This College was founded by Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Privy Seal to Kings Henry VII. and VIII., in the year 1516. For the life of Foxe, which is full of interest, and thoroughly typical of the career of a statesman-ecclesiastic of those times, I must refer the reader to my article on Richard Foxe in the Dictionary of National Biography.[227] Foxe had, in early life, linked his fortunes with those of Henry VII., then Earl of Richmond, while in exile in France; and, after the battle of Bosworth Field (22nd August, 1485), he became, in rapid succession, Principal Secretary of State, Lord Privy Seal, and Bishop of Exeter. He was subsequently translated to Bath and Wells (1491-2), Durham (1494), and Winchester (1501), then the wealthiest See in England. The principal event in his life (at least in its far-reaching consequences) was his negotiation, while Bishop of Durham, of the marriage between James IV. of Scotland and the Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., which resulted, a century later, in the permanent union of the English and Scottish crowns under James VI.
It is probable that Foxe, who, as we learn from his woodwork in the banqueting-hall of Durham Castle, had, so early as 1499, adopted, as his device, the pelican feeding her young, was early inspired with the idea of founding some important educational institution for the benefit of the Church. This idea, shortly before the foundation of his present College, had taken the shape of a house in Oxford for the reception of young monks from St. Swithin’s Priory in Winchester while attending academical lectures and disputations in Oxford. There were other such houses in Oxford, such as Canterbury College, Durham College,[228] and the picturesque staircases, connected with various Benedictine monasteries, still standing in Worcester College. But his friend, Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, more prescient than himself, already foresaw the fall of the monasteries and, with them, of their academical dependencies in Oxford. “What, my Lord,” Oldham is represented as saying by John Hooker, alias Vowell (see Holinshed’s Chronicles), “shall we build houses and provide livelihoods for a company of bussing[229] monks, whose end and fall we ourselves may live to see; no, no, it is more meet a great deal that we should have care to provide for the increase of learning, and for such as who by their learning shall do good in the Church and commonwealth.” Thus Foxe’s benefaction (to which Oldham himself liberally contributed, as did also the founder’s steward, William Frost, and other of his friends) took the more common form of a College for the education of the secular clergy. A site was purchased between Merton and St. Frideswide’s (the monastery subsequently converted into, first, Cardinal College, and then Christ Church), the land being acquired mainly from Merton and St. Frideswide’s, though a small portion was also bought from the nuns of Godstow. It has been suggested that the sale by Merton (comprising about two-thirds of the site on which Corpus now stands) was a forced one, a supposition which derives some plausibility from the fact that the alienation effectually prevented the extension of the ante-chapel of Merton College as well as from Foxe’s powerful position at Court. But against this theory we may place the fact that the then Warden of Merton (Richard Rawlyns), when subsequently accused, amongst other charges, before the Visitor, of having alienated part of the homestead of the College, does not appear to have pleaded, in extenuation, any external pressure from high quarters.
Foxe induced his friend John Claymond, who, like himself, was a Lincolnshire man, to transfer himself from the Presidentship of Magdalen to that of the newly-founded College, the difference in income being made up by his presentation to the valuable Rectory of Cleeve in Gloucestershire. Robert Morwent, another Magdalen man, was made perpetual Vice-President, to which exceptional privilege was subsequently (1527-8) added that of the right of succession to the Presidency. Several of the original Fellows and scholars were also brought from Magdalen, so that Corpus was, in a certain sense, a colony from what has usually been supposed, and on strong grounds of probability, to have been Foxe’s own College.
The statutes were given by the founder in the year 1517, and supplemented in 1527, the revised version being signed by him, in an extremely trembling hand, on the 13th of February, 1527-8, within eight months of his death, which occurred on the 5th of October, 1528, probably at his Castle of Wolvesey in Winchester. These statutes are of peculiar interest, both on account of the vivid picture which they bring before us of the domestic life of a mediæval college, and the provision made for instruction in the new learning introduced by the Renaissance.
The greatest novelty of the Corpus statutes is the institution of a public lecturer in Greek, who was to lecture to the entire University, and was evidently designed to be one of the principal officers of the College. This readership appears to have been the first permanent office created in either University for the purpose of giving instruction in the Greek language; though, for some years before the close of the fifteenth century, Grocyn, Linacre, and others, had taught Greek at Oxford, in a private or semi-official capacity. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, throughout the year, the Greek reader was to give instruction in some portion of the Grammar of Theodorus or other approved Greek grammarian, together with some part of Lucian, Philostratus, or the orations of Isocrates. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, throughout the year, he was to lecture in Aristophanes, Theocritus, Euripides, Sophocles, Pindar, or Hesiod, or some other of the more ancient Greek poets, with some part of Demosthenes, Thucydides, Aristotle, Theophrastus, or Plutarch. It will be noticed that there is no express mention in this list of Homer, Aeschylus, Herodotus, or Plato. Thrice a week, moreover, in vacations, he was to give private instruction in Greek grammar or rhetoric, or some Greek author, to all members of the College below the degree of Master of Arts. Lastly, all Fellows and scholars below the degree of Bachelor in Divinity, including even Masters of Arts, were bound, on pain of loss of commons, to attend the public lectures of both the Greek and Latin reader; and not only so, but to pass a satisfactory examination in them to be conducted three evenings in the week.
Similar regulations as to teaching are laid down with regard to the Professor of Humanity or Latin, whose special province it is carefully to extirpate all “barbarism” from our “bee-hive,” the name by which, throughout these statutes, Foxe fondly calls his College.[230] The lectures were to begin at eight in the morning, and to be given all through the year, either in the Hall of the College, or in some public place within the University. The authors specified are Cicero, Sallust, Valerius Maximus, Suetonius, Pliny’s Natural History, Livy, Quintilian, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Juvenal, Terence, and Plautus. It will be noticed that Horace and Tacitus are absent from the list.[231] Moreover, in vacations, the Professor is to lecture, three times a week, to all inmates of the College below the degree of Master of Arts, on the Elegantiae of Laurentius Valla, the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, the Miscellanea of Politian, or something of the like kind according to the discretion of the President and Seniors.
The third reader was to be a Lecturer in Theology, “the science which we have always so highly esteemed, that this our bee-hive has been constructed solely or mainly for its sake.” But, even here, the spirit of the Renaissance is predominant. The Professor is to lecture every working-day throughout the year (excepting ten weeks), year by year in turn, on some portion of the Old or New Testament. The authorities for their interpretation, however, are no longer to be such mediæval authors as Nicolas de Lyra or Hugh of Vienne (more commonly called Hugo de Sancto Charo or Hugh of St. Cher), far posterior in time and inferior in learning,[232] but the holy and ancient Greek and Latin doctors, especially Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Origen, Hilary, Chrysostom, John of Damascus, and others of that kind. These theological lectures were to be attended by all Fellows of the College who had been assigned to the study of theology, except Doctors. No special provision seems to be made in the statutes for the theological instruction of the junior members of the College, such as the scholars, clerks, etc.; but the services in chapel would furnish a constant reminder of the principal events in Christian history and the essential doctrines of the Christian Church. The Doctors, though exempt from attendance at lectures, were, like all the other “theologians,” bound to take part in the weekly theological disputations. Absence, in their case as in that of the others, was punishable by deprivation of commons, and, if persisted in, it is curious to find that the ultimate penalty was an injunction to preach a sermon, during the next Lent, at St. Peter’s in the East.
In addition to attendance at the theological lectures of the public reader of their own College, “theologians,” not being Doctors, were required to attend two other lectures daily: one, beginning at seven in the morning, in the School of Divinity; the other, at Magdalen, at nine. Bachelors of Arts, so far as was consistent with attendance at the public lectures in their own College, were to attend two lectures a day “in philosophy” (meaning probably, metaphysics, morals, and natural philosophy), at Magdalen, going and returning in a body; one of these courses of lectures, it may be noticed, appears from the Magdalen statutes to have been delivered at six in the morning. Undergraduates (described as “sophistae et logici”) were to be lectured in logic, and assiduously practised in arguments and the solution of sophisms by one or two of the Fellows or probationers assigned for that purpose. These lecturers in logic were diligently to explain Porphyry and Aristotle, at first in Latin, afterwards in Greek. Moreover, all undergraduates, who had devoted at least six months and not more than thirty to the study of logic, were to frequent the argumentative contest in the schools (“illud gloriosum in Parviso certamen”), as often as it seemed good to the President. Even on festivals and during holiday times, they were not to be idle, but to compose verses and letters on literary subjects, to be shown up to the Professor of Humanity. They were, however, to be permitted occasional recreation in the afternoon hours, both on festival and work days, provided they had the consent of the Lecturer and Dean, and the President (or, in his absence, the Vice-President) raised no objection. Equal care was taken to prevent the Bachelors from falling into slothful habits during the vacations. Three times a week at least, during the Long Vacation, they were, each of them, to expound some astronomical or mathematical work to be assigned, from time to time, by the Dean of Philosophy, in the hall or chapel, and all Fellows and probationers of the College, not being graduates in theology, were bound to be present at the exercises. In the shorter vacations, one of them, selected by the Dean of Arts as often as he chose to enjoin the task, was to explain some poet, orator, or historian, to his fellow-bachelors and undergraduates.
Nor was attendance at the University and College lectures, together with the private instruction, examinations, and exercises connected with them, the only occupation of these hard-worked students. They were also bound, according to their various standings and faculties, to take part in or be present at frequent disputations in logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, morals, and theology. The theological disputations, with the penalties attached to failure to take part in them, have already been noticed. The Bachelors of Arts, and, in certain cases, the “necessary regents” among the Masters (that is, those Masters of Arts who had not yet completed two years from the date of that degree), were also bound to dispute in the subjects of their faculty, namely, logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and morals, for at least two hours twice a week. Nor could any Fellow or scholar take his Bachelor’s degree, till he had read and explained some work or portion of a work of some Latin poet, orator, or historian; or his Master’s degree, till he had explained some book, or at least volume, of Greek logic or philosophy. When we add to these requirements of the College the disputations also imposed by the University, and the numerous religious offices in the chapel, we may easily perceive that, in this busy hive of literary industry, there was little leisure for the amusements which now absorb so large a portion of the student’s time and thoughts. Though, when absent from the University, they were not forbidden to spend a moderate amount of time in hunting or fowling, yet, when actually in Oxford, they were restricted to games of ball in the College garden. Nor had they, like the modern student, prolonged vacations. Vacation to them was mainly a respite from University exercises; the College work, though varied in subject-matter, going on, in point of quantity, much as usual. They were allowed indeed, for a reasonable cause, to spend a portion of the vacation away from Oxford, but the whole time of absence, in the case of a Fellow, was not, in the aggregate, to exceed forty days in the year, nor in the case of a probationer or scholar, twenty days; nor were more than six members of the foundation ever to be absent at a time, except at certain periods, which we might call the depths of the vacations, when the number might reach ten. The liberal ideas of the founder are, however, shown in the provision that one Fellow or scholar at a time might have leave of absence for three years, in order to settle in Italy, or some other country, for the purposes of study. He was to retain his full allowance during absence, and, when he returned, he was to be available for the office of a Reader, when next vacant.