The Customs of Old England

by F. J. Snell

Inception feasts were apt to degenerate into occasions of riot, and in 1432 the following statute was passed with a view to regulating them:

"Whereas at the feasts held at graduations there occur such disorderly scenes and violence that more annoyance and disgrace than pleasure is caused to the host himself and all his guests, the University, for the prevention of such disorders for the future, hereby orders that no one shall stop the ingress and egress of any master or his servants to or from the hall or tent or other place where the feast is being held; and that no one, except the servants of the University, or of the host, shall enter the said hall, until after the masters, who have been invited, have entered with their servants; and after they have sat down, no one shall sit down, except by the appointment of the Chancellor and in proper order according to rank; and no one shall beat the doors, tables, or roof, or throw stones or other missiles so as to disturb the guests, on pain of imprisonment, excommunication, and a fine of twelve pence."

As these convivialities were so unpleasant, and even dangerous, it may seem that it would have been the obvious course to prohibit them altogether, as in the case of determining bachelors; but the University clung to its feasts, and in 1478 fresh rules were made, this time with the special aim of bleeding or mulcting the intrusive friars and the wealthy monks:

"Every mendicant friar shall, on the day of his inception, feast the Regent Masters according to ancient custom, or forfeit ten marks to the University; and every such incepting friar must be a regent for twenty-four months from his inception. And every religious possessing private property, and not being an abbot or prior or other governor of a conventual house, the rents of whose society amount to two hundred pounds yearly, must on the day of inception feast the Regents or pay twenty pounds to the University in lieu of a feast. And every secular, who can spend forty pounds a year at the University, must, in default of such feast, forfeit twenty marks; and, if he can afford to spend one hundred pounds, must forfeit twenty pounds."

Brief reference must here be made to the relations between the mendicant orders and the University in general, if only because the memory of the former was so perpetuated, long after the disappearance of the fraternities, in the famous term "Austins." Those relations were, for a considerable time, the reverse of friendly. The friars complained that degrees in theology were refused them; the University accused the friars, among other enormities, of "stealing children." To prevent such abduction, in 1358 the following statute was passed:

"The nobles and people generally are afraid to send their sons to Oxford, lest they should be induced by the mendicant friars to join their order; it is therefore hereby enacted that if any mendicant friar shall induce or cause to be induced any member of the University under eighteen years of age to join the said friars, or shall in any way assist in the abduction, no graduate belonging to the cloister or society of which such friar is a member shall be permitted to give or attend lectures in Oxford or elsewhere for a year ensuing."

This enactment was repealed eight years later; but in 1414, when forty-six articles were drawn up by the University of Oxford, addressed to the Council of Constance, it was urgently represented that the friars should be restrained from granting absolution on easy terms, from stealing children, and from begging for alms in the house of God. Their adversaries also warmly denounced the nefarious conduct of "wax-doctors," or ignorant friars, in seeking to obtain graces for degrees by means of letters from influential persons; and in 1358 their indignation bore fruit in a very stringent statute bearing upon the subject.

It is difficult not to think that a large part of this antagonism was caused by envy of the friars. For one thing, they were excellent grammarians, and eventually almost all elementary instruction passed into their hands with the full approval of the authorities, who ordered that payment should be made to them, as the actual teachers, and no longer to the idle grammar masters. This, however, is only a tithe of the service rendered by the friars to the University, which owed an immense obligation to them. The Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Austins, all settled at Oxford, and rendered invaluable service to the cause of learning. The most erudite were perhaps the Franciscans, who arrived in 1224 and established themselves in St. Ebbe's parish in houses and lands assigned to them by Richard le Mercer, Richard le Miller, and others; and their possessions were enlarged and confirmed by Henry III., their chief benefactor.

Such was the fame of the Franciscan friary that in 1353 Bishop Grosseteste, of Lincoln, left all his books to the brotherhood, whilst Bishop Hugo de Balsham, founder of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in his statutes, dating about 1280, directed that some of the scholars should annually repair to Oxford for improvement in the sciences under Franciscan and other readers. It was in this seminary that Roger Bacon, so renowned for his devotion to science and mathematics in the barbarous ages, received his education. The priory, with the fine chapel and large enclosures belonging to it, was granted in the thirty-sixth year of Henry VIII. (1534) to two persons named Richard Andrews and John Howe, who sold it the same year to one Richard Gunter.

We are, however, chiefly concerned with the Austins, whose priory had a similar history. In 1351 Pope Innocent IV. empowered the Friars Eremites of St. Austin to travel into all lands, found houses, and celebrate divine service. Here in England they were first domiciled in London, but certain of the brethren were deputed to journey to Oxford, where they hired a small house near the Public Schools. Their attainments in divinity and philosophy having attracted the attention of a rich Buckinghamshire knight, Sir John Handlove, or Handlow, of Burstall, he bought a piece of ground for them, and this was afterwards enlarged by a gift from Henry III. Upon this they erected a splendid college and chapel, in which, before the Divinity School was built, the University Acts were deposited, and exercises in Arts performed. It was particularly enjoined that every Bachelor of Arts should dispute once a year, and answer once a year, in this house—a rule enforced until the dissolution. The disputations were then removed to St. Mary's, and afterwards to the Schools, but they still retained the name they had so long borne—"disputations in Austins."