[11] These statutes were little more than repetitions or confirmations of ordinances made by King Henry V. in 1421.
[12] The meaning of ‘determination’ is still the subject of dispute. Mr. Boase, in the preface to his Register of the University of Oxford, explains it thus: ‘After taking his degree, the bachelor “determined,” that is, instead of disputing himself, he presided over disputations, and gave out his determination or decision on the questions discussed.’
[13] This seems the most probable interpretation of a somewhat obscure passage in the statute, which speaks of octo annorum terminos, and afterwards of tres terminos or duo terminos anni, as if terminus signified a period, and not an academical Term. It would be almost impossible to attend all the lectures here required for thirty reading days in each Term.
[14] It is stated that, so far back as 1268, the inceptors in civil law were numerous enough to overflow the Oxford hostels, and to be quartered in Oseney Abbey. In 1431 the expense to be incurred in scholastic banquets on inception in arts was limited by statute.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RENAISSANCE, THE REFORMATION, AND THE TUDOR PERIOD.
Revival of academical life at the end of the fifteenth century
The reign of Edward IV. may be regarded as a singularly blank period in University annals. The Wars of the Roses, in which feudalism perished by its own hand, but which left so few traces on the national life, hardly disturbed the academical repose; and the obscurity which hangs over the next chapter in the history of the nation rests equally upon that of the University. But a gradual recovery was in progress, and soon yielded visible fruits. The close of the fifteenth century found the University of Oxford far more complete in its outward structure, if somewhat less vigorous in its inward life, than it had been two centuries earlier. It was no longer a loose aggregate of students under the paramount jurisdiction of a bishop resident at Lincoln, but an organised institution, with a government of its own, under the special protection of the Crown, and capable of being used as a powerful engine for effecting or resisting changes in Church or State. While the old order was yielding place to new, and the fountains of scholastic thought were running dry, there had been a marked decay in academical energy, and the declining number of students attested the decreased activity of teaching. But the revival of classical learning, promoted by the dispersion of Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople, was accompanied or followed by that marvellous series of events which divides modern from mediæval history—the invention of printing, aided by the improvement of paper-making; the discovery of America; the consolidation of the European monarchies; and the Reformation itself. The first effect of the enthusiasm kindled by these new influences was to invigorate the University; it was not until their secondary effects were felt that a reaction manifested itself.
Checked by the Reformation
The great educational movement which sprang from the Reformation was essentially popular rather than academical, and by no means tended to increase the relative importance of the Universities. The cause of this is not difficult to discover. When the only books were manuscripts, the Universities and the very few other institutions which possessed large collections of manuscripts attracted the whole literary class from all parts of the country. When instruction in the sciences was only to be obtained from the lips of a living teacher, and when schools hardly existed elsewhere, except in connection with cathedrals or monasteries, the lecture rooms of Oxford were thronged with students of all ages, and represented almost the entire machinery of national education. When the Church ruled supreme over the wide realm of thought, and learning was the monopoly of ‘clerics,’ the great ecclesiastical stronghold of Oxford far surpassed the metropolis itself as an intellectual centre. When Latin was the one language of scholars, and English literature scarcely existed, the academical masters of Latinity, especially as they were carefully trained in disputation, maintained a peerless supremacy over their less favoured countrymen. In the larger and freer life which took its birth from the Reformation, the exclusive privileges of the Universities became inevitably depreciated, and their degeneracy in the early part of the sixteenth century presents a humiliating contrast with their ascendency in the fourteenth. The dissolution of monasteries, the high-handed visitations of the Tudor Sovereigns, and the diversion of the national energies into new careers, operated concurrently to empty Oxford of students, nor was it until near the end of the century that its tone was gradually restored by the wise policy of Queen Elizabeth.
Pioneers of the new learning at Oxford