Oxford (England) -- History; University of Oxford -- History
According to the new regulations the scholars or servitors of Balliol
were to occupy a position humbler than that of the younger students at
any other College. They were to wait upon the Master and the graduate
Fellows and to be fed with the crumbs that should fall from the table of
their superiors. They were to be nominated by the Fellow whom they were
to serve, to be from eighteen to twenty-two years of age, and if they
proved themselves industrious and well-behaved they were to be eligible
to Fellowships even though they had not taken the degree of B.A.
Commoners, as in most other Colleges, were to be allowed to lodge within
the walls of the College, and to take their meals with the members of
the Society.
The Fellowships, which entitled the holder to a "commons" of 1s. 8d. a
week, were thrown open to competition, candidates being required,
however, to be Bachelors of Arts, of legitimate birth, good character,
proficient in their studies, and in need of assistance, for any cure of
souls, or a private income of more than 40s. a year, was accounted a
reason for disqualification.
Fox had a weakness for metaphors. In the statutes of Corpus he "spoke
horticulturally; his metaphor was drawn from bees." On the present
occasion he uses a metaphor as elaborate and appropriate. The College is
described as a human body. The Master was the head, endued with the five
senses of seeing clearly, hearing discreetly, smelling sagaciously,
tasting moderately, and touching fitly; the senior Fellow was the neck;
the Deans were the shoulders; the two priests the sides; the Bursars the
arms and hands; the Fellows the stomach; the scholars the legs; and the
servants the feet, whose function it is to go whithersoever they are
bidden. Just as the body when sick would require a physician, so it was
said would the College sometimes require a visitor. The Master and
Fellows were given the unusual privilege of choosing their own visitor.
In the fifteenth century the whole quadrangle was rebuilt; the Old Hall,
the Old Library, the Master's House, and the block of buildings and
gateway facing Broad Street being then erected. Of these the shell of
the Master's House, the Old Hall, now converted into an undergraduates'
library, and the Old Library, much defaced by Wyatt, survive. The east
wall of the library was used to form the west end of the chapel, which
was built in 1529 to replace the old oratory. The sixteenth century
chapel was removed and the present building erected as a memorial to Dr
Jenkins, under whom Balliol had begun to develop into a College of
almost national importance. Mr Butterfield, the architect who had done
his best to ruin Merton, and who perpetrated Keble, was entrusted with
this unfortunate method of perpetuating the worthy Master's memory.
[Illustration: Balliol College]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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