[332] Until 1534 only those who had graduated doctor were elected to the office.
[333] Principal (see vi. p. 339 n.), warden, keeper, proctor, and rector are all titles which at one time or another were familiar in Cambridge.
[334] In the xviii c. the colleges had already 4 lecturers in rhetoric, logic, ethics, and Greek. Cf. the provisions in the statutes of Christ’s College xvi c. The college bursar, the purse-bearer of his college, is its treasurer and oeconomus: a senior and junior bursar are appointed.
[335] The decreasing value of the statutable stipends in the xvii c. led to the adoption (in 1630) of the new scale of payments.
[336] He signed the university instrument which was presented to Henry renouncing the pope’s supremacy; Ridley, who was proctor at the time, signed after him.
[337] From 1741 two chaplains were appointed in each college, to replace the fellows who before this used to take the chapel services in rotation. The Trinity College rule which provided that a fellow engaged in instruction in his college for ten years kept his fellowship for life or until he married, made the first rift in the obligation to take orders within a certain period after election, or forfeit the fellowship.
[338] An American student, 20 years before the abolition of the Religious Test Act, was scandalised at the manner in which the reception of the sacrament was used as a mere condition for obtaining the certificate of fitness for orders. Men who had not made 3 communions in their college chapel during their stay, came up afterwards for the purpose, and received thereupon a document certifying that they had entirely satisfied “the vice-chancellor and the 8 senior fellows” of their fitness for their vocation.
[339] In the same century Hobson, who died in 1630 at a great age, was the famous Cambridge carrier and kept the first livery stable in England. His numerous clients would find a large stable full of steeds from which “to choose” (with bridle whip and even boots provided); but everyone was expected to take the horse next the door: hence ‘Hobson’s choice,’ which has become an English household phrase, as has another Cantab expression, ‘constitutionalize’ for walking. Yet another phrase is ‘tawdry,’ the name given to the flimsy gaily coloured chains which were sold at Barnwell (now Midsummer) fair on the eve of S. Awdrey’s day. Hobson was immortalised by verses of Milton’s.
[340] Colleges were not at first built for the ‘undergraduate.’ The scholar of the xiii, xiv, and xv centuries was the socius (fellow) of to-day. His clerical position was that of a young man in minor orders, his scholastic that of a bachelor in art. He attended the schools of the doctors and masters, and was assisted by his fellowship and by exhibitions in the learned faculties to study for the degrees (master of art, and doctor in the faculties). The pensioner, who might or might not be an undergraduate in standing and who lived at his own charges, was provided for in the hostel. It was not till the visitation of 1401 that we find socii and scholares distinguished; and when King’s College was founded in the same half century its scholars were young students and nothing else. Nevertheless, although such was the original conception of the endowed college—at Peterhouse, Michaelhouse, Pembroke, Corpus—the later developments were outlined from the first. The bible clerks at Peterhouse were poor students not of the standing of bachelors, and a proviso in the statutes enabled the college to maintain “2 or 3 indigent scholars well grounded in grammar” when its funds shall permit. At Clare (1359) the sizar was regularly recognised. At Pembroke (1347) there were in addition to the “major scholars” 6 “minor scholars” who might fit themselves to be major scholars. At King’s Hall (Statutes Ric. II.) boys from 14 years old were admitted. At Christ’s (1505) the standing of the scholar was defined by requiring him to give instruction in sophistry; but the pensioner was contemplated for the first time as a regular inmate of the college. In fact the perendinant who ate at the college tables became, before the middle of the xv c., the commensalis; the class being fully recognised 50 years later in the convivae of Christ’s. There were no fewer than 778 convivae or pensioners in the colleges in the time of Caius 1574.
As to the age at which youths went up, it was not until the xix c. that the university was finally regarded as the complement to a full ‘college’ (public school) course elsewhere. The grammar boys at Clare and Peterhouse, the richer youths at King’s Hall, and the glomery students, must always have kept Cambridge peopled with little lads: but when grammar disappeared altogether (in the xvi c.) from the university curriculum, scholars continued to go up very young. In the xvi c. Wyatt went to S. John’s at 12, Bacon and his elder brother to Trinity at 12 and 14; Spenser was in his 16th year. In the xvii c. George Herbert was 15, so was Andrew Marvell, Milton had not attained his 15th year; Newton went to Trinity at 17, and Herschell to S. John’s at the same age. Pitt was a precocious exception in the xviii c. at 14.