The statutes of Clare Hall were written by the founder in 1359, a year before her death. The statutes of Peterhouse[123] and of Pembroke do not exist in their original form--and those of Hervey de Stanton for Michaelhouse and of Elizabeth de Burgh for Clare must be held to be the two types of Cambridge college statutes. Of these the latter rank as the most enlightened original code framed for a Cambridge college. Stanton’s contain little more than directions for the conduct of a clerical seminary, and this type was followed by the framers of the statutes of Corpus Christi and in their general intention by Gonville in statutes afterwards modified by Bateman. The statutes of King’s Hall framed for Richard II. reverted to the Merton type; Henry VI.’s statutes for King’s follow, as we shall see, the type already laid down by William of Wykeham, while Lady Margaret Countess of Richmond, and John Fisher Bishop of Rochester framed statutes which contain some original elements. Elizabeth de Burgh’s originality consists in her realisation of the value of learning and of general knowledge for all kinds of men and for its own sake. “In every degree, whether ecclesiastical or temporal, skill in learning is of no mean advantage; which although sought for by many persons in many ways is to be found most fully in the university where a _studium generale_ is known to flourish.”[124] Thence it sends forth its “disciples,” “who have tasted its sweetness,” skilled and fitted, to fill their place in the world. She wishes to promote, with the advancement of religious worship and the welfare of the state, “the extension of these sciences”; her object being that “the pearl of knowledge” “once discovered and acquired by study and learning” “should not lie hid,” but be diffused more and more widely, and when so diffused give light to them that walk in the darkness of the shadow of ignorance.[125] The statutes of Marie Valence were written twelve years earlier and even in the form in which they have come down to us have a character of their own and conform to none of the three types of Merton, Michaelhouse, or Clare.[126] Merton’s statutes were issued in 1264, 1270, and 1274, and the 1274 statutes exist in the university library in a register of the Bishops of Lincoln. Mr. J. Bass Mullinger has printed Hervey de Stanton’s in Appendix D. to his “History of the University of Cambridge”; they are contained in the Michaelhouse book in the muniment room of Trinity. * * * * * For King’s Hall, founded in 1337, see page 131. [Illustration: THE HALL OF CLARE COLLEGE The notable features of this interior are the plaster ceiling and the large oak figures over the fireplace, the latter designed by Sir M. Digby Wyatt 1870-72.] [Sidenote: Pembroke College A.D. 1347.]