H5
EXETER COLLEGE.
Il6
Edmund Lacy, bishop of Exeter) to give the College
'50J. 8d., and Cardinal Beaufort's executors a larger
sum ....
Exeter College is favourably known in connection with the men who were helping forward the Revival of Learning. William Grocyn taught Greek in the College Hall, and Richard Croke sojourned in the College, for some time. We find the College twice entertaining Grocyn's friend Dean Colet. The Cor- nelius mentioned several times in the Computi was probably Cornelius Vitelli, a learned Italian, who taught Greek in the University. Lent 149 1, ' 6d. for a new lock for the door of the fuel-house of Cornelius, and 3<£ for a key to his study. . .
The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535-6 gives a complete view of the revenues of the College at this time which only amounted to ^83 is. , out of which the Rector and Chaplain have each £/\. os. 4^., thirteen fellows £t, ioj. 4a!. each. The Rector and Fellows petition that the present allowances may be continued, viz., the barber 10s., laundress 13^. 4^., cook 13^. 4^/., manciple £3 6s. 8a'., chapel expenses ^3, the Rector 20s., the Fellows £6 10s., besides 50^. for visiting their friends. Henry VIII. had no intention of taking the University property, only he required the establishment of public lectures, and hence we now find payments mentioned for lectures in philosophy and theology. The College Register begins in 1539, and henceforth our informa- tion is clearer. This may not be unconnected with Cromwell's order in the injunctions of 1538 that every parish clergyman should henceforth keep a Register
Besides the valuable (Sarum) Breviary, the College also possesses nine other Sarum books of various kinds. The destruction of the old service books at the time of the Reformation was, perhaps, not so ex- tensive as is usually supposed. A far more complete destruction fell on the Protestant Service Books and Bibles. The Library has only two copies of Tyndale's New Testament (No. 3 and No. 5 in Mr. Fry's list), and of the latter only two other copies are known. The " Dialogue between a Christian father and his stub- born son," written by William Roye, Tyndale's assis- tant, has only survived in one copy at Vienna, from which Adolf Wolf republished it in 1874 ; the only known MS. of Wiclif's treatise "De Officio Pastorali " is also at Vienna.
In 1547 a Devonshire fellowship was given to Maurice Ley, an Irishman, for Dr. Cox, the chief of the Royal Visitors, was pressing every College to take one Irish fellow for the benefit of Ireland, and to strengthen the English Church there, but Ley soon vacated and the plan seems not to have been further carried out. The annual election of Rectors now came to an end. William More was continued in office by Edward VI. 's visitors, but his term of office ceases abruptly at Mary's accession, when the Queen's Visitors put a medical fellow, William Corindon, in his place . . .
. . . The, endowment of Exeter College, however, came from some lands which Sir William Petre had purchased of Queen Elizabeth for the purpose, the Queen's urgent need of money forcing her to part with considerable portions of the Royal possessions . . . . The Revenue of the College was more than doubled by Petre, but the valuable ground on which the College stood all came from the old founda- tion . . . ' Petre also gave the College a curious Latin Psalm-book which had been the family
Bible of the Tudors, the most learned royal family in
Europe. It is from it that we know the birthday of
Henry VII., 28th Jan., 1457.'
Elizabeth's Charter of Incorporation" is dated 22nd March, 1566. She empowered William Alley, S.T. P., the Bishop of Exeter, to draw up new statutes for the College, with the advice and consent of Sir William Petre. Under these new statutes the Rector was to be at least a Master of Arts and thirty years of age, but not a Bishop ; and no one was to be elected a Fellow who had more than ten marks of inheritance or life interest. The day of election was 30th June, the morrow of S. Peter and S. Paul . . . The Rector's stipend was to be 20J., that of the chaplain 26s. 8rf., of the fellows iar. each. There are regula- tions about dress and about not entering the Buttery without leave, and all gaming is forbidden — except that at the usual festival times, All Saints day, Christ- mas, and Candlemas, the fellows might play ' pictis cartis vulgo cards ' in hall at proper hours, and for a moderate sum. Latimer's famous ' Sermons on the Card,' delivered on the Sunday before Christmas, had a special relevancy to the approaching season. Shooting inside the College is forbidden, and no one may keep hunting dogs, ferrets, rabbits, hares, or hawks within the precints. The Bible was to be read during meals in hall, and no one was to talk while the appointed portion of Scriptnre was being read ; afterwards they might talk in Latin or Greek, but not in English — except on great feasts, or unless strangers were present, or there was some other reasonable cause, such as College business. The Battellars were to talk Latin and Greek always while in College except they were excused for lawful reasons. The Fellows sat in messes, four to a dish, and only Masters of Arts might sit at their table unless the Rector and five seniors should give permission to some one else ....
Shaftesbury's account of his college career is a curious contribution to the knowledge of Oxford Uni- versity life in the seventeenth century. ' I kept both horses and servants in Oxford, and was allowed what expense or recreation I desired, which liberty I never much abused ; but it gave me the opportunity of obliging by entertainments the better sort, and sup- porting divers of the activest of the lower rank with giving them leave to eat, when in distress, upon my expense, it being no small honour among those sort of men that my name in the buttery book willingly bore twice the expense of any in the University. This expense, my quality, proficiency in learning, and natural affability easily not only obtained the good will of the wiser and elder sort but made me the leader even of all the rough young men of that College and did then maintain in the schools coursing against Christ Church, the largest and most numerous College in the University.
The troubles of the civil war now (1642) began, and as Oxford became the King's head-quarters and most advanced post on the road to London, the students joined the army in large numbers and the work of education was nearly suspended. The College plate offered the King a ready resource for the war. The Colleges, considering themselves as trustees of the plate and other property, at first hoped to buy themselves off with ready money ; thus Exeter presented the King with ^310, of which .£138 had to be borrowed, but the King's needs were too pressing and he took the plate as well, promising, however,
