Ch. 2: The Early Students

A DAY WITH A MEDIEVAL UNDERGRADUATE

Oxford, some one says, "is bitterly historical." It is difficult to escape the fanaticism of Antony Wood, and of "our antiquary," Bryan Twyne, when one deals with the obscure past of the University. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the strange blending of new and old at Oxford--the old names with the new meanings--if we avert our eyes from what is "bitterly historical." For example, there is in most, perhaps in all, colleges a custom called "collections." On the last days of term undergraduates are called into the Hall, where the Master and the Dean of the Chapel sit in solemn state. Examination papers are set, but no one heeds them very much. The real ordeal is the awful interview with the Master and the Dean. The former regards you with the eyes of a judge, while the Dean says, "Master, I am pleased to say that Mr. Brown's PAPERS are very fair, very fair. But in the matters of CHAPELS and of CATECHETICS, Mr. Brown sets--for a SCHOLAR--a very bad example to the other undergraduates. He has only once attended divine service on Sunday morning, and on that occasion, Master, his dress consisted exclusively of a long great-coat and a pair of boots." After this accusation the Master will turn to the culprit and observe, with emphasis ill represented by italics, "Mr. Brown, the COLLEGE cannot hear with pleasure of such behaviour on the part of a SCHOLAR. You are GATED, Mr. Brown, for the first fortnight of next term." Now why should this tribunal of the Master and the Dean, and this dread examination, be called collections? Because (Munimenta Academica, Oxon., i. 129) in 1331 a statute was passed to the effect that "every scholar shall pay at least twelve pence a-year for lectures in logic, and for physics eighteenpence a-year," and that "all Masters of Arts except persons of royal or noble family, shall be obliged to COLLECT their salary from the scholars." This collection would be made at the end of term; and the name survives, attached to the solemn day of doom we have described, though the college dues are now collected by the bursar at the beginning of each term.

By this trivial example the perversions of old customs at Oxford are illustrated. To appreciate the life of the place, then, we must glance for a moment at the growth of the University. As to its origin, we know absolutely nothing. That Master Puleyn began to lecture there in 1133 we have seen, and it is not likely that he would have chosen Oxford if Oxford had possessed no schools. About these schools, however, we have no information. They may have grown up out of the seminary which, perhaps, was connected with St. Frideswyde's, just as Paris University may have had some connection with "the School of the Palace." Certainly to Paris University the academic corporation of Oxford, the Universitas, owed many of her regulations; while,