PART I. they were subsequently taken away at the command of CHAP. III. 'Great Edward with the lilies on his brow given to the lars by Ed By this monarch a mansion was erected in the vicinity of Mansion the Hospital of St. John, 'to the honour of God, the blessed King's schoVirgin, and all the saints, and for the souls of Edward II, of ward III. 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. given by The statutes of King's Hall, as given by Richard II, are statutes brief and simple, and bear a closer resemblance to those of Richard II. 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 Limitation a admission be proved to be of 'good and reputable conversa- of admission. tion;' and we have here the earliest information respecting the college limitation as to age, the student not being admissible under fourteen years of age, a point on which the 1 It is thus that Gray, in his Installation Ode, has represented Edward III as the founder of Trinity College. But the honour more properly belongs to Edward II, for, as Mr. Cooper observes, although that monarch did not live to carry out his intention of erecting a hall...he was regarded as the founder of the insti- to age at time sions. CHAP. III. Master is to be satisfied by the testimony of trustworthy PART I. witnesses. The student's knowledge of Latin, on his admisOther 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 follow1. 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 tion probably 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 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 seu 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. 2 The sum allowed for the weekly maintenance of a King's scholar was fourteen pence:-'expense commensales singulorum scholarium singulis septimanis summam quatuordecin denarios nullatenus excedant.' This was in 1379; no more was allowed at Peterhouse in 1510; the allowance at Clare Hall in the same century was twelve pence, at Gonville Hall only ten pence! At Corpus the allowance was most liberal, amounting to sixteen pence. Chicheley, when confined to his rooms by a PART I. the other colleges, indicated as a qualification; and it seems CHAP. III 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. with Illustration afforded by the statutes the of these early foundations ent tenden age. question with ersity culture. It is difficult perhaps to trace any real advance respect to the theory of education in the statutes of seven Cambridge foundations which we have now passed of the differunder review, but it must be admitted that they afford con- cies of the siderable 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 conception, 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 vital ville Hall, (as modified by its second founder,) we hear 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 had 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, had allowance made him for his commons at the rate of sixteen pence a week for six weeks; which was afterwards reduced to fourteen pence. Bursar's Accounts, quoted by Dean Hook. Lives, v 8. 1 'Les théologiens et les artistes,' says M. Thurot, ne consideraient pas la science du droit comme un art libéral. Pour eux c'était un métier plutôt qu'un art.' De l'Organisation de l'Enseignement, etc. p. 166. PART I. CHAP. III. success and professional advancement, were admitted within the walls of a university, they would soon overshadow and blight those studies that appealed to a less selfish devotion'. To bishop Bateman the question appeared in another light. The civil and the canon law were the high road to ecclesiastical preferment, and he aimed at training up a body of shrewd, practical men, who, though they might do little to help on philosophy and science, would be heard of in afterlife as high dignitaries in church and state, and would exercise a certain weight in the political struggles of the day. But if the reiterated complaints of the foremost thinkers of the time are to be regarded as having any basis in fact, it would seem that the bishop had rendered his university but a doubtful service; and though colleges multiplied at Cambridge we may vainly look for any corresponding growth in her intellectual activity. The statutes of the other foundations scarcely call for comment. Those of Pembroke are interesting as an illustration of the persevering endeavours of the religious orders to upset what it is no exaggeration to describe as the fundamental conception of the new institutions,--an endeavour which, as we shall shortly see, was prosecuted at nearly the same time with greater success at Oxford. In Michaelhouse and Corpus Christi we recognise little more than the sentiments of the devout laity, inspired, in all probability, by the priest and the confessor. It will scarcely be denied that in connexion with these foundations questions of grave import were contending for solution; nor can we doubt that fuller records of our university life at this period would reveal that the antithesis represented in the statutes of Peterhouse and those of Trinity Hall, was a matter of keen and lively interest to the Cambridge of those days; and inasmuch as an opportunity here presents itself for a slight digression,-for between the statutes of King's Hall and the foundation of King's College (the first foundation of the following century) more than 1 Il y avait à craindre qu'une école de droit civil une fois ouverte ne fit déserter toutes les autres, et singulièrement celles de théologie. Crevier, v 156. See p. 75, note 2. |