The oldest foundation charter of Merton College, issued in 1264, was itself the development of still earlier schemes for the support of poor scholars, _in scholis degentes_. It established an endowed ‘House of the scholars of Merton’ at Malden, in Surrey, under a warden or bailiffs, with two or three ‘ministers of the altar.’ Out of the estates assigned to this collegiate house were to be maintained a body of twenty students in a hall or lodging at Oxford, or elsewhere, if a more flourishing _studium generale_ should elsewhere be instituted. In 1274, Walter de Merton, having greatly expanded his first design, put forth his final statutes, transferring the warden, bailiffs, and ministers of the altar, from Malden to Oxford, and designating Oxford as the exclusive and permanent home of the scholars. These statutes, which continued in force until the year 1856, are a marvellous repertory of minute and elaborate provisions governing every detail of college life. The number and allowances of the scholars; their studies, diet, costume, and discipline; the qualifications, election, and functions of the warden; the distribution of powers among various college officers; the management of the college estates, and the conduct of college business, are here regulated with truly remarkable sagacity. The policy which dictated and underlies them is easy to discern. Fully appreciating the intellectual movement of his age, and unwilling to see the paramount control of it in the hands of the religious orders—the zealous apostles of Papal supremacy—Walter de Merton resolved to establish within the precincts of the University a great seminary of secular clergy, which should educate a succession of men capable of doing good service in Church and State. He was not content with a copy or even a mere adaptation of the monastic idea; on the contrary, it may be surmised that he was influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by the spirit of those non-monastic institutions, now almost forgotten, in which the parochial clergy of an earlier age had sometimes lived together under a common rule. The employment of his scholars was to be study—not the _claustralis religio_ of the older religious orders, nor the more practical and popular self-devotion of the Dominicans and Franciscans. He forbade them ever to take vows; he enjoined them to maintain their corporate independence against all foreign encroachments; he ordained that all should apply themselves to studying the liberal arts and philosophy before entering upon a course of theology; and he provided special chaplains to relieve them of ritual and ceremonial duties. He contemplated and even encouraged their going forth into the great world, only reminding those who might win an ample fortune (_uberior fortuna_) to show their gratitude by advancing the interests of the college. No ascetic obligations were laid upon them, but residence and continuous study were strictly