Oxford and Its Story

by Cecil Headlam

The device was successful for a time, although the very petition contains within itself glaring historical contradictions, which either show supreme ignorance on the part of the masters and scholars or a cynical assumption of the historical ignorance of lawyers. If the College was founded by King Alfred who came to the throne in 872, it would seem a little unwise to instance as famous scholars of that foundation “noble Saints” like John of Beverley, who was Archbishop of York in 705, and the venerable Bede who died in 735.

As to the real founder of University College all the evidence points to William, Archdeacon of Durham, who is mentioned as one of the five distinguished English scholars who left Paris in 1229, in consequence of the riots between the townsfolk and the University. Henry’s invitation to the Paris masters to come and settle at Oxford was immediately accepted by the other four. Their example was probably soon followed by William, after a sojourn at Angers. He was appointed Rector of Wearmouth, and is said to have “abounded in great revenues, but was gaping after greater.” Some litigation with the Bishop of Durham led him to appeal to the Papal Court. His appeal was successful, but it availed him little, for on his journey home he died at Rouen (1249). His bones are said by Skelton to lie in the Chapel of the Virgin in the Cathedral there. He left 310 marks in trust to the University to invest for the benefit and support of a certain number of masters. It was actually the first endowment of its kind, but it is to Alan Basset, who died about 1243, that the credit of providing the first permanent endowment for an Oxford scholar is due. For he conceived the idea of combining a scholarship with a Chantry. He left instructions in his will in accordance with which his executors arranged with the Convent of Bicester for the payment of eight marks a year to two chaplains, who should say mass daily for the souls of the founder and his wife, and at the same time study in the schools of Oxford or elsewhere.

This was a step in the direction of founding a College, and indeed the original plan of William was hardly more imposing.

The University placed Durham’s money in a “Chest,” and used it partly on their own business and partly in loans to others, barons in the Barons’ War for instance. Such loans were seldom repaid, and only 210 marks remained. This sum was expended in purchasing houses. The first house bought (1253) by the University was at the corner of School Street and St Mildred’s Lane (tenementum angulare in vico scholarum).

The site of this the first property held by the University for educational purposes[15] is now included in the front, the noisy, over-decorated front, of Brasenose College. It was called, naturally enough, first the Hall of the University and afterwards the little Hall of the University. A second purchase was made in 1255, when a tenement called Drogheda Hall, the then first house in the High Street on the north side, was bought. It stands almost opposite to the present Western Gate of the College. Brasenose Hall was the next purchase under William’s bequest (1262), and (1270) a quit rent of fifteen shillings, charged on two houses in S. Peter’s parish, was the last. William of Durham had not founded a College. There is nothing to show that the purchase of houses by the University was originally made with any other object than that of securing a sound investment of the trust money. There is nothing to show, that is, either that the houses were bought originally and specifically as habitations for the pensioned masters (though they may have lodged there), or that it was originally intended, either by the University or the founder, that they should form a community.

Statutes were not granted to the masters admitted to the benefits of this foundation until the year 1280, and by that time a precedent had been created. From the year 1280, then, may be dated the incorporation of what is now known as University College. A very small society of poor masters were, according to the revised plan, to live together on the bounty of William of Durham and devote themselves to the study of theology. And this idea of association was evidently adopted from the rule for Merton Hall laid down by Merton six years before. The revenue from the fund increased rapidly, so that by 1292, the society was increased from “four poor masters” to one consisting of two classes of scholars, the seniors receiving six and eightpence a year more than the juniors, and having authority over them. Other clerks of good character, not on the foundation, were permitted to hire lodgings in the Hall, prototypes of the modern commoner. Funds and benefactions accrued to the Hall. A library was built, and the society gradually enlarged. Members of it were enjoined to live like Saints and to speak Latin. In the election of new Fellows a preference was given to those “born nearest to the parts of Durham.” And a graduated fine was imposed, according to which a scholar who insulted another in private was to pay a shilling, before his fellows two shillings, and if in the street, in church or recreation ground, six and eightpence. For the administration of the College funds a bursar was annually appointed, whose accounts were subsequently approved and signed by the Chancellor. This practice of University supervision was maintained till 1722.

Yet another body of statutes was promulgated in 1311. The study of theology and the preference given to those who hailed from Durham were emphasised in accordance with the founder’s wishes. The Senior Fellow was required to be ordained, but any Fellow who was appointed to a benefice of five marks a year now forfeited his election. This latter regulation, which occurs in substance in most of the fourteenth century foundations—by the Statutes of Queens, indeed, a Fellow who refused a benefice forfeited his fellowship—shows that fellowships were intended not as mere endowments of learning but as stepping-stones to preferment. It does not, on the other hand, show that the founders did not contemplate the existence of life-fellows. I think that it is tolerably clear Walter de Merton did. The office of Master of the College grew out of the position of the Senior Fellow; his authority was asserted by new statutes given in 1476.

It was in 1332 that the scholars of William of Durham moved from the corner house on the north side of the High Street, if that was where they abode, to the site of their present College, bounded by Logic Lane and Grove Street, and forming in the southern curve of the High Street, one of the most effective and noble features in that splendid sweep which embraces, on the other side, Queen’s, All Souls’, St Mary’s, Brasenose, and All Saints’.

The society had received large benefactions from a generous donor, Philip Ingleberd of Beverley, and they now purchased Spicer’s (formerly Durham’s) Hall, the first house in St Mary’s parish, which stood near the present western gateway of University College. Further benefactions made further purchases possible. White Hall and Rose Hall in Kybald Street were bought, and Lodelowe Hall, on the east of Spicer’s Hall (1336). Spicer’s Hall soon came to be known as the University Hall; the hall next to it, when acquired, was distinguished as Great University Hall. The reversion to the remainder of the High Street frontage, between Lodelowe Hall and the present Logic Lane, was not secured till 1402, when the munificence of Walter Skirlaw, Bishop of Durham, enabled the society to extend their property and their numbers. The tenements thus acquired were called Little University Hall and the Cock on the Hoop. The next purchase of the College involved them in that lawsuit which has had so curious a result upon the imaginations of its subsequent members.

Thus, then, the foundation of William had become a College, “the first daughter of Alma Mater.” Being the first “Hall” acquired by the University it came to be spoken of as “The Hall of the University,” and the members of the foundation, as “Scholars of University Hall.” Their proper title, “Scholars of the Hall of William of Durham,” gradually fell out of use. Strangers to the University system usually find themselves confused by the relations of the University and the Colleges. The University, then, let it be said, is a corporation existing apart from the Colleges; the Colleges are separate incorporated foundations, independent though practically subordinate to it.