Chapter 11 of 21 · 7297 words · ~36 min read

XI.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE.

(_Aula Regia et Collegium de Brasenose, Collegium Aenei Nasi._)

BY FALCONER MADAN, M.A., FELLOW OF BRASENOSE.

I. THE KING’S HALL OF BRAZEN-NOSE.

(_Aula Regia de Brasinnose._)

Professor Holland has given a clear account[212] of the three stages through which a University passes, first as _scholae_, where there is “a more or less fortuitous gathering of teachers and students”; next as a _studium generale_, when the teachers become “a sort of guild of masters or doctors,” with control over the admission by a degree to their own body; and lastly as a _Universitas_, when the society “acquires a corporate existence,” with a well-defined constitution and privileges. The first and second of these stages were attained by Oxford in the twelfth century, and the third early in the thirteenth century. It is early in this latter century that we also find the earliest associations of students among themselves. The system of Halls was due to the desire of the poorer class of students to live for economy’s sake in a common house with common meals, under the charge of a Principal whose duty was quite as much to manage household affairs as to superintend the studies of his scholars.[213]

The existence of the house which became Brasenose Hall may be carried back with certainty to the second quarter of the thirteenth century, the earliest facts at present known being that it belonged, in or before A. D. 1239,[214] to one Jeffry Jussell, and that it passed into the hands of Simon de Balindon, who sold it in about 1261 to the Chancellor and Masters of the University, for the use of the scholars enjoying the benefaction of William of Durham. Soon after this purchase the occupier, Andrew the son of Andrew of Durham, was forcibly ejected by Adam Bilet and his scholars, and no doubt at this time, if not earlier, the tenement acquired the name of Brasenose, and was used as schools, for in 1278 an Inquisition[215] says, “Item eadem Universitas [Oxon.] habet quandam aliam domum que vocatur Brasenose cum quatuor Scholis … et taxantur ad octo marcas, et fuit illa domus aliquo tempore Galfridi Jussell.” The transition from these Scholae or lecture-rooms to a Hall cannot now be traced, but no doubt took place within the same century.

In the early part of 1334 a striking incident occurred in the history of the Hall. Under stress of internal faction, and not on this occasion, it would seem, from excesses on the part of the citizens, there was a migration of a large number of the students of the University from Oxford to Stamford, fulfilling the (later!) prophecy of Merlin--

“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.

III. THE FOUNDATION AND EARLY STATUTES OF THE COLLEGE.

The first record of the proposal to found Brasenose is contained in the will of Edmund Croston, dated (four days before his death) on Jan. 23, 1507/8, where are bequeathed £6 13_s._ 4_d._ to “the building of Brasynnose in Oxford, if such works as the Bishop of Lyncoln and Master Sotton intended there went on during their life or within twelve years after.” It is probable that the Bishop at one time intended that Lincoln College should enjoy his benefactions, for Robert Parkinson, Sub-rector of Lincoln, wrote about 1566-69, “Proposuerat enim [episcopus], ut ferunt, omnia nostro collegio praestitisse quae postea in Brasinnos egit, si voluissent R[ector] et S[cholares] qui tum fuerunt ab eo propositas conditiones recipere.”

The actual foundation can be best shown in the form of annals, it being understood that the disposition of the halls mentioned was nearly as follows--

1508, Oct. 20, Brazen Nose and Little University Halls are leased by University College to Richard Sutton, Esq., and eight others (four of whom were among the first Fellows) for ninety-two years at an annual rent of £3, on condition that the lessees should spend £40 on the tenements within a year. The College agreed to renew the lease and to give over all their rights, as soon as property of the annual value of £3 should be given them. In 1514 Sutton assigned this lease to trustees to carry out his purposes.

1509, summer. Edward Moseley’s stone quarry at Headington is let to the founders and Roland Messenger for their lives.

1509, June 1. The foundation stone of the College is laid, as recorded on a modern copy of the original inscription, now and probably always placed over the doorway of Staircase No. 1, which used to lead to the first chapel of the College:--

“Anno Christi 1509 et Regis Henrici octavi primo | Nomine diuino lincoln | presul quoque sutton . Hanc posu | ere petram regis ad imperium | primo die Iunii.”

1509/10, Feb. 20. Oriel College lets Salisbury Hall and St. Mary’s Entry (Introitus S. Mariae) to Sutton and others for ever in consideration of an annual rent of 13_s._ 4_d._

1511/2, Jan. 15. A Charter of Foundation granted to Smyth and Sutton.

1523, May 6. Sutton transfers the property acquired from University College in 1508, to the Principal and Fellows of Brazenose.

1530, May 12. Haberdasher, Little St. Edmund, Glass and Black Halls are granted to the College on a lease of ninety-six years by Oseney Abbey, the first being at once converted by payment into the property of the College, but the others not till March 6, 1655/6.

1556, Nov. 2. Staple Hall, which had once belonged to the Abbey of Eynsham, is leased by Lincoln College to Brasenose for ever at a rent of 20_s._ per annum.

* * * * *

“Rome was not built in a day,” and it is curious to note how the old and new foundations overlap each other. The College building clearly began at the south-west corner of the present front quadrangle, and Brasenose Hall was no doubt left until the building naturally reached it. Thus John Formby was Principal of the Hall till Aug. 24, 1510, when Matthew Smyth succeeded him, and in Smyth’s name on Sept. 9, 1511 Roland Messenger still became surety for the dues payable by the Hall to the University, for the ensuing year; and even on Sept. 9, 1512, Smyth himself “cautioned,” as it was called, for the moribund hall. Moreover, a scholar of the Hall was locked up in August 1512 for interfering with the workmen who were building Corpus. The first occasion on which the College appears in the University Registers is in Sept. 1514, when Matthew Smyth, “Principal of the College or Hall of Brasen Nose” is mentioned; but there is evidence that the corporate

## action of the College dates from at least as early as Nov. 1512. We

thus have before us the successive steps by which a College gradually grew, and literally piece by piece took the place of the precedent Halls.

It is now time to turn to the statutes, the buildings being reserved for a later section.

The Charter of Foundation is dated Jan. 15, 1511/2, and the original statutes were no doubt shortly after drawn up and ratified by the two founders, but no copy of them remains. Bishop Smyth’s executors in about 1514 revised and signed a modification of the code, which still exists, and finally at the request of the College Sir Richard Sutton once more revised them, on Feb. 1, 1521/2.

As in conception and in form of buildings, so in respect of their statutes also, Merton and New College are the two cardinal foundations. From the latter were derived the statutes of Magdalen, founded in 1458, and from these latter the earliest statutes of Brasenose. The general sense of the Code of 1514 with Sutton’s changes in 1522, can be well gathered from the Churton’s abstract in his _Lives of … (the) Founders of Brazen Nose College_ (Oxf. 1800), pp. 315-40. The preamble is as follows, the original being in Latin--

“In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of the most blessed Mother of God, Mary the glorious Virgin, and of Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, and also of St. Michael the archangel: We, William Smyth, bishop of Lincoln, and Richard Sutton, esquire, confiding in the aid of the supreme Creator, who knows, directs and disposes the wills of all that trust in him, do out of the goods which in this life, not by our merits, but by the grace of His fulness, we have received abundantly, by royal authority and charter found, institute and establish in the University of Oxford, a perpetual College of poor and indigent scholars, who shall study and make progress in philosophy and sacred theology; commonly called _The King’s Haule and Colledge of Brasennose in Oxford_; to the praise, glory, and honour of Almighty God, of the glorious Virgin Mary, Saints Hugh and Chad confessors, St. Michael the Archangel and All Saints; for the support and exaltation of the Christian Faith, for the advancement of holy church, and for the furtherance of divine worship.”

The College is to consist of a Principal and twelve Fellows, all of them born within the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield; with preference to the natives of the counties of Lancaster and Chester; and especially to the natives of the parish of Prescot in Lancashire, and of Prestbury in Cheshire. One of the senior Fellows is annually to be elected Vice-Principal; and two others Bursars. The only language tolerated for public use, unless when strangers are present, is Latin. The Bishop of Lincoln has always been the Visitor.

Thus Brasenose started fairly on its course, equipped with statutes, with property from its founders and benefactors, and with students drawn, as ever since until recently, chiefly from good families of Cheshire and Lancashire, Leighs and Watsons, Lathams and Brookes and Egertons. But the history of a College which has not been at any time predominant in the University is both difficult and unnecessary to trace; difficult from the paucity of records of its internal social life, and unnecessary from the lack of general interest in the domestic affairs of one particular College among so many. It will be the task of one who deals with the social life of Oxford to seize on those features of College history which from time to time best represent the character of successive periods: in this place it will suffice to give a few scenes or facts which being themselves of interest have also sufficient illustration from existing records.

IV. FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE RESTORATION.

In the Bodleian (MS. Rawl. D. 985) there is a volume of copies of Latin letters written by Robert Batt of Brasenose, chiefly to a brother, in which among much of the usual rhetoric there is also curious information about the life of the College. They range from 1581 to 1585, and we read of his complaints to the Principal because a junior man is put into his study (_musæum_), of an archery meeting at Oxford, which much distracts the young Batt, and of the visit of the Prince Alaskie to Oxford. He asks his Cambridge brother to come up for Commem, and with Yorkshire bluntness writes letters to the Master and a Fellow of University College, asking for a Fellowship!

So too in 1609-11 we find ten letters from Richard Taylor as tutor to Sir Peter Legh’s son (Hist. Manuscripts Commission, _Report 3_, 1872, p. 268), which throw light on College affairs and expenses of that time.

In the Register of the Parliamentary Visitors of the University from 1647 to 1658 we obtain an insight into the condition of the College, which shows it to have been in a creditable state. At first the College is as Royalist as any, the proportion of submitters to those who were willing to endure actual expulsion rather than acknowledge the Visitors’ rights, being probably only twelve to twenty-three, in May 1648. Their Principal, Dr. Samuel Radcliffe, had already, on Jan. 6, been deprived of his office, and Daniel Greenwood, a submitter, had been on April 13, put in his place. But the spirit of the College is abundantly shown by the proceedings which ensued on Dr. Radcliffe’s death. Three days after that event, on June 29, the Society, to use Wood’s words, “(taking no notice that the Visitors had entred Mr. Greenwood Principal) put up a citation on the Chappel door (as by Statute they were required) to summon the Fellows to election. The Visitors thereupon send for Mr. Thom. Sixsmith and two more Fellows of that House to command them to surcease and submit to their new Principal Mr. Greenwood; but they gave them fair words, went home, and within four days after [July 13] chose among themselves, in a Fellow’s Chamber, at the West end of the old Library, Mr. Thom. Yate, one of their Society.” The Visitors immediately deposed him, in favour of Greenwood; but at the Restoration Dr. Yate’s claims were at once recognized, and he long enjoyed the headship. This resistance by the Fellows was proved to be not lawlessness but loyalty, for when resistance was of no avail, they “speedily[219] recovered their working order, and gave but little trouble to the Visitors,” a contrast to the general example of other Colleges.

The more eminent Brasenose men who belong to this period are: Alexander Nowell, Fellow and Principal, Dean of St. Paul’s (matr. 1521); John Foxe, the Martyrologist (_c._ 1533); Sampson Erdeswick, the historian of Staffordshire (1553); Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Chancellor Ellesmere (_c._ 1556); Sir Henry Savile, afterwards Warden of Merton (1561); John Guillim, the herald (_c._ 1585); Robert Burton, the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1593); Sir John Spelman, the antiquary (1642); Elias Ashmole, the herald, founder of the Ashmolean Museum (1644); and Sir William Petty (1649).

V. BRASENOSE IN MODERN TIMES.

The period from the Restoration to 1800 was in Oxford as elsewhere marked rather by the excellence of individuals than by a high standard of general culture. In the first part of the period Brasenose is not especially distinguished, except by an undue prominence in the records of the Vice-Chancellor’s Court; but as we approach the close of the eighteenth century there are signs of a period of great prosperity, which distinguished the headships of Cleaver, Hodson and Gilbert, the first and last of whom were Bishops of Chester (then of Bangor, and finally of St. Asaph) and Chichester respectively. The signs of this are unmistakable. The numbers show an unusual increase, and the College is in the front both in the class-lists and in outdoor sports. The high-water mark was perhaps reached when the story could be told of Dr. Hodson (in about 1808), which is related in Mark Pattison’s _Memoirs_. “Returning to College, after one Long Vacation, Hodson drove the last stage into Oxford, with post-horses. The reason he gave for this piece of ostentation was, ‘That it should not be said that the first tutor of the first College of the first University of the world entered it with a pair.’ … The story is symbolical of the high place B.N.C. held in the University at the time, in which however, intellectual eminence entered far less than the fact that it numbered among its members many gentlemen commoners of wealthy and noble families.”

But intellectual eminence there certainly was at this time, for in the class-lists of Mich. 1808 to Mich. 1810, out of thirty-seven first-classes Brasenose claimed seven, monopolizing one list altogether; and out of seventy-five second-classes it held twelve. This was the period of what has been called the “famous Brasenose breakfast.” Reginald Heber won the Newdigate in 1803 with a poem which will never be forgotten--his _Palestine_. His rooms were on Staircase 6, one pair left, under the great chestnut in Exeter Garden called Heber’s Tree. In 1803 Sir Walter Scott went to Oxford with Richard Heber, Reginald’s brother. The story may be told in Lockhart’s[220] words: Heber “had just been declared the successful competitor for that year’s poetical prize, and read to Scott at breakfast in Brazen Nose College the MS. of his _Palestine_. Scott observed that in the verses on Solomon’s Temple one striking circumstance had escaped him, namely that no tools were used in its erection. Reginald retired for a few minutes to the corner of the room, and returned with the beautiful lines--

‘No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung, Majestic silence!’”[221]

In connection with this literary and social side of the College may be mentioned the Phœnix Common-room or Club, the only social Club in the University which is more than a century old. It was started in 1781 or 1782 by Joseph Alderson, an undergraduate of Brasenose, afterwards Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and received a full constitution with officers and rules in 1786. It has always nominally consisted of twelve members, generally dining together once a week. The records of the Club are singularly complete, even to the caricatures on the blotting-paper of the dinner-books. Of the twelve original members five were soon elected to Fellowships, and such names as Frodsham Hodson (afterwards Principal), Viscount Valentia (_d._ 1844), Earl Fortescue (_d._ 1861), Reginald Heber (Bishop of Calcutta), Lord George Grenville (_d._ 1850), the Earl of Delawarr, the friend of Byron, Richard Harington (afterwards Principal), Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne (“S. G. O.”), and the present Deans of Rochester and Worcester, have raised it to no ordinary level. Its contemporary from 1828 to 1834, the Hell-fire Club, was of a very different character; but from one or two dubious incidents in its career has found its way into literature.[222] The incident which produced from the pen of Reginald Heber the humorous poem entitled the _Whippiad_[223] was connected with members of the Phœnix, though not with a meeting of the Club. The Senior Tutor had incautiously endeavoured to wrest a whip from Bernard Port, who had been loudly cracking it in the quadrangle; but alas, the representative of constitutional authority soon measured his length on the grass, being, not for the first time (as Heber maliciously notes) “floored by Port.”

The Ale Verses were an ancient social custom, probably at least as old as the Restoration. On Shrove Tuesday the butler presented a copy of English verses on Brasenose Ale to the Principal, written by some undergraduate, and received thereupon a certain sum of money. The earliest extant poem is of about the year 1700; but there is a long gap from that year till 1806, and they are not continuously preserved till from 1826, having been printed first in about 1811. They supply all kinds of contemporary information, collegiate, academical and political, chiefly of course by way of allusion. At last in 1886 the College Brew-house was removed to make room for new buildings, and with it went the Ale Verses, except that in 1889 one more set was issued. In 1888 a Fellow of the College printed a Latin dirge over the sad surcease; but soon the Verses will be forgotten, and the Brew-house.

On the river Brasenose has always been prominent: never once in the Eights or Torpids has it sunk below the ninth place. In the first inter-collegiate races, in 1815, Brasenose is at the head, and when the records begin again, in 1822, again takes the lead. At the present time (June 1891) B.N.C. has started head in the Eights on 110 days.[224]

The only clubs which had cricket grounds of their own in about 1835 were the Brasenose and the Bullingdon (Ch. Ch.), and even in 1847 the Magdalen, _i. e._ the University Club, was the only additional one. Early cricketing records are difficult to find; but in recent times no College has been able to show such a record as B.N.C. in 1871, when it had eight men in the University eleven, and when sixteen of the College beat an All-England eleven. In 1873 sixteen of B.N.C. also beat the United North of England eleven. The Inter-University high-jump of 1876, when M. J. Brooks of B.N.C. cleared 6 feet 2½ inches, was an extraordinary performance.

The characteristics of the College at all times have been remarkably similar and persistent, if the present writer can trust his judgment. They may be described as, first and foremost, a marked but not exclusive predilection for the exercises and amusements of out-door life, the result of sound bodies and minds, and in part, no doubt, of a long connection with old county families of a high type. And next a certain pertinacity, perseverance, power of endurance, doggedness, patriotism, solidarity, or by whatever other name the spirit may be called which leads men to do what they are doing with all their might, to undergo training and discipline for the sake of the College, and hang together like a cluster of bees in view of a common object. The Headship of the River for any length of time cannot possibly be obtained by fitful effort, or the unsustained enthusiasm of a single leader; but rather (and herein consists its value) by a continuous, often unconsciously continuous, effort of several years, backed up by the general support of the College. Lastly, Brasenose seems to be singularly central, intermediate, and in a good sense average and mediocre. Its position and buildings, its history, its achievements, the roll of Brasenose authors, all give evidence that the College is a good sample of the best sort of academical foundation. A writer who might wish to select a single College for study as a specimen of the kind, would find the history of Brasenose neither startling nor commonplace, neither eccentric nor uninteresting, neither full of strong contrasts nor deficient in the signs of healthy corporate life.

Among the _alumni_ of Brasenose in this period, to omit the names of living persons, are the following: Thomas Carte the historian (1699); John Napleton (matr. 1755), an academical reformer; Dr. John Latham, president of the College of Physicians (1778); Bishop Reginald Heber (1800); Richard Harris Barham, author of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, after whom a College club is named the Ingoldsby (1807); Henry Hart Milman, Dean of St. Paul’s (1810); and the Rev. Frederick William Robertson, of Brighton, the preacher (1837). Mr. Buckley has compiled a list of more than four hundred Brasenose authors, and twenty-seven bishops or archbishops.

VI. THE BUILDINGS, PROPERTY, ETC., OF THE COLLEGE.

The front quadrangle of the College is as it stood when the College was first built, except that as usual an extra story was added in about the time of James I., and that for the old mullioned windows have been unhappily substituted in a few places modern square ones. The Principal’s lodgings were at first, as always in Colleges, above and about the gateway.

The _Chapel_ was originally the room now used for the Common Room, namely, on the first floor of No. 1 staircase, and the foundation stone was no doubt placed there as leading to the chapel. The shape of the old chapel windows may still be seen on the outside of the south side of the room. The present chapel was built between 26th June, 1656, and the day of consecration (to St. Hugh and St. Chad) 17th Nov., 1666. There is a persistent tradition that the design of the chapel was due to Sir Christopher Wren, and that the roof at least came from the chapel of St. Mary’s College (now Frewen Hall). In support of this latter belief are the two facts that the roof does not appear precisely to fit the window spaces of the building, and that the principal rafters of the chapel and of the western part of the hall are numbered consecutively, as if they once belonged to a single building. The architecture of the chapel is interesting as a genuine effort to combine classical and Gothic styles. The ceiling, with its beautiful and ingeniously constructed fan-tracery, and the windows are Gothic, but the internal buttresses and altar decoration are Grecian. The East window[225] is by Hardman (1855), the West (by Pearson) was given by Principal Cawley in 1776. Among the other painted glass is one on the north side to F. W. Robertson. The brass eagle was given in 1731 by T. L. Dummer; the two candelabra were replaced within the last few years, having been formerly presented to Coleshill Church, in Buckinghamshire, by the College. The pair of pre-Reformation chalices with pattens form a unique possession.

The first _Library_ was the room now known as No. 4 one pair right, and still retains a fine panelled ceiling with red and gold colouring. The present library is of the same date as the chapel, having been finished in 1663, and is no doubt by the same architect. The internal fittings date from 1780, and not till then were the chains removed from the books. Among the few MSS. are a tenth century Terence (once in the possession of Cardinal Bembo, and therefore periodically raising unfulfilled hopes in foreign students that it might exhibit the unique recension of the other “Bembine Terence”) and the only MS. of Bishop Pearson’s minor works. A large folio printed Missal of 1520 bears a miniature of Sir Richard Sutton, with other fine illuminations. Among the printed books are several given by the founder, Bishop Smith, and by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln. There is a copy on vellum of Alexander de Ales’s commentary on the _De Animâ_ of Aristotle, printed at Oxford in 1481; a copy of Cranmer’s Litany (1544), and of Day’s Psalter (1563) for four-part singing. In general the library has a large number of controversial theological pieces and pamphlets, both of the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign and of the period succeeding the Restoration. For the former the College is indebted to a large and (at the time) extremely valuable donation from Dr. Henry Mason, who died in 1647. There is also a very large quantity of the theological literature of the eighteenth century, partly bequeathed by Principal Yarborough, who also presented the library of Christopher Wasse; many county histories; and many pamphlets on Oxford Reform up to and including the time of the first Commission. In all there are about 15,000 volumes, and there is an adequate endowment from the legacy of Dr. Grimbaldson. Mr. Willis Clark has remarked in his _Architectural History of Cambridge_ that College libraries before the sixteenth century usually, in both Universities, had their sides facing east and west, the early morning light being so important; that from that time to the Restoration, when more luxurious habits had come in, they face north and south, and afterwards again east and west. It is singular that of each change Brasenose Library is the earliest example.

The _Hall_ has remained almost untouched from the first. The open fireplace in the centre under a louvre was retained until 1760 (when the Hon. Ashton Curzon gave the present chimney-piece), and the louvre itself is still intact but hidden above the ceiling.

The north-west corner of the quadrangle affords a striking view of the dome of the Radcliffe and the spire of St. Mary’s, which has been often painted and engraved. The present grass-plot was once a formal maze or Italian garden, which is to be seen in Loggan’s view, and was removed in October 1727, much to Hearne’s disgust, to allow of a “silly statue” of Cain and Abel, the gift of Dr. George Clarke, who bought it in London, being erected in the centre. This well-known statue was for a long time believed to be an original by Giovanni da Bologna; and its removal in 1881 and subsequent destruction excited the wrath of the writer of the article on “Sculpture” in the ninth edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. But the external evidence points to it being only a copy of the valuable original presented to Charles I. at Madrid, and by George III. to the great-grandfather of the present possessor, Sir William Worsley, of Hovingham Hall, Yorkshire.

The _Kitchen_, which forms the western part of the second quadrangle is (as at Christ Church) as old as any part of the College. The eastern side was till about 1840 an open cloister beneath the library, and in it and in front of it many former members of the College were buried.

Early in the last century the College purchased the houses between St. Mary’s and All Saints, and the idea of a front to the High Street soon forced itself on the mind. Some very heavy classical designs are preserved, by Nicholas Hawksmoor (about 1720), who erected the High Street front of Queen’s College; by Sir John Soane (1807); and by Philip Hardwick (1810); until at last a pure Gothic design by Mr. T. G. Jackson was accepted; and by the end of 1887 a gateway and tower, a Principal’s house, and some undergraduates’ rooms were erected, forming on the inside a large third quadrangle, and by its front a notable addition to the glories of the High Street. A drawing of a more ambitious design by the same architect is framed and hung in the College library.

The chief benefactors and property of the College are the following--Bp. William Smith, founder, gave Basset’s Fee near Oxford, and the entire property of the suppressed Priory of Cold Norton, lying chiefly in Oxfordshire. Sir Richard Sutton gave lands in Burgh or Erdborowe in Leicestershire; the White Hart in the Strand, London; and lands in Cropredy, North Ockington, Garsington, and Cowley. The earliest gift of all was from Mrs. Elizabeth Morley, who in 1515 gave the manor of Pinchpoll, in Faringdon, coupled with conditions of undertaking certain services in St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Joyce Frankland in 1586 gave the Red Lion in Kensington, &c., and money. Queen Elizabeth, 1572 and 1579, founds Middleton School in Lancashire, and connects it with the College by scholarships, and by giving the manor of Upberry and rectory of Gillingham. Sarah Duchess of Somerset in 1679 gave Somerset Iver and Somerset Thornhill scholarships, and alternate presentation to Wootton Rivers. William Hulme, 1691, land producing £40 a year for four exhibitions, tenable at Brasenose, from Lancashire; the property increased enormously in value, being in the Hulme district of Manchester, and now provides, besides High Schools for boys and girls at Manchester, and a Hulme Hall connected with the Victoria University, eight Senior and twelve Junior Exhibitions, of the value of £120 and £80 respectively. Sir Francis Bridgeman in 1701 gave money for an annual speech, originally in praise of James II.

_Pictures, busts, &c._

In the Hall are pictures of King Alfred[226] (modern), Bp. William Smith (founder), Sir Richard Sutton (founder), Joyce Frankland (benefactress, with a sixteenth century watch in her hand), Alexander Nowell (Principal), Bp. Frodsham Hodson (Principal), William Cleaver (Principal), Thomas baron Ellesmere, Dr. John Latham, John Lord Mordaunt (benefactor), Samuel Radcliffe (Principal, two), Sarah Duchess of Somerset (benefactress), Robert Burton, Thomas Yate (Principal), Francis Yarborough (Principal), Bp. Ashurst Turner Gilbert (Principal), Edward Hartopp Cradock (Principal). The Brazen Nose is fixed in a frame beneath the picture of King Alfred. A picture of the first Marquis of Buckingham once here is now in the possession of the representatives of the family.

In the north window at the east end of the Hall are portraits of the two founders, and a face with a grotesque nose, in painted glass. The glass of the south window is modern.

In the _Library_ are busts of Lord Grenville by Nollekens, and of Pitt.

In the _Bursary_ is a second picture of Joyce Frankland.

In the _Chapel_ are an old copy of Spagnoletto’s Entombment of Christ, a copy of Poussin’s Assumption of St. Paul, and busts of the two founders, formerly in niches in the middle of the north side of the Hall outside and engraved in Spelman’s _Ælfredi Magni Vita_ (Oxon. 1678).

On the gateway outside is a metal gilt Nose of a grotesque type, probably derived from the painted glass in the hall.

On the entrance to the hall are two worn busts of Johannes Scotus Erigena and King Alfred.

In the _Buttery_ are pictures of the Child of Hale (John Middleton, _d._ 1623, a Lancashire man distinguished for size and strength, after whom the Brasenose boat is always named), of Joyce Frankland, and of the Brasenose Boat in about 1825.

In the Principal’s lodgings are pictures of Lord Mordaunt, Bp. Cleaver, and Joyce Frankland.

The _title_ of the College is “the King’s Hall and College of Brasenose in Oxford” (Aula Regia et Collegium de Brasenose in Oxonia), the spelling of the chief word being in chronological sequence, omitting minor variations, Brasinnose, Brazen Nose (eighteenth century), Brasenose; but the latest spelling is also found early in the seventeenth century, probably showing that it was at all times pronounced as a disyllable. The phrases _King’s College_ and _Collegium Regale_ are also found at an early date, the latter occurring on the College seal, which consists of three Gothic niches or compartments, with St. Hugh and St. Chad on either side and the Trinity in the centre: underneath is a small shield with Smyth’s arms, and round is the legend, “Sigillum commune colegii regalis de brasinnose in oxonia.”

The _Arms_ of the College are: The escutcheon divided into three parts paleways, the centre or, thereon an escutcheon charged with the arms of the See of _Lincoln_ (gules, two lions passant gardant in pale or, on a chief azure Our Lady crowned, sitting on a tombstone issuant from the chief, in her dexter arm the Infant Jesus, in her sinister a sceptre, all or), ensigned with a mitre, all proper: the dexter side argent, a chevron sable between three roses gules seeded or barbed vert, being the arms of the founder William _Smyth_: on the sinister side the arms of Sir Richard _Sutton_ of Prestbury, knight, viz. quarterly first and fourth, argent a chevron between three bugle-horns stringed sable, for _Sutton_, second and third, argent a chevron between three crosses crosslet sable, for _Southworth_.

A coat of arms tripartite paleways is a very rare phenomenon, but is found among Oxford Colleges at Lincoln and Corpus. The cause at Brasenose was no doubt an attempt to combine symmetrically on one shield the arms of the founders, the see of Lincoln being given a disproportionate amount and a central position, from the honour brought by connection with it as both the Founder’s and the Visitor’s see. For the sake of appearance also the arms of Lincoln are placed within the field, the mitre with which they are ensigned being included in the pale. The only variations are that (1) in some old examples the arms of Lincoln cover the whole central pale, the entire College arms being ensigned with a mitre or stringed, and sometimes with a crosier and key in saltire; (2) the crosses crosslet are found as crosses crosslet fitchy or crosses patoncé. The nearest approach to an early official declaration of the arms is to be found in Richard Lee’s report from the best evidence he could obtain, made at the same time as his Visitation in 1574, and to be found in MS. H 6 of the College of Arms.

The College seems never to have had a motto, but Bishop William Smyth’s (“Dominus exaltatio mea”) has been occasionally and unofficially used, as in the new Principal’s house.

VII. STATISTICS.

_1. Principals of Brasenose Hall._

MENTIONED IN

1435 William Long, B.A.

1436 R. Marcham or Markham, M.A.

1438 Roger Grey.

1444 R. Marcham, again.

1451 William Curth or Church, M.A., _d._ 1461.

1461 William Braggys, M.A.

1461 William Wryxham, M.A.

1462 William Braggys, again.

1462 John Molineux, again.

In 1468 the Hall was repaired by

1469 William Sutton, M.A., who occurs also as late as 1483.

1501 } Edmund Croston, M.A., who died 27th Jan., 1507/8; his 1503 } brass in St. Mary’s church is engraved in Churton’s _Lives of the Founders_.

1502 } 1505 } John Formby, M.A., resigned 24th Aug., 1510. 1508-10 }

1510-12 Matthew Smyth, B.D.

_2. Principals of the College._

ELECTED

1512 Matthew Smyth.

(_Original Fellows_: John Haster, probably first Vice-Principal, John Formby, Roland Messenger, John Legh. Shortly after: Richard Shirwood, Richard Gunston, Simon Starkey, Richard Ridge, Hugh Charnock, Ralph Bostock).

1547/8 Feb. 27 John Hawarden.

1564/5 Feb. Thomas Blanchard.

1573/4 Feb. 16 Richard Harrys.

1595 Sept. 6 Alexander Nowell (Head-master of Westminster School 1543-55, Dean of St. Paul’s 1560-1602).

1595 Dec. 29 Thomas Singleton.

1614 Dec. 14 Samuel Radcliffe (ejected by the Oxford Commissioners 6th Jan., 1647. Died 26 June, 1648).

1648 July 13 Thomas Yate (ejected, but reinstated 10th Aug., 1660).

1648 April 13 Daniel Greenwood (ejected Aug. 1660).

1681 May 7 John Meare.

1710 June 2 Robert Shippen (Professor of Music in Gresham College, London, 1705-11?).

1745 Dec. 10 Francis Yarborough.

1770 May 10 William Gwyn.

1770 Sept. 4 Ralph Cawley.

1777 Sept. 14 Thomas Barker.

1785 Sept. 10 William Cleaver (Bishop of Chester 1788, Bangor 1800, St. Asaph 1806-15).

1809 June 21 Frodsham Hodson.

1822 Feb. 2 Ashurst Turner Gilbert (Bishop of Chichester, 1842-70).

1842 June 9 Richard Harington.

1853 Dec. 27 Edward Hartopp Cradock.

1886 Feb. 26 Albert Watson.

1889 Oct. 1 Charles Buller Heberden.

VIII. NOTANDA.

Proverb: _Testons are gone to Oxford to study in Brazen Nose_, when Henry VIII. debased the coinage.

Census in Aug. 1552: Principal, 8 M.A.’s, 12 B.A.’s, 49 who had not taken a degree, including the steward and cook; in all 70 in residence.

Census in 1565/6: Principal, 31 graduates, 57 undergraduate scholars and commoners, 8 poor scholars, 5 matriculated servants: in all 102 names on the books.

Census in 1612: Principal, 21 Fellows, 29 scholars, 145 commoners, 17 poor scholars, 14 batellers and matriculated servants: in all 227 members in residence. Revenue £600 a year. (Principalship £80.)

Plate presented to the King, January 1642/3, by the College, 121_lb._ 2_oz._ 15_d._

A scheme of amalgamation with Lincoln College was proposed in Oct. 1877, and on March 22, 1878, there was a meeting of both governing bodies in Brasenose Common Room; but by the end of that year the plan had come to nothing, partly owing to a vigorous pamphlet by H. E. P. Platt, Fellow of Lincoln.