[1483] The title is borrowed from the Twelfth-Night King; cf. p. 260. Perhaps ‘Rex de Faba’ was an early name for the Lord of Misrule at the English court. In 1334 Edward III made a gift to the minstrels ‘in nomine Regis Fabae’ (Strutt, 344).
[1484] G. C. Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, 46 and passim; B. W. Henderson, Merton College, 267.
[1485] The Christmas Prince in 1607, printed in Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana (1816); M. L. Lee, Narcissus: A Twelfth Night Merriment, xvii.
[1486] The Prince’s designation was ‘The most magnificent and renowned Thomas by the fauour of Fortune, Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord St. Iohn’s, high Regent of ye Hall, Duke of St. Giles, Marquesse of Magdalens, Landgraue of ye Groue, County Palatine of ye Cloisters, Cheife Bailiffe of ye Beaumonts, high Ruler of Rome, Maister of the Man̄or of Waltham, Gouernour of Gloster-greene, Sole Com̄aunder of all Titles, Turneaments and Triumphes, Superintendent in all Solemnities whatsoeuer.’ His seal, a crowned and spotted dog, with the motto Pro aris et focis, bears the date 1469. Amongst his officers was a ‘Mr of ye Reuells.’ His Cofferer was Christopher Wren.
[1487] Wood, Hist. of Oxford (ut supra, p. 408), ii. 136, has the following note ‘New Coll. in Cat. MSS., p. 371 ... Magd. Coll. v. Heylin’s Diary, an. 1617, 1619 et 1620.’
[1488] Warton, iii. 304 ‘pro prandio Principis Natalicii eodem tempore xiiis. ixd.’
[1489] H. H. Henson, Letters relating to Oxford in the fourteenth century in the Oxford Hist. Soc.’s Collectanea, i. 39. The learned editor does not give the MS. from which he takes the letters, but the rest of his collection is from the fourteenth-century Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 12 D, xi.
[1490] ‘Quocirca festi praesentis imminenti vigilia, vos ut accepimus in loco potatorio, hora extraordinaria prout moris est, unanimiter congregati, dominum Robertum Grosteste militem in armis scolasticis scitis [Ed. satis] providum et expertum, electione concordi sustulistis ad apicem regiae dignitatis.’
[1491] Cf. p. 279.
[1492] Grosseteste probably became a student at Oxford before 1196. About 1214 he became Chancellor, and it seems hardly likely, as Mr. Stevenson thinks, that he would have been rex natalicius as late as †1233 (F. S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, 8, 25, 110). There were of course no colleges †1200; if rex, he was rex at a hall. But 1200 is an early date even in the history of the Feast of Fools.