop, 14. + + Sheldonian Theatre, 14, 15, 124, 125. + + Smith, Adam, 137. + + _Socii_, 46. + + Sports, 162. + + Statutes, fettering influence of, 101, 102; + disregarded, 130. + + Stowell, Lord, 137. + + Student life, mediaeval, 39 _et sq._, 63 _et sq._ + + Students, mediaeval, 39, 41 _et sq._; + their affrays with the townspeople, 41, 42; + their amusements, 43. + + Suburbs of Oxford, 156 _et sq._ + + + Teachers, the first, at Oxford, 28. + + Tests. _See_ Religious tests. + + Theology, 32. + + Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, 73. + + Tom Tower, 81. + + Tractarianism, 145 _et sq._ + + Trinity College, 91. + + "Trojans, The," 77. + + Turner's picture of Oxford, 2. + + Tutors, 9. + + + Undergraduate life, modern, 162, 163. + + Universities, rise of, in Europe, 27. + + University College, 51. + + University Gallery, 21. + + + "Verdant Green," 162. + + Vice-Chancellorship, the, 106. + + Vives, Juan Luis, 81. + + + Wadham, Dorothy, 96. + + Wadham, Sir Nicholas, 95. + + Wadham College, 94. + + Walker, Obadiah, 126. + + Ward, Seth, 116. + + Ward, W. G., 145. + + Warton, Thomas, 136. + + Waynflete, Bishop, 72, 73. + + Wellington, Duke of, his inauguration as Chancellor, 17. + + Wesley, John, 70. + + White, Sir Thomas, 92, 93. + + Wilkins, John, 116, 119, 122. + + William of Durham, 50. + + William of Wykeham, 55 _et sq._ + + Winchester School, 58. + + Windebank, Thos., 114. + + Wolsey, Cardinal, 59, 81, 82 _et sq._ + + Wood, Anthony (_quoted_), 120, 121. + + Worcester College, 35. + + Wren, Christopher, 3, 82. + + Wycliffe, John, 54. + + Wykeham. _See_ William of Wykeham. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Oxford and Her Colleges, by Goldwin Smith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OXFORD AND HER COLLEGES *** + +***** This file should be named 37893.txt or 37893.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/8/9/37893/ + +Produced by Adrian Mastronardi and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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