We now resume the history of the College buildings. We have seen that the Chapel was built early in the reign of King Edward the Third, and that the hall and library buildings were added in the following century.[70] A new Chapel was built between 1521 and 1529,[71] which lasted until the present century. It contained a muniment-room or treasury, “which,” says Anthony Wood, “is a kind of vestry, joyning on the S. side of the E. end of the chappel;”[72] and there was a window opening into it, as at Corpus, from the library.[73] With the present Chapel in one’s mind it is hard to estimate the loss which from a picturesque point of view the College has suffered by the destruction of its predecessor. In modern times Oxford has ever been a prey to architects. The rebuilding of Queen’s is an example of what happily was not carried into effect at Magdalen and Brasenose in the last century; but in the present, Balliol is almost peculiar in the extent to which these depredations have run, and those who remember the line of buildings of the Chapel and library as they looked from the Fellows’ garden say that for harmony and quiet charm they were of their kind unsurpassed in Oxford. Among the special features of the old Chapel were the painted windows, particularly the great east window given by Lawrence Stubbs in 1529. The fragments of this are distributed among the side windows of the modern Chapel, and even in their scattered state are highly regarded by lovers of glass-painting.[74] Of the later buildings of the College, “Cesar’s lodgings” must not pass without notice. It had its name from Henry Caesar, afterwards Dean of Carlisle—the brother of Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls (1614-1636),—and stood opposite to where the “Martyrs’ Memorial” now is. Being currently known as Cesar, an opposite stack of buildings to the south of it was naturally called Pompey. The two were pulled down, not before it was necessary, in the second quarter of the present century.[75] Hammond’s lodgings, which came to the College in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and stood on the site of the old Master’s little garden and the present Master’s house, were occupied by the Blundell and Periam Fellows.[76]
Before the front of the College was a close, planted with trees like that in front of St. John’s.
“Stant Baliolenses maiore cacumine moles,
Et sua frondosis praetexunt atria ramis;
Nec tamen idcirco Trinam sprevere minorem
Aut sibi subiectam comitem sponsamve recusant—”
ran some verses of 1667.[77] But if we may judge from a story to be told hereafter of the respective prosperity of the two Colleges, it was rather Trinity which had the right to look down upon its rival at that time. In the eighteenth century the buildings of Balliol were considerably enlarged by the erection of two staircases westward of the Master’s house, by Mr. Fisher of Beere, and of three running north of these over against St. Mary Magdalen Church. The fronts of the east side of the quadrangle, reputed to be the most ancient part of the College, and of part of the south side adjoining it, were rebuilt.[78] The direction of the hall was reversed, so that instead of the passage into the garden, the entrance to the hall, and the buttery being beneath the Master’s lodgings, they were placed on the northern extremity of the hall.[79] In the present reign a further addition to the College was made in the place of the dilapidated “Cesar,” and with it a back porch with a tower above it was built. Then followed the rebuilding of the Chapel and, after an interval, of two sides of the front quadrangle and of the Master’s house. A little later the garden was gradually enclosed by buildings on the north side, which were completed in 1877 by a hall with common room, buttery, kitchen, and a chemical laboratory beneath it.
It is very difficult to obtain any accurate knowledge of the number of persons ordinarily inhabiting a College in past times. A few lists happen to have been preserved, but their accuracy is not free from suspicion. Thus, a census of 1552 enumerates under the head of Balliol seven Masters, six Bachelors, and seventeen others, these seventeen including the manciple, butler, cook, and scullion.[80] In ten years this list of thirty names has grown to sixty-five: six Masters, thirteen Bachelors, and forty-six others, eight of whom were Scholars, five “poor scholars”—presumably batellers,—and four servants.[81] By 1612 the number appears to have nearly doubled, and comprises the Master and eleven Fellows, thirteen Scholars, seventy commoners, twenty-two “poor scholars,” and ten servants; in all a hundred and twenty-seven:[82] a total the magnitude of which is the more perplexing since the College matriculations between 1575 and 1621 averaged hardly more than fifteen a-year.[83] No doubt, in the days when several students shared a bedroom, it was possible even for a small College to give house-room to a far larger number than we can imagine at the present time; but still it is hard to understand how so many as a hundred and twenty persons could be accommodated in the then existing buildings of Balliol. According to the procuratorial cycle of 1629, Balliol ranks with University, Lincoln, Jesus, and Pembroke, among the smallest Colleges.[84] In recent times, taking years by chance, we find the number of Fellows, Scholars, and Commoners in the University Calendar for 1838 to be 102, in that for 1859 to be 122, in 1878 about 195, and in 1891 about 187.[85] That the College has been able to count so many resident members is partly owing to the extension of the College buildings, but much more to the modern Statute whereby all members of the College are not necessarily required to live within the College walls.