III. THE FOUNDATION AND EARLY STATUTES OF THE COLLEGE.
The first record of the proposal to found Brasenose is contained in the will of Edmund Croston, dated (four days before his death) on Jan. 23, 1507/8, where are bequeathed £6 13s. 4d. to “the building of Brasynnose in Oxford, if such works as the Bishop of Lyncoln and Master Sotton intended there went on during their life or within twelve years after.” It is probable that the Bishop at one time intended that Lincoln College should enjoy his benefactions, for Robert Parkinson, Sub-rector of Lincoln, wrote about 1566-69, “Proposuerat enim [episcopus], ut ferunt, omnia nostro collegio praestitisse quae postea in Brasinnos egit, si voluissent R[ector] et S[cholares] qui tum fuerunt ab eo propositas conditiones recipere.”
The actual foundation can be best shown in the form of annals, it being understood that the disposition of the halls mentioned was nearly as follows—
1508, Oct. 20, Brazen Nose and Little University Halls are leased by University College to Richard Sutton, Esq., and eight others (four of whom were among the first Fellows) for ninety-two years at an annual rent of £3, on condition that the lessees should spend £40 on the tenements within a year. The College agreed to renew the lease and to give over all their rights, as soon as property of the annual value of £3 should be given them. In 1514 Sutton assigned this lease to trustees to carry out his purposes.
1509, summer. Edward Moseley’s stone quarry at Headington is let to the founders and Roland Messenger for their lives.
1509, June 1. The foundation stone of the College is laid, as recorded on a modern copy of the original inscription, now and probably always placed over the doorway of Staircase No. 1, which used to lead to the first chapel of the College:—
“Anno Christi 1509 et Regis Henrici octavi primo | Nomine diuino lincoln | presul quoque sutton . Hanc posu | ere petram regis ad imperium | primo die Iunii.”
1509/10, Feb. 20. Oriel College lets Salisbury Hall and St. Mary’s Entry (Introitus S. Mariae) to Sutton and others for ever in consideration of an annual rent of 13s. 4d.
1511/2, Jan. 15. A Charter of Foundation granted to Smyth and Sutton.
1523, May 6. Sutton transfers the property acquired from University College in 1508, to the Principal and Fellows of Brazenose.
1530, May 12. Haberdasher, Little St. Edmund, Glass and Black Halls are granted to the College on a lease of ninety-six years by Oseney Abbey, the first being at once converted by payment into the property of the College, but the others not till March 6, 1655/6.
1556, Nov. 2. Staple Hall, which had once belonged to the Abbey of Eynsham, is leased by Lincoln College to Brasenose for ever at a rent of 20s. per annum.
“Rome was not built in a day,” and it is curious to note how the old and new foundations overlap each other. The College building clearly began at the south-west corner of the present front quadrangle, and Brasenose Hall was no doubt left until the building naturally reached it. Thus John Formby was Principal of the Hall till Aug. 24, 1510, when Matthew Smyth succeeded him, and in Smyth’s name on Sept. 9, 1511 Roland Messenger still became surety for the dues payable by the Hall to the University, for the ensuing year; and even on Sept. 9, 1512, Smyth himself “cautioned,” as it was called, for the moribund hall. Moreover, a scholar of the Hall was locked up in August 1512 for interfering with the workmen who were building Corpus. The first occasion on which the College appears in the University Registers is in Sept. 1514, when Matthew Smyth, “Principal of the College or Hall of Brasen Nose” is mentioned; but there is evidence that the corporate action of the College dates from at least as early as Nov. 1512. We thus have before us the successive steps by which a College gradually grew, and literally piece by piece took the place of the precedent Halls.
It is now time to turn to the statutes, the buildings being reserved for a later section.
The Charter of Foundation is dated Jan. 15, 1511/2, and the original statutes were no doubt shortly after drawn up and ratified by the two founders, but no copy of them remains. Bishop Smyth’s executors in about 1514 revised and signed a modification of the code, which still exists, and finally at the request of the College Sir Richard Sutton once more revised them, on Feb. 1, 1521/2.
As in conception and in form of buildings, so in respect of their statutes also, Merton and New College are the two cardinal foundations. From the latter were derived the statutes of Magdalen, founded in 1458, and from these latter the earliest statutes of Brasenose. The general sense of the Code of 1514 with Sutton’s changes in 1522, can be well gathered from the Churton’s abstract in his Lives of … (the) Founders of Brazen Nose College (Oxf. 1800), pp. 315-40. The preamble is as follows, the original being in Latin—
“In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of the most blessed Mother of God, Mary the glorious Virgin, and of Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, and also of St. Michael the archangel: We, William Smyth, bishop of Lincoln, and Richard Sutton, esquire, confiding in the aid of the supreme Creator, who knows, directs and disposes the wills of all that trust in him, do out of the goods which in this life, not by our merits, but by the grace of His fulness, we have received abundantly, by royal authority and charter found, institute and establish in the University of Oxford, a perpetual College of poor and indigent scholars, who shall study and make progress in philosophy and sacred theology; commonly called The King’s Haule and Colledge of Brasennose in Oxford; to the praise, glory, and honour of Almighty God, of the glorious Virgin Mary, Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, St. Michael the Archangel and All Saints; for the support and exaltation of the Christian Faith, for the advancement of holy church, and for the furtherance of divine worship.”
The College is to consist of a Principal and twelve Fellows, all of them born within the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield; with preference to the natives of the counties of Lancaster and Chester; and especially to the natives of the parish of Prescot in Lancashire, and of Prestbury in Cheshire. One of the senior Fellows is annually to be elected Vice-Principal; and two others Bursars. The only language tolerated for public use, unless when strangers are present, is Latin. The Bishop of Lincoln has always been the Visitor.
Thus Brasenose started fairly on its course, equipped with statutes, with property from its founders and benefactors, and with students drawn, as ever since until recently, chiefly from good families of Cheshire and Lancashire, Leighs and Watsons, Lathams and Brookes and Egertons. But the history of a College which has not been at any time predominant in the University is both difficult and unnecessary to trace; difficult from the paucity of records of its internal social life, and unnecessary from the lack of general interest in the domestic affairs of one particular College among so many. It will be the task of one who deals with the social life of Oxford to seize on those features of College history which from time to time best represent the character of successive periods: in this place it will suffice to give a few scenes or facts which being themselves of interest have also sufficient illustration from existing records.