members of God's church and the state, who shall, as their CHAP. merits demand, rise to various ranks. 'Being therefore induced by this consideration, and desiring, as far as God has enabled us, to promote the advancement of divine worship, the welfare of the state, and the extension of these sciences, which, by reason of the pestilence having swept away a multitude of men, are now beginning to fail lamentably, and directing our observation to the university of Cambridge in the diocese of Ely, in which there is an assembly of students, and to a hall therein, hitherto generally called University Hall, now existing by our foundation, and which we desire to be called Clare Hall and to bear no other designation; we have caused this to be augmented with resources, out of the property given us by God, and to be placed among the number of places for study. 'We have also had in view the object, that the pearl of science, which they have through study and learning discovered and acquired, may not lie under a bushel, but be extended further and wider, and when extended give light to them that walk in the dark paths of ignorance. It is also our design that the scholars who have been long since dwelling in our house, may, by being protected under a stronger bond of peace and benefit of concord, devote themselves more freely to study. With this view we have, with the advice of experienced persons, drawn up certain statutes and ordinances which follow, to last for ever". The distinguishing characteristic of the design of the foundress would appear to be a greater liberality in the requirements respecting the professedly clerical element. The scholars or fellows are to be twenty in number, of whom it is required that six shall be in priests' orders at the time of their admission; but comparatively little stress is laid, as at Michaelhouse, on the order or particular character of the religious services, and the provision is made apparently rather with the view of securing the presence of a sufficient number for the performance of such services, than for the 1 Baker, MS. Harician 7041, II. 43–62. Documents, u1 121. PART L CHAP. I purpose of creating a foundation for the church'. The remaining fellows are to be selected from bachelors or sophConditions to isters in arts, or from 'skilful and well-conducted' civilians In the election and canonists, but only two fellows may be civilians, only of Ellows Foundation of King's one a canonist. Three of the fellows, being masters of arts, are to lecture; and on the inception of any other fellow, one of the three has permission to retire from this function, provided he has lectured for a whole year. This permission does not, however, imply permission to cease from study; he is bound to apply himself to some other service wherein, considering his bent and aptitude, he may be expected to make the most rapid progress. The sizars are represented by ten 'docile, proper, and respectable' youths, to be chosen from the poorest that can be found, especially from the parishes of those churches of which the master and fellows are rectors; every Michaelmas they are entitled to receive clothing and necessaries to the value of half a mark sterling; they are to be educated in singing, grammar, and logic; and their term of residence is to extend to the completion of their twentieth year when, unless elected to fellowships, they are to withdraw from the foundation. The statutes that next claim our attention are the last HALL 1321 in the fourteenth century, and offer some noticeable and novel features. So early as 1326, thirty-two scholars, known as the King's scholars, had been maintained at the university by Edward II. It is probable that he had intended. thereby to extend the study of the civil and canon law, for we find him presenting books on these subjects, to the value of ten pounds, to Simon de Bury the master, from whom 1 One of the clauses, somewhat ambiguously expressed, and, I suspect, corrupt, seems designed to se cure those undertaking the performance of the services against labouring under any disadvantage when compared with the rest, by providing for the retirement of one of the six every time that there is a new election to a fellowship: the expression, in fa. voribus recipiendis amplius remoti, refers, probably, to opportunities of leaving the college and pushing one's individual claims to preferment a mong the disposers of benefices. See Documents, 1 130. Only two civilians and one ca nonist are however permitted to hold fellowships at the same time. The clauses relating to the studies to be pursued after the year of lectureship are apparently intended to discourage both these branches of the law; possibly as an equipoise to bishop Bateman's enactments. PART they were subsequently taken away at the command of CHAP. II queen Isabella. It had also been his intention to provide his scholars with a hall of residence, but during his lifetime they resided in hired houses, and the execution of his design devolved upon his son, 'Great Edward with the lilies on his brow From haughty Gallia torn.' By this monarch a mansion was erected in the vicinity of Man the Hospital of St. John, to the honour of God, the blessed Virgin, and all the saints, and for the souls of Edward II, ofard cia himself, of Philippa the Queen, and of his children and his ancestors.' As Peterhouse had been enriched by the advowson of the church at Hinton, so the new foundation, now known by the name of King's Hall, was augmented by that of the church of St. Peter, at Northampton. Such was the society which amid the sweeping reforms that marked the reign of Henry VIII was, in conjunction with Michaelhouse, subsequently merged in the illustrious foundation of Trinity college. The statutes of King's Hall, as given by Richard II, are st brief and simple, and bear a closer resemblance to those of Merton than those of any of the preceding foundations, Peterhouse alone excepted. It is somewhat remarkable, and is possibly with a view to the youthful monarch's own edification, that the preamble moralises upon the unbridled weakness of humanity, prone by nature and from youth to evil, ignorant how to abstain from things unlawful, easily falling into crime.' It is required that each scholar on his admission be proved to be of good and reputable conversation; and we have here the earliest information respecting the college limitation as to age, the student not being admis sible under fourteen years of age, a point on which the It is thus that Gray, in his Installation Ode, has represented Ed. ward III as the founder of Trinity College. But the honour more pro. perly belongs to Edward 11, for, as Mr. Cooper observes, 'although that monarch did not live to carry out his intention of erceting a ball...he was regarded as the founder of the insti PART L CHAP. IIL Master is to be satisfied by the testimony of trustworthy witnesses. The student's knowledge of Latin, on his admisher provision, must be such as qualify him for the study of logic, or of whatever other branch of learning the master shall decide, upon examination of his capacity, he is best fitted to follow'. On enrolment in a religious order or succession to a benefice of the value of ten marks, the scholar is to retire from the foundation, a year being the utmost limit within which his stay may be prolonged. On his ceasing to devote himself to study, and not proving amenable to admonition, a sentence of expulsion is to be enforced against him. From the general tenour of these statutes we should incline to infer that the enforcement of discipline, rather than the developement of any dominant theory in reference to education, was the paramount consideration. Students are forbidden to transfer themselves from one faculty to another without the approval and consent of the master, and bachelors are required to be regular in their attendance at repetitions and disputations; but no one faculty appears to have very decidedly commanded the founder's preference. On the other hand, there are indications in the prohibitions with respect to the frequenting of taverns, the introduction of dogs within the college precincts, the wearing of short swords and peaked shoes (contra honestatem clericalem), the use of bows, flutes, catapults, the oft-repeated exhortations to orderly conduct, The founda and perhaps in the unusually liberal allowance for weekly designed for commons, that the foundation was designed for students of The wealthier the wealthier class'; poverty is not, as in the case of most of tion probably students of class. 1 'Bone conversationis sit et honeste, ætatis quatuordecim annorum vel ultra, de quo volumus quod prefato Custodi fide dignorum testimonio fiat fides: quodque talis sic admittendus in regulis grammaticalibus ita sufficienter sit instructus, quod congrue in arte Dialectica studere poterit sen in aliqua alia facultate ad quam præfatus Custos post examinationem et admissionem ejus duxerit illum deputandum.' Statutes of King's Hall (from transcript in possession of the authorities of Trinity College). These statutes have been printed in Rymer, vii 239. The sum allowed for the weekly maintenance of a King's scholar was fourteen pence:-'expcuse commensales singulorum scholarium singulis septimanis summam quatuordecim denarios nullatenus excedant.' This was in 1379; no more was allowed at Peterhouse in 1510; the allow ance at Clare Hall in the same century was twelve pence, at Gonville Hall only ten pence! At Corpus the allowance was most liberal, amount ing to sixteen pence. Chicheley, when confined to his rooms by a PART L the other colleges, indicated as a qualification; and it seems CHAP. m reasonable to suppose that a foundation representing the munificence and patronage of three successive kings of England, would naturally become the resort of the more aristocratic element in the university of those days. the It is difficult perhaps to trace any real advance with respect to the theory of education in the statutes of the seven Cambridge foundations which we have now passed under review, but it must be admitted that they afford considerable illustration of those different tendencies that have occupied our attention in the preceding chapters. In Peterhouse, Clare, and King's Hall, we are presented with little more than a repetition of Walter de Merton's main concep tion, not unaccompanied by a certain vagueness as to the character of the education to be imparted, and an apparent disinclination seriously to assess the comparative value of the different studies of the time. In Trinity Hall and in Gon- The ital ville Hall, (as modified by its second founder,) we heart be nothing more than an echo of the traditions of Avignon,traditions, it need scarcely be said, of a kind against which all centres of culture of the higher order have special need to guard. The question whether a university may advantageously concern itself with education of a purely technical character, was one which presented itself to the minds of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as well as to those of the nineteenth. At Paris, as we have already seen, it had been decided in the negative. The civil and the canon law hal been excluded from her curriculum, for in the hands of the jurist and the canonist they had become a trade rather than a branch of liberal learning'; and it is evident that those who then guided the progress of ideas at Paris, whatever may have been their errors and shortcomings, saw clearly that if once the lower arts, conducive chiefly to worldly severe illness in 1390 1, at New College, Oxford, hnd allowance made him for his commons at the rate of Fixteen pence a week for six weeks; which was afterwards reduced to fourteen pence. Bursar's Accounts, quoted by Dean Hook. Lites, v 8. 1 Les théologiens et les artistes,' says M. Thurot, ne considerament pas In science du droit comme un art ral. Pour eux c'est un métier plutôt qu'un art,' De Lors ganisation de TEnseignement, etc. p. 100. |