An Oxford Undergraduate.
IT was about the year 1280, the same year when “in the twilight of the dawn” Gertrude von Hackeborn first heard the voice of Christ, that a son was born to a Yorkshire gentleman whose name was William Rolle.
This boy, who was named Richard, grew up for a while in the old manor house on the moor-side, and learned to love the woods and dales, and the moorland streams. And also he betook himself to the reading of such books as were within his reach. But books were few, and few were those who could read them; and the boy, as he read on, only became aware that there were wide fields of knowledge far beyond his tether, and he was hungering to learn more, and there were none to teach him.
But about thirty years before he was born, there had died at Rouen a learned man who had studied at the great University of Paris. This man, Master William of Durham, had left Paris in the year 1229, because of a great falling-out between the students and citizens of Paris, and he had after that time traveled about in France, and had also spent some time in Oxford, and lastly, after having been made Rector of Weremouth, he had made a journey to Rome, and had died on his homeward way in the year 1249.
And because he was a man “eminently learned, and abounding in great Revenues,” he bequeathed to the University of Oxford the sum of 310 marks, for the purchase of houses and maintenance of masters, so that students from Durham and from Yorkshire might have the means of studying at Oxford at small expense. And in the year of Richard Rolle’s birth the scholars of William of Durham were so many that though living in different houses, they already formed a college, with a master, and a college library. This college, called at first the Hall of William of Durham, was afterward, when one building was erected for all, called University College, though it went by the name of the College of William of Durham as late as the reign of Elizabeth.
Now when the Archdeacon of Durham, Master Thomas Neville, had found that the son of his friend William Rolle desired to learn philosophy and divinity, and ancient tongues, he sent him with his father’s consent to the University of Oxford, whilst he was yet young. And though he rejoiced to go there, he grieved to leave behind him the woods and dales, and the old home, and above all the sister he loved so much. But he desired to learn more of the knowledge of God, and therefore he set forth on the long and unknown journey.
Now, whilst in the year 1830 there were but 1000 students at Oxford, there had been, during the reign of King Henry III., as many as 15,000 at a time. Some say that the numbers rose from time to time to 30,000, so that Oxford was for a while the great university of the world.
For many learned men, besides the aforesaid William of Durham, had fled from Faris in King Henry’s reign, on account of the feuds and riots. And King Henry had invited them to Oxford, where they taught and lectured, and wrote books, and students from distant countries came to Oxford, and also amongst the monks and friars who had stately houses there, were men who were renowned in many lands for their learning and their knowledge.
And therefore during the reign of King Henry, Oxford had become very famous, and the names of the great men of that time will always be remembered, there and elsewhere.
When Richard Rolle went to Oxford, the grave of Roger Bacon was but newly made in the Church of the Greyfriars, and Duns Scotus, who was a few years older than Richard, and William Omani, who was just of his age, must have been students there at the same time with himself.
But the Oxford of Roger Bacon was a very different Oxford from that which we know or remember. The old Gray colleges — can we imagine them new and white? Yet they were not even white and new—they were yet in the future—and it is only the old castle, with its Norman keep, and some of the ancient churches that remain to us from the old Oxford of Henry III.
When Richard Rolle first threaded the narrow noisy streets of this city of scholars, it was to find his way to the “Hall” in which he was to lodge—one of the 200 or 300 lodging-houses in which the scholars crowded together, two or three in one room-often two sharing a bed. Nor were they the students only who shared the bare disorderly rooms. They were inhabited also, though in defiance of the rules of the Halls, by dogs and hawks and ferrets, and live stock of many objectionable sorts.
And the floors were swamped with wine and beer, and the broken furniture told of many fights and savage games. For it was even needful to forbid the wild dancing and wrestling of the students in the dining-halls and chapels—in the latter ease “lest the images should be hurt” by the rough horse-play, and the hurling of balls and stones, and bolts shot from cross-bows; or if in the streets and fields, it was forbidden to shoot arrows, or stones, or earth.
Amongst the scholars’ pastimes, forbidden soon after those days, was “that most vile and horrid sport of shaving beards, and also the haunting of taverns and spectacles,” and all games played for money, even chess and hazard.
It must have been often to warm their frozen limbs that the scholars danced and fought, for in their rooms they had no fires, and could only warm themselves in the Common Hall, where they studied and dined, and where they would fain have lingered round the charcoal fire, had they been allowed to rain there. But the rules forbade such lingering, and because candles were dear, being two-pence a pound, they were sent early to bed, cold and often hungry.
Later on, when the first colleges were built, there was a fire in the dining-hall on great festivals only, “in honor of God and His mother;” and before the colleges existed in the form of buildings in which the scholars lodged together, the Common Hall, where the scholars from the various lodging-houses called Halls met together for meals, had sometimes but a charcoal fire in the middle of the stone floor, with a hole above to serve as chimney.
It was not to many of the scholars a life of special hardship, for large numbers of them came from poor and rude homes; and many of those who belonged to the monastic colleges had learned to endure hardness in the convents from which they had been sent, for all the monasteries had not as yet become wealthy and luxurious, and places of feasting and drinking and soft living.
If the students went early to bed, they also learned early to rise, for lectures began at six or seven in the morning, dinner was at ten, supper at five. During dinner the Bible was read aloud, and generally speaking, whenever the silence was broken, Latin was spoken-sometimes French. The scholars also went to mass, and to various services during the day, and it was on these occasions that they were apt to dance and fight, and play wild games in the churches and churchyards.
Those ancient churches of Oxford must often have resounded with shouts and songs in various tongues, and many were the fights and frays between Northerners and Southerners, between French and English, and between Christians (so-called) and Jews. For the Jews had a well-peopled quarter in the old city, where they had a synagogue and stately stone houses, and because they were so many, and so wealthy, they stood in little fear of the Christians, but would mock and gibe at their graven images, and their processions and relics. And thus in the labyrinth of dark and narrow streets there were often riots and bloodshed, to the delight of the boy students, and to the terror of the citizens.