XII.

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE.

BY T. FOWLER, D.D., F.S.A., PRESIDENT OF CORPUS.

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.

This society of students would consist of between fifty and sixty persons, all of whom, we must recollect, were normally bound to residence, and to take their part, each in his several degree, in the literary activity of the College, or, according to the language of the founder, “to make honey.” Besides the President, there were twenty Fellows, twenty scholars (called “disciples”), two chaplains, and two clerks, who might be called the constant elements of the College. In addition to these, there might be some or even all of the three Readers, in case they were not included among the Fellows; four, or at the most six, sons of nobles or lawyers (_juris-consulti_), a kind of boarder afterwards called “gentlemen-commoners”; and some even of the servants. The last class consisted of two servants for the President (one a groom, the other a body-servant), the manciple, the butler, two cooks, the porter (who was also barber), and the clerk of accompt. It would appear from the statutes that these servants, or rather servitors, might or might not[233] pursue the studies of the College, according to their discretion; if they chose to do so, they probably proceeded to their degrees.[234] Lastly, there were two inmates of the College, who were too young to attend the lectures and disputations, but who were to be taught grammar and instructed in good authors, either within the College or at Magdalen School. These were the choristers, who were to dine and sup with the servants, and to minister in the hall and chapel; but, as they grew older, were to have a preference in the election to scholarships.

Passing to the domestic arrangements, the Fellows and scholars--there are curiously no directions with regard to the other members of the College--were to sleep two and two in a room, a Fellow and scholar together, the Fellow in a high bed, and the scholar in a truckle-bed. The Fellow was to have the supervision of the scholar who shared his room, to set him a good example, to instruct him, to admonish or punish him if he did wrong, and (if need were) to report him to the disciplinal officers of the College. The limitation of two to a room was a distinct advance on the existing practice. At the most recently founded Colleges, Magdalen and Brasenose, the number prescribed in the statutes was three or four. As no provision is made in the statutes for bed-makers, or attendants on the rooms, there can be little doubt that the beds were made and the rooms kept in order by the junior occupant, an office which, in those days when the sons of men of quality served as pages in great houses, implied no degradation.

In the hall there were two meals in the day, dinner and supper, the former probably about eleven a.m. or noon, the latter probably about five or six p.m. At what we should now call the High Table, there were to sit the President, Vice-President, and Reader in Theology, together with the Doctors and Bachelors in that faculty; but even amongst them there was a distinction, as there was an extra allowance for the dish of which the three persons highest in dignity partook, providing one of the above three officers were present. The Vice-President and Reader in Theology, one or both of them, might be displaced, at the President’s discretion, by distinguished strangers. At the upper side-table, on the right, were to sit the Masters of Arts and Readers in Greek and Latin, in no prescribed order; at that on the left, the remaining Fellows, the probationers, and the chaplains. The scholars and the two clerks were to occupy the remaining tables, except the table nearest the buttery, which was to be occupied by the two bursars, the steward, and the clerk of accompt, for the purpose, probably, of superintending the service. The steward was one of the graduate-fellows appointed, from week to week, to assist the bursars in the commissariat and internal expenditure of the College. It was also his duty to superintend the waiting at the upper tables, and, indeed, it would seem as if he himself took part in it. The ordinary waiters at these tables were the President’s and other College servants, the choristers, and, if necessary, the clerks; but the steward had also the power of supplementing their service from amongst the scholars. At the scholars’ tables, the waiters were to be taken from amongst the scholars and clerks themselves, two a week in turn. What has been said above with regard to the absence, at that time, of any idea of degradation in rendering services in the chambers would equally apply here. Such services would then be no more regarded as degrading than is fagging in a public school now.[235] During dinner, a portion of the Bible was to be read by one of the Fellows or Scholars under the degree of Master of Arts; and, when dinner was finished, it was to be expounded by the President or by one of the Fellows (being a theologian) who was to be selected for the purpose by the President or Vice-President, under pain of a month’s deprivation of commons, if he refused. While the Bible was not being read, the students were to be allowed to converse at dinner, but only in Greek or Latin, which languages were also to be employed exclusively, except to those ignorant of them or for the purposes of the College accounts, not only in the chapel and hall but in the chambers and all other places of the College. As soon as dinner or supper was over, at least after grace and the loving-cup, all the students, senior and junior, were to leave the hall. The same rule was to apply to the _bibesia_, or _biberia_, then customary in the University; which were slight refections of bread and beer,[236] in addition to the two regular meals. Exception, however, was made in favour of those festivals of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints, on which it was customary to keep up the hall fire. For, on the latter occasions, after refection and potation, the Fellows and probationers might remain in the hall to sing or employ themselves in any other innocent recreations such as became clerics, or to recite and discuss poems, histories, the marvels of the world, and other such like subjects.

The services in the chapel, especially on Sundays and festivals, it need hardly be said, were numerous, and the penalties for absence severe. On non-festival days the first mass was at five in the morning, and all scholars of the College and bachelor Fellows were bound to be present from the beginning to the end, under pain of heavy punishments for absence, lateness, or inattention. There were other masses which were not equally obligatory, but the inmates of the College were, of course, obliged to keep the canonical hours. They were also charged, in conscience, to say certain private prayers on getting up in the morning or going to bed at night; as well as, once during the day, to pray for the founder and other his or their benefactors.

I have already spoken of the lectures, disputations, examinations, and private instruction, as well as of the scanty amusements, as compared with those of our own day, which were then permitted. Something, however, still remains to be said of the mode of life prescribed by the founder, and of the punishments inflicted for breach of rules. We have seen that, when the Bachelors of Arts attended the lectures at Magdalen, they were obliged to go and return in a body. Even on ordinary occasions, the Fellows, scholars, chaplains and clerks were forbidden to go outside the College, unless it were to the schools, the library, or some other College or hall, unaccompanied by some other member of the College as a “witness of their honest conversation.” Undergraduates required, moreover, special leave from the Dean or Reader of Logic, the only exemption in their case being the schools. If they went into the country, for a walk or other relaxation, they must go in a company of not less than three, keep together all the time, and return together. The only weapons they were allowed to carry, except when away for their short vacations, were the bow and arrow. Whether within the University or away from it, they were strictly prohibited from wearing any but the clerical dress. Once a year, they were all to be provided, at the expense of the College, with gowns (to be worn outside their other habits) of the same colour, though of different sizes and prices according to their position in College. It may be noticed that these gowns were to be provided for the _famuli_ or servants no less than for the other members of the foundation; and that, for this purpose, the servants are divided into two classes, one corresponding with the chaplains and probationary Fellows, the other with the scholars, clerks, and choristers.

Besides being subjected to the supervision of the various officers of the College, each scholar was to be assigned by the President to a tutor, namely, the same Fellow whose chamber he shared. The tutor was to have the general charge of him; expend, on his behalf, the pension which he received from the College, or any sums which came to him from other sources; watch his progress, and correct his defects. If he were neither a graduate nor above twenty years of age, he was to be punished with stripes; otherwise, in some other manner. Corporal punishment might also be inflicted, in the case of the juniors, for various other offences, such as absence from chapel, inattention at lectures, speaking English instead of Latin or Greek; and it was probably, for the ordinary faults of undergraduates, the most common form of punishment. Other punishments--short of expulsion, which was the last resort--were confinement to the library with the task of writing out or composing something in the way of an imposition; sitting alone in the middle of hall, while the rest were dining, at a meal of dry bread and beer, or even bread and water; and lastly, the punishment, so frequently mentioned in the statutes, deprivation of commons. This punishment operated practically as a pecuniary fine, the offender having to pay for his own commons instead of receiving them free from the College. The payment had to be made to the bursars immediately, or, at latest, at the end of term. All members of the College, except the President and probably the Vice-President, were subject to this penalty, though, in case of the seniors, it was simply a fine, whereas undergraduates and Bachelors of Arts were obliged to take their commons either alone or with others similarly punished. The offenders, moreover, were compelled to write their names in a register, stating their offence and the number of days for which they were “put out of commons.” Such registers still exist; but, as the names are almost exclusively those of Bachelors and undergraduates, it is probable that the seniors, by immediate payment or otherwise, escaped this more ignominious part of the punishment. It will be noticed that rustication and gating, words so familiar to the undergraduates of the present generation, do not occur in this enumeration. Rustication, in those days, when many of the students came from such distant homes and the exercises in College were so severe, would generally have been either too heavy or too light a penalty. Gating, in our sense, could hardly exist, as the undergraduates, at least, were not free to go outside the walls, except for scholastic purposes, without special leave, and that would, doubtless, have been refused in case of any recent misconduct. Here it may be noticed that the College gates were closed in the winter months at eight, and in the summer months at nine, the keys being taken to the President to prevent further ingress or egress.

Such were the studies, and such was the discipline, of an Oxford College at the beginning of the sixteenth century; nor is there any reason to suppose that, till the troubled times of the Reformation, these stringent rules were not rigorously enforced. They admirably served the purpose to which they were adapted, the education of a learned clergy, trained to habits of study, regularity, and piety, apt at dialectical fence, and competent to press all the secular learning of the time into the service of the Church. Never since that time probably have the Universities or the Colleges so completely secured the objects at which they aimed. But first, the Reformation; then, the Civil Wars; then, the Restoration of Charles II.; then, the Revolution of 1688; and lastly, the silent changes gradually brought about by the increasing age of the students, the increasing proportion of those destined for secular pursuits, and the growth of luxurious habits in the country at large, have left little surviving of this cunningly devised system. The aims of modern times, and the materials with which we have to deal, have necessarily become different; but we may well envy the zeal for religion and learning which animated the ancient founders, the skill with which they adapted their means to their end, and the system of instruction and discipline which converted a body of raw youths, gathered probably, to a large extent, from the College estates, into studious and accomplished ecclesiastics, combining the new learning with the ancient traditions of the ecclesiastical life.

The first President and Fellows were settled in their buildings, and put in possession of the College and its appurtenances, by the Warden of New College and the President of Magdalen, acting on behalf of the Founder, on the 4th of March, 1516-17. There were as many witnesses as filled two tables in the hall; among them being Reginald Pole (afterwards Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury), then a B.A. of Magdalen, and subsequently (February 14th, 1523-4) admitted, by special appointment of the Founder, Fellow of Corpus. Of the first President and Vice-President, and the large proportion of Magdalen men in the original society, mention has already been made. The first Professor of Humanity was Ludovicus Vivès, the celebrated Spanish humanist, who had previously been lecturing in the South of Italy; the first Professor of Greek expressly mentioned in the Register (not definitely appointed, however, till Jan. 2nd, 1520-21), was Edward Wotton, then a young Magdalen man, subsequently Physician to Henry VIII., and author of a once well-known book, _De Differentiis Animalium_.[237] The Professorship of Theology does not seem to have been filled up either on the original constitution of the College or at any subsequent time. It is possible that the functions of the Professor may have been performed by the Vice-President, who was _ex officio_ Dean of Theology. In the very first list of admissions, however, to the new society, we find the names of Nicholas Crutcher (_i. e._ Kratzer) a Bavarian, a native of Munich, who was probably introduced into the College for the purpose of teaching Mathematics. He was astronomer to Henry VIII.; left memorials of himself in Oxford, in the shape of dials, in St. Mary’s churchyard and in Corpus Garden;[238] and still survives in the fine portraits of him by Holbein. The sagacity of Foxe is singularly exemplified by his free admission of foreigners to his Readerships. While the Fellowships and scholarships were confined to certain dioceses and counties, and the only regular access to a Fellowship was through a Scholarship, the Readers might be natives of any part of England, or of Greece or Italy beyond the Po. It would seem, however, as if even this specification of countries was rather by way of exemplification than restriction, as the two first appointments, made by the founder himself, were of a Spaniard and a Bavarian.

Erasmus, writing, shortly after the settlement of the society, to John Claymond, the first President, in 1519, speaks (_Epist._, lib. 4) of the great interest which had been taken in Foxe’s foundation by Wolsey, Campeggio, and Henry VIII. himself, and predicts that the College will be ranked “inter praecipua decora Britanniae,” and that its “trilinguis bibliotheca” will attract more scholars to Oxford than were formerly attracted to Rome. This language, though somewhat exaggerated, shows the great expectations formed by the promoters of the new learning of this new departure in academical institutions.

Of the subsequent history of the College, the space at my command only allows me to afford very brief glimpses.

In 1539, John Jewel (subsequently the celebrated Bishop of Salisbury) was elected from a Postmastership at Merton to a scholarship at Corpus. From the interesting life of Jewel by Laurence Humfrey (published in 1573), we gather that at the time when Jewel entered it, and for some years subsequently, Corpus was still the “bee-hive” which its founder had designed it to be. His Merton tutors, we learn, were very anxious to place him at Corpus, not only for his pecuniary, but also for his educational, advancement. The lectures, disputations, exercises, and examinations prescribed by the founder seem still to have been retained in their full vigour, though it is curious to find that the author with whom young Jewel was most familiar was Horace, whose works, as we have seen, were strangely omitted from the list of Latin books recommended in the original statutes. But that the College shared in the general decay of learning, which accompanied the religious troubles of Edward VI.’s reign, is apparent from two orations delivered by Jewel: one in 1552, in commemoration of the founder; the other probably a little earlier, a sort of declamation against Rhetoric, in his capacity of Praelector of Latin. In the latter oration, he contrasts unfavourably the present with the former state of the University, referring its degeneracy, its diminished influence, and its waning numbers, to the excessive cultivation of rhetoric, and especially of the works of Cicero, “who has extinguished the light and glory of the whole University.” In the former, and apparently later, oration, he deals more specifically with the College, and admonishes its members to wash out, by their industry and application to study, the stain on their once fair name, to throw off their lethargy, to recover their ancient dignity, and to take for their watchword “Studeamus.”

Jewel’s words of warning and incentive to study would seem to have borne good fruit in the days of Elizabeth, though they were speedily followed by his flight, during the Marian persecution, first to Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), and subsequently to Germany and Switzerland, never more to return to Oxford, except in the capacity of a visitor. But, at the time of his death (1571), he was represented at his old College by one who was to be a still greater ornament of the Church of England even than himself. In the year 1567, in the fifteenth year of his age, according to Izaac Walton’s account, Richard Hooker, through Jewel’s kindness and with some assistance from his uncle, John Hooker of Exeter, was enabled to go up to Oxford, there to receive, on the good bishop’s recommendation, a clerk’s place in the gift of the President of Corpus.[239] It would be futile to extract, and presumptuous to recast, the graphic account of young Hooker’s College life as delineated by his quaint and venerable biographer. From his clerkship he was elected to a scholarship, when nearly twenty years of age, and from that he passed in due course to a Fellowship, which he vacated on marriage and presentation to a living in 1584. Thus Hooker resided in Corpus about seventeen years, and must there have laid in that varied and extensive stock of knowledge and formed that sound judgment and stately style which raised him to the highest rank, not only amongst English divines, but amongst English writers. “From that garden of piety, of pleasure, of peace, and a sweet conversation,” he passed “into the thorny wilderness of a busy world, into those corroding cares that attend a married priest and a country parsonage”; and, most bitter and least tolerable of all the elements in his lot, into the exacting and uncongenial society of his termagant wife. Corpus, at that time, is described by Walton as “noted for an eminent library, strict students, and remarkable scholars.” Indeed, a College which, within a period of sixty years, admitted and educated John Jewel, John Reynolds, Richard Hooker, and Thomas Jackson, four of the greatest divines and most distinguished writers who have ever adorned the Church of England, might, especially in an age when theology was the most absorbing interest of the day, vie, small as it was in numbers, with the largest and most illustrious Colleges in either University.

There is another picture of college life at Corpus, during the reign of Elizabeth, less pleasing than that on which we have just been dwelling. It seems that during the reign of Edward VI. and the early part of Elizabeth’s reign, possibly even to a much later period, several members of the foundation were secretly inclined to the Roman Catholic religion, or, to speak with more precision of the earlier cases, had not yet embraced the doctrines of Protestantism. It was probably with a view to accelerate the reception of the reformed faith, that, on the vacancy of the Presidentship in 1567 or 1568, Elizabeth was advised to recommend William Cole, a former Fellow of the society, who had been a refugee in Switzerland, and had there suffered considerable hardships, which do not seem to have improved his temper. The Fellows, notwithstanding the royal recommendation, elected one Robert Harrison, who had been recently removed from the College by the Visitor on account of his Romanist proclivities, “not at all taking notice,” says Anthony Wood, “of the said Cole; being very unwilling to have him, his wife and children, and his Zurichian discipline introduced among them.” The Queen annulled the election, but the Fellows still would not yield. Hereupon the aid of the Visitor was invoked; but, when the Bishop of Winchester came down with his retinue, he found the gate closed against him. “At length, after he had made his way in, he repaired to the chapel,” where, after expelling those Fellows who were recalcitrant, he obtained the consent of the remainder. A Royal Commission was also sent down to the College the same year, which, “after a strict inquiry and examination of several persons, expelled some as Roman Catholics, curbed those that were suspected to incline that way, and gave encouragement to the Protestants. Mr. Cole,” Wood[240] proceeds, “who was the first married President that Corp. Chr. Coll. ever had, being settled in his place, acted so foully by defrauding the College and bringing it into debt, that divers complaints were put up against him to the Bishop of Winchester, Visitor of that College. At length the said Bishop, in one of his quinquennial visitations, took Mr. Cole to task, and, after long discourses on both sides, the Bishop plainly told him, ‘Well, well, Mr. President, seeing it is so, you and the College must part without any more ado, and therefore see that you provide for yourself.’ Mr. Cole therefore, being not able to say any more, fetcht a deep sigh and said, ‘What, my good Lord, must I then eat mice at Zurich again?’ At which words the Bishop, being much terrified, for they worked with him more than all his former oratory had done, said no more, but bid him be at rest and deal honestly with the College.” The sensible advice of the Bishop, however, was not acted on; and, whether the fault lay with the President or with the Fellows, or, as is most likely, with both, the bickerings, dissensions, and mutual recriminations between the President, and, at least, one section of the Fellows, continued during the whole of Cole’s presidency, which lasted thirty years. There are some MS. letters in the British Museum, by one Simon Tripp, which give a painful idea of the bitterness of the quarrel. And Mrs. Cole seems to have added to the embroilment: “nimirum Paris cum nescio qua Italica Helena perdite omnia perturbavit” (Tripp’s letter to Jewel). In 1580 there appear to have been hopes of Cole’s resigning; but his Presidency did not come to an end, nor peace return to the College, till 1598, when an arrangement, much to the advantage of the College, was made, by which Dr. John Reynolds, who had been recently appointed to the Deanery of Lincoln, resigned that office, on the understanding that Cole would be appointed his successor, and that, on Cole’s resignation of the Presidency, he would himself be elected by the Fellows. Cole died two years afterwards, and is buried in Lincoln cathedral. Reynolds, the most learned and distinguished President the College ever had, famous for his share in the translation of the Bible and in the Hampton Court controversy, rests in Corpus chapel.

I will now shift the scene to the year 1648, the second year of the Parliamentary Visitation. On the 22nd of May, in this year, two orders were issued by the “Committee of Lords and Commons for the Reformation of the University of Oxford,” one depriving Dr. Robert Newlyn of the Presidentship of Corpus as “guilty of high contempt and denyall of authority of parliament,” the other constituting Dr. Edmund Staunton President in his stead. On the 27th of May, we read, in Anthony Wood’s _Annals_, that the Visitors (who sat in Oxford, and must be distinguished from the Committee mentioned above, who sat in London) “caused a paper to be stuck on Corp. Ch. College gate to depose Dr. Newlin from being President, but the paper was soon after torn down with indignation and scorn.” And again, on the 11th of July, they “went to C. C. Coll., dashed out Dr. Newlin’s name from the Buttery-book, and put in that of Dr. Stanton formerly voted into the place; but their backs were no sooner turned but his name was blotted out with a pen by Will. Fulman and then torn out by Tim. Parker, scholars of that House. At the same time (if I mistake not) they[241] brake open the Treasury, but found nothing.” After this audacious feat we can hardly wonder that Will. Fulman and Tim. Parker were expelled by the Visitors on the 22nd of July. Fulman (the famous and industrious antiquary, many volumes of whose researches are still preserved in the Corpus library) was restored in 1660. Corpus being one of the specially Royalist Colleges, it is not surprising to find that almost a clean sweep was made of the existing foundation, including the five principal servants.[242] Dr. Staunton, who was himself one of the Visitors, seems to have ruled the College vigorously and wisely, though, very early in his Presidentship, there are signs of dissensions among the Fellows, due, possibly, to differences between the rival factions of Presbyterians and Independents. Any way, he knew how to maintain his authority. In the record of punishments, made in the handwriting of the culprits themselves, we find that, in 1651, four of the scholars were put out of commons “usque ad dignam emendationem,” “till they had learnt to mend their ways,” for sitting in the President’s presence with their caps on. The discipline appears to have been almost exceptionally stringent at this time. Amongst other curious entries, we find that Edward Fowler, one of the clerks (subsequently Bishop of Gloucester), was similarly deprived of his commons for throwing bread at the opposite windows of the students of Ch. Ch. (“eo quod alumnos Aedis Christi pane projecto in tumultum provocavit”). Two scholars who had been found walking in the town, without their gowns, about ten o’clock at night, were put out of commons for a week, and ordered one to write out, in Greek, all the more notable parts of Aristotle’s Ethics, the other to write out, and commit to memory, all the definitions and divisions of Burgersdyk’s Logic. Another scholar, for having in his room some out-college men without leave and then joining with them in creating a disturbance, was sentenced to be kept hard at work in the library, from morning to evening prayers, for a month, a severe form of punishment which seems not to have been uncommon at this time. Under the Puritan _régime_ there was certainly no danger of the retrogression of discipline.

Dr. Newlyn, with some of the ejected Fellows and scholars, returned to the College, after the Restoration, in 1660. The old President lived to be over 90, dying within a few months of the Revolution of 1688, and having been President, including the years of his expulsion, over 47 years. He is finely described in the monument to his memory, which still exists in the College Chapel, as “ob fidem regi, ecclesiae, collegio servatam annis fere XII. expulsus.” But the College does not seem to have gained in learning, discipline, or quiet, by the change of government. The constant appeals to, or intervention of, the Visitor (George Morley) revealing to us, as they do, the internal dissensions of the Society itself, recall the troubled days of Cole’s presidency. Nor does Newlyn himself seem to have been free from blame. His government appears to have been lax, and his nepotism, even for those days, was remarkable. During the first fourteen years after his return, no less than four Newlyns are found in the list of scholars, while, in the list of clerks and choristers (places exclusively in the gift of the President), the name Newlyn, for many years after his return, occurs more frequently than all other names taken together. It would appear as if there had been a perennial supply of sons, nephews, or grandsons, to stop the avenues of preferment to less favoured students.

It is pleasing to turn from these unsatisfactory relations among the seniors to a contemporary account[243] of his studies and his intercourse with his tutor, left by one of the scholars of this period, John Potenger, elected to a Hampshire Scholarship in 1664. From the account of his candidature, it appears that, even then, there was an effective examination for the scholarships, though it only lasted a day and seems to have been entirely _vivâ voce_. It is curious to find Potenger largely attributing his success to his age, “being some years younger” than his rivals,[244] “a circumstance much considered by the electors.” Can the well-known preference of the Corpus electors for boyish candidates in the days of Arnold and Keble, and even to a date within the memory of living members of the College, have been a tradition from the seventeenth century? It appears that the tutor was then selected by the student’s friends. “I had the good fortune,” says Potenger, “to be put to Mr. John Roswell” (afterwards Head Master of Eton and a great benefactor of the Corpus library), “a man eminent for learning and piety, whose care and diligence ought gratefully to be remembered by me as long as I live. I think he preserved me from ruin at my first setting out into the world. He did not only endeavour to make his pupils good scholars, but good men. He narrowly watched my conversation” (_i. e._ behaviour), “knowing I had too many acquaintance in the University that I was fond of, though they were not fit for me. Those he disliked he would not let me converse with, which I regretted much, thinking that, now I was come from school, I was to manage myself as I pleased, which occasioned many differences between us for the first two years, which ended in an entire friendship on both sides.” Potenger “did not immediately enter upon logick and philosophy, but was kept for a full year to the reading of classical authors, and making of theams in prose and verse.” The students still spoke Latin at dinner and supper; and consequently, at first, his “words were few.” There were still disputations in the hall, requiring a knowledge of logic and philosophy; but Potenger’s taste was mainly for the composition of Latin and English verse and for declamations. His poetical efforts were so successful, that his tutor gave him several books “for an encouragement.” For his Bachelor’s degree he had to perform not only public exercises in the schools, but private exercises in the College, a custom which survived long after this time. One of these was a reading in the College Hall upon Horace. “I opened my lectures with a speech which I thought pleased the auditors as well as myself.” After taking his degree he fell into vicious habits which, though commenced in Oxford, were completed by his frequent visits to London. “Though I was so highly criminal, yet I was not so notorious as to incur the censure of the Governors of the College or the University, but for sleeping out morning prayer, for which I was frequently punished.” “The two last years I stayed in the University, I was Bachelour of Arts, and I spent most of my time in reading books which were not very common, as Milton’s works, Hobbs his Leviathan; but they never had the power to subvert the principles which I had received of a good Christian and a good subject.” The exercises for his Master of Arts’ degree he speaks of as if they were difficult and laborious.

The century which elapsed from the Restoration to the accession of George III. was, perhaps, the least distinguished and the least profitable in the history of the University. In this lack of life and distinction Corpus seems fully to have shared. With the exceptions of General Oglethorpe, the friend of Dr. Johnson, and the founder of Georgia (who matriculated as a gentleman-commoner, in 1714), and John Whitaker (the author of a History of Manchester, &c.), not a single entry of any person who subsequently attained to distinction occurs in the registers from the Restoration down to the election, as a scholar, of William Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell, the celebrated Admiralty Judge) in 1761. It may be noted too, as illustrating the moral level of these times, that the punishments, of which a record is still preserved, are no longer inflicted for the faults of boys, but for the vices of men.

At the period, however, which we have now reached, the College seems to have been recovering its pristine efficiency and reputation. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the father of Miss Edgeworth, entered Corpus as a gentleman-commoner in 1761, his father having “prudently removed him from Dublin.” “Having entered C. C. C., Oxford,” he says,[245] “I applied assiduously not only to my studies under my excellent tutor, Mr. Russell” (father of Dr. Russell, the Head-master of Charterhouse), “both in prose and verse. Scarcely a day passed without my having added to my stock of knowledge some new fact or idea; and I remember with satisfaction the pleasure I then felt from the consciousness of intellectual improvement.” “I had the good fortune to make acquaintance with the young men, the most distinguished at C. C. for application, abilities, and good conduct. … I remember with gratitude that I was liked by my fellow-students, and I recollect with pleasure the delightful and profitable hours I passed at that University during three years of my life.” He tells some characteristic stories of Dr. Randolph, the “indulgent president” of that time, whose “good humour made more salutary impression on the young men he governed than has ever been effected by the morose manners of any unrelenting disciplinarian.” It is curious to contrast the account of Mr. Edgeworth’s Corpus experiences with that given by Gibbon of his Magdalen experiences some nine or ten years before this time, or with Bentham’s account of his undergraduate life at Queen’s, which almost coincided with that of Mr. Edgeworth at Corpus. Something, however, may, perhaps, be set down to the difference of character and temper in the men themselves.

From Edgeworth’s time to this, the College has maintained its educational efficiency and reputation; and, though with occasional changes of fortune, it has, notwithstanding its smallness, invariably taken a high rank among the educational institutions of the University. Considering the extreme smallness of its numbers at that time, the number of undergraduates varying from about sixteen to twenty, it is truly remarkable to observe the large proportion of distinguished names which occur in the lists between 1761 and 1811. They comprise, taking them in chronological order, William Scott (Lord Stowell), Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Walker King (Bishop of Rochester), Thomas Burgess (Bishop of Salisbury), Richard Laurence (Archbishop of Cashel, author of a famous course of Bampton Lectures), Charles Abbott (Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench and Lord Tenterden), Edward Copleston (Provost of Oriel, Dean of St. Paul’s, and Bishop of Llandaff), Henry Phillpotts (Bishop of Exeter), Charles James Stewart (Bishop of Quebec), Thomas Grimstone Estcourt (Burgess for the University from 1826 to 1847), William Buckland (Dean of Westminster, the famous geologist), John Keble, John Taylor Coleridge (better known as “Mr. Justice Coleridge”), and Thomas Arnold. These names, together with those previously mentioned, namely, John Claymond, Ludovicus Vivès, Edward Wotton, Nicholas Kratzer, Cardinal Pole, Bishop Jewel, John Reynolds, Richard Hooker, Thomas Jackson, William Fulman, General Oglethorpe, John Whitaker, and some others which I will immediately subjoin, may be taken as the list of distinguished men connected with or produced by Corpus, down to the time of Dr. Arnold. More recent names I refrain from adding, partly owing to the invidious nature of such a selection, partly because they can easily be supplied by those acquainted with the recent history of the University. The names already mentioned, belonging to the period from 1516 to 1811, may be supplemented by those of Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor to Queen Mary; William Cheadsey, third President (1558), who disputed with Peter Martyr in 1549, and with Cranmer in 1554; Robert Pursglove, last Prior of Guisborough, and subsequently Archdeacon of Nottingham and Suffragan Bishop of Hull; Nicholas Udall (or Owdall), Headmaster of Eton; Richard Pates, Bishop of Worcester; James Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester; Richard Pate, founder of the Cheltenham Grammar School; (perhaps) Nicholas Wadham, the founder of Wadham College; Miles Windsor and Brian Twyne, who, like Fulman, were famous Oxford antiquaries; Henry Parry, Bishop successively of Gloucester and Worcester; Miles Smith, Bishop of Gloucester, and one of the translators of the Bible; Sir Edwin Sandys, the pupil of Hooker, and author of the _Europæ Speculum_; the “ever-memorable” John Hales of Eton; Edward Pococke, the celebrated Oriental scholar; Daniel Fertlough, Featley, or Fairclough, a famous theological controversialist, and one of the translators of the Bible; Robert Frampton, and his successor, Edward Fowler, Bishops of Gloucester; Edward Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle; Basil Kennett; Richard Fiddes; and John Hume, Bishop of Oxford. To these names must be added one which is, perhaps, rather notorious than distinguished, that of the unhappy James, Duke of Monmouth, the eldest natural son of Charles II. Wood tells us, in the _Fasti_, that in the plague year, 1665, when the King and Queen were in Oxford, the Duke’s name was entered on the books of C. C. College. But his name does not occur in the buttery-books till the week beginning May 11, 1666, when it is inserted between the names of the President and Vice-President. Whether, after this time,[246] he ever resided in the College, or indeed in Oxford, is uncertain; but the name remains on the books till July 12th, 1683, when it was erased after the discovery of Monmouth’s conspiracy and flight. The erasures are carried back as far as the week beginning June 1.

The charming account of Corpus, its studies, and its youthful society, contributed by Mr. Justice Coleridge to Stanley’s _Life of Arnold_, is so well known that it hardly requires more than a passing reference; but, to complete my series of glimpses of the College at different periods of its history, it may be well to revive the recollections of the reader by a few brief extracts. “Arnold and I, as you know” (and, as we may add, the two Kebles, John and Thomas), “were undergraduates of Corpus Christi, a College very small in its numbers and humble in its buildings, but to which we and our fellow-students formed an attachment never weakened in the after course of our lives. … We were then a small society, the members rather under the usual age, and with more than the ordinary proportion of ability and scholarship: our mode of tuition was in harmony with these circumstances; not by private lectures, but in classes of such a size as excited emulation and made us careful in the exact and neat rendering of the original, yet not so numerous as to prevent individual attention on the tutor’s part, and familiar knowledge of each pupil’s turn and talents. … We were not entirely set free from the leading-strings of the school; accuracy was cared for; we were accustomed to _vivâ voce_ rendering and _vivâ voce_ question and answer in our lecture-room, before an audience of fellow-students whom we sufficiently respected. At the same time the additional reading, trusted to ourselves alone, prepared us for accurate private study and for our final exhibition in the schools. One result of all these circumstances was that we lived on the most familiar terms with each other; we might be--indeed we were--somewhat boyish in manner and in the liberties we took with each other: but our interest in literature--ancient and modern--and in all the stirring matters of that stirring time, was not boyish; we debated the classic and romantic question; we discussed poetry and history, logic and philosophy; or we fought over the Peninsular battles and Continental campaigns with the energy of disputants personally concerned in them. Our habits were inexpensive and temperate: one break-up party was held in the junior common-room at the end of each term, in which we indulged our genius more freely, and our merriment, to say the truth, was somewhat exuberant and noisy; but the authorities wisely forbore too strict an inquiry into this.”

Soon after Arnold was elected Fellow of Oriel, in the autumn of 1815 a scholar was elected at Corpus, William Phelps, afterwards Archdeacon of Carlisle, whose published letters[247] contain abundant information about the social condition and studies of the College. Phelps did not, like Arnold, possess those intellectual and social charms which captivate undergraduate society, and it is plain that he was in restricted circumstances. But he speaks enthusiastically of the friendliness, tolerance, and good humour which pervaded the small society of undergraduates (only nine members of the foundation at that time, namely, six undergraduate scholars, the remaining scholars being then B.A.’s or M.A.’s, and three exhibitioners; besides the six gentlemen-commoners, who dined at a separate table, and shared with the Bachelors a separate common-room), and he is constantly recurring in terms of respect and appreciation, which bear evident marks of sincerity, to the friendliness, helpfulness, and competence of the two tutors, as well as to the kindly interest shown in their juniors by the other senior members of the College. The relations were those of a large and harmonious family. “There are no parties or divisions here as at other Colleges; each desires to oblige his neighbour. The Fellows are not supercilious, the scholars are respectful. There is only one establishment that rivals ours in literature, which is our neighbour Oriel.”

Through the combined action of the Parliamentary Commissions of 1852 and 1877, the constitution of the College has been largely altered. By the reception of commoners, though it still remains a small College, the number of its undergraduate members has risen from about twenty to about seventy. The county restrictions have been removed from the Fellowships and scholarships, all of which are now entirely open. The number of Fellowships (from which the obligation to Holy Orders has been now removed) has been diminished, while that of the scholarships has been increased. And, in the spirit of the original intentions of the founder, a considerable proportion of the revenues has been devoted to the creation or augmentation of University Professorships. If, by the operation of these changes, the College has lost something of its unique character, it may be hoped that it has proportionately extended its sphere of usefulness.