St. John's College, Cambridge

by Robert Forsyth Scott

t. John's College, as we know it, was founded in 1511, and opened in 1516. But at the time of its foundation it took over the buildings and property, and many of the duties, of an earlier and then a venerable foundation, that of the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge. The origin of the old house is obscure, and its earlier history lost, but it seems to have been founded about 1135 by Henry Frost, a burgess of Cambridge. It consisted of a small community of Augustinian canons; its site was described about 140 years later as "a very poor and waste place of the commonalty of Cambridge."

Whatever its early history and endowments may have been, it formed a nucleus for further gifts; and its chartulary, still in the possession of St. John's College, shows a continuous series of benefactions to the old house.

Founded before the University existed, the brethren were occupied with their religious duties, and with the care of the poor and sick who sought their help. An Infirmary, part of which was adapted for worship, was built. In the thirteenth century a chapel was added, afterwards adapted as the College Chapel, and used as such down to 1869.

Of the domestic buildings practically nothing is known. When some years ago trenches were dug to lay the electric cables for the lighting of the Hall, some traces of a pavement of red tiles were found near the entrance gate of the College.

The Hospital had the opportunity of becoming the earliest College in Cambridge. Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, obtained in 1280 a licence from King Edward I. to introduce a certain number of scholars of the University into the Hospital, to be governed according to the rules of the scholars of Merton. The regular canons and the scholars were to form one body and one College. The Bishop gave additional endowments to provide for the scholars, but the scheme was a failure. Thomas Baker, the historian of the College, suggests that "the scholars were overwise and the brethren over good." All we do know is that both were eager to part company. The Bishop accordingly removed the scholars in 1284 to his College of Peterhouse, now known as the oldest College in Cambridge. His endowments were transferred with the scholars, and perhaps something besides, for shortly afterwards the brethren complained of their losses. It was then decreed that Peterhouse should pay twenty shillings annually to the Hospital, an acknowledgment of seniority still made by Peterhouse to St. John's College.

For another two hundred years the Hospital went on, not however forgetting its temporary dignity, and occasionally describing itself, in leases of its property, as the College of St. John.

Towards the end of the fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth century, the old house seems to have fallen into bad ways. The brethren were accused of having squandered its belongings, of having granted improvident leases, of having even sold the holy vessels of their Chapel.

At this juncture the Lady Margaret came to the rescue. She had already founded Christ's College in Cambridge, and intended to still further endow the wealthy Abbey of Westminster. Her religious adviser, John Fisher, sometime Master of Michael-House and President of Queens' College in Cambridge, then Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of the University, persuaded her to bestow further gifts on Cambridge, suggesting the Hospital of St. John as the basis for the new College. The then Bishop of Ely, James Stanley, was her stepson, and in 1507 an agreement was entered into with him for the suppression of the Hospital and the foundation of the College, the Lady Margaret undertaking to obtain the requisite Bull from the Pope, and the licence of the King. Before this could be carried out King Henry VII. died, 21st April 1509, and the Lady Margaret on the 29th June following.

By her will she had set aside lands to the annual value of £400 for the new College; but innumerable difficulties sprang up. King Henry VIII. was not sympathetic; the Bishop of Ely raised difficulties; the Lady Margaret's own household claimed part of her goods. Fisher has left a quaintly worded and touching memorandum of the difficulties he experienced, but he never despaired. He ultimately got the licence of the King, the requisite Papal Bull, and the consent of the Bishop of Ely. From a letter to Fisher, still preserved in the College, it appears that the "Brethren, late of St. John's House, departed from Cambridge toward Ely the 12th day of March (1510-11) at four of the clokke at afternone, by water."

All facts which have been preserved show Fisher to have been the real moving spirit—to have been the founder in effect, if not in name, and the College from the first has always linked his name with that of the foundress. Of the foundress' estates only one small farm, at Fordham, in Cambridgeshire, came to the College, and that because it was charged with the payment of her debts. What did come was part of what would now be called her personal estate—moneys she had out on loan, and what could be realised from the sale of her plate and jewels, the furniture and hangings of her various mansions. Rough priced-lists of these, probably handed over by Fisher, are preserved in College.