IV.
EXETER COLLEGE.
By the Rev. Charles W. Boase, M.A., Fellow of Exeter College.
In 1314 Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, founded Stapeldon Hall, soon better known as Exeter College, for “Scholars” (i.e. Fellows), born or resident in Devon and Cornwall, eight from the former and four from the latter county; and he also founded a grammar-school at Exeter, to prepare boys for Oxford. He had, at first, bought ground in and near Hart Hall (now Hertford College); but this site not proving large enough, he removed the students to St. Stephen’s Hall in St. Mildred’s parish, and gave them Hart Hall, that by its rent their rooms might be kept in repair and be rent-free.
The object of the early founders of Colleges was to pass as many men as possible through a course of training that would fit them for the service of Church or State: and so Stapeldon fixed fourteen years as the outside period of holding his scholarships; he had no idea of giving fellowships for life. The twelve scholars were to study Philosophy; and a thirteenth scholar was to be a priest studying Scripture or Canon Law. Aptness to learn, good character, and poverty were the qualifications required of them; and they were to be chosen without regard to favour, fear, relationship, or love. They were kept in order by punishments, increasing from a stoppage of commons to expulsion, at the discretion of the Rector, who was chosen annually after the audit in October. The Rector also looked after the money, and rooms, and servants; but, if two Fellows demanded the expulsion of a servant he was to appoint another. The Rector must have been always under thirty; it was the younger Masters of Arts that then directed education in the University. Disputations were held twice a week, and of three disputations, two were in Logic, one in Natural Science. Tenpence a week was allowed for commons, and each scholar received in addition the sum of ten shillings a year, the Rector and the Priest twenty shillings each. If any scholar was away for more than four weeks his commons were stopped; and by an absence of five months he forfeited his scholarship.
Stapeldon endowed his Hall with the great tithes of Gwinear in Cornwall, and of Long Wittenham in Berks; and any surplus or legacy was to go to public purposes, such as increasing the number of scholars or buying books. There was a common chest with three keys, kept by the Rector, the senior Scholar, and the Priest; and the audit-rolls (computi) are extant from 1324, though with gaps, as for instance during the Black Death (1349). There is something touching in the number of legacies which Stapeldon left to individual poor scholars in his will.
The scholars were very poor; and to relieve them, Ralph Germeyn (Precentor of Exeter), Richard Greenfield (Rector of Kilkhampton in Cornwall), and Robert Rygge (Fellow 1362–1372; afterwards Canon and Chancellor of Exeter), at several times founded “chests” for making loans to them without interest, on security of books or plate; but all such funds have now disappeared, having been, it seems, absorbed in Charles I’s war-chest. The College itself sometimes borrowed; in 1358 the College accounts show a payment of “£3 for a Bible redeemed from Chichester chest”; in 1374, of “four marks to our barber for a Bible pledged to him in the time of Dagenet” (John Dagenet had been Rector in 1371–1372).
The life was simple. Besides the “commons” (i.e. allowances for food), “liveries” (i.e. clothes) were supplied about once in three years. The scholars were to wear black boots (caligæ); and conform to clerical manners according to their standing as Sophists, Bachelors, or Masters. Meals were taken in the hall (which stood a little north of the present hall), where there was always a large bason with hanging towels. A charcoal fire burned in the middle of the hall, under an opening to let out the smoke; but men were not allowed to linger round the fire, and they went off to bed early because candles were dear, nearly 2d. a pound, i.e. 2s. of our money—they lacked therefore the genial inspiration of writing by good candle-light. All had to be in College by nine o’clock in the evening; and the key of the gate was kept in the Rector’s room, which was over the gate. Lectures began at six or seven in the morning; dinner was at ten; supper at five. Of the servants, the manciple received five shillings a term, the cook two, barber twelvepence, washerwoman fifteen pence. The barber was the newsmonger of that as of other ages.
The scholars might by common consent make any new statutes, not contrary to the Founder’s ordinances; and were to refer all doubts to the Visitor.
The Bishops of Exeter were kind Visitors; and gave books and money several times. Gradually more halls and lodging-houses were obtained, some lying on the lane[124] which ran all along inside the city wall, others along St. Mildred’s (now Brasenose) lane, and others along the Turl. A tower was built on the site of St. Stephen’s Hall, with a gate opening into the lane under the city wall; two windows of this tower survive in the staircase of the present Rector’s house. The present garden is on the site of some of the old buildings, but the ivy-clad buttresses of the Bodleian and the great fig-trees along the College buildings, which make such a show in summer, of course do not date from such early times.
An agreement had to be made with the Rector of St. Mildred’s parish, who feared lest the College-chapel should interfere with his rights. This early chapel had rooms under it, and a porch. The computus for building a library in 1383, shows that the building cost £57 13s. 5½d., the leaded roof costing £13 13s. 4d.; and it was completed between Easter and Michaelmas, before the beginning of the Academic year. The timber came from Aldermaston in Berks, the stone from Taynton in Gloucestershire and Whatley near Frome—the latter corresponding to our present Bath stone. Carpenters and masons were paid 6d. a day, and the masons had breakfast and dinner (merenda and prandium). David, the foreman, had 6d. a week for “commons,” and he held the place of a modern architect.
The regard paid to poverty brought forward some distinguished men, such as Walter Lihert (Fellow 1420–1425), Bishop of Norwich, a miller’s son from Lanteglos by Fowey in Cornwall. This consideration for poor scholars did not often fail. Long afterwards John Prideaux (Fellow 1601, Rector 1612–1642) used to say, “If I could have been parish clerk of Ubber (Ugborough in Devon), I should never have been Bishop of Worcester.” Benjamin Kennicott was master of a charity school at Totnes till friends helped him to come to Oxford, where (in 1747) he obtained a Fellowship in Exeter College, and became a great Hebrew scholar. William Gifford, the critic, was apprentice to a shoemaker at Ashburton, where a surgeon helped him to gain a Bible clerkship at Exeter (1779); when he became a leader in the literary world, he remembered his own rise in life, and founded an Exhibition at Exeter for poor boys from Ashburton school. Thus the Universities had formerly something of the character of popular bodies in which learning and study were recommendations, and the avenues of promotion were not closed even to the poorest.
The Wiclifite movement largely influenced Exeter College, and a number of the Fellows suffered in the cause. But, mixed with this, was a wish to uphold the independence of the University, as against the Archbishop of Canterbury’s power of visitation; and perhaps a feeling for the lay government, as against the clergy. A former Fellow, Robert Tresilian, was among Richard II’s chief supporters; and his fate is the first legend in