Visitation of Colleges. THE Royal and other visitations of Oxford, since the rise of the Colleges to academical importance, have dealt with the Colleges as well as with the University.* Henry VIII.'s Visitors, 1535, established in certain Colleges, out of the funds of those Colleges, public lectures, to which the members of the less wealthy Colleges were to have recourse. The same thing seems to have been done in 1579. He commuted the payment of first fruits and tenths by the Colleges into a tax for the maintenance of a Divinity Lecture, 1536. Edward VI.'s Commissioners, 1549, sus- ~ pended, according to the Royal letters, all College Statutes, and allowed none, without their leave, to proceed to a statutable election: their authority extended to the deposition of College officers, alienation of College property, alteration of Statutes, and regulation of studies. Under Queen Mary's visitation, 1553, "Religion and learning put on another "face." In 1559, Queen Elizabeth instituted "a mild "and gentle, not rigorous reformation;" that is to say, her Visitors suspended College elections, purged College chapels, annulled Cardinal Pole's regulations, removed, ejected, exiled, or imprisoned certain eminent College authorities who refused the oath of supremacy. In Corpus Christi College a President was forcibly imposed, 1568, and the dissentient Fellows ejected. She was opposed in Magdalen College, and this case was quoted against the Parliamentary Commission, 1647, which claimed the right of visiting all Colleges in the King's name. In 1570 and in 1575 Parliament interfered, to make College lands more profitable, by regulating the terms of leases with the tenants. (Anthony à Wood, Annals, var. years.) * See the evidence of the Rev. John Wilkinson, M.A., p. 81. HISTORY OF THE SUBSCRIPTION TESTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, BY JAMES HEYWOOD, M.P., F.R.S., WITH NOTICES OF THE SIX VISITATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGES, AT OXFORD. ( 421 ) History of the Subscription Tests of the University of Oxford, &c. &c. A VOLUNTARY association of teachers and pupils on the banks of the Isis forms the unpretending origin of the ancient University of Oxford. Scholastic philosophy in the twelfth century gave independence to the youthful academy, and in the fourteenth century, Oxford acquired additional renown as the home, for forty years, of the great reformer Wycliffe. Here, he courageously opposed the growing power of the mendicant friars, and the Scriptures were appealed to on both sides as a decisive authority, independent of the Church of Rome. In Oxford, Wycliffe farther distinguished himself by writing and lecturing against the doctrine of transubstantiation; but, after an able defence of his opinions on this subject before an ecclesiastical tribunal, he was ultimately obliged, by the order of King Richard II.,* to desist from his labours in the University. His followers, however, rapidly increased in number, and Archbishop Arundel was twice obliged, by their determined conduct, to relinquish his intention of visiting the University of Oxford. In 1397, the Archbishop was informed that the right of visiting belonged to the King,† and in 1411, the same prelate was met at the borders of the University by the Chancellor Richard Courtney, and the two proctors, who plainly stated to him, that "he might come as a stranger, but not as a "visitor." Indignant at the repulse which he had received, Archbishop Arundel invoked the aid of King Henry IV.; the Chancellor was consequently superseded in his office; the two proctors were imprisoned in the Tower of London; the young men "who had been so insolent as to confront * Tracts and Treatises of Wycliffe, edited by the Rev. R. Vaughan, D.D. Preface, p. xc. † Anthony Wood's Annals of the University of Oxford, A.D. 1397. 66 "the said archbishop when he came to visit, and had been "ready to resist him with swords, bows, and arrows, were as truants corrected by the rod and ferula ;" and lastly, the Archbishop was formally requested by a convocation of the Clergy held in St. Paul's Cathedral in London to visit the University of Oxford ;-" considerations being had how "the University was overspread with Wycliffism." An investigation subsequently took place respecting heresy in the University, which led to certain letters of execration, sent by the Oxford Wycliffiites to Archbishop Arundel, for his great severity towards them.* 66 Royal letters were sent to the University in the reign of Edward IV., commanding a search for the books of Wycliffe and Peacock, which had been dispersed in the colleges and halls, and directing" an order to be taken of those that were Wycliffe's followers, that they might be punished.”† Cardinal Wolsey exercised an extraordinary control over the University. In 1518, a solemn decree was made by that learned body, not only to give up their statutes into the Cardinal's hands to be reformed, corrected, changed, and renewed, but also to submit their liberties, indulgencies, privileges, and indeed the whole University (the colleges excepted) to be by him disposed and framed into good order. In 1523, the canons of St. Frideswide were removed by the orders of the Cardinal to make room for the scholars and lecturers of Cardinal College, which had been founded by Wolsey, and endowed with the property of various monas teries. Several teachers of eminence obtained appointments in Cardinal College, but the early prospects of the new institution were darkened by a cruel persecution of its Lutheran members after the death of Wolsey, the College was refounded by Henry VIII., under the name of Christ Church. All the privileges of the University of Oxford, Papal as * Wood's Annals of the University of Oxford, A.D. 1411. Vol. i. p. 554. † Wood's Annals, A.D. 1476. |