The Priory was also one of the centres of university life in its early days, occupying perhaps in some sort the position held by St. Mary's at the present day. From the time of the Translation of St. Frideswide, the chancellor and scholars of the University used to go in Mid-Lent and on Ascension Day "in a general procession to her church, as the mother-church of the University and town, there to pray, preach, and offer oblations to her shrine." The Civil Law School belonged to St. Frideswide's as well as St. Patrick's Schools, and some others situated near to School Street. Among the Halls that the Priors possessed, Brend Hall was in 1438 made over to Lincoln College; Urban Hall and Bekes Inn were bought by Bishop Fox to procure a site for Corpus Christi College.
Yet St. Frideswide's does not seem to have been so great a power in educational matters as its position would have warranted. In fact, most of the other orders were ahead of the Augustinian Regulars in this matter, for we do not hear of their doing anything much until the fifteenth century, when St. Mary's College near Northgate Street was an Augustinian establishment. It was the new orders, the Black Friars (Dominicans) and the Grey Friars (Franciscans), who did so much for the educational advance of Oxford. The Franciscan schoolmen, especially, gave the University a European reputation, for Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and William Occam were trained by them. Cardinal Wolsey, though he did much harm to St. Frideswide's church, did at least make the place a great educational centre.
In one indirect way we find that the Priory helped to attend to the scholars' interests in the thirteenth century. "Owing to the general poverty," says Mr. Boase, "charitable people founded chests, from which loans might be made to poor scholars. Grostête began the system in 1240 by issuing an ordinance regulating St. Frideswide's Chest, which received the fines paid by citizens; and we hear on the whole of about two dozen of these charitable funds, amounting in all to nearly 2000 marks. The money was lent out on security of books, plate, or other property, and it was, in fact, a pawnbroking business which charged no interest." The money accruing to the University was placed in a chest at St. Frideswide's, when the borrower was required to deposit some pledge—a book or a cup, or a piece of clothing. Pledges not redeemed within a year were sold by public auction. As time went on, private bequests were added to the Frideswide chest, to the great relief, no doubt, of the scholars, who were as poor as could be.
The Fair of St. Frideswide was another useful institution connected with the Priory, for in early days the fairs not only afforded much innocent amusement, but they also served to mark the seasons of the year, and were of great practical value in the domestic economy of the people. St. Frideswide's Fair lasted for seven days, and during that time the keys of the city passed from the mayor to the prior, and the town courts were closed in favour of the Piepowder Court, held by the steward of the Priory for the redress of all disorders committed during the fair. By Stuart times the Fair had fallen almost to nothing, but its memory is still kept up by the annual cakestall in St. Aldate's.
One of the strongest Jewries in England existed in Oxford, so the chest was a useful form of charity in the days when Jews were the only money-lenders, and it was found necessary to pass a law preventing the Hebrews of Oxford from charging over 43 per cent, on loans to scholars. In 1268 St. Frideswide's provided a curious proof of the strong protection which the Jews enjoyed till their expulsion from England for four centuries in 1290.
"The feud between the Priory and the Jewry went on for a century more, till it culminated in a daring act of fanaticism on Ascension Day 1268. As the usual procession of scholars and citizens returned from St. Frideswide's, a Jew suddenly burst from the group of his friends in front of the synagogue, and snatching the crucifix from its bearer, trod it underfoot. But even in presence of such an outrage, the terror of the Crown shielded the Jewry from any burst of popular indignation. The king condemned the Jews of Oxford to make a heavy silver crucifix for the University to carry in the processions, and to erect a cross of marble on the spot where the crime was committed; but even this was in part remitted, and a less offensive place was allotted for the cross in an open plot by Merton College." The event which had opened the feud between the Priory and the Jews happened about 1185, when Prior Phillip complained of a certain Deus-eum-crescat (Gedaliah), son of Mossey, who stood at his door as the procession of St. Frideswide passed by, and mocked at her miracles, no one daring to meddle with him.
An instance of the widespread fame of the shrine of St. Frideswide, and the veneration in which it was held even shortly before its destruction, is given in Wood's "Annals." In 1518, "Queen Katherine being desirous to come to Oxford, was attended in her journey by the Cardinal [Wolsey]: and being entered within the limits, was received by the scholars with all demonstrations of love and joy. After she had received their curtesies, she retired to St. Frideswydd Monastery to do her devotions to the sacred reliques of that Virgin Saint, being the chief occasion, it seems, that brought her hither."
But the great change was rapidly approaching. It had indeed been foreshadowed nearly a century and a half before, as when, for instance, on Ascension Day 1382, Wyclif's disciple Nicholas Hereford, preaching in the churchyard of St. Frideswide's, made a violent attack on the Mendicant Friars, and boldly asserted his sympathy with Wyclif.
The suppression of the Priory in 1524 was not, however, a Protestant act; for Wolsey obtained a bull from Pope Clement VII., authorising him, with the royal consent, to suppress the Priory of St. Frideswide, and to transfer the canons to other houses of the Augustinian order, so that their dwelling and revenues might be assigned to the proposed college of secular clerks. Wolsey had magnificent ideas about education,—"indeed," says Fuller, "nothing mean could enter into this man's mind"; he was bent on founding institutions which should surpass even those of William of Wykeham and William Waynflete; and he saw that monasticism had fallen into disrepute, with no prospect of restoration to public favour. He adopted, therefore, the hitherto exceptional method of suppressing certain priories, in order that he might endow with their revenues his new foundation of Cardinal College, as it was first styled. Henry VIII. readily assented to the scheme, and his minister was thus enabled to dissolve the oldest religious establishment within the walls of Oxford, and to dispose of its income of "almost £300 a year." Dr. John Barton, the last Prior of St. Frideswide's, was elected to be Abbot of the neighbouring monastery of Oseney, just as (a little later) Bishop King, the last Abbot of Oseney, was made first Bishop of Oxford.
There was much popular opposition to Wolsey's act in suppressing St. Frideswide's, and (by a second Papal Bull) certain other monasteries. Hall, a chronicler unfriendly to Wolsey, averred that "the poor wretches" ejected from the monasteries received scarcely any compensation. Complaints such as these drew from Wolsey this earnest and redundant contradiction:—