St. Edmund, an Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Henry III., who delivered lectures in certain schools on the same site, from 1219 to 1226, and who for that, or for other good reasons, was canonized by one of the Popes.
The Hall itself was established not many years later; although the present buildings are much more modern.
One of the best known of the members of St. Edmund was the Historical Antiquary, Thomas Hearne, who spent nearly all his life in Oxford, and who left his mark on its men and its manners. From the very beginning of his undergraduate career, in 1696, he showed studious tastes and literary habits. For many years he was a hard and conscientious worker in the Bodleian in various capacities, up to Under-keeper; but he made himself unpopular with the authorities, and the Librarian formally dismissed him from his office in 1716. He resented the loss of his position, and he so put his feelings upon record.
He does not seem to have been a very amiable person, and if he expressed himself as freely in public as he expressed himself privately in his Diary, the lack of good feeling toward him shown by his contemporaries is not surprising. He wrote of one professor as being "a most silly, hot-headed fellow"; of another as "a vain, proud,
