PART IL CHAP. IIL tance and various hostels in the town, completed the long roll of the revenues of 'The King's College of Our Lady and St. Nicholas" at Cambridge. Statutes of King's College. The first Boners. pation The history of the new foundation affords another illustration of the way in which Ultramontanist theories were at this time successfully contending for the predominance in our universities, and the principle asserted in the Barnwell Process receiving further extension. The commissioners originally appointed to prepare the statutes were William Alnwick, bishop of Lincoin, William Aiscough, bishop of Salisbury, William Lyndewode, keeper of the privy seal, John Somerseth, chancellor of the exchequer, and John Langton, chancellor of the university; but in the year 1443 Their rest this commission was superseded, the king himself undertaking to provide the rule of the foundation. There seems to be good reason for supposing that, in some way or other, the proposed scheme had failed to command the commissioners' approval, for it was at their own request that the work was confided to other hands; they themselves being, as they pleaded, fully occupied with other business, negotiis et occupationibus impediti. But it is difficult to believe that the design of so important a foundation could have failed to be a matter of lively interest to the bishop of a neighbouring diocese and to a chancellor of the university; and indeed we know that Langton had been the first to suggest the creation of the new college to the royal mind. At the same time. that the king undertook to provide for the preparation of the new statutes, William Millington, the rector of the original foundation, had been retained in his post under the name of provost; but when the new statutes had received the royal sanction, he found himself unable to give a conRefuses his scientious assent to their provisions and was accordingly It will be desirable to point Millington the first Provost new statutes section. ejected by the commissioners. 1 The birthday of king Henry being on the feast of St. Nicholas. Cole says, 'the true reason of his removal seems to proceed from himself and a point of conscience, he having taken the oaths to the chan cellor of the university before he was made provost, and which the new drawn statutes exempted him from; besides he was not thoroughly satisfied that the scholars should all come from Eton School. Mr Williams, who has carefully investigated the whole evidence concerning the first hose innovations with respect to which Lure of the code now given to the 1 so the grandeur of its endowments, ing contrast to the statutes of the colleges n the preceding century. It is howforiginality, being little more than a atates which William of Wykeham, after ar revisions, left to be the rule of New e manuteness of detail, the small discrein the governing body, the anxiety unst all possible innovations, must be ...ng a distinct era in the history of the giate discipline. The Latinity, it is ., more correct, and copious to a fault; be noted an increased power of expre it dithcult not to infer that a grater Teen going on in classical studies during han writers on the period have been William of Wykeham to the two kin- Alter autem dictus Master 11 CHAP. III. Qualtica bone of scholars: Poverty. Age The college is designed for the maintenance of poor and needy scholars, who must be intending to devote themselves to the sacred profession, at that time (says the preamble) 'so severely weakened by pestilence, war, and other human calamities';' they must wear the 'first clerical tonsure,' be Attainments of good morals, sufficiently instructed in grammar3, of honest conversation, apt to learn, and desirous of advancing in knowledge. A provost, and seventy scholars (who must have already been on the foundation of Eton for a period of not less than two years) whose age at admission must be between fifteen and twenty, are to be maintained on the foundation. The curriculum of study is marked out with considerable precision:-theology (sacra scriptura seu pagina), the arts, and philosophy, are to constitute the chief subjects and to form the ordinary course; but two masters of arts, of superior ability (rivacis ingenii) may apply themselves to the study of the civil law, four to that of the canon law, and two to the science of medicine; astronomy (scientia astrorum) is permitted as a study to two more, provided that they observe the limits imposed by the provost and the dean,-a precaution, we may infer, against the forbidden researches of the astrologer. The transition from the scholar to the fellow is Stoes Prescribed or permitted 1 These statutes are remarkable for their verbosity and pleonastic mode of expression:-e. g. ac præcipue ut ferventius et frequentius Christus evangelizetur, et fides cultusque divini nominis augeatur, et fortius sustentetur, sacræ insuper theologiæ ut dilatetur laus, gubernetur ecclesia, vigor atque fervor Chris tianæ religionis coalescant, scientiæ quoque ae virtutes amplins convalescant, necnon ut generalem morbum militia clericalis quam propter paucitatem cleri ex pestilentiis, guerris, et aliis mundi miseris, graviter vulnerari conspeximus, desolationi compatientes tam tristi, partim allevare possimus, quem in toto sanare veraciter non valemus, ad quod revera pro nostræ devotionis anno nostres regios apponimus libenter Labores. Statutes, by Heywood and Wright, p. 18. It is assumed that the first stage of the trivium will have been accom plished at Eton:-Et quia sulaine affectamus et volumus quod numerus scholarium et sociorum in dicto nos tro Regali Collegio Cantabrigiæ per nos superius institutus, plene et perfecte per Dei gratiam perpetius futuris temporibus sit completus: ac considerantes attente quod grammatica, que prima de artibus seu scientiis liberalibus reputatur, funda. mentum, janua, et origo omnium aliarum artium liberalium et scien tiarum existit; quodque sine ea cas teræ artes seu scientie perfecte seiri non possunt, nec ad earum verata cognitionem et perfectionem quis quam poterit pervenire: ea propter. divina faventé elementia. de bon. nostris a Deo collatis unum alind Pogale collegium in villa nostra de Et La ut superius memoratur in-ti tuimus etc. Ibid. p. 21. out the c his diffier The foundation and prese founded ever enti transcript no less t College tionary po shewn te regardedtheory of worthy and the sion adva the inclu provost account, founder ejection, it, is cre Searle l... that in removal. junction tutes fo this app See Nut First 1. Georgs King's Cambridg Ct. Deci 1 M tribute the to King Mr W Cooper (. own bed (Wainfekt existing say, t not until after a three years' CHAP.1 has been ascertained whether ausite sensus, moribus, conditioni et idoneus FOR FURTHER STUDY, alows are empowered to elect him privileges granted by him ament, to the college, the king ~~ pope exempting the college and be grand jurisdiction of the arch ishop and archdeacon of Ely, and rsity; and on the 31st of January, og an instrument under its common ge, the provost, fellows, and ai ministers, should be exempt from iction of the chancellor, vicesters of the university; but in arious scholastic acts, exercises, essary for degrees, and the ssions, congregations, convocar, proctors, and other officers (not culiar privileges), they were, as f the university, to be obedient cellor, and proctors, as other ...t was annexed a condition that e bishops of Salisbury, Lincoln, it inconsistent with the statutes, ins of the university as the Barnwell Process had van ecclesiastical control, it was ge independent of the uninew foundation, in short, an yed by the different friaries: h William Millington found affords a sufficient explana...gt n, who, if such an idea had at be the 2133 MS, Hare 1 139. PART IL CHAP. II been in any way foreshadowed, could hardly have approved a proposal to render any college independent of the jurisdiction he personally represented, and whose privileges he was bound to guard. Another and equally valid objection urged by Millington, appears to have been the limitation of the advantages afforded by so splendid a foundation to the scholars of Eton exclusively. The countenance given to the new scheme illustrates, not less than the opposition it encountered, its true nature. Within three years after the foregoing statutes had been given, cardinal Beaufort, the leader of the Ultramontane party', bequeathed the large sum of £1000 to augment the already princely revenues of King's Colicge and the foundation at Eton. His own student life had been passed chiefly at Aix-la-Chapelle, where he was distinguished by his attainments in the civil law; but he had been a scholar at Peterhouse in 1388, and studied at Oxford in 1397, and the preference thus shewn for the new society over his own college is a fact of no little significance. Within five years of these enactments the university made a strenuous effort to reassert its rights of jurisdiction, and the scholars of King's College were prohibited from procceding to degrees until they should, in their collective capacity, have renounced their exclusive pretensions. This prohibition however was immediately followed up by the royal mandate compelling the university to rescind its resolution. Eventually, in the year 1457, an agreement was entered upon by the chancellor and the doctors regent and non-regent on the one hand, and the provost, fellows, and scholars of the college on the other; and as the result of this composition the college succeeded, after some unimportant. 1 Beaufort, though quiescent, was Gongh, Monumenta Vetusta, beate Marie de Eton juxta Windesor, et sancti Nicholai Cantabrigg', per dictum dominum meum Regem ex singulari et præcipua sua devocione ad divini cultus augmentum catholi ceque fidei exaltacionem sancte ac salubriter fundatorum, etc.' Nichols, Royal and Noble Wills, p. 338. Cooper, Annals, 1 205. |