“Doctrinae studium quae nunc viget ad Vada Boum
Tempore venturo celebrabitur ad Vada Saxi.”
But of all the emigrants the only men who kept together were the students of Brasenose Hall, as is evidenced by the existence at Stamford to this day of a fourteenth century archway, belonging to an ancient hall called for centuries “Brasenose Hall in Stamford,” the refectory of which was standing till A.D. 1688,[216] and still more by a brass knocker which is assigned by antiquaries to the early part of the twelfth century, and which from time immemorial hung on the doors of the Stamford gateway. It is reasonable to suppose that the knocker had originally given a name to the Oxford Hall, and had been carried as a visible sign of unity to the distant Lincolnshire town.[217] The King used all his power to force the students to return to Oxford, and in a final commission in July, 1335, the name of “Philippus obsonator Eneanasensis” occurs among the thirty-seven who resisted to the last the mandates of the King.[218]
The list of Principals of Brasenose is preserved from 1435 onwards ([see p. 271]), but little or nothing is recorded of the life of the Hall. Its flourishing state may be inferred from its vigorous annexation of the surrounding buildings, as Little St. Edmund Hall, Little University Hall, and St. Thomas Hall. An inventory of the furniture belonging to Master Thomas Cooper of Brasenose Hall, who died in 1438, is printed in Anstey’s Munimenta Academica, ii. 515. The Vice-Chancellor in 1480-82 was William Sutton, Principal of Brasenose Hall, and Proctors in 1458 (John Molineux) and 1502 (Hugh Hawarden) were Brasenose men.
The new College, founded in 1509, was in several special ways a continuation of, and not merely a substitute for, the old Hall. The site of the Hall was exactly at the principal gateway of the College; it had already annexed many of the adjacent buildings required for the new erection, and the last Principal of the Hall was the first Principal of the College. It may fairly be claimed therefore that there is a real succession, both of name and fame, from the one to the other.
II. THE FOUNDERS OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE.
William Smyth, the chief founder of Brasenose, was the fourth son of Robert Smyth, of Peel House, in Widnes (Lancashire), and belonged to a Cuerdley family. Of the date of his birth, early education, and career at Oxford nothing whatever is certainly known. In 1492 when he was instituted to the Rectory of Cheshunt, he was a Bachelor of Law. Through the influence of the Stanley family, and of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, Smyth obtained promotion both in civil and ecclesiastical lines, until in 1491 he was elected Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. In the closing years of the fifteenth century he presided over the Prince of Wales’s Council in the Marches of Wales, and was President of Wales in 1501 or 1502. In Lichfield he founded, in 1495, a Hospital of St. John, which has preserved a portrait of him almost identical with the one owned by the College. In the same year he was translated to Lincoln. The Bishop’s connection with Oxford was renewed in 1500, at the end of which year he was elected Chancellor, retaining the office till August, 1503. This link with the University had great results, for in 1507 the Bishop established a new Fellowship in Oriel, endowed Lincoln College with two estates, and formed his plans with a view to the foundation of Brasenose. After that event there is little of importance to notice in his public life before his death on 2nd January, 1513/4.
Sir Richard Sutton, Knight, the co-Founder of Brasenose, and the first lay founder of any College, was of the family of Sutton, of Sutton near Macclesfield, and probably a kinsman of William Sutton, Principal of Brasenose Hall in and after 1469; but no connection can be traced between this family and the wealthy Thomas Sutton who founded the Charterhouse a century later. Of his birth and education there is no record, but he was a Barrister of the Inner Temple and was made a Privy Councillor in 1497. In 1513 he was Steward of the Monastery of Sion at Isleworth, a house of Brigittine nuns. At his expense Pynson printed the Orcharde of Syon, a devotional book, in 1519. In 1522 or 1523 he received the honour of knighthood, and died in 1524.