The College, however, in another way, has from the beginning “opened the bosom of its protection” to students whom it was unwilling out of regard to the preferences of the founder to admit to the pecuniary benefits of the Foundation. Whether it was that the buildings contained more rooms than the slowly growing Foundation was able to fill with its own members, or for some other cause, the receipts of the College have always included “pensiones” for “cameræ” occupied by non-foundationers. The very first Long Roll which has been preserved, that of 1347-8, contains the names of Roger Swynbrok, John Herte, and John Schipton as thus occupying chambers. The word used for the payment has survived in “pensioners,” the name given at Cambridge to those whom we call “commoners.” The pensioners of the fourteenth century probably differed in many respects from the commoners of the nineteenth. The founder was in one sense the first commoner of the College. The Black Prince was perhaps one of the earliest. Dominus Nicholas monachus, the monachus Eboracensis who paid two marks “pro magna camera,” the monachus de Evesham, Robertus canonicus, The Prior of Derbich, Magister John Wicliff, Canonicus Randulphus, the Scriptor Slake, Bewforth, if not Bewforth’s more celebrated pupil, afterwards Henry V., Raymund, Rector of Hisley, the treasurer of Chichester, and numerous other Magistri whose names appear in this relation were probably rather researchers or advanced students than anything more resembling the modern undergraduate. It was not unusual for those who had been Fellows to return to the College after some period of absence from Oxford and from the Foundation. But it is doubtless in this element that we find the first traces in the College of those who now occupy so prominent a place in any view of modern Oxford. By the time the first lists occur of residents in the Colleges, and before the regularly-kept register of entrances begins, the present system seems to have been in full swing. In course of time it became profitable for the College even to extend its buildings for the accommodation of this kind of student, and the “musaea” or “studies” in the “novum cubiculum” and in the “novum aedificium” became a regular source of revenue.
It was not only through these and other payments that these “commoners” contributed to the well-being of the College. Among its most liberal benefactors some of the foremost have been non-foundationers. So John Michel, in some sense the second founder of the College, like his father and his uncle, who, as he records, “in saeculo rebellionis nunquam satis deflendae sedem quietam per 14 annos hic invenerunt,” a commoner of the College, besides other benefactions, left an endowment for eight Fellows, four scholars, and four exhibitioners, merged by the Commissioners of 1858 with the smaller Foundation of Sir Orlando Bridgman, another commoner, in the original Foundation of Eglesfield. During the hundred years which this Foundation lasted (the first Fellow was elected in 1764, the last in 1861) more than a hundred Fellows elected to enjoy Michel’s liberality contributed an independent element which somewhat modified the monotony of the old north-country corporation. The Michel Fellows were not members of the governing body, and some amusing stories are told of the differences insisted on by some of the less genial of the older order. Yet the “Michels” (mali catuli, as the jesting etymology had it) contributed their full share to the glories of the College. A Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, a Chief Justice of Ceylon, a Bishop of St. David’s, three Bampton Lecturers, a Bishop of Newfoundland, a Bishop of Ballarat, a Professor of Arabic,[145] were only the most prominent among a large number of distinguished men who owed something to Michel’s liberality. The value of the Fellowships was small, and the length of tenure limited, and so richer Foundations carried off some of those who had for a while been on this Foundation. So among others Dornford passed in this way through Queen’s from Wadham to Oriel, so Basil Jones from Trinity to University, so Tyler and Garbett back again to Oriel and Brasenose from which they came. The College has not been willing to let Michel’s name be altogether forgot, and the four junior Fellows in the list are still called Michel Fellows.
In quite recent times the College has had to thank a commoner for its latest considerable benefaction, and five scholars will always have occasion to bless the memory of Sir Edward Repps Jodrell.
Some of the most characteristic of Eglesfield’s injunctions were concerned with the Common Table. In the midst of the table was to sit the Provost or his locum tenens. No one was to sit on the opposite side in any seat or chair, nor to eat on that side either kneeling or standing. If necessary, room was to be found at a side table.
They were to meet twice in the day for meals at regular hours. They were to be summoned by a “clarion” blown so as to be heard by all the members of the foundation. Among the charges in the accounts for 1452-3 is 2s. 4d. for the repair of the trumpet. In 1595-7, either for repair or a new one, there was paid 8s. “pro tuba”; and in 1604-5 “pro tuba et vectura a Lond. et emendatione,” 28s. In 1666 a magnificent silver trumpet was presented by Sir Joseph Williamson, one of the most liberal of the benefactors as he was one of the most loyal of the sons of the College, to which he was never weary of expressing his obligations and his affection. By a curious accident his extensive private correspondence has become incorporated with the Domestic State Papers of the period, and those who are searching for the more secret springs of the public policy of his age have their attention arrested by the details of his familiar relations with his College friends. So too at an earlier time among the State Papers of the reign of James I. are included the Latin verses and orations, the sermon-notes and other occasional papers of a Queen’s undergraduate, who was afterwards to be Mr. Secretary Nicholas. And along with these are letters to him from a sister, promising stockings, and asking sympathy for toothache and the mumps; and this three hundred years ago.
As they sat at table, before them was to be read the Bible by a Chaplain. They were to pay attention to him, and not prevent his being heard by loquacity or shouting. They were to speak at table “modeste,” and in French or Latin unless in obedience to the law of politeness to converse with a visitor in his own language, or for some other reasonable cause. Unseemly talk or jesting was to be avoided, and punished if necessary by the Provost. Up to the beginning of the present century it was the practice for the porter to bring at the beginning of dinner a Greek Testament to the Fellow presiding at the High Table who returned it to him indicating a verse, and saying, “Legat (so and so),” naming the scholar of the week. The porter then took the book to the scholar and gave it him, saying, “Legat,” and the book after the verse had been read was carried away by the porter. When this custom was abolished does not appear, but Provost Jackson remembered that it prevailed when he came into residence (1808).
At both meals, at all times of the year, that their garments might conform to the colour of the blood of the Lord, all the Fellows were to wear purple robes, and if Doctors of Theology or of Decrees, the robes were to be furred with black budge. The Chaplains were to wear white robes, and the Provost was to see that those of each grade wore robes of uniform colour.
The Students in Arts[146] among the poor boys were to dispute a sophism among themselves once or twice a week, under the guidance of an “artist,”[147] who was to look after them, superintend their disputations, and otherwise supervise their instruction. The “grammarians”[148] were to have “collationes” before their instructor every day except Sundays and “double feasts.” The Clerks of the Chapel were to instruct the poor boys in singing. All the instructors, artists, grammarians and musicians were to be diligent in watching the progress of the students and in instructing them, and were to swear to be so.
The Students in Theology[149] were to hold theological disputations every week on Saturday, Friday, or some other convenient day, which were to be superintended by the Provost or his locum tenens, or the senior present at the disputation; and at these all the theologians except the Provost, who would be very much busied about the affairs of “the Hall,” i. e. of the College, were bound to be present unless prevented by some lawful cause.
The number of scholars was to be increased as the means of the College allowed. A Provost or anybody else who opposed such increase was to be expelled.