if Oxford was in the hands of the Danes at the time when Alfred founded the University, that fact only strengthened their case. For King Alfred was a man so much in advance of his age that it is not surprising to find that he had anticipated the modern political doctrine, which teaches us that the surest way to earn popularity, is to give away the property of our opponents.
The story of the lawsuit will be found to be instructive if discreditable.
In 1363 the College by two purchases obtained possession of considerable property in land and houses which had been the estate of Philip Gonwardy and Joan his wife. After the College had been in possession some fourteen years, however, a certain Edmund Francis and Idonea his wife came forward to dispute the right to it. They maintained that Philip Gonwardy and his wife had had no true title to the estate, for it, or part of it, had been bequeathed to them by one John Goldsmith in 1307. And he, they asserted, had by a later document settled the same property upon them. The case was tried at Westminster; transferred to Oxford, where the College obtained a verdict in their favour, and then taken back on appeal to Westminster.
It was at this point that the document known as the French petition—it is written in the Court French of the day—was filed. Finding, apparently, that the case was going against them, the College determined to use the myth about Alfred, claim to be a royal foundation and thus throw the matter, and their liberties along with it, into the King’s hands, leaving the case to be decided by the Privy Council.
“To their most excellent and most dread and most sovereign Lord the King,” so ran the petition, “and to his most sage council, shew his poor orators, the master and scholars of his College, called Mickle University Hall in Oxenford, which College was first founded by your noble progenitor, King Alfred, whom may God assoil, for the maintenance of twenty-six divines for ever; that whereas one Edmund Francis, citizen of London, hath in virtue of his great power commenced a suit in the King’s Bench, against some of the tenants of the said masters and scholars, for certain lands and tenements, with which the College was endowed ... and from time to time doth endeavour to destroy and utterly disinherit your said College of the rest of its endowment.... That it may please your most sovereign and gracious Lord King, since you are our true founder and advocate, to make the aforesaid parties appear before your very sage council, to show in evidences upon the rights of the aforesaid matter, so that upon account of the poverty of your said orators your said College be not disinherited, having regard, most gracious Lord, that the noble saints, John of Beverley, Bede, and Richard Armacan (Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh), and many other famous doctors and clerks, were formerly scholars in your said College, and commenced divines therein, and this for God’s sake, and as a deed of charity.”
This deed, then, and others, these mere children in litigation did deliberately forge, attaching the Chancellor’s seal thereto, in order to substantiate their absurd, but profitable, pretension.
The device was successful for a time, although the very petition contains within itself glaring historical contradictions, which either show supreme ignorance on the part of the masters and scholars or a cynical assumption of the historical ignorance of lawyers. If the College was founded by King Alfred who came to the throne in 872, it would seem a little unwise to instance as famous scholars of that foundation “noble Saints” like John of Beverley, who was Archbishop of York in 705, and the venerable Bede who died in 735.
As to the real founder of University College all the evidence points to William, Archdeacon of Durham, who is mentioned as one of the five distinguished English scholars who left Paris in 1229, in consequence of the riots between the townsfolk and the University. Henry’s invitation to the Paris masters to come and settle at Oxford was immediately accepted by the other four. Their example was probably soon followed by William, after a sojourn at Angers. He was appointed Rector of Wearmouth, and is said to have “abounded in great revenues, but was gaping after greater.” Some litigation with the Bishop of Durham led him to appeal to the Papal Court. His appeal was successful, but it availed him little, for on his journey home he died at Rouen (1249). His bones are said by Skelton to lie in the Chapel of the Virgin in the Cathedral there. He left 310 marks in trust to the University to invest for the benefit and support of a certain number of masters. It was actually the first endowment of its kind, but it is to Alan Basset, who died about 1243, that the credit of providing the first permanent endowment for an Oxford scholar is due. For he conceived the idea of combining a scholarship with a Chantry. He left instructions in his will in accordance with which his executors arranged with the Convent of Bicester for the payment of eight marks a year to two chaplains, who should say mass daily for the souls of the founder and his wife, and at the same time study in the schools of Oxford or elsewhere.
This was a step in the direction of founding a College, and indeed the original plan of William was hardly more imposing.
The University placed Durham’s money in a “Chest,” and used it partly on their own business and partly in loans to others, barons in the Barons’ War for instance. Such loans were seldom repaid, and only 210 marks remained. This sum was expended in purchasing houses. The first house bought (1253) by the University was at the corner of School Street and St Mildred’s Lane (tenementum angulare in vico scholarum).
The site of this the first property held by the University for educational purposes[15] is now included in the front, the noisy, over-decorated front, of Brasenose College. It was called, naturally enough, first the Hall of the University and afterwards the little Hall of the University. A second purchase was made in 1255, when a tenement called Drogheda Hall, the then first house in the High Street on the north side, was bought. It stands almost opposite to the present Western Gate of the College. Brasenose Hall was the next purchase under William’s bequest (1262), and (1270) a quit rent of fifteen shillings, charged on two houses in S. Peter’s parish, was the last. William of Durham had not founded a College. There is nothing to show that the purchase of houses by the University was originally made with any other object than that of securing a sound investment of the trust money. There is nothing to show, that is, either that the houses were bought originally and specifically as habitations for the pensioned masters (though they may have lodged there), or that it was originally intended, either by the University or the founder, that they should form a community.
Statutes were not granted to the masters admitted to the benefits of this foundation until the year 1280, and by that time a precedent had been created. From the year 1280, then, may be dated the incorporation of what is now known as University College. A very small society of poor masters were, according to the revised plan, to live together on the bounty of William of Durham and devote themselves to the study of theology. And this idea of association was evidently adopted from the rule for Merton Hall laid down by Merton six years before. The revenue from the fund increased rapidly, so that by 1292, the society was increased from “four poor masters” to one consisting of two classes of scholars, the seniors receiving six and eightpence a year more than the juniors, and having authority over them. Other clerks of good character, not on the foundation, were permitted to hire lodgings in the Hall, prototypes of the modern commoner. Funds and benefactions accrued to the Hall. A library was built, and the society gradually enlarged. Members of it were enjoined to live like Saints and to speak Latin. In the election of new Fellows a preference was given to those “born nearest to the parts of Durham.” And a graduated fine was imposed, according to which a scholar who insulted another in private was to pay a shilling, before his fellows two shillings, and if in the street, in church or recreation ground, six and eightpence. For the administration of the College funds a bursar was annually appointed, whose accounts were subsequently approved and signed by the Chancellor. This practice of University supervision was maintained till 1722.
Yet another body of statutes was promulgated in 1311. The study of theology and the preference given to those who hailed from Durham were emphasised in accordance with the founder’s wishes. The Senior Fellow was required to be ordained, but any Fellow who was appointed to a benefice of five marks a year now forfeited his election. This latter regulation, which occurs in substance in most of the fourteenth