Colleges appear to have grown out of the voluntary association of students and teachers at the university. According to some accounts these must at one time have been numerous and flourishing beyond anything we are now acquainted with. We are told, for example, of 300 halls or societies at Oxford, and 30,000 students. In early times there seems to have been a strong desire to confine the scholars to certain licensed houses beyond the influence of the townspeople. Men of wealth and culture, and notably the political bishops and chancellors of England, obtained charters from the crown for the incorporation of societies of scholars, and these in time became exclusively the places of abode for students attending the university. At the same time the corporations thus founded were not necessarily attached to the locality of the university. The early statutes of Merton College, for example, allow the residence of the college to be shifted as occasion required; and the foundations of Wolsey at Oxford and Ipswich seem to have been the same in intention. In later times (until the introduction of non-collegiate students) the university and the colleges became coextensive; every member of the university had to attach himself to some college or hall, and every person admitted to a college or hall was obliged to matriculate himself in the university.
In Ayliffe’s Ancient and Present State of the University of Oxford it is stated that a college must be “made up of three persons (at least) joined in community. And the reason of this almost seems to speak its own necessity, without the help of any express law to countenance it: because among two persons only there cannot be, in fact, a major part; and then if any disagreement should happen to arise between them it cannot be, in fact, brought to a conclusion by such a number alone in case both the parties should firmly adhere to their dissenting opinions; and thus it is declared by the civil law. But by the canon law it is known to be otherwise; for by that law two persons in number may make and constitute a college, forasmuch as according to this law two persons make and constitute an assembly or congregation. The common law of England, or rather the constant usage of our princes in erecting aggregate bodies, which has established this rule among us as a law, has been herein agreeable to the method and doctrine of the civil law, for that in all their grants and charters of incorporation of colleges they have not framed any aggregate body consisting of less than three in number.” Another principle, apparently derived from the civil law, is that a man cannot be a fellow in two colleges at the same time. The law of England steadily resisted any attempt to introduce the principle of inequality into colleges. An act of 1542, reciting that divers founders of colleges have given in their statutes a power of veto to individual members, enacts that every statute made by any such founder, whereby the grant or election of the governor or ruler with the assent of the most part of such corporation should be in any wise hindered by any one or more being the lesser number (contrary to the common law), shall be void.
The corporation consists of a head or master, fellows and scholars. Students, not being on the foundation, residing in the college, are not considered to be members of the corporation. The governing body in all cases is the head and fellows.
It is considered essential to corporations of an ecclesiastical or educational character that they should have a Visitor whose duty it is to see that the statutes of the founder are obeyed. The duties of this officer have been ascertained by the courts of law in a great variety of decided cases. Subject to such restrictions as may be imposed on him by the statutes of the college, his duties are generally to interpret the statutes of the college in disputed cases, and to enforce them where they have been violated. For this purpose he is empowered to “visit” the society—usually at certain stated intervals. In questions within his jurisdiction his judgment is conclusive, but his jurisdiction does not extend to any cases under the common laws of the country, or to trusts attached to the college. Generally the visitorship resides in the founder and his heirs unless he has otherwise appointed, and in default of him in the crown.
The fellowships, scholarships, &c., of colleges were until a comparatively recent date subject to various restrictions. Birth in a particular county, education at a particular school, relationship to the founder and holy orders, are amongst the most usual of the conditions giving a preferential or conclusive claim to the emoluments. Most of these restrictions have been or are being swept away. (See [Universities]; [Oxford]; [Cambridge]; &c.)
The term “college” (like “academy”) is also applied to various institutions, e.g. to colleges of physicians and surgeons, and to the electoral college in the United States presidential elections, &c. For the Sacred College see [Cardinal].
COLLEONI, BARTOLOMMEO (1400-1475), Italian soldier of fortune, was born at Bergamo. While he was still a child his father was attacked and murdered in his castle of Trezzo by Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan. After wandering about Italy he entered the service of various condottieri, such as Braccio da Montone and Carmagnola. At the age of thirty-two he was serving the Venetian republic, and although Francesco Maria Gonzaga was commander-in-chief, Colleoni was the life and soul of the army. He recaptured many towns and districts for Venice from the Milanese, and when Gonzaga went over to the enemy he continued to serve the Venetians under Erasmo da Narni (known as Gattamelata) and Francesco A. Sforza, winning battles at Brescia, Verona and on the lake of Garda. When peace was made between Milan and Venice in 1441 Colleoni went over to the Milanese, together with Sforza in 1443. But although well treated at first, he soon fell under the suspicion of the treacherous Visconti and was imprisoned at Monza, where he remained until the duke’s death in 1447. Milan then fell under the lordship of Sforza, whom Colleoni served for a time, but in 1448 he took leave of Sforza and returned to the Venetians. Disgusted at not having been elected captain-general, he went over to Sforza once more, but Venice could not do without him and by offering him increased emoluments induced him to return, and in 1455 he was appointed captain-general of the republic for life. Although he occasionally fought on his own account, when Venice was at peace, he remained at the disposal of the republic in time of war until his death.
Colleoni was perhaps the most respectable of all the Italian condottieri, and although he often changed sides, no act of treachery is imputed to him, nor did he subject the territories he passed through to the rapine and exactions practised by other soldiers of fortune. When not fighting he devoted his time to introducing agricultural improvements on the vast estates with which the Venetians had endowed him, and to charitable works. At his death in 1475 he left a large sum to the republic for the Turkish war, with a request that an equestrian statue of himself should be erected in the Piazza San Marco. The statue was made by Verrocchio, but as no monument was permitted in the famous Piazza it was placed opposite the hospital of St Mark by way of compromise.
See G. M. Bonomi, Il Castello di Cavernago e i conti Martinengo Colleoni (Bergamo, 1884); for an account of his wars see S. Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia, vol. iv. (Venice, 1855), and other histories of Venice. (L. V.*)