Great Britain -- History -- Medieval period, 1066-1485
More startling still is the fact that a college did not at first
necessarily imply that there was a chapel attached. So far from this
being the case, it is certain that Peterhouse, the oldest college in
Cambridge, never had a chapel till the present building was consecrated
in 1632. It was with great difficulty that the Countess of Pembroke in
1366 was allowed to build a chapel within the precincts of her new
college; and, so far from these convenient adjuncts to a collegiate
establishment having been considered an essential in early times, no
less than eight of the college chapels at Cambridge and four at Oxford
date from a time after the Reformation. In the fourteenth century and
later the young scholars, as a rule, attended their parish church.
Sometimes the college added on an aisle for the accommodation of its
members; sometimes it obtained a _licence_ to use a room in which
Divine Service might be conducted for a time; once the founder of a
college erected a collegiate quire in the middle of the parish church,
a kind of gigantic _pew,_ for the accommodation of his scholars.
Downing College has never had a chapel to the present hour.
Of all the developments, however, in the college idea, none has been
more remarkable than that of the master's lodge. In the fourteenth
century the master of a college was but _primits inter pares,_ and the
distance between him and his _fellows_ or _scholars_ was less than that
which exists now between the Commanding officer of a regiment in
barracks and his brother officers. The master had no sinecure; the
discipline of the place depended upon him almost entirely, for in those
days the monarchial idea was in the ascendant; the king was a real
king, the bishop a real bishop, the master a real master. Everything
was referred to him, everything originated with him, everything was
controlled by him. But as for the accommodation assigned to him in the
early colleges, it was very inferior indeed to that which every
graduate at Trinity or St. John's expects to find in our time. The
Provost of Oriel in 1329 was permitted by the statutes to dine apart if
he pleased, and to reside outside the precincts of the college if he
chose to provide for himself another residence; but this was clearly an
exceptional case, for the master was at this time the actual founder of
the college, and Adam de Brune might be presumed to know what was good
for his successors in the office for which he himself had made
provision. But for generations the master enjoyed no more than a couple
of _chambers_ at the most, and it was not till the sixteenth century
that an official residence was provided, and then such residence
consisted only of _lodgings_ a little more spacious and convenient than
those of any of the fellows, and in no case separated from the main
buildings of the college. Even when masters of colleges began to marry
(and the earliest instance of this seems to have been Dr. Heynes,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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