Such were some of the Oxford doctors and chancellors of this period, and such the prelates chosen from their ranks. Not indeed that we would be thought desirous of representing our ancient universities as exclusively schools of saints; the slightest acquaintance with the academic annals suffices to show that they were disgraced by many scandals, and were too often the scenes of lawless outrages and contentions, which, in our days of higher civilisation, must naturally excite both wonder and disgust. Moreover, the halls of Oxford were haunted by a spirit very different from that which pervaded the cloisters of Jarrow. The world had entered there, with all its false maxims, and scholars were not ashamed to squabble for benefices, and often, on the motive of self-interest, to take part with the Crown against the Church. Still, when all has been said that impartial candour demands, we cannot doubt that many precious traditions must have been preserved in the university schools, and that they moulded many a poor scholar in the old saintly and beautiful type. Moreover, we are approaching the time when the most flagrant evils of the universities were about to receive a partial remedy by the establishment of the collegiate system, which soon became tacitly accepted as the educational system of England. It aimed, and to a great degree successfully, at combining the discipline of the old monastic schools with the larger intellectual advantages of the universities. The reputed priority is ordinarily assigned to University College, which, on the ground of its supposed foundation by Alfred, claims to be the first in point of antiquity of the Oxford foundations. But its real existence as a college dates only from the time of William, Archdeacon of Durham, by whose will a sum of money was assigned for the maintenance of a body of masters, who, in 1280, were required to live together in one house, and receive a body of statutes. But Merton College had already received its royal charter in 1264, and one year previously to that date, John Baliol, father to the unfortunate Scottish King, had taken some steps towards the foundation of the college which bears his name. His intentions were carried into effect by his widow, the Lady Devorgilla, who, at the instigation of her Franciscan confessor, Richard Stickbury, founded the college in honour of the Holy Trinity, Our Lady, and St. Catherine the Martyr. It would be pleasant to present to the reader the heiress of the ancient princes of Galloway, as she appears in semi-monastic costume, in her Oxford portrait, or to reproduce those exquisitely engrossed statutes, which provide that the students of Baliol shall be present at the divine offices on Sundays and holidays, and shall on other days frequent the schools; that they shall always speak Latin in common, and if they neglect to do so, shall be served last at table; that a sophism shall be disputed among them once a week, and that they be allowed a penny a day for their sustenance, and two pence on Sundays! But as our object is only to notice those collegiate foundations which in a marked way influenced the system of education, we shall pass on to Merton, avowedly the first English college incorporated by charter, and the model on which most of the subsequent foundations, both of Oxford and Cambridge were raised. Its founder, Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of the realm, may be, in fact regarded as the originator of the collegiate system, and is designated in his monumental inscription unius exemplo, omnium quotquot extant collegiorum Fundator, maximorumque Europæ totius ingeniorum felicissimus parens. The immense evils of the university system, which was practically no system at all, early attracted his attention, and determined him on making the experiment of gathering a certain number of scholars from the halls and hostels where they now congregated subject to a merely nominal discipline, and placing them under the control of masters and tutors in a spacious building under semi-monastic rules. What was designed with so much sagacity was executed with corresponding magnificence, and the Domus Scholarium de Merton became the curiosity of its age. Architectural splendour was not at first considered any necessary part of a collegiate foundation, but the various tenements purchased by Bishop Merton were reduced to a regular quadrangular form, and a college chapel was included in the original design, two chaplains being appointed for “the ministration of Divine service.” In 1265, the parish church of St. John Baptist was made over to the founder by the monks of Reading, and granted to the perpetual use of the scholars. Their studies appear to have differed in no way from those of the other Oxonians, but Wood considers the appointment of a grammar-master to indicate that Bishop Merton designed to put some check on the decay of arts.
Among the early benefactresses to this college was one who might almost be called its co-foundress, Ella Longspée, Countess of Warwick, and daughter to that other Ella, Countess of Salisbury, who had obtained the conversion of her ferocious husband, Longspée, through the instrumentality of St. Edmund.[258] The friendship of the elder Ella with the saintly archbishop appears to have inspired both her daughters with a singular goodwill towards Oxford, and Ella in particular made large donations of lands and endowments to the Merton scholars. Such was the success of the new foundation that the king himself recommended it to Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, as a model for his proposed Cambridge College of Peterhouse; and the example once set, was soon taken up by others. The Benedictines had possessed houses of studies in Oxford from a very early period, but the proposal was now made to found a regular college, intended, in the first instance, exclusively for students from Gloucester Abbey, but the benefits of which were afterwards extended to those of St. Alban’s, Glastonbury, Tavistock, Chertsey, Coventry, Evesham, St. Edmundsbury, Winchcombe, and Malmsbury, all of which contributed to the expense of rearing the necessary buildings. The real founder of Gloucester College, however, was not an abbot, but a baron, John Giffard, Lord of Brimesfield, and husband of Maud Longspée, whose persuasions doubtless had great share in promoting his munificence. In 1291, a general chapter was held at Abingdon of the monks of the province of Canterbury, and a tax imposed on all the Benedictine houses of the province, to raise the necessary funds.
The result was the erection of a grand and commodious pile of buildings, some of which remain to this day, and form a part of the modern Worcester College. The apartments occupied by the students of the different religious houses were separate one from another, and distinguished by their arms or rebusses. Thus, we see the cross-keys for St. Peter’s of Gloucester, a comb and a ton, with the letter W, for Winchcombe, and so of the rest. Each abbey sent a certain number of students at a time, who were governed by a prior, elected by themselves, called the “Prior Studentium,” and who had a rule adapted to suit their peculiar requirements. They were enjoined not to mix familiarly with the secular students, to have divinity disputations once a week, and to practise preaching, both in Latin and English. A chair of theology was afterwards founded for their special instruction. In short, Gloucester College was a true religious seminary, and continued to enjoy a high character for learning down to the time of the general suppression of religious houses. Wood gives many interesting particulars of the college, and the good scholars whom it produced. Whethamstede, abbot of St. Alban’s in the reign of Henry VI., of whom we shall have hereafter to speak more at length, was at one time the “Prior Studentium,” and afterwards bestowed such large benefactions on the house as to be called its second founder. He put in the five painted windows of the chapel, built a vestiary and a library, and presented many books. Moreover, he adorned the images of the Crucifix and the Saints with “deprecatory rhymes.” His dear and learned friend, Humphrey of Gloucester, likewise enriched the library with several valuable manuscripts. The first Benedictine of this college who took his doctor’s degree was William Brok, who graduated in divinity in 1298. The inception of a university doctor was in those days a stately ceremony, and on this occasion the Benedictines thought it well to celebrate the auspicious event with more than ordinary splendour. Six abbots of the order, therefore, attended the customary procession on horseback, besides “monks, priors, obedientiaries, and claustral clerks, a hundred noblemen and esquires,” and most of the Benedictine bishops of the province of Canterbury. The Durham monks were not long before they provided themselves with a similar seminary, and in 1286 obtained lands for the erection of their college from Dame Mabel Wafte, abbess of Godstow. The endowments of this establishment were intended half for lay and half for religious students. They also had their “Prior Studentium,” and the good repute of their learning induced Richard of Bury, the celebrated Bishop of Durham, to leave them his magnificent library of books. The site of this foundation is now occupied by the more modern Trinity College.
These religious establishments, it is not to be doubted, had a considerable share in promoting the extension of the collegiate system now fairly introduced into Oxford. The Merton scholars soon attracted notice; of whom the most famous was Duns Scotus, who after leaving the university entered among the Franciscan friars of Newcastle, and returning to Oxford to study a second time under the doctors of his own order, won perhaps the highest renown which attaches to the name of any English divine since the days of Bede.[259] The reign of Edward II. witnessed the foundation of two more colleges. Oriel claims as its founder that unfortunate monarch himself, who, whatever may have been his faults, was an undoubted patron of letters. It is probable, however, that he had little more than a nominal share in the foundation, which was the real work of his almoner, Adam de Brom. Exeter owes its name to its founder, Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, and both these were, more or less, in their statutes and general spirit, copies of Merton. The effects of the changes thus introduced into the university system are differently estimated by different writers. By many the diminution in the number of students which became apparent in the fourteenth century, is attributed to the increase of colleges. These of course could only accommodate a limited number, whereas any amount of students might swarm in the hostels and lodging-houses which were formerly their only resort. However, if the old adage, that quality is to be preferred to quantity, is to be held of any force, this can hardly be said to be a disadvantage. Six thousand students living under regular discipline were perhaps better than thirty thousand, containing a large proportion of “varlets;” and although in our days the collegiate system may be regarded as having a tendency to aristocratical exclusiveness, this was far from being its intention or result in the early period of its institution. The endowments were for poor scholars, and by poor scholars they were mostly enjoyed. It appears probable also that the successive pestilences which desolated Oxford in the reign of Edward III., and the troubles occasioned by Wickliffe and his followers, had a great deal to do with the decrease of the scholars. Besides which, it must be borne in mind that the rage for scholastic learning which characterised the thirteenth century, gave place in England during the fourteenth to a rage for French conquests. So completely did the brilliant successes achieved by the two Edwards root this passion in the English mind, that the cultivation of letters was little regarded, and perhaps after Wickliffe’s time it was looked on by some with a not unnatural suspicion. Many of the colleges had become tainted with Lollardism, and remained under a cloud; the tide of popular favour had set in for the showy chivalry of the day, and clerks and scholars went somewhat out of fashion. The close tie which had hitherto knit together the schools of Oxford and Paris was henceforth totally sundered, nor is it easy to estimate the injury thus accruing to the English university, which in the thirteenth century enjoyed the freest intercommunion with the French and Italian academies. The narrow insular spirit which thus sprang up, and which was nourished by the anti-Roman tendencies of English legislation, was fatal to intellectual progress. Hence the learned renown of our universities certainly declined, but so far was this from being the result of the collegiate system that it is evident the noble foundations of Wykeham, Waynflete, Fleming, Chicheley, and Henry VI., were undertaken with the view of supplying a remedy to the existing evils, and as a means of effecting a revival of learning among the English clergy.
The history of these foundations belongs however to a later date. For the present we must leave our semibarbarous island (for so, under favour, must baronial England doubtless have been regarded by dwellers south of the Alps), and see what kind of scholarship was flourishing in the more classic atmosphere of Italy at the very time when the first stones were being laid of our ancient Oxford cloisters.
CHAPTER XVII.
DANTE AND PETRARCH.
A.D. 1300 TO 1400.