In the succeeding period the decline still continued; feature after feature was lost, until at length all was swallowed up by its rival. That feature, however, which was always the most important and most characteristic of Gothic architecture, and on which at all periods the distinctions of the styles chiefly depended, namely, the window, was the last to depart; for when every other trace of the style was lost, we find the windows still retaining either their Gothic form or their Gothic tracery, and thus evincing the lingering love which was still felt for the ancient forms.
During all this period of decline, however, frequent attempts were made to stay its progress, and in no place more successfully than in Oxford, as the number of buildings of this period will testify. To point out the peculiarities, and to give the most remarkable points of the history of these buildings, will be the subject of the present paper, the historical facts of which are taken chiefly from Dr. Ingram’s “Memorials of Oxford,” and from Anthony à Wood.
The first building of this period which claims attention is the Bodleian Library, and in order to understand the history of this, it will be necessary to go a little farther back. It seems that various donations of books had been made by different individuals in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but that no proper depository had been provided for them, and that they remained either locked up in chests or chained to desks in the old Congregation-house, and in the various chapels of St. Mary’s Church, until a room or “solar” having been built for them by Bishop Cobham in 1320, over the old Congregation-house[H], they were, after various disputes, removed there in 1409. It seems, too, that the University had at this time fallen into great irregularity, and suffered great inconvenience from the want of public authorised schools; the various professors using for that purpose apartments in private houses in various parts of the city.
This led to the erection of a building for that purpose in 1439; and about the same time the University resolved to erect a separate School for Divinity on a large scale, in a central situation near the other schools. Liberal contributions having been made by various persons, and especially by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV., they were enabled, about the year 1480, not only to complete the Divinity School as it now
GOTHIC BUILDINGS OF OXFORD.
East Window, Bodleian Library, A.D. 1610, inserted in the older panelling.
stands, but to build the room over it for a library; and from the circumstance of the Duke being the principal donor, both in his lifetime and at his death, and of his bequeathing a number of valuable manuscripts, he is styled the founder, and the Library was called by his name. Into this Library the books from St. Mary’s were removed[I].
The Divinity School yet remains in much the same state as when built, except that a doorway was made by Sir Christopher Wren, under one of the windows on the north side for the convenience of processions to the Theatre, and that at the east end the doorway has been altered externally. On examination, it will be found that the outer moldings have been cut down even with the wall; and from the marks on the wall, it seems probable that there was a groined porch projecting in this direction, and that this was removed to make way for the covered walk, or Proscholium, when the Bodleian Library was built.