A.D. 1535. tention of the crown to reform destroy. CH. 10. the presentation of the report, an extensive measure of suppression was not so much as contemFirst in plated. The directions to the visitors, the injunctions which they were to carry with them to and not to the various houses, the private letters to the superiors, which were written by the king and by Cromwell,† show plainly that the first object was to reform and not to destroy; and it was only when reformation was found to be conclusively hopeless, that the harder alternative was resolved upon. The report itself is no longer extant. Bonner was directed by Queen Mary to destroy all discoverable copies of it, and his work was fatally well executed. We are able, however, to replace its contents to some extent, out of the despatches of the commissioners. The com issue an Their discretionary powers were unusually missioners large, as appears from the first act with which they inhibition commenced operations. On their own responsibishops, bility, they issued an inhibition against the against the bishops, forbidding them to exercise any portion of their jurisdiction while the visitation was in progress. The sees themselves were to be inspected; and they desired to make the ground clear before they moved. When the amazed bishops exclaimed against so unheard-of an innovation, Doctor Legh justified the order by saying, that it was well to compel the prelates to know and feel their new position; and in the fact of their suspension by a royal commission, to * BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 74. + STRYPE'S Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i. Appendix, p. 214. 'agnize' the king as the source of episcopal Cн. 10. authority.* A.D. 1535. mence work Sept. 12. Truly it was an altered world since the bishops And comsent in their answer to the complaints of the at Oxford, House of Commons. The visitors, in this haughty style, having established their powers, began work with the university of Oxford. Their time was short, for parliament was to meet early in the spring, when their report was to be submitted to it; and their business meanwhile was not only to observe and inquire, but any reforms which were plainly useful and good, they were themselves to execute. They had no time for hesitation, therefore; and they laid their hands to the task before them with a promptitude at which we can only wonder. The heads of houses, as may be supposed, saw little around them which was in need of reform. A few students of high genius and Condition high purposes had been introduced into the uni- University. versity, as we have seen, by Wolsey; and these had been assiduously exiled or imprisoned. All suspected books had been hunted out. There had been fagot processions in High-street, and bonfires of New Testaments at Carfax. The daily chapels, Efforts of we suppose, had gone forward as usual, and the of houses. drowsy lectures on the schoolmen; while 'towardly young men' who were venturing stealthily into the perilous heresy of Greek, were eyed askance by the authorities, and taught to tremble at their temerity. All this we might have looked * Legh to Cromwell, Sept. 24th: STRYPE'S Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i. Appendix, p. 216.-Cotton. MS. Cleopatra, E 4, fol. 225. of the the heads CH. 10. for; and among the authorities themselves, also, the world went forward in a very natural manner. September. There was comfortable living in the colleges; so A.D. 1535. Parish clergy idling at the colleges under pretence of study. comfortable, that many of the country clergy preferred Oxford and Cambridge to the monotony of their parishes, and took advantage of a clause in a late act of parliament, which recognised a residence at either of the universities as an excuse for absence from tedious duties. Divers and many persons,' it was found, 'beneficed with cure of souls, and being not apt to study by reason of their age or otherwise, ne never intending before the making of the said act to travel in study, but rather minding their own ease and pleasure, colourably to defraud the same good statute, did daily and commonly resort to the said universities, where, under pretence of study, they continued and abode, living dissolutely; nothing profiting themselves in learning, but consumed the time in idleness and pastimes and insolent pleasures, giving occasion and evil example thereby to the young men and students within the universities, and occupying such rooms and commodities as were instituted for the maintenance and relief of poor scholars.'* These persons were not driven away by the heads of houses as the Christian Brothers had been; they were welcomed rather as pleasant companions. In comfortable conservatism they had no tendencies to heresy; but only to a reasonable indulgence of their five bodily senses. Doubtless, therefore, the visitors found Oxford a pleasant * 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 13. The dis quiet. of studies. place, and cruelly they marred the enjoyments of CH. 10. it. Like a sudden storm of rain, they dropt down A.D. 1535. into its quiet precincts. Heedless of rights of fel- September. lows and founders' bequests, of sleepy dignities turbers of and established indolences, they re-established order and long dormant lectures in the colleges. In a few Revolution little days (for so long only they remained) they poured new life into education. They founded fresh professorships - professorships of Polite Latin, professorships of Philosophy, Divinity, Canon Law, Natural Sciences-above all, of the dreaded Greek; confiscating funds to support them. For the old threadbare text-books, some real teaching was swiftly substituted. The idle residents were noted down, soon to be sent home by parliament to their benefices, under pain of being compelled, like all other students, to attend lectures, and, in their proper persons, 'keep sophisms, problems, disputations, and all other exercises of learning.' of disci The discipline was not neglected: 'we Revolution have enjoined the religious students,'† Leyton pline. wrote to Cromwell, 'that none of them, for no manner of cause, shall come within any tavern, inn, or alehouse, or any other house, whatsoever it be, within the town and suburbs. [Each offender] once so taken, to be sent home to his cloyster. Without doubt, this act is greatly lamented of all honest women of the town; and especially of their laundresses, that may not now * 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 13. That is, the exhibitioners sent up to the university from the monasteries. A.D. 1535. fate of Duns Scotus. CH. 10. Once enter within the gates, much less within the chambers, whereunto they were right well accustomed. I doubt not, but for this thing, only the honest matrons will sue to you for redress.'* These were sharp measures; we lose our breath at their rapidity and violence. The saddest vicissitude Memorable was that which befell the famous Duns; Duns Scotus, the greatest of the schoolmen, the constructor of the memoria technica of ignorance, the ancient text-book of à priori knowledge, established for centuries the supreme despot in the Oxford lecture-rooms. 'We have set Duns in Bocardo,' says Leyton. He was thrown down from his high estate, and from being lord of the Oxford intellect, was made the common servant of all men;' condemned by official sentence to the lowest degradation to which book can be submitted. Some copies escaped this worst fate; but for changed uses thenceforward. The second occasion on which the visitors came to New College, they found the great Quadrant Court full of the leaves of Duns, the wind blowing them into every corner; and one Mr. Greenfield, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, gathering up part of the same book leaves, as he said, to make him sewers or blawnsheres, to keep the deer within his wood, thereby to have the better cry with his hounds.'+ *STRYPE, Memorials, vol. Suppression of the Monasteries, Id quod meis oculis vidi, Leyton writes: Ibid. Leyton to Cromwell: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 71, et seq. |