Gonville and Caius College

“ The building facing the spectator is the South Front of Gonville and Caius College by Waterhouse (1870) . Through the railings on the right is the Tower of Great St. Mary’s. The street is King’s Parade. and value when young men are not classed and separated according to their religious divisions. Thus when the Catholic hostel of S. Edmund applied for recognition in 1898, the “grace” was refused, in spite of the fact that many members of the university unconnected with any religious denomination, voted in its favour. ”

“ SOONE or ZOONE, WILLIAM (fl. 1540–1575) , jurist and cartographer, was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1545, and proceeded M.A. 1549. He became doctor of civil and canon laws probably at some university on the continent. The bursars' accounts of Caius College show that he was resident at Gonville Hall, probably as a fellow, from 1548 to 1555. In 1561 he became regius professor of civil law, and in June of that year was admitted fellow of Trinity Hall. He would not conform to the protestant religion, and, leaving Cambridge, went abroad. ”

“ Caius was born in 1510, and studied at Gonville Hall, Cambridge, which was ultimately to be better known by his own name. He went to Padua in 1539, and lived in the same house with the celebrated anatomist, Vesalius. He became professor of Greek at Padua, and took the M.D. there in 1541. He became F.R.C.P. in 1547, and settled in London in 1552. He was president of the College in 1555. He was physician to Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, but he is said to have been removed from the latter position because of his Romish tendencies. ”

“ From 1825 to 1833 he was educated at a private school at High Wycombe. Before going into residence at Cambridge, he joined a party at Keswick and read with William Hepworth Thompson [q. v.] , then a fellow, afterwards master, of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was admitted pensioner of Gonville and Caius College on 16 Nov. 1835, and soon gave evidence of his ability, especially in mathematics. ”

“ The Suffolk monks of Butley, black Benedictines from Bury, Cistercians from Lewes, and Austin canons{144} from Westacre in Norfolk were also to be found there. [244] Gonville Hall was always regarded as the papal favourite at Cambridge; yet by 1530 Nix Bishop of Norwich in a letter to the primate Warham asserts that not one of the clerks at Gonville but “savoured of the frying pan.”
Caius has always been a doctors’ college; Harvey, Glisson the anatomist, and a long roll of eminent surgeons and physicians here received their education. ”

“ Dr. John Caius, Kaye, or Key, of Gonville-hall, Cambridge, succeeded Linacre in the Presidency; like him he had travelled in Italy for his improvement in the study of Medicine, and having resided in Padua and Bologna, where he took his Doctor’s degree, and 8was for some years Greek lecturer, he pursued his travels through Germany and France. After his return to England, he was called to Court as Physician to king Edward the 6th; in 1547 he was made a Fellow of the College of Physicians, the rights and privileges of which he most strenuously asserted and augmented. ”

“ The lives of many men can lay a better claim to be recognised by Norwich than Borrow, through virtue of their birthright. In the fourteenth century William Bateman, one time Bishop of Norwich, founded the great college of Trinity Hall at Cambridge. His great example was followed by another native of Norwich, Dr. Kaye or Caius, who established the beautiful college of Gonville and Caius at the same university. Matthew Parker, second Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, as chaplain attended Queen Anne Boleyn to the scaffold; Robert Green became a popular writer in the reign of Elizabeth. ”

“ From the Earl of Cadogan, the lord of the manor of Chelsea.
Cahoot. An Americanism for partnership or company, derived from the French capute, hut, cabin. Men who share a cabin or shanty are said to be “in cahoot.”
Caitiff. An old term of contempt for a despicable person, derived from the Latin captivis, a captive, slave.
Caius College. The name given to Gonville College, Cambridge, after its refoundation by Dr Caius by royal charter in 1558.
Cake Walk. A musical walking competition round a cake, very popular among the negroes of the southern states. ”

“ His beautiful buildings are sufficient testimony to the elegant taste which he had matured in Italy. Thomas Bacon, master of Gonville Hall and first master of the new foundation, died in 1559, and the society elected Caius to the mastership. At first he was reluctant to accept the dignity, and prevailed so far as to refuse his income as master. His mastership lasted until his death in 1573. He was one of the most disinterested of all Cambridge [71] benefactors, and his learning and talents are beyond praise. ”

“ Of the generation next succeeding Linacre's was John Kaye, or Key (or Caius, as it has been long pedantically spelt) . Like Linacre (the elegant writer and intimate friend of Erasmus) , Caius is associated with letters not less than medicine. Born of a respectable Norfolk family, Caius raised, on the foundation of Gonvil Hall, the college in the University of Cambridge that bears his name—to which Eastern Counties' men do mostly resort. Those who know Cambridge remember the quaint humour with which, in obedience to the founder's will, the gates of Caius are named. ”

“ The arrangement of buildings at Caius is rather curious, and no Cambridge college has been so transformed since its foundation. The chapel is between the two lesser courts; the hall is at the back of everything, and its position is far from obvious. Caius may be said to consist of two halves: the first half, to the east, borders Trinity Street, and is the New Court; the second and westerly half is an oblong bounded on three sides by narrow lanes and on the other by the rest of the college. ”

“ Three sides of the main quadrangle, Tree Court, including the frontage towards Trinity Street, are modern (1870) . The interior of this court is picturesque, and the design of the smaller Caius Court was inspired by Caius himself. He also designed the gates of Honour, Virtue and Humility, of which the two first stand in situ; the gate of Honour is a peculiarly good example of early Renaissance work. Caius is buried in the chapel.
Jesus College lies apart from and to the north-east of the majority of the colleges. It was founded in 1406 by John Alcock, bishop of Ely. ”

“ Before taking this turn we should give a glance northward along Trumpington Street at the splendid mass of Collegiate and University buildings which here come into view. High above all rises the glorious fabric of King's College Chapel, while, beyond it, the classical façades of the Senate House and the University Library, the fine gateway of Caius College, and the further off tower of St. John's College, fill the eye with a delightful sense of aesthetic culture and harmony. ”

“ He was physician to Edward VI., Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. He returned to Cambridge from London for a few days in June 1573, about a month before his death, and resigned the mastership to Dr Legge, a tutor at Jesus College. He died at his London House, in St Bartholomew’s, on the 29th of July, 1573, but his body was brought to Cambridge, and buried in the chapel under the well-known monument which he had designed. Dr Caius was a learned, active and benevolent man. ”

“ At Cambridge he was always anxious to promote in every way the interests of his college. Guest was a man of great kindness of heart, unaffected piety, benevolence, and urbanity. At the same time he had considerable firmness and readiness in defending any position he took up. He was an unvacillating conservative and an evangelical churchman. He resigned the mastership of Caius College shortly before his death, which took place at Sandford Park, 23 Nov. ”

“ All the rest of the College is modern.
The early foundation of Pembroke College had some connection, as we have seen, with the Franciscan Order. The early foundation of Gonville Hall, which followed that of Pembroke in 1348, had a somewhat similar connection with the Dominicans. Edward Gonville, its founder, was vicar-general of the diocese of Ely, and rector of Ferrington and Rushworth in Norfolk. In that county he had been instrumental in causing the foundation of a Dominican house at Thetford. ”

“ At a somewhat later date Caius ordered his students to be in bed by eight o’clock at night, but they made up for this by rising very early in the morning. In general the punishment for minor faults was left to the discretion of the authorities. This was only reasonable, for a medieval college was a mixed community of lads and men, the members being of all ages from about fourteen or fifteen upwards; and rules enforced on boys of fourteen could not be applied to men of twenty-three or twenty-four, who were in fact already taking part in the teaching of the junior scholars. ”

“ The rough and ready penalty of the birch is, however, frequently mentioned in the statutes of Corpus and of other sixteenth-century Colleges. Cardinal Wolsey thought it proper that an undergraduate should be whipped until he had completed his twentieth year. At Trinity, Cambridge (where offenders were sociably flogged before the assembled College on Friday evenings) the age was eighteen. Dr Caius restricted the rod to scholars who were not adult. "We call those adults," he says, "who have completed their eighteenth year. ”

“ During the mastership of John Hills, Sibbes’ predecessor, John Gostlin, the eccentric master of Caius, gave the Bull Inn, which was his personal property, to the college, and thus the society was enabled to enlarge its frontiers. Nevertheless, the commotions of the Civil Wars delayed operations until long after the Restoration, when Dr John Eachard, master in 1675, carried out the longed-for improvements. There is no college whose external appearance belies a medieval foundation more than St Catharine’s. ”

“ Gonvile died before his foundation could be carried out, and left his work in the hands of William Bateman, bishop of Norwich. It does not, of course, lie within the scope of this notice to trace the fortunes of the college, but it may be remarked that Bateman, besides changing the locality of the college from Freeschool Lane to its present site, made considerable alterations in the statutes, and conformed them more closely to those of his own foundation, Trinity Hall. ”

“ Other similar foundations were soon created: the King’s Scholars (later incorporated as King’s Hall) in 1317, Michael-House in 1324, Clare in 1325, Pembroke in 1347, Gonville in 1348, Trinity Hall in 1350, and Corpus Christi in 1352. Every new college that was established provided fresh definite ties with the locality, and rendered less likely the break-up of the University and the scattering of its members—a serious risk to which in early days it was always subject. ”

“ After this he resided wholly at Cambridge, living by his fellowship at Caius College. Dying there at the end of August 1697, he was buried on 1 Sept. in the church of St. Michael, in which parish the college is situated. He corresponded with several learned men in Holland. ”

“ But it seems that Gonerill had been beforehand with him, sending letters also to Regan, accusing her father of waywardness and ill humours, and advising her not to receive so great a train as he was bringing with him. This messenger arrived at the same time with Caius, and Caius and he met: and who should it be but Caius' old enemy the steward, whom he had formerly tript up by the heels for his saucy behaviour to Lear. ”

“ This Caius quickly found means to shew his fidelity and love to his royal master: for Gonerill's steward that same day behaving in a disrespectful manner to Lear, and giving him saucy looks and language, as no doubt he was secretly encouraged to do by his mistress, Caius not enduring to hear so open an affront put upon majesty, made no more ado but presently tript up his heels, and laid the unmannerly slave in the kennel: for which friendly service Lear became more and more attached to him. ”

“ During his residence in Shrewsbury the 'sweating sickness' broke out, and at the request of his friend Robert Warmington he compiled a short tract in English, 'A Boke or Counseill against the Sweate or Sweating Sicknesse,' which he afterwards expanded into the longer Latin treatise, 'De Ephemera Britannica.' He was shortly after appointed one of the Physicians to King Edward VI, and retained his post under Queen Mary. In the practice of his profession Caius soon acquired considerable wealth, which, being unmarried, he resolved to employ in the encouragement of science and learning. ”

“ The same story might be told of Yale or any other college. Considered as what are called popular institutions—that is, institutions from which everybody can or does derive some calculable, palpable benefit—the universities of this and every other country are useless, and there ought on this theory to be a prodigious "outcry" against them, and they ought, on the principle of equality, if allowed to exist at all, to be allowed to exist only on condition that they will give a degree, or at least offer an education, to every male citizen of sound mind. ”

“ Gesner, the great European biologist of the time, who was on terms of intimate relation by correspondence with Caius and knew his work on plants and animals very well, styled him, in the preface to his "Icones Animalium," "a man of consummate erudition, fidelity and diligence as well as judgment," and in an epistle to Queen Elizabeth bestows upon him the eulogium of "the most learned physician of his age." Caius has the merit of introducing the regular practice of dissection into the English teaching of medicine. ”