A history of the University of Oxford

by George C. Brodrick

FOOTNOTES:

[3] In the Merton Statutes the words ‘Scholar’ and ‘Fellow’ are convertible, the Scholar being a Junior Fellow upon his first admission.

[4] Though Canterbury College was founded in this century, it does not seem to have ranked with other colleges in the University, and no vice-chancellor or proctor is recorded to have been elected from it.

CHAPTER III.
PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

Europe in the fourteenth century

The fourteenth century deserves to be regarded as the most progressive and eventful in the history of the Middle Ages. All the kingdoms of Europe were engaged in wars, for the most part destitute of permanent results, yet the work of civilisation went forward with unbroken steadiness and rapidity. The Spanish monarchies of Castile and Arragon continued their long struggle for supremacy with each other, and for national existence with the Mohammedan power at Granada. Germany was distracted by civil wars and double imperial elections; Italy was torn asunder by the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The usurpation and avarice of the Roman Court produced an all but general revolt against Papal authority; the seat of the Holy See was transferred for sixty years to Avignon, and the return of the Pope to Rome was followed by ‘the Great Schism,’ which lasted fifty years longer; Russia was subject to the Khan of Kipchak until its southern provinces were overrun by the hordes of Timur; Poland and Hungary were exhausting their strength in expeditions against their neighbours or against Venice, while the Ottoman Turks were advancing into the heart of Eastern Europe. England was entering upon its purely dynastic crusades for the possession of the Scotch and French crowns, which, fruitful as they were in military glory, diverted the energies of the nation, wasted its resources, and retarded its internal development for several generations. Nevertheless, literature, art, and education flourished marvellously in the midst of the storms which racked European society. Ancient learning was revived in Italy chiefly by the influence of Petrarch and Boccaccio; Dante became the father of modern Italian poetry; Cimabue and his pupils founded the Italian school of painting; scholastic philosophy culminated and gave place to a more independent spirit of inquiry; scientific research first began to emancipate itself from magical arts; Roman law extended its dominion everywhere except in England, where, however, Chaucer and Wyclif gave the first powerful impulse to native English thought; free thinking in politics and religion penetrated deeply into the popular mind, and increasing refinement of manners kept pace with the growth of trade and industry. Universities sprang up one after another—in France, in Spain, in Italy, in Poland, in Hungary, in Austria, and in Germany; nor is it unduly rash to surmise that, if the invention of printing could have been anticipated by a century, the Renaissance and the Reformation itself might have preceded the capture of Constantinople and the discovery of America.

Social condition of the University

At the commencement of this century Oxford presented strange contrasts between the social and the intellectual aspects of its academical life. The great riot of 1297 was scarcely over, and had left a heritage of ill-will which bore fruit in the frightful conflict of 1354; the encounters between the northern and southern nations were of frequent recurrence, and there was no effective system of University discipline, while college discipline, still in its infancy, was confined within the precincts of Merton, University, and Balliol. The common herd of students, inmates of halls and inns and lodging-houses, were still crowded together in miserable sleeping-rooms and lecture-rooms, without domestic care or comfort, and strangers to all those frank and generous relations which naturally grow up between young Englishmen, especially of gentle birth, in the kindly intercourse of modern college life. They often rendered more or less menial services in return for their instruction, and were sometimes enabled to borrow from the University Chest; at other times they relapsed into mendicity, and asked for alms on the public highways. There were no libraries or museums, and the few books possessed by the University were stored in a vault under St. Mary’s Church. The laws of health being unknown, and every sanitary precaution neglected, the city of Oxford was constantly scourged with pestilence from which members of the University were fain to fly into neighbouring country villages.

Intellectual vigour of the University

Under such conditions, and in such a society, it was utterly impossible that education or learning could flourish generally according to our modern ideas, and yet it is certain that a restless and even feverish activity of speculation prevailed within an inner circle of philosophical spirits, to which there are few parallels in the history of thought. If their treasury of knowledge was scanty in the extreme, yet the range of their studies was truly sublime, both in its aims and in its orbit. In the chilly squalor of uncarpeted and unwarmed chambers, by the light of narrow and unglazed casements, or the gleam of flickering oil lamps, poring over dusky manuscripts hardly to be deciphered by modern eyesight, undisturbed by the boisterous din of riot and revelry without, men of humble birth, and dependent on charity for bare subsistence, but with a noble self-confidence transcending that of Bacon or of Newton, thought out and copied out those subtle masterpieces of mediæval lore, purporting to unveil the hidden laws of Nature as well as the dark counsels of Providence and the secrets of human destiny, which—frivolous and baseless as they may appear under the scrutiny of a later criticism—must still be ranked among the grandest achievements of speculative reason. We must remember that archery and other outdoor sports were then mostly in the nature of martial exercises reserved for the warlike classes, while music and the fine arts were all but unknown, and the sedentary labour of the student was relieved neither by the athletic nor by the æsthetic pastimes of our own more favoured age. Thus driven inward upon itself, the fire of intellectual ambition burned with a tenfold intensity, and it was tempered by no such humility as the infinite range of modern science imposes on the boldest of its disciples. In many a nightly vigil, and in many a lonely ramble over the wild hill-sides beyond Cowley and Hincksey, or along the river-sides between Godstow and Iffley, these pioneers of philosophical research, to whom alchemy was chemistry, and astronomy but the key to astrology, constantly pursued their hopeless quest of Wisdom as it was dimly conceived by the patriarch Job, pressing Aristotle into the service of mediæval theology, which they regarded as the science of sciences, and inventing a mysterious phraseology which to us has lost its meaning, but which they mistook for solid knowledge, fondly imagining that it might lead them upward to some primary law governing the whole realm of matter and of mind. They failed, indeed, because success was hopeless, but their very failure paved the way for the ‘new knowledge’ of the next century, and cleared the ground for the methods and discoveries which have made other names immortal.

Foundation of Exeter, Oriel, Queen’s, and Canterbury Colleges

During the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III. the collegiate element in the University was strengthened by the foundation of five new colleges, one of which has since become extinct. The first of these was Exeter College, founded in 1314 by Walter de Stapledon, bishop of Exeter. Ten years later, in 1324, Adam de Brome, almoner of King Edward II., procured from that king a charter of incorporation for a college, to be called St. Mary’s House, and to consist of a rector and scholars in divers sciences. In the following year, having purchased the site of the present college, now called Oriel, he transferred it to the king, who, by a fresh charter, erected there a collegiate society of ten scholars for the study of divinity. Queens College was founded upon a similar model, and under similar conditions, in the year 1340, by Robert de Egglesfield, chaplain to Queen Philippa. The rules of study and discipline for Oriel and Queen’s were mostly borrowed from those of Merton, but some interesting peculiarities may be found in the Queen’s statutes. The removal of the University from Oxford is distinctly contemplated, but, on the other hand, able men are to be welcomed as scholars from all parts of the world, though a preference is reserved for applicants from Cumberland and Westmoreland, the founder’s native county, on account of its recent devastation in border-warfare. The securities for impartial election to fellowships are unusually minute, and there is a great variety of regulations strongly tinged with the mystical tendency of the founder’s own mind. Canterbury College, founded by Archbishop Simon Islip in 1361, differed from these in its original constitution, since it embraced both secular and ‘religious’ students, and was mainly designed to promote the study of the civil and canon law. Two years later, however, this design was abandoned, and the college was appropriated to secular priests only, when John Wyclif, probably the Reformer, was appointed its first head; but he was removed by Archbishop Langham, and the college became a monastic nursery under the priory of Canterbury, until it was absorbed into Christ Church in the reign of Henry VIII.

Foundation of New College

The foundation of New College by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, in 1379, has been held to mark a new departure in collegiate history. Like Walter de Merton, William of Wykeham had filled various high offices of State, including that of chancellor, and is well known as the designer of several great architectural works. His main object in founding the College of ‘St. Mary of Winchester in Oxford,’ since known as New College, is clearly stated in his charter. It was to repair ‘the scarcity of scholars in the nation, having been swept away by great pestilences and wars.’ Accordingly, in 1379, he obtained a license from Richard II. to found a college ‘for seventy scholars studying in the faculties,’ all of whom were to have passed through his other college for boys at Winchester itself. These scholars were to be ‘poor indigent clerks,’ sufficiently taught in grammar, and under twenty years of age. Ten were to study civil and ten canon law; the remaining fifty were to study the Arts, or philosophy and theology, though two of these might be specially permitted to devote themselves to astronomy, and two to medicine. But the claim of William of Wykeham to be considered the second founder of the college-system depends less on any notable peculiarity in his statutes than on the grandeur and regularity of the buildings which he erected on a site then vacant, and found by a jury to be infested by malefactors, murderers, and thieves, as well as the scene of other public nuisances. The noble quadrangle, of which the scholars took possession on the 14th of April, 1386, having already been lodged in Hert Hall and other tenements, doubtless served as the model for all the later colleges, and the supremacy of colleges over halls may fitly be dated from the end of the fourteenth century, when New College was the most imposing centre of collegiate life.

European influence of Oxford in the fourteenth century

The importance of Oxford in the eyes of Europe was increased during the fourteenth century by two causes, the decline of the University of Paris, and the vigorous protest of Oxford schoolmen against the spiritual despotism of the Papacy, discredited by its subjection to French influence at Avignon. The former of these causes was, in fact, nearly connected with the latter. The University of Paris had owed much to Papal encouragement and protection, but it had always struggled for corporate independence, and when, in 1316, it stooped to solicit the patronage of John XXII., by submitting to him a list of candidates for preferment, it forfeited its unique position in the estimation of European scholars, then a small but united brotherhood. On the other hand, it was an English Franciscan of Oxford—William of Occham—who not only challenged the supremacy of the Pope, but ‘proclaimed the severance of logic from theology.’ The assertion of this bold paradox, aggravated by the aggressive Nominalism of its author, nearly cost him his life, for he was imprisoned by the Pope’s order at Avignon, and only escaped death by taking refuge at Munich with the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. His doctrines, however, found wide acceptance at Oxford, and paved the way for the far deeper revolution in ideas of which John Wyclif was the pioneer.

Rise of Wyclif

The biography of this remarkable man, if authentic materials for it existed, would cover almost the whole academical history of Oxford during the latter part of the fourteenth century. Unfortunately, many of the facts are still involved in uncertainty. Like Duns Scotus, he is believed to have been a Northerner, though his birthplace is doubtful; like him, too, he was at once a Realist in metaphysics and a champion of liberty in theology. Several colleges have claimed him as their own; Balliol has enrolled him among its Masters, Queen’s among its commoners, and Merton among its fellows. His name only appears in the books of Merton in the year 1356, and though he soon afterwards took an active part in the controversies of the day at Balliol and elsewhere, it was not until after 1374 that he became known as the founder of a new school in theology, and, still more, as a dauntless assailant of the corruptions incident to Papal supremacy and priestly authority. In asserting the right of private judgment and exposing ecclesiastical abuses, he was a true successor of Occham, but he dissented from Occham’s Nominalism; his sympathies were entirely with the secular clergy; and, whereas Occham was a Franciscan, Wyclif inveighed against all the monastic Orders, but especially against the friars. The movement which he led was essentially academical in its origin, and definitely marks a great academical reaction against the regular clergy, to whose influence learning and education had owed so much in the previous century.

Career of Wyclif

The career of Wyclif, indeed, belongs to the University quite as much as to the Church. It was as the last of the Oxford schoolmen, and mostly from Oxford itself, that he put forth his series of books and pamphlets on the relations of Church and State, on the subjection of the clergy to civil rule, civil taxation and civil tribunals, on pardons, indulgences, the worship of saints, transubstantiation, the supremacy of Holy Scripture, and other like topics, besides those abstruse scholastic themes which have lost their interest for the present age. During his earlier struggles, the open patronage of John of Gaunt, with the occasional protection of the Court, stood him in good stead, and enabled him to brave not only episcopal censures but Papal anathemas. His real strength, however, consisted in the influence which he commanded in the University itself and, through it, in the English people. When Pope Gregory XI. despatched a Bull to the University of Oxford, calling for an inquiry into his erroneous doctrines, the University barely consented to receive it, and took no steps to comply with it, though it was supported by similar Bulls addressed to the King and the English Bishops. When he was cited for the second time to answer for his opinions in London, the citizens were his avowed partisans. When his tenets had become discredited among the aristocratic party by their supposed connection with the Peasant Revolt, and were officially denounced, in 1381, by the Chancellor of the University, sitting with twelve doctors as assessors, his cause was, nevertheless, stoutly maintained by his followers at Oxford. The next Chancellor, Robert Rygge, of Merton, was at heart among his adherents, and informed the Archbishop Courtenay, in answer to a mandate requiring him to search all the colleges and halls for Wycliffites, that it was as much as his life was worth. The injunctions of the Archbishop, like those of his predecessor, were practically defied at Oxford, until the Crown at last entered the lists against the Reformer. In 1382, a Parliament was held at Oxford. The Convocation which accompanied it condemned Wyclif’s teaching on the Eucharist; the condemnation was published in the school of the Augustinian monks, where Wyclif himself was presiding as professor, and a peremptory order was issued for his expulsion with all his disciples. He died in 1384, but not before he had completed his English translation of the Bible. The spirit which he had kindled continued to animate the University for many years after his death. In Merton College alone several eminent fellows were known as Wycliffites in the next generation, and after the condemnation of Lollardism by the Council of London in 1411, it was thought necessary to pass a stringent University statute to check the propagation of Lollard doctrines. By this statute, the penalty of the greater excommunication was imposed upon all who should disseminate Lollardism, candidates for degrees were required to abjure it, and heads of colleges or halls were enjoined to exclude from their societies any person even suspected of it.

Feud between Northern and Southern ‘nations’

While the University was agitated by these philosophical and theological storms, its external life seems to have been comparatively uneventful during the fourteenth century. We read, however, of a brutal faction fight between ‘the Northern and Southern clerks’ in 1319, and this ancient feud continued to disturb the peace of the University for several generations. The Northern party was apparently the weaker in the University, perhaps because it had sympathised with Simon de Montfort. Accordingly we learn from Anthony Wood that, in 1334, Merton College, which had been suspected of favouring that party, sought to regain popularity in the University by declining to admit Northern scholars. Again, in 1349, a strong faction in the same college succeeded in procuring the election of Wylliott as Chancellor by force, driving out the Northern proctor, and committing acts of sanguinary violence. In 1327, we hear of a ‘most bloody outrage’ committed by the scholars and townsmen of Oxford, joined with the townsmen of Abingdon, on the monks of Abingdon Abbey; and in 1349-50 the ravages of the Black Death were such that Oxford was almost deserted by its students, and the Warden of Merton is said to have died of the plague. Two other memorable events occurred in the reign of Edward III., which deserve more special notice, since they fill a considerable space in the historical records of the University. The one of these was the secession to Stamford in 1333; the other was the great riot which broke out on St. Scholastica’s Day, 1354.[5]

Early secessions to Cambridge and Northampton

The secession to Stamford was by no means the first migration of Oxford students to another provincial town since the foundation of the University. In 1209 and again in 1239 bodies of discontented Oxonians had betaken themselves to Cambridge, and in 1260 a more important secession took place, of which two different accounts have been given. According to one, the emigrants were Northern students who had sided with Simon de Montfort when he summoned his Parliament to Oxford in 1258, and framed those articles which became the signal for civil war. It is further stated that, having been joined at Northampton by refugees from Cambridge, and distinguished themselves in defending the town against the Royal forces, they narrowly escaped the King’s vengeance. According to another account, supported by the authority of Anthony Wood, the King himself, fearing the effect of political excitement on the masters and scholars of the University, expressly sanctioned and encouraged the new settlement at Northampton, specially recommending the emigrants to the good offices of the mayor and bailiffs. At all events, their stay at Northampton was short, for they returned to Oxford in 1264 or 1265, apparently in obedience to a Royal order, but under a safe conduct from Simon de Montfort. It was doubtless this Northampton colony which the founder of Merton had in view when, in his first statutes issued in 1264, he gave the rulers of his new society power to remove the students from Oxford to some other University town—aut alibi, uli studium viget generale.

Secession to Stamford in 1333

The origin of the ‘University at Stamford’ is still more obscure. Anthony Wood tells us simply that several masters, bachelors, and scholars of Oxford ‘did under colour of some discord among them, and upon some pretences sought after, depart hence unto Stamford, in Lincolnshire, and there began, or rather renewed and continued, an academy.’ The seceders themselves, appealing to Edward III. in January 1334, for permission to continue their studies at Stamford, vaguely attributed their withdrawal from Oxford to disputes and disorders which had long prevailed in that University. We may conjecture that it was a secession of Northern students, but the only certain fact is that it was headed by one William de Barnaby. The University of Oxford, much alarmed by the ‘schism,’ as it was called, invoked the aid of the Queen and the Bishop of Lincoln. At last, the King intervened, but it was not till after three Royal monitions and the seizure of their goods, that the malcontents were ejected from Stamford, and the short-lived University broken up in the summer of 1335. A list of offenders was sent to Edward III., but it only contained thirty-eight names, including those of seventeen masters. The ‘Academy’ at Stamford, however, left traces in the local names of streets, which are not even yet wholly effaced, and the jealousy inspired by its rivalry was not extinguished for more than a century. An University statute of uncertain date, but clearly later than 1425, and evidently re-enacting an order already in force, requires every inceptor in any faculty to swear that he will not recognise any University besides Oxford and Cambridge, and that he will not lecture or read at Stamford. Meanwhile, a compact was made between Oxford and Cambridge for their mutual protection against competition, and the dual monopoly of the two ancient Universities was henceforth established.

Growth of the proctorial authority

The peace of the University was further promoted in this turbulent age by the gradual development of the proctorial authority. The origin of the proctors’, like that of the Chancellor’s, office is enveloped in much obscurity. The first proctors named in the official list, which follows the Fasti of Anthony Wood, are Roger de Plumpton and Henry de Godfree, who are set down as having officiated in 1267. Proctors are also mentioned by name under the dates 1281, 1286, and 1288. During the first half of the fourteenth century the entries of proctors occur in fifteen years only, but in one case the same two proctors are expressly stated to have served for two years, and it is quite possible that, even if the election was annual, others may have served for longer periods. Whatever may have been their original functions, there can be no doubt that in 1322, if not much earlier, they became the chief executive officers of the University. It was a main part of their duty to keep the peace, as best they could, not only between scholars and townspeople, but also between the numerous factions among the scholars themselves, between the friars and secular clergy, between the ‘artists’ and the ‘jurists,’ the Nominalists and the Realists, the English students and those from Wales, Scotland, or Ireland, and, most of all, the Northern and Southern nations. The standing quarrel between these great academic parties overshadowed and absorbed into itself all minor rivalries, and influenced every important question for academic action, especially the election of the Chancellor. According to Anthony Wood, it was in order to secure fairness and good order in these elections that, in 1343, the University agreed that one proctor should always be a Northerner and the other a Southerner, for the purpose of acting as scrutineers of the votes. On the other hand, the analogy of the University of Paris might lead us to regard them as representatives, from the very first, of the ‘nations.’ At all events, their powers were infinitely wider and more various than those of mere returning-officers. They kept the money and accounts of the University, regulated the whole system of lectures and disputations, were responsible for academical discipline, and were empowered to impeach the Chancellor himself. Like him, they were elected by the whole body of regents and non-regents in Congregation, but their elections never required the confirmation of the Bishop of Lincoln as diocesan, whereas that of the Chancellor, as we have seen, was originally held invalid until it had been thus confirmed.

Concession by the Pope of freedom in the election of the Chancellor

In the reign of Edward III., however, a great step was made towards academical independence by the disuse of this practice, and thenceforth the University chose its Chancellor as freely as its proctors. Some years before the way had been paved for this revolt against ecclesiastical jurisdiction by a solemn compact between the University and the Cardinal de Mota, then Archdeacon of Oxford by Papal provision, but permanently non-resident. This Cardinal-Archdeacon had assumed to exercise authority over the University through certain agents who practised extortions for his benefit. Thence arose a controversy which lasted twenty years, the Cardinal having instituted proceedings against the University at the Papal Court, while the University appealed first to Edward II. and afterwards to Edward III., both of whom, following the settled policy of the Plantagenet kings, vigorously intervened on its behalf. At last, after tedious negotiations, a compromise, very favourable to University rights, was effected by the mediation of William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich. The Chancellor was declared to have archidiaconal jurisdiction over all doctors, masters, and scholars, religious and lay, and even over all rectors, vicars, and chaplains within the University, unless they should hold cures of souls in Oxford, in which case they should pay canonical obedience to the archdeacon. Moreover, in 1368, a Bull was procured from Pope Urban, solemnly ordaining that thenceforth the election of a Chancellor by the University itself should be sufficient, without the confirmation of the diocesan. The reason alleged is a very practical one—that great inconvenience and even danger to the peace of the University had resulted from the necessity of sending a deputation to follow the Bishop into distant parts, while in the meantime there was no resident officer to keep turbulent persons in order.