Merton College

“ If the scale of these salaries and statutable allowances was humble, it was chiefly because the founder intended the number of scholars to be constantly increased as the revenues of the house might be enlarged.”
In this foundation Walter De Merton was the first to express the only true idea of a college. Once expressed, it was followed by every succeeding founder. The collegiate system revolutionised University life in England. Merton was never tired of insisting upon the one great claim which his community should have to the loyalty, affection and service of its members. ”

“ Meanwhile{40} Walter de Merton had been buying land at Oxford, [77] and in 1274 he definitely moved the hall at Malden and refounded it as Merton College in the sister university; the formula hitherto maintained in his charters and statutes (see ii. p. 68) being now changed, and “poor scholars who are studying at Oxford or elsewhere where a studium generale exists” (Oxoniae, aut alibi, ubi studium viget generale) becomes “who are studying at Oxford where there is a university” (Oxoniae ubi universitas viget studentium) . ”

“ The first two of these—the professorships of geometry and astronomy—bear the name of their founder, Sir Henry Savile, warden of Merton College, who endowed them in 1619. In the quaint language of Anthony Wood: ‘Beholding the Mathematick Studies to be neglected by the generality of men, ’twas now his desire to recover them, least they should utterly sink into oblivion.’ These benefactions, and the growing wealth of colleges, helped to strengthen the University in the esteem of the upper classes, upon which it now depended for its supply of students. ”

“ The real founder of the English college was Walter de Merton. In 1264 Walter provided by endowment for the permanent maintenance of twenty scholars, who were to live together in a hall as a community; and in 1274 he drew up the statutes which fix the type of the earliest English college. The principal of Merton was not, like the principal of a mediæval hall, the temporary head of a chance community, but a permanent head with established power ”

“ PHILIPS, ROWLAND (d. 1538?) , warden of Merton College, was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and was proctor of the university in 1496. He became a ‘great divine and a renowned clerk,’ being especially famed as a preacher. He held the rectory of St. Margaret Pattens until 1515. On 14 Aug. 1517 he was appointed rector of St. Michael's, Cornhill, and on 28 Nov. following prebendary of Neasdon in St. Paul's. In 1521 he was elected warden of Merton, being the first warden who was neither scholar nor fellow of the College previously. ”

“ Fuller, in his Church Hist., book III. cent. xiii. sect. 8., has given the origin of postmasters. "There is," says he, "a by-foundation in Merton College, a kind of college in the college, and this tradition goeth of their original:—Anciently there was, over against Merton College, a small unendowed hall, whose scholars had so run in arrears, that their opposite neighbours, out of charity, took them into their college (then but nine in number) to wait on the fellows. ”

“ After I was graduated from Princeton in 1907 I went to Merton College, Oxford. There are twenty-two different colleges in Oxford and eighteen in Cambridge. Each one has its own teams and crews and plays a regular schedule. From the best of these college teams the university teams are drawn. Each college team has a captain and a secretary, who acts as manager. At the beginning of the college year (early October) the captain and secretary of each team go around among the freshmen of the college and try to get as many of them as possible to play their particular sport; mine Rugby football. ”

“ The treasury is a small room coeval with the foundation, with a curious high pitched ashlar roof. The other buildings, which are of various dates, are mainly disposed about four quadrangles, including that of St Alban’s Hall, which, possibly dating from the early part of the 15th century, was incorporated with Merton College in 1882. The college hall retains an original door with fine ironwork, but the building is in great part modernized. A beautiful garden lies east of the buildings, being separated from the meadows to the south by part of the old city wall. ”

“ In the summer of 1852 Coleridge Patteson stood for a fellowship of Merton, obtained it, and moved into rooms there. Every college has a distinctive character; and Merton, if not actually the eldest, is at least one of the oldest foundations at Oxford, and is one of the most unchanged in outward aspect. There is a peculiar charm in the beauty and seclusion of the quadrangle, in the library, still mediaeval even to the fittings; and the church is above all impressive in the extraordinary loveliness of the early decorated architecture, and the space and loftiness of the choir. ”

“ When a benevolent donor endowed one of these halls, he invariably gave it not only money, but regulations, and it was the existence of an endowment and of statutes imposed by an external authority that differentiated the College from the Hall. The earliest College founders did not necessarily erect any buildings for the scholars for whose welfare they provided; a College is essentially a society, and not a building. The quadrangular shape which is now associated with the buildings of a College was probably suggested accidentally by the development of Walter de Merton's College at Oxford ”

“ Consult also Oxoniana, vol. ii. pp. 15-22. The Portionistæ, or Postmasters, did not reside in the college till the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but in a hall opposite to it, which had been provided for the use of the college by Peter de Habinton, or Habendon, the first warden. It afterwards became the property of the father of Anthony à Wood, and beneath its roof that distinguished antiquary was born, December 17, 1632. The second brother of Anthony became one of the postmasters of Merton College. ”

“ Thomas Clayton, into the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford, against the wish of the fellows. In 1663 he was sent for a short time as ambassador to Brussels. In 1670 he was nominated master of requests, and in December of the same year the degree of D.C.L. was conferred on him at Oxford, when he accompanied Prince William of Orange on a visit to the university. ”

“ Merton was a marked step forward in the modern University system, as it exists in Oxford to-day; but its Founder left the system in a state of transition, which the New College, with its wealth and grandeur of architecture, and its mode of imparting knowledge, brought to a state of what was considered culmination at the end of the Fourteenth Century. And, as it was the first to force its members to go to Mass daily, it was the parent of what now is called Compulsory, or Required, Chapel.
New College was good to the poor and to the needy. ”

“ And just as at Paris in order to save the class of secular theologians from extinction, Robert de Sorbonne established his college (1257) for secular clerks, so now at Oxford, Walter de Merton took the most momentous step in the history of our national education by founding a college for twenty students of Theology or Canon Law, who not only were not friars or monks, but who forfeited their claims to his bounty if they entered any of the regular Orders. ”

“ Wood's Hist. of the University of Oxford, vol. ii., pt. ii., 911. Gutch's edit. William Rede, or Read, bishop of Chichester, "sometimes Fellow (of Merton College) gave a chest with l. 100 in gold in it, to be borrowed by the Fellows for their relief; bond being first given in by them to repay it at their departure from the college; or, in case they should die, to be paid by their executors: A.D. 1376. He also built, about the same time, a Library in the college; being the first that the society enjoyed, and gave books thereunto." Wood's History of the Colleges and Halls, p. 15, Gutch's edit. ”

“ We read, however, of a brutal faction fight between ‘the Northern and Southern clerks’ in 1319, and this ancient feud continued to disturb the peace of the University for several generations. The Northern party was apparently the weaker in the University, perhaps because it had sympathised with Simon de Montfort. Accordingly we learn from Anthony Wood that, in 1334, Merton College, which had been suspected of favouring that party, sought to regain popularity in the University by declining to admit Northern scholars. ”

“ He classes it with the libraries at Oxford of Corpus, St. John's, Jesus, and Magdalen, and he regretfully adds that no college library in his own University has retained the same old features as these have done. But none of the four can compare with Merton, either in antiquarian interest or in picturesqueness; it stands in a class by itself. ”

“ But as our object is only to notice those collegiate foundations which in a marked way influenced the system of education, we shall pass on to Merton, avowedly the first English college incorporated by charter, and the model on which most of the subsequent foundations, both of Oxford and Cambridge were raised. ”

“ On 14 July 1681 he resigned his chaplaincy, returning leisurely homeward through Italy and France, and settling once more at Merton College, the authorities of which are said to have funded for him during his absence the profits of his fellowship. ”

“ A “promising lad” came up and was recognised by his master—of whom he was “a very favourite”—to be a “diligent and ingenious scholar.”
Larger Image Merton College and Chapel, from the first Quadrangle.
[Pg 41] That character he maintained for some time, keeping to his chamber and his books, with sported oak, and not concerning himself with the vagaries of fashion; “indeed the poor young fellow did not dress smart; nay, often was really dirty.” Gradually he made the acquaintance of some noted Bucks and sought their society and conversation out of curiosity. ”

“ He was educated at Eton, and was intimate there with Lord Sandwich, Lord Rochford, Lord Orford, Owen Cambridge, and Jacob Bryant. On 12 July 1736 he matriculated at Merton College, Oxford. Instead of finishing his course at Oxford he travelled abroad. ”

“ In 1270 the statutes of 1264 were reissued without any material alteration, but eventually, in August 1274, Merton put forth his final statutes, transferring the warden, bailiffs, and ministers to Oxford, and designating Oxford as the exclusive and permanent home of the scholars. Under these statutes provision was made for such a number of scholars as the college revenues would support, and for their common life as a corporate body under the rule of a superior called the warden. ”

“ Walter de Merton definitely prescribed that none of the fellows who benefited by his foundation should be monks or friars; to take the vows involved forfeiture of a fellowship. He also especially urged on the members of his society that, when any of them rose to "ampler fortune" (uberior fortuna) , they should not forget their alma mater .
The founder died in 1277, so that none of the college buildings were complete in his time, except perhaps the treasury, which, with its high-pitched roof of stone, lies in the opposite corner of the Mob Quad to that shown in our picture. ”

“ They were societies which held property, pursued certain avocations, and acted in a corporate capacity for very mundane objects. Why should not there be a _collegium_ of scholars? Why should students and men of learning be expected to be holier than other people? When Merton started his college at Oxford, he made it plain by his statutes that he did not intend to found a society after the old conventual type, but to enter upon a new departure. ”

“ College regulations in other countries add considerably to our knowledge of medieval student-life. In Paris, where the system had its humble beginning in the hire of a room for eighteen poor scholars, by a benevolent Englishman returning from a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1180, the college ideal progressed slowly and never reached its highest development. Even when most of the students of Paris came to live in colleges, the college was not the real unit of university life, nor was a Parisian college a self-governing community like Merton or Peterhouse. ”

“ John's College, Cambridge. It is quite clear that Linacre meant them to be university foundations, but Wood states the reasons for settling the Oxford foundation in Merton to have been the decay of the university in Edward VI's reign, and the special distinction of Merton as a medical college. These appointments gradually sank to the position of college lectureships, and ultimately sinecures held by fellows, till the splendid revival of the foundation in the present Linacre professorship of physiology. ”

“ The postmasters of Merton correspond to the scholars of other colleges; they had their origin in the portionistae (i.e. foundationers who had a smaller portion or emolument than fellows) , instituted in 1380 on the foundation of John Wyllyot (fellow 1334, chancellor 1349) . The college is adjacent to Corpus, with its front upon Merton Street, and some of its buildings are of the highest interest, notably the chapel and library. The chapel consists of a choir and transepts with a tower at the crossing; but a nave, though intended, was never built. ”

“ These houses were, of course, governed by minute and detailed regulations, and it may have seemed desirable to introduce some stricter discipline into (p. 054) the secular halls. At all events, in 1270, Walter de Merton took the opportunity of an increase in his endowments to issue a code of statutes more than twice as long as that of 1264. These new statutes mark a distinct advance in the Founder's ideal of College life. The Warden becomes a much more important factor in the conduct of the Hall as well as in the management of the property ”