CHAP. IIL Caius and Parker, no less than thirty-four of these instituPART I. tions, of which the greater number either fell into decay or

Early statute respecting

the hire and tenure of hostels.

Cautions: at what time

received.

became incorporated with colleges before the Reformation, while some undoubtedly survived for a longer period and are supposed by the same authority to have been the residence of many eminent men, who though trained at Cambridge during the earlier half of the sixteenth century are unmentioned on her college registers. Of these hostels,' he says, 'we see some denominated from the saint to whom they were dedicated, as St. Margaret's, St. Nicholas's, etc. Some from the vicinage of the church to which they were adjoined, as St. Mary's, St. Botolph's, etc. Some from the materials with which they were covered, as Tiled-Hostel. Some from those who formerly bought, built, or possessed them, as Borden's, Rud's, Phiswick's, etc. Some were reserved only for civil and canon lawyers, as St. Paul's, Ovings', Trinity, St. Nicholas's, Borden's, St. Edward's, and Rud's; and all the rest employed for artists and divines. Some of them were but members and appendants to other hostels (and afterwards to colleges), as Borden's to St. John's Hostel, then to Clare Hall; St. Bernard's to Queens'. The rest were absolute corporations, entire within themselves, without any subordination.'

We are indebted to recent research for the discovery of an early statute concerning the hire and tenure of these institutions, which may be regarded as one of the oldest documents illustrating the internal economy of the university; it belongs to the latter part of the thirteenth or to the early part of the fourteenth century; and offering as it does marked points of contrast when compared with the statute given in our Statuta Antiqua, has seemed worthy of insertion:

'If anyone desire to have the principalship of any hostel they may be in the said university, he must come to the landlord of the said hostel on St. Barnabas the Apostle's day (June 11); for from that time up to the nativity of the blessed Mary (Sept. 8) cautions may be offered and received and at no other time of the year.

PART I.

First in order

of time first

by legal right.

peal from the the chancel

lor.

'Moreover, the first by priority is the first by legal right, CHAP. III. and therefore he who first offers the caution to the landlord of the house, his caution shall stand, and that same caution must be preferred in the presence of the chancellor. 'Moreover, the scholar who is to give the caution must Right of apcome in person to the landlord of the hostel, on the aforesaid landlord to day or within [the abovenamed] period, but the sooner the better, and in the presence of a bedell or a notary, or of two witnesses, produce his caution, giving effect thereto, if he be willing; by effect is intended either a cautio fidejussoria or pignoraticia, that is, two sureties, or a book or something of the kind; and if he be not admitted the same scholar is forthwith to repair to the chancellor and produce his caution in the presence of the aforesaid witnesses and say in what way the landlord of the hostel has refused him in the matter of the acceptance of the caution; and this having been proved the chancellor shall immediately admit him on that caution and to that principalship notwithstanding the refusal of the proprietor.

tenure not

'Moreover, he who is a scholar and the principal of any Right of hostel may not give up possession or renounce his right in transferable. favour of any fellow-student, but to the landlord of the hostel

only.

'Moreover, cessions of this kind are forbidden, because they have proved to the prejudice of the landlord of the hostel, which ought not to be.

the principal"tel may be legally enforced.

ship of a hos

'Moreover, if any one be principal of a hostel and any Admission to other scholar desire to occupy the same hostel as principal, let him go to the landlord of the hostel and proffer his caution, as above directed, with these words :-'Landlord, if it please thee, I desire to be admitted to the principalship of the hostel in such and such a parish, whensoever the principal is ready to retire or to give up his right, so that I may first, as principal (principaliter) succeed him, if you are willing, without prejudice to his right thereto, so long as he shall be principal.' If he do not agree, thou mayest produce thy caution before the chancellor that he may admit thee on the condition that whenever there shall be no prin

CHAP. III. cipal thou mayest be master and mayest succeed him (the PART I. former principal) in the same hostel rather than any one else; and the chancellor shall admit thee even against the wish of the landlord and that of the principal.

Scholars may have their

'Moreover, if any landlord shall say to any scholar,hostel taxed,Dost thou desire to be principal of this mine hostel?' and

even

the landlord

be both un

willing.

and principal the scholar answer 'Yes,' but the landlord says that he does not wish that the hostel should be taxed in any way, and the scholar says he does not mind, and enters into occupation as principal and receives scholars to share the hostel with him, those same scholars may go to the chancellor and have their hostel taxed, contrary to the wish of both the landlord and the principal, and notwithstanding the agreement between the landlord and the principal, inasmuch as agreements between private persons cannot have effect to the prejudice of public rights.

Conditions of tenure of the

'Moreover, no one is to deprive any principal of his prinprincipalship. cipalship or to supplant him, in any fashion, so long as he pays his rent, or unless the landlord desire himself to be the occupier, or shall have sold or alienated the hostel'.'

The rude Latinity of this statute, its simplicity and brevity, would alone suggest its superior antiquity to the one quoted in the Statuta Antiqua; but further internal evidence may be noted in favour of such a conclusion. It will be observed that with the exception of one clause, its purpose is Main object to assert the rights of the university over the town. The presumably later statute contained in the collection above referred to enters much more into detail; it secures the

of the statute.

1 See Communication made by Henry Bradshaw, M.A., published with Report presented to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, May 11, 1863. 'A statute,' observes Mr. Bradshaw, 'concerning Hostels, made in the reign of Edward the First, carries us back to a time in the his. tory of the university when Peterhouse was the only college, and nearly all the members lived in these Hospitia. It is therefore less remarkable that we do not find this statute among the Statuta Antiqua in the

printed editions, as the old Proctors' books, from which the materials chiefly came for the edition of 1785, seem not to have been drawn up till the end of the 14th century at the earliest, and so represent a time when the collegiate system had begun to get a firm footing in the University.' The quaint character and eccentric grammar of this ancient statute has seemed to render it worthy of insertion in its original form: see Appendix (C).

PART I.

Its details

with those of

rights of the landlord as well as those of the university; it CHAP. III. forbids that houses formerly used as schools should be occupied as hostels unless good reason be shewn, the object being compared evidently to secure to the university a sufficient number of statute 67. suitable and convenient places for instruction; it provides that the principal alone shall be responsible for the payment of the rent, lest he who has made a contract with one person should be distracted by a multitude of adversaries;' it gives to the lord of the manor or the receiver of the superior annual fees the right of distraining for rent. We can hardly doubt that these provisions have reference to a later period, when the points severally dealt with had become matters of frequent experience; while in the shorter statute we seem to recognise an enactment drawn up in that turbulent period when the law between the two corporations was ill defined, and the protection of the student was the primary object; and it is deserving of notice that it is probably in virtue of the power conferred by the third clause that we find, in the year 1292, the Chancellor putting one Ralph de Leicester in occupation of a house to the tenancy of which the Prior of Barnwell had refused to admit him, though a sufficient caution for the rent had been duly tendered'.

little avail as

balance

the attrac

mendicant

But the aid afforded to the student by the institution of Hostels of the hostel was evidently of a very limited character. If counterpoor, the only assistance he obtained was protection against tions of the the rapacity of the lodging-house keeper; the principal ap- orders pears to have been in no way concerned with the instruction of the inmates; the Mendicants proselytised with impunity, and inexperienced unsuspicious youth were induced to enrol themselves as Dominicans or Franciscans long before their judgment was sufficiently formed to estimate the full importance of such a step. The attractions held out were, indeed, well calculated to allure them from honorable activity in any secular calling. The indolent were tempted by the prospect of a dronelike existence at the expense of the public charity; the needy, by the temptations of a thinlydisguised epicureanism and the security of a corporate life;

1 Cooper, Annals, 1 65.

PART I.

CHAP. III while to the studious, the enthusiastic, and the ambitious, the friar could point out how the great teachers of the age had found in the ranks of his order the most congenial associations and the opportunities for the most successful career. It is difficult to study the character of such men as Roger Bacon and William of Occam, and not to surmise that their adoption of the vows of the Franciscan was the result rather of the proselytising activity to which they were exposed than of their own mature and deliberate choice. 'Minors and children agreed well together,' says Fuller, in his usual vein.

counteract the prosely

tism of the Mendicants.

When such were the circumstances under which lads of fourteen had to acquire a university education, we need feel no surprise that both the academical authorities and private Enactments munificence were roused to action on their behalf. In 1336 designed to a statute of our own university forbade the friars to receive into their orders any scholars under the age of eighteen years, a measure which it required the united influence of the four orders to repeal'. To such an extent had the evil spread at Oxford that, in the preamble of a statute passed in 1358, we find it asserted as a notorious fact, that the nobility and commoners alike were deterred from sending their sons to the university by this very cause, and it was enacted that if any Mendicant should induce, or cause to be induced, any member of the university under eighteen years of age join the said friars, or should in any way assist in his abduction, no graduate belonging to the cloister or society of which such friar was a member should be permitted to give or attend lectures in Oxford or elsewhere for the year ensuing.

to

It may be questioned whether, at any period in our modern era, the spirit of cooperation has been more active in this country than it was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The rapid spread of the religious orders, and the numerous gilds among the laity attest its remarkable power; but, save for the purposes of propagandism, as among the Mendicants, we rarely find this principle developing a novel

1 Cooper, Annals, 1 109. 2 Anstey, Munimenta Academica, 1 201-5.