Chapter 5

THE OLD COURT, CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE This is the oldest court in Cambridge. The Tower of the old Saxon Church of St. Benedict is seen in the background.THE OLD COURT, CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGEThis is the oldest court in Cambridge. The Tower of the old Saxon Church of St. Benedict is seen in the background.

“the college paying for the material and the scholars for the labour.” Thus was this college born of the democratic spirit and the sentiment of union nurtured in the same spirit. The college was called “of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin” but was familiarly known from the close of the xiv century to modern times as Benet College. It lay in the heart of the Saxon town, between the Saxon church of S. Benet and the church of the Saxon Botolph which also served the scholars for their prayers. The former was used until the year 1500, when a small chapel communicating with the south chancel of the church was built. In 1579 Sir Nicholas Bacon gave the college a chapel; and the modern chapel is on its site. Sir Francis Drake was the largest contributor next to Bacon. The queen gave timber, and the scholars of the college again toiled side by side with the workmen.

On March 21, 1353 the guilds made over to their college Gonville’s house in Lurteburgh Lane which they had exchanged with his executor Bateman. More ground was purchased facing the street and in time two large neighbouring hostels S. Mary’s and S. Bernard’s were acquired for students. The second court has all been built since 1823, and contains the modern hall, lodge, library and chapel, and muniment room, and the Lewes collection. The ancient hall serves as the present kitchen.

In the Library is one of the most valuable collections of MSS. in the country, the spoils of the dissolved monasteries gathered together by ArchbishopParker. Here is the oldest or “Winchester” Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (toA.D.892), and Jerome’s version of the four gospels sent by Gregory to Augustin—“the most interesting MS. in England.” Here is the splendid Peterborough psalter and “bestiary”; apenitentialeof Archbishop Egbert’s (A-S. translation); a Pontifical, probably written before 1407; a xv century MS. Homer rescued by Parker from the whilom baker of S. Augustine’s Abbey; Matthew Paris’ own copy of his history; the Sarum missal of 1506, and a copy of the great English bible of 1568. Here also is the first draft (1562) of the Articles of Religion, 42 in number, scored over by Matthew Parker’s red chalk; the 3 articles which were finally omitted (dealing with the state of the departed, the last containing the statement “That all shall not be saved”) are here struck out by Parker. The clause concerning the transubstantiation of the eucharist he has similarly overscored.

Corpus also houses some of the most interesting plate in the university.

Candle rents.Corpus Christi procession.College arms.

The college was the chief sufferer in the peasant revolt of 1381 principally on account of the wealth which accrued to it from “candle rents,” a tax chargeable on the tenants of all houses which had been guild property.[157]On the festival of Corpus Christi—the

ST. BENEDICT’S CHURCH FROM FREE SCHOOL LANE Its Saxon tower is the oldest building left in Cambridge, and close by is the oldest piece of College building, the wall of Corpus Christi.ST. BENEDICT’S CHURCH FROM FREE SCHOOL LANEIts Saxon tower is the oldest building left in Cambridge, and close by is the oldest piece of College building, the wall of Corpus Christi.

Thursday in the Octave of Trinity—a great procession which included the officers of the united guild, the civic dignitaries, and the university authorities, perambulated the town from Benet Church to the bridge, the Master bearing the pyx under a rich canopy. Even after the dissolution of the guild the Master of Corpus continued the procession until it was abolished by Henry VIII. in the 27th year of his reign (1535/6). The ancient arms of the college consisted of the shields of the two guilds—the emblems of the Passion for Corpus Christi; the triangle symbol of the Trinity for the guild of the Blessed Virgin, above, Christ crowning the Madonna and below, the guilds dedicating their college. Exception was taken to them in Parker’s time as too papistical, and he got the heralds to change them. The new arms still however recorded the two guilds: quarterly, gules and azure, in the first and fourth a pelican, with her young, vulning herself; in the second and third three lilies proper

Signat avis Christum, qui sanguine pascit alumnos;Lilia, virgo parens, intemerata refert.

Among its great names Corpus counts Sir Nicholas Bacon the father of Francis Lord Bacon, Matthew Parker who was Master of the college and its great benefactor in later times, Christopher Marlowe and Fletcher, Archbishop Tenison, Sir William Paston and a group of xvii century antiquaries, and Boyle ‘the greatearl’ of Cork. Roger Manners was a considerable benefactor. In the time of Henry VII. Elizabeth Duchess of Norfolk founded a bible clerkship and a fellowship, and placed the buttresses of the college.[158]

The college soon maintained 8 fellows, 6 scholars, and 3 bible clerks. All the inmates were destined by the founders for priests’ orders, this being one of the four foundations in Cambridge due in whole or in part to the dearth of clerks consequent on the black death.[159]In the time of Caius Corpus held 93 persons and in Fuller’s time 126. In the xviii century about 60. There are to-day 12 fellowships, about 15 scholarships varying from £80 to £30 in value, 3 sizarships worth £25 each, and 6 exhibitions for students from S. Paul’s school, Canterbury, and the Norwich Grammar school varying from £18 to double this sum.[160]

The building of Corpus Christi marks an historical and closes an architectural epoch at Cambridge. Theuniversity had indeed two golden ages—the reign of Edward III. and the reign of the Tudors. It has not been sufficiently realised that Cambridge had no European rival in scholastic activity in either period. In Edward’s reign six colleges were built there—King’s Hall, Clare, Pembroke, Gonville, Trinity Hall, and Corpus; only one college—Queens’—was founded at Oxford during the same time. Three of these six foundations signalise local enterprise, but the three earlier are a record of the affection of Edward’s house for the university; and it is their preference for Cambridge in the xiv century and the preference of the Tudors for it in the xvth and xvith which marks its two great epochs.

Cambridge in 1353.

Let us look at the university as it was in the middle of the xiv century, and let it be the year 1353. It is 250 years since Henry I. began to reign; 150 before Erasmus lived here, and 550 before our own time. It is the eve of that great change in the mental and moralvenueof humanity which ushered in the modern world. The Oxford friar Occam, and with him scholasticism, had died four years before, Petrarch was mourning Laura, and Chaucer was walking the streets of Cambridge the man who was to be our link with the early Italian renascence and to clasp hands across the century with Erasmus. Lastly, it was at this moment in our history that the final adjustment of Norman and Saxon elements went hand in hand with the creation of an English language—a period of which Chaucer is our national representative. The town and university were just emerging from the havoc wrought by the “black death,” but the royal and noble foundations which had sprung up on all sides before the appearance of the scourge had already attracted the youth round Edward’s court to Cambridge; necessitating in 1342 Archbishop Stratford’s injunction against the curls and rings of the young coxcombs studying there.

Cambridge had in fact the reputation of the fashionable university, while its fame is extolled by Lydgate—a younger contemporary of Chaucer who had himself studied at Oxford—in words which show that at this date it was believed also to be the older university.[161]Let us suppose that Chaucer is returning from his first walk to Grantchester, along the Trumpington road, past the scene he describes in theReeve’s Tale, and let us follow him up the Saxon High street. He skirts Coe fen and reaches Peterhouse, its greater and its “little ostle” on the street, with Balsham’s hall behind; and as he proceeds he sees on either hand conspicuous signs of the love of the Edwards for Cambridge—to the right the narrow quadrangle of Pembroke, beyond it, off the high road, past S. Botolph’s and two hostels, lay the limestone walls of Corpus which had just passed under the protection of Henry of Lancaster;[162]its old court, then the newest of new courts at Cambridge, nestling against the Saxon church of S. Benet. Behind lay the Austinfriars, and across the road the Whitefriars from which Austin’s Lane led to Austin’s hostel, occupying with Mill street the site of the future King’s College and King’s College chapel. To the north of S. Benet’s he sees the university church of Great S. Mary’s, just rebuilt after the fire, and opposite are the schools begun a few years previously, with University, Clare, and Trinity Halls behind, and “le Stone house” of Gonville. Then still to his left, where now we see the buildings of Trinity, he beholds the “gret colledge” King’s Hall which Edward III. has just built, Michaelhouse withCrouched hostel which passed into its possession in the February of this year, and its satellite hostels Ovyng’s and Garret’s.

Just beyond King’s Hall is the building which forms the nucleus of the university in the Norman town—the hospital of S. John, bordering on Bridge street. As soon as this road is reached, which leads to the Great Bridge, we see the crusaders’ round church of S. Sepulchre, and following the road to the right we come to the Greyfriars, to the site of the future God’s House, and past Preachers’ street to the Friars Preachers or Blackfriars. On our left, across in the Greencroft, we have left the Benedictine nunnery of S. Rhadegund. Returning past S. Sepulchre’s we cross the river and come to the heart of the Norman town—the Conqueror’s castle with the Norman manor house bought by Merton in its shadow, and the churches of S. Giles and S. Peter.

Many of the hostels had recently disappeared to make room for the colleges, but they were still as regards these latter nearly in the proportion of three to one—and these latter, with the sole exception of Peterhouse, had all arisen in the previous thirty years.

The sights and sounds in the streets suggested a new epoch—something already achieved and something about to be achieved. Something of stir before an awakening. The English language which was to prove in the hands of its masters one of the finest vehicles of literary expression began everywhere to be heard in place of the French of Norfolk and Stratford-atte-Bowe. The softer southern speech prevailed over

KING’S COLLEGE GATEWAY AND CHAPEL—TWILIGHT EFFECT The Gateway and Screen on the left hand, and beyond it the Chapel. In the distance the Senate House, Caius College, and the Tower of St. John’s College Chapel.KING’S COLLEGE GATEWAY AND CHAPEL—TWILIGHT EFFECTThe Gateway and Screen on the left hand, and beyond it the Chapel. In the distance the Senate House, Caius College, and the Tower of St. John’s College Chapel.

the northern, but the dialects of East Anglia and the Ridings of Yorks were perhaps most frequently heard. The canons of S. John and S. Giles, from the Norman side of the town, might be met in their black cloaks, the Gilbertine canons, from the Saxon side, all in white with the homely sheepskin cape. The Carmelites had already exchanged their striped brown and white cloak—representing Elijah’s mantle singed with fire as it fell from the fiery chariot—for the white cloak to which they owe their name of Whitefriars. The Romites of S. Austin wore a hermit’s dress.[163]Benedictine monks from Ely and Norwich could certainly be seen in the streets of Cambridge,[164]and the Benedictine nuns of S. Rhadegund rode and walked abroad in the black habit as it was the universal custom in that great order for nuns to do. The Dominicans looked like canons in their blackcappa, the Franciscans like peasants in their coarse grey tunic roughly tied with cord.

Besides the Carmelites and Austinfriars there were the Bethlemite friars in Trumpington street and Our-Lady friars by the Castle; the former could be distinguished at a distance by the red star of five rays on their cloaks with a sky blue circle in its centre—the star of Bethlehem; but both these communitieswore the habit—black over white—of the Dominicans. Scholars poor and rich jostled each other in the schools and in the public ways, wearing the long and short gowns of the day, thecotewhich had just come into fashion, or the habit of their order. There were doctors in the three faculties wearing scarlet gowns and the doctor’s bonnet orcamaurum, and there was a sprinkling of doctors and of students from Orléans, Padua, Pavia, and Paris.

A large number of the inmates of the colleges round, and of the scholars walking the streets, wear the clerical tonsure, many scores have the coronal tonsure of the friar—yet the feeling in the air is secular. Cambridge has always suggested a certain detachment; neither zeal—perfervid or sour—nor the pressure of tradition upon living thought has had its proper home there. It has not represented monastic seclusion nor hieratic exclusion, and it did so at this moment of its history less than ever. The dawn of the coming renascence shone upon the walls at which we have been looking. The modern world has been born of the birth-pangs which have since convulsed Europe, and the walls which were then big with the future are now big with the past. But it is the greatness of Cambridge that amidst the multiple suggestiveness of its ancient halls of learning, tyranny of the past has no place. About it the dawn of the renascence still lingers; and the early morning light which presided at its birth still defines the shadows and seems to temper the noon-day heat, as light and shade alternate in its history.

Chaucer at Cambridge.

We have taken it for granted that Chaucer was walking the streets of Cambridge with us. We have no direct evidence as to where Chaucer studied; but our indirect evidence is sufficient. In the “Canterbury Tales” Chaucer introduces us to two Cambridge scholars and to a clerk of Oxenforde; and if one considers what would nowadays be called the internal evidence of theReeve’s Taleit is difficult to resist the conclusion that Chaucer was at Cambridge. How else should he know Trumpington so well? Its brook, its bridge, its mill, its fen? He knows about the “gret colledge” which had risen a few years previously; he knows that its Master is called “the warden,” that its scholars are also its “fellaws.” He has learnt there the dialect of Yorkshiremen, and reproduces not only their turns of speech but characteristic terms—asbete,kime,jossa—in the East Anglian dialect. If we turn to theMiller’s Taleall this local colouring is to seek. A “clerke of Oxenforde,” indeed, was no unfamiliar figure in the xiv century, especially to a Londoner. Familiarity with the aspect of Cambridge and its neighbourhood was a very different matter.

Chaucer was probably himself of East Anglian origin. His grandfather Robert and John his father were both of Ipswich and London, and when he was kidnapped by his mother’s family “Thomas Stace of Ipswich” is the kidnapper. There are two events of his young life known to us, and both suggest that he was at Cambridge. One of these we hear about from his evidence in the famous Scrope and Grosvenor suitin 1386. An upstart knight—Sir Robert Grosvenor—whose name Chaucer had never heard before, had displayed the arms of the Scropes, and Chaucer testifies in the Court of Chivalry action which ensues that he had often seen Henry le Scrope use the proud armorials “azure, a bend or” in the French wars where they had been companions in arms twenty-seven years before (1359). Now this great Yorkshire family were connected with Cambridge from Chaucer’s time: Richard le Scrope, the son of his old comrade, was chancellor of the university in 1378.[165]Two members of the same family were chancellors in the next century, and the intermarriage of the Scropes with the Gonvilles is recorded there to this day in Scrope or “Scroope Terrace.”[166]Is it not probable that Geoffrey Chaucer knew Henry Scrope at Cambridge and formed there the friendship which moved him to testify in his behalf thirty years later?

This conjecture does not become less probable when we turn to the other incident in his early life, which came to light in 1866 with a fragment of the household accounts of the wife of Lionel Duke of Clarence. Here the name of Geoffrey Chaucer is mentioned (in 1357) as that of a junior member of her household. His early connexion with the house of Edward is therefore an historical fact like his later friendship withJohn of Gaunt. Now in 1352 Lionel Plantagenet had married Elizabeth de Burgh the grand-daughter and namesake of the founder of Clare Hall Cambridge. The “gret colledge” about which Chaucer tells us in theReeves Taleis called “Soler Hall” and “Soler Hall,” so Caius records, was the ancient name for Clare. Remembering, however, the incomplete condition of Clare and of other foundations at this date the present writer supposes the “gret colledge” to have been King’s Hall, the first imposing architectural undertaking in the university and the building which mustpar excellencehave attracted attention in the middle of the xiv century.[167]It may also have been Chaucer’s own college, and in this connexion it is worthy of notice that with the exception of the half-dozen “minor scholars” at Pembroke, King’s Hall was at this time the only college which educated lads in their teens.

Assuming the year of the poet’s birth to have been 1340 he would have been going to the university, according to the custom of those days, about the year 1353, and his place in Elizabeth de Burgh’s household was probably already assured him when he went to Cambridge.[168]He was back in her service in hisseventeenth year and therefore could not have had time to study at both universities: and we may add to this that although his general knowledge, which he had no time to acquire in later life, suggests that he received a university education, there is not a tittle of evidence to support the idea that Chaucer went to Oxford.

One more conjecture: had he got his information about prioress’s French from the religious of the convent of S. Leonard of Stratford-atte-Bowe whom we find owning land in Cambridge from the days of Edward I.?

The Schools.The High Street and School Street.

It is to this period of the history of Cambridge that the first university buildings as distinguished from collegiate buildings belong. During the chancellorship of Robert Thorpe, Knight, Master of Pembroke (1347-64) and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, afterwards Chancellor of England, the “schools quadrangle” was projected in that street of colleges, unrivalled in Europe, which prolonging the Trumpington Road as King’s Parade or Trinity Street or S. John’s Street was anciently known as the “School street” of the university. It was also the high street of the Saxon town of which S. Benet’s tower was the nucleus, but whether the original Saxon town lay on this side of the river, or whether, as frequently happened in the xi century, the Saxon population retreated here leaving the Castle district to their Norman conquerors, we have no means of determining.[169]

There were, then, no public buildings up to the xiv century. The Greyfriars or the Austinfriars gave hospitality to the university on public occasions, and the only brick and mortar evidence of a university lay in the hostels and colleges. The “Schools” now erected were halls for lecturing and scholastic disputations; the north, west, and east sides were completed by the middle of the next century, the south side being added in accordance with a decision taken in 1457 to build “anewschool of philosophy and civil law, or a library.”[170]This was erected on university ground (on the south) next to the school of canon law (west). Over this last was the original library room (the “west room” 1457) and “a chapel of exceeding great beauty.” The quadrangle contained the Divinity school (north) with the Regent and non-regent houses; opposite was the Sophisters’ school with thelibraria communisormagna; on the entrance side were the Chancellor’s (Rotherham’s) Library, Consistory court and Court of the Proctors andTaxors; and facing this the Bachelors’ school and the school of Medicine and Law; the old “west room” having been converted into a school, by grace of the Senate, in 1547.[171]

The university library.

The schools remained untouched till the opening years of the xviii century when the Regent House was pulled down to build the present university library. This is the oldest of the three great English libraries, and stands on ground which has always been university property. The early xv century library which was lodged in the Schools quadrangle originated in gifts of single volumes by private donors until 52 had been collected; and books which were bequeathed in 1424 are still preserved. Fifty years later (1473) the proctors Ralph Sanger and Richard Tokerham made a catalogue of 330 books.[172]Rotherham Archbishop of York next presented 200 tomes, and Tunstall Bishop of Durham was another donor: many of these last gifts

GATEWAY OF KING’S COLLEGE, KING’S PARADE This is one of the most picturesque views in Cambridge. On the right are the Gateway and Screen and other portions of King’s College; on the left are some ancient houses.GATEWAY OF KING’S COLLEGE, KING’S PARADEThis is one of the most picturesque views in Cambridge. On the right are the Gateway and Screen and other portions of King’s College; on the left are some ancient houses.

were “embezzled” by “pilferers” before the middle of the xvi century,[173]and the libraries of three successive Cambridge archbishops of Canterbury, Parker, Grindal, and Bancroft, formed the chief treasure of the university until 1715 when George I. purchased and presented the library of Moore Bishop of Ely which is the nucleus of the modern collection.[174]

There are 400,000 volumes on open shelves among which the student can wander at will and get his own books without applying to the library officials; a convenience which Lord Acton, the late Professor of Modern History, used to say made this the only serviceable library in Europe. Another privilege, which is possessed by all masters of arts, is that books may be taken home. Undergraduates, if in academic dress, have also free access. The university library is one of the three copyright libraries in England.[175]

The Pitt Press.

A printing press was set up at Cambridge, early in the xvi century, by Siberch who said of himself that he was the first in England to print Greek—7 small volumes in the Greek character were printed by him at the university. Carter, however, tells us that an Italian Franciscan, William of Savona, printed a book at Cambridge in 1478, four years after Caxton hadprinted the first book in England. Lord Coke pointed out that this university enjoyed before Oxford the privilege of printingomnes et omnigenas libros, “all and every kind of book” (1534). This included the right to appoint 3 stationers or printers.

Siberch’s printing place was on the present site of Caius. In 1655 the university obtained from Queens’ College a lease of the ground at the corner of Silver street and Queens’ lane—the historic Mill street district—now the site of the lodge and garden of S. Catherine’s. In 1804 the present site was obtained for the university press, with a further “messuage fronting upon Trumpington street and Mill lane”; the remaining properties in Trumpington street, between Silver street and Mill street, being bought in 1831-3. The Pitt Press, a church-like structure, stands opposite to Pembroke (Pitt’s) College, and owes its name to the fact that the surplus funds of the Pitt monument in Westminster abbey were a donation to the university towards defraying the cost. The building also contains the offices of the university Registrary.[176]

The Senate House was not founded till 1722, and lies on the north of the library.[177]

King’s College.A. D.1441.

Ninety years passed after the building of Corpus before Henry VI. founded King’s College, and Margaret of Anjou, his consort, founded

KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL AND THE ENTRANCE COURT, FROM THE FELLOWS’ BUILDINGS A portion of the Chapel is seen on the left of the picture with Great St. Mary’s tower in the distance. The Screen and Gate are on the right.KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL AND THE ENTRANCE COURT, FROM THE FELLOWS’ BUILDINGSA portion of the Chapel is seen on the left of the picture with Great St. Mary’s tower in the distance. The Screen and Gate are on the right.

Queens’. It was in 1443 that the charter of the double foundation of Eton at Windsor and King’s College at Cambridge was signed—the one “our royal college of S. Mary of Eton,” the other “our royal college of S. Mary and S. Nicholas”; for Henry dedicated his college to his patron saint Nicholas “of Bari” the patron of scholars. The king laid the foundation stone himself (p. 112) in the presence of John Langton chancellor of the university, the keeper of the Privy Seal, the chancellor of the Exchequer, and the bishops of Lincoln and Salisbury.[178]The king’s father had intended to build a college at Oxford; Henry VI. carried out his intention in endowing a college but decided that the university should be Cambridge. A small college called God’s House which had just been founded,[179]together with Mill Street (acquired in 1445) and Augustine’s hostel (in 1449) and the church of S. John Zachary, were pulled down to clear a space: but the original plan for the college was never carried out, and the buildings we now see were erected in the first quarter of the xviiith and in the xixth centuries.[180]

The chapel.

The only portion of the original plan executed was the chapel. The importance of King’s College chapel is not only architectural; is due not only to the fact that it was begun before the Italian classical revival as a monument of English Gothic, and completed in the full blaze of the renascence, but that it marks a chapter in the history of English religion. The church built for the old worship was consecrated for the new; the first stone was laid by Henry VI. in the presence of great catholic prelates, the oaken screen—perhaps the finest woodwork in the country—bears the monogram of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn[181]twined with true lovers’ knots. In the third place “this immense and

KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL AND THE FELLOWS’ BUILDINGS The South door of the Chapel is seen to the right in the picture, and the Fellows’ Buildings, constructed in 1723, are on the left. The Fountain with a statue of the founder, Henry the Sixth, was designed by H. A. Armstead, R. A.KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL AND THE FELLOWS’ BUILDINGSThe South door of the Chapel is seen to the right in the picture, and the Fellows’ Buildings, constructed in 1723, are on the left. The Fountain with a statue of the founder, Henry the Sixth, was designed by H. A. Armstead, R. A.

glorious work of fine intelligence,” as Wordsworth calls it, remains one of the very finest monuments of Perpendicular architecture; and that beautiful English feature the fan-vaulting, which is to be seen in the Tudor chapel at the Guildhall, in Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster, and at S. David’s (now ruinous), is here carried out over a larger area than anywhere else.[182]

That branching roofSelf-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cellsWhere light and shade repose, where music dwellsLingering, and wandering on as loth to die—Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proofThat they were born for immortality.

So writes Wordsworth; and the stained glass windows,the most ‘complete and magnificent series’ in the country says Carter, probably inspired Milton’s

—storied windows richly dight,Casting a dim religious light.There let the pealing organ blow,To the full voic’d quire below,In service high, and anthems clear,As may with sweetness through mine ear,Dissolve me into ecstasies,And bring all Heav’n before mine eyes.

On the death of the Lancastrian monarch, Edward IV. sequestrated the building funds, but returned a thousand pounds later, and Richard III. contributed £700; but it is Henry VII. who brought the work to completion.

King’s is the only college in the university which receives only those students who intend to read for honours, and until 1857 its members could claim theB.A.degree without presenting themselves for examination.[183]The college was, almost immediately upon its foundation, exempted not only from archiepiscopal and episcopal control but also from the general jurisdiction

KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL INTERIOR FROM THE CHOIRKING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL INTERIOR FROM THE CHOIR

of the university. It was endowed for the accommodation of a Provost, 70 poor scholars, 10 secular priests, 16 choristers, and 6 clerks—a total of 103. Eton was designed for 132 inmates.[184]24 of the 48 scholarships of King’s are now open. Each of these scholarships is of the annual value of £80. There are also 46 fellowships. The most celebrated Etonians have not however been educated at King’s, among whose eminent sons have been Croke, Cheke (of S. John’s) Provost, Woodlark the founder of S. Catherine’s, third Provost of the college and also its benefactor, Sir John Harrington, Robert and Horace Walpole, Sir Francis Walsingham, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Conisby, Haddon, Giles Fletcher, Waller, Fleetwood, Oughtred an Etonian on the first foundation, Whichcote (of Emmanuel) Provost, Upton, Cole, and Charles Simeon who was a life fellow. Nicholas Close (1551) and Aldrich (1537) both bishops of Carlisle, the former one of the original six fellows, the latter the intimate of Erasmus, Rotherham of York (1467) a fellow and a donor to the chapel fund, Fox of Hereford (1535), William and George Day bishops of Winchester and Chichester, one provost of Eton the other of King’s, Wickham of Lincoln and Winchester,[185]Nicholas West (Bishop of Ely 1515) the friend of Fisher and More and Richard Cox (1559) both scholars of the college, Oliver King of Exeter, then of Bath and Wells (1492),Alley of Exeter, Guest of Rochester and Salisbury (1559), Goodrich of Ely (1534), Pearson, and Sumner, are among its prelates. Henry and Charles Brandon, heirs of their father the Duke of Suffolk, and nephews of Henry VIII. and both proficient scholars, died of the sweating sickness while in residence here in the reign of Edward VI. Cardinal Beaufort was a princely benefactor to the college, and John Somerset, physician to Henry VI., who came to Cambridge as an Oxford sophister and here graduated, was one of the chief instruments in its foundation, and drew up its statutes.[186]

The college has produced several great schoolmasters, and is now gradually acquiring a reputation for historical studies, about one third of the students being history men. The dedication to S. Nicholas is only retained in formal descriptions:King’s Collegehas been by common consent regarded as the fitting title for this truly royal foundation, and it recalls that still older King’s Hall which is now merged in Trinity.[187]

THE HALL OF KING’S COLLEGE This was built by Wilkins 1824-28. On the walls are several portraits by Sir Hubert Herkomer, R.A.THE HALL OF KING’S COLLEGEThis was built by Wilkins 1824-28. On the walls are several portraits by Sir Hubert Herkomer, R.A.

The Cambridge College chapels.

The importance of King’s College chapel in university history since the xv century leads us to consider the rôle played in Cambridge by collegiate chapels. Every college chapel, and every church which has an historical connexion with the university, has served—as all early Christian edifices have served—other purposes than those of religious worship. What we have to remark in Cambridge is that this ancient custom continued there longer than elsewhere. The “Commencements” which took place later in the Senate House used to be held, as we have seen, in the famous church of the Greyfriars or in that of the Austinfriars. The University church—Great S. Mary’s—was used by the university for its assemblies in the xiii century and was the scene of all great civic functions; disputations were held in it on Elizabeth’s visit in 1564. The college chapels were everywhere used for the transaction of important business; the Provost of King’s and other Masters are still elected in the chapel, documents are still sealed in the chapel of King’s and Trinity, and the Thurston speech is still pronounced in the chapel of Caius. The choir of King’s was used for degree examinations as late as 1851, and declamations are even now held in the chapel at Trinity. Indeed the “exercises of learning” “used” in the chapels was the reason given by the Corpus men to Lord Bacon’s father when asking for a church to themselves;and Queen Elizabeth witnessed theAululariaof Plautus in King’s chapel on Sunday August 6th 1564, as the abbess and her nuns had assembled for Hrostwitha’s play in the abbey church of Gandersheim six hundred years earlier. The building of colleges adjoining a parish church is a feature peculiar to Cambridge. Merton is the one exception at Oxford, and Pembroke is, as we have seen, the only early exception to this rule at Cambridge.[188]

List of pre-reformation colleges built with chapels:—1.Pembroke 1355-63 (the existing chapel is xvii c.)2.King’s 1446-1536 (the existing chapel).3.Queens’ 1448 (defaced at the reformation and restored. But a xix c. chapel is now used).4.Jesus 1495 (The then existing xii c. monastic chapel was rebuilt by the founder.)5.S. Catherine’s 1475 (the existing chapel is xvii c.)6.Magdalene 1483 (completely restored in the middle of the xix c.)Existing pre-reformation chapels:—King’s xv c.Queens’ xv c. (restored).Jesus xv c.Trinity Hall xv c.Magdalene (restored) xv c.Colleges built without chapels and with (generally) post-reformation chapels:—1.Peterhouse (xvii c.)[188a]2.Michaelhouse (none).3.King’s Hall (chapel built temp. Edw. IV., and Ric. III. The site of the present chapel of Trinity College).4.Clare (1535. The existing chapel is 1764).[188b]5.Gonville.[188c]6.Trinity Hall 1474.7.Corpus 1500, and 1579 (the existing chapel is on the site of the latter, and was erected 1823).Existing xvi c. chapels:—Christ’s 1505 (the original chapel, but defaced); Trinity, completed 1564-7.At Caius, the present chapel is on the site of the xvi c. chapel; and at S. John’s a xix c. structure replaces the xvi c. one, near the same site.

List of pre-reformation colleges built with chapels:—

Existing pre-reformation chapels:—

Colleges built without chapels and with (generally) post-reformation chapels:—

Existing xvi c. chapels:—

Christ’s 1505 (the original chapel, but defaced); Trinity, completed 1564-7.

At Caius, the present chapel is on the site of the xvi c. chapel; and at S. John’s a xix c. structure replaces the xvi c. one, near the same site.

Back to Index Next