S^M Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arcliive.org/details/balliolcollegeOOdaviuoft COLLEGE HISTORIES OXFORD BALLIOL COLLEGE ^^a^szs^^^^^ssz JSSSEE^ESBISBBS& r3 F? A H: t ^^ COLLEGE HISTORIES^,,"!.V.-i 1 9 1907 BALLIOL COLLEGE BY H. W. CARLESS DAVIS, M.A. FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL LONDON F. E. ROBINSON AND CO. 20 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY 1899 /<294-9 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &' Co. At the Ballantyne Press PREFACE An apology and an explanation may not be amiss from one who presents " a thrice-told tale " in yet another form. To the shade of Dr. Henry Savage my excuse is, that Balliofergus has been out of print for two centuries, in which space of time a good deal has happened to the society over which he presided. The Baroness de Paravicini and Mr. R. L. Poole, to both of whom I take this oppor- tunity of expressing my indebtedness, will, I trust, pardon me for attempting to elucidate those parts of the College history on which their inclinations or their publishers forbade them to write at length. My grateful thanks are due to the Master and Fellows of Balliol, first in their collective capacity, for allowing me a complete freedom of access to their records, and secondly as individuals, for the great kindness which they have shown on many occasions in answering a number of very tedious questions. A list of the chief authorities, manuscript and printed. vi PREFACE which have been consulted in writing these pages will be found in an Appendix at the end of the volume. In writing the last chapter of the book I have been much assisted by the criticisms and suggestions of Mr. Evelyn Abbott. The information contained in Appen- dix III. was kindly communicated by Mr. A. L. Smith. Throughout I am infinitely indebted to the suggestions of Mr. C. H. Firth, and of my colleague Mr. C. G. Robertson. All Souls, August i, iSgg, — ^'" MAR 1 9 190? CONTENTS CHAP. PACE I. THE FOUNDATION OF BALLIOL .... I II. SOMERVYLE'S statutes and the INTRODUCTION OF graduate fellows 22 III. THE renaissance AND THE OLD LIBRARY . 4I IV. BISHOP fox's statutes 62 V. THE OLD CHAPEL AND THE REFORMATION . 76 VI. JESUIT AND PURITAN, 1559-1603 .... 95 VII. PURITAN AND ANGLICAN BLUNDELL'S TRUST 112 VIII. THE CIVIL WAR AND COMMONWEALTH . I30 IX. THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION . I48 X. BALLIOL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . 168 XI. MODERN BALLIOL 193 APPENDICES 224 INDEX 233 ILLUSTRATIONS VIEW BY LOGGAN (1675) .... Frontispiece FRONT OF THE COLLEGE, FROM BROAD STREET Facing page o THE fellows' GARDEN .... 18 the old library 46 front quadrangle, looking west 64 back gate and martyrs' memorial 88 fisher's buildings 170 the new hall .... 220 CHAPTER I THE FOUNDATION OF BALLIOL Principals:* Walter of Fotheringhay, 1282; Hugh of Warkenby, 1296; Stephen of Cornwall, 1303; Richard of Chickwell, 1309. Among European universities those of England stand alone to-day in their adhesion to the collegiate system. Others have resented the existence of these subsidiary institutions as soon as they began to show the slightest trace of individual character and independent volition, Oxford and Cambridge, at first spontaneously, then under the pressure of the royal prerogative, welcomed the College as a valuable servant. The motives for this friendly attitude have varied from age to age. At their inception Colleges were regarded as a means of attract- ing more students to the University ; later on as useful instruments for enforcing discipline and religious con- formity ; to-day as centres of social life and as tutorial organisations. But of such jealousies as existed in other universities, between the central governing bodies and the authorities of the Colleges there established, there are few traces in the history of Oxford and Cambridge. * Until the fifteenth century it is out of the question to give the exact date of each election, or to be certain that the list is complete* Here and in the next chapter we give the date at which each Principal or Master is first mentioned. A 2 BALLIOL COLLEGE Friction of a kind there has always been, but the friction has arisen on questions of detail. Yet the collegiate system, congenial as it has proved to the English mind, can hardly be claimed as an English invention, though true it is that the first of such societies, that of the Hotel Dieu in Paris was endowed by an English pilgrim (1180). His experi- ment attracted some notice ; it was imitated and im- proved upon by several pious founders ; but for more than half a century these imitations and improvements were made in Paris alone. Paris tried the new institu- tion in most of its possible forms before other univer- sities were fired to emulation. A College is essentially a society of students, united together by the possession of exclusive privileges and participation in endowments, of whom most live under one common roof, and all are subject to a common discipline, upheld by resident officials. Within these limits the College may be turned to very various pur- poses. It may be no more than an endowed hostel, in which all the inmates stand on the same footing, in which the government is democratic. Such Colleges are only indirectly connected with educational purposes. They do not teach, but they give poor students an opportunity of residing in a place where they may be taught. This is the first and simplest type of a College, the type represented by the Hotel Dieu. More highly developed types soon made their appearance. There was, for example, the seminary founded by some cor- porate body, such as a monastery, to promote the diffusion of knowledge among the membei-s of that body. In Oxford the College of the monks of Durham, and the THE FOUNDATION OF BALLIOL 3 Hall founded by the Benedictines of St. Peter at Gloucester are the most remarkable instances of such seminaries. Or, again, the college might be designed to propagate a peculiar set of principles among those who took the University on the way to a professional life. This was the character of such Colleges as the Mendicant Orders founded in Paris, and would have liked to found in Oxford. Other founders, in a less sectarian spirit, aimed merely at encouraging the pur- suit of learning and philosophy in one or more of their numerous branches and subdivisions. Of this kind was the College of the Sorbonne, which St. Louis of France assisted his chaplain. Brother Robert, to found in the year 1257 ; in Oxford, Merton, New College and All Souls were founded with a similar intention. Finally, the College may aim at becoming a place of general education for the young, and in particular for those who, without assistance, would miss the opportunity of studying the liberal sciences. This ideal, to which, with very few exceptions, all existing Colleges have pledged themselves, is first to be found in the Parisian College d'Harcourt which, not content with aiding the needy, expressly provided for the reception of those who could pay for the advantages conferred. The College which is the subject of the following pages conformed, in its original shape, to the earliest and simplest of the types above described. So far as we know, it represents the first attempt to establish a body corporate of students within the larger corporation of the University to which they belonged; and the founders had neither the desire nor the requisite means to make the new institution in any way ar rival of the 4 BALLIOL COLLEGE University. It disclaimed educational functions, it exercised only the most moderate control over its inmates. At the close of the Barons'" War (1266), when the University of Oxford retired for a time from the political feuds into which she had thrown herself with so much vigour, and settled down for a period of quiet development, her institutions were of the most rudi- mentary description. There was a Chancellor elected by the L^nivei-sity and vested with exclusive rights of j urisdiction in all but the most important cases. There ^vas a Congregation of Masters, which claimed and sometimes exercised the right of making statutes. There were also two Proctors, representing the northern and the southern " nations '''' respectively. But the powers and duties of these officials and of the legislative assembly of Masters were extremely uncertain. It was still possible for questions of the highest moment to be settled by a general mass-meeting of all the students, whether graduates or not. In ordinary mattei"s the students were left to govern themselves, and this privilege they used or abused to the utmost. But so little was a solitary life in lodgings congenial to their temper, that from a very early period they adopted the Parisian system of grouping themselves together in voluntaiy associations, of hiring a common abode, and of making customs for their own govern- ment. Usually, they elected from among their own number a Principal to administer these statutes, to disburse the common funds, and to represent them in all dealings with their landlord. At the time of which we are writing the power of the students to make their THE FOUNDATION OF BALLIOL 5 own by-laws and to elect their own Head was practi- cally unlimited. Halls of this kind might have remained for a long- time the only rallying-point among the students but for the influence of the Church. She had learned the importance of the Universities in the intellectual con- troversies of the first half of the thirteenth century.