After a lapse of twelve years, A.D. 1292, at the Procurement of the Executors of the Venerable Mr. William of Durham, who were, it seems, still living, the University made new statutes for the College. In these new statutes we hear for the first time of a Master of the College, of commoners, and of a College library. The Senior Fellow was to govern the Juniors, and get half a mark yearly for his diligence therein. Thus the headship of the College went at first by succession, and not until 1332 by election; after which date the master was required to be cæteris paribus proxime Dunelmiam oriundus, or at least of northern extraction.
The first alien to the College who was elected Master was Ralph Hamsterley, in 1509. Previously he was a fellow of Merton College, where in the chapel he was buried. (Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, p. 240.) He was “nunquam de gremio nostro neque de comitiva,” and was therefore chosen Master conditionally upon the visitors granting a dispensation to depart from the ordinary rule. (W. Smith’s MSS., xi. p. 2.)
The Master had until lately as much or as little right to marry as any of the Fellows, and in 1692 the Fellows, before electing Dr. Charlet, exacted from him a promise that he would not marry, or, if he did, would resign within a year. It seems that in old days Fellows of Colleges who were obliged to be in Holy Orders were free to marry after King James the I.’s parliament had sanctioned the marriage of clergymen. Already in 1422 the Master is called the custos, but he was till 1736, when new statutes made a change, called “the Master or Senior Fellow, Magister vel senior socius.” He had the key of the College, but in time delegated the function of letting people in and out to a statutory porter. The introduction of commoners or scholars not on the foundation is thus referred to in these statutes of 1292: “Since the aforesaid scholars have not sufficient to live handsomely alone by themselves, but that it is expedient that other honest persons dwell with them; it is ordained that every Fellow shall secretly enquire concerning the manners of every one that desires to sojourn with them; and then, if they please, by common consent, let him be received under this condition, That before them he shall promise whilst he lives with them, that he will honestly observe the customs of the Fellows of the House, pay his Dues, not hurt any of the Things belonging to the House, either by himself, or those that belong to him.”
In the year 1381 we find from the Bursar’s roll that the students not on the foundation paid £4 18s. as rents for their chambers, a considerable sum in those days.
As to the books of the College, it was ordained that there be put one book of every sort that the House has, in some common and secure place; that the Fellows, and others with the consent of a Fellow, may for the future have the benefit of it.
For the rest it was ordained that the Fellows should speak Latin often, and at every Act have one Disputation in Philosophy or Theology, and have one Disputation at least in the principal Question of both Faculties in the Vespers, and another in the Inception in their private College. In these disputations it is clear that rival disputants sometimes lost their tempers from the following ordinance—
“No Fellow shall under-value another Fellow, but shall correct his Fault privately, under the Penalty of Twelve-pence to be paid to the common-Purse; nor before one that is no Fellow, under the Penalty of two shillings; nor publickly in the Highway, or Church, or Fields, under the penalty of half a mark; and in all these cases, he that begins first shall double what the other is to pay, and this in Disputations especially.”
In those days a lesson was read during dinner. In these degenerate days all the above salutary rules are inverted, and it is customary for the senior scholar to sconce in a pot of beer any junior member who quotes Latin during the Hall-dinner.