Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/101

 Balsham the Sorbonne, established about 1250. At the Sorbonne, as elsewhere, poverty was an indispensable condition of membership ( History of Cambridge, 127 and note 3). At Oxford, where the intellectual efforts of Paris had,under the guidance of the Franciscans, been equalled and were soon to be outstripped, it might seem strange that the earliest collegiate foundation—that of Walter de Merton (1264)—should have expressly excluded all members of regular orders (, 164). But the dangers involved in the ascendency of the monks and friars must have been already patent to many with sagacious minds: and it may be worth noting that Bishop Walter de Merton had been chancellor of the kingdom in the years almost immediately preceding the date of the foundation of his college (1261-1262), when the king's troubles were at their height (, 164, note 1), and that he was accordingly by position an adversary of the Franciscan interest. And in any case the monks and friars were already sufficiently provided for, so that there was no need for including them in a new foundation. In 1268, when Hugh de Balsham presumably had not yet formed the design of establishing a college of his own, he appropriated to Merton College a moiety of the rectory of Gamlingay in Ely diocese and Cambridge county (, Account of Pythagoras's School, 1790, 87-90). These examples, then—for the 'hostels' which already existed in the university can hardly be taken into account—Bishop Hugh had before him when, manifestly after mature reflection, he proceeded, by giving a new form to an earlier benefaction of his own, to open a new chapter in the history of one of our universities. The bishops of Ely, it should be premised, had consistently claimed to exercise a jurisdiction over the university of Cambridge; all the chancellors of the university, from the middle of the thirteenth century (1246), when the earliest mention of the dignity occurs, to the end of the fourteenth, received episcopal confirmation; nor was it till 1433 that the university was by papal authority wholly exempted from the jurisdiction of the bishops (, 159, note 7). Indeed, it has been argued that the prerogatives of the chancellor were originally ecclesiastical, and that the highly important powers of excommunication and absolution were derived by him in the first instance from the Bishop of Ely (, 141). This relation is illustrated by the circumstance that in 1275 Bishop Hugh de Balsham issued letters requiring all suits in the university to be brought before the chancellor, and limiting his own authority to appeals from the chancellor's decisions (, 225). The bishop's readiness to make a concession to the university deserves to be contrasted with his tenacity in resisting the master of the Temple and the queen dowager. Again, in 1276, the bishop settled the question of jurisdiction between the chancellor of the university and the archdeacon of Ely, who, having the nomination of the master of the glomerels (i.e., it would seem, the instructor of students in the rudiments of Latin grammar), sought to make this privilege the basis of further interference the chancellor's rights. Bishop Hugh's decision on this head was given with great clearness, and at the same time he approved a statute, published by the university authorities, subjecting to expulsion or imprisonment all scholars who within thirteen days after entering into residence should not have procured or taken proper steps to procure 'a fixed master' (, 150;, 226; and cf. as to the master of the glomerels eund. 140, 340. The entire very interesting decree is printed in , i. 56-58). Rather earlier, in 1273, under date 'Shelford, on Wednesday next after the Sunday when "Letare Jerusalem" is sung,' he brought about a composition between the university and the combative rector of St. Bene't, who had denied to the university the customary courtesy of ringing the bell of his church to convene clerks to extraordinary lectures (, i. 54). Nothing of course could be more natural than that the bishops of Ely should look with a kindly eye upon the neighbouring seat of learning, as in the thirteenth century it might already be appropriately called. The tradition that the priory of canons regular at Cambridge, known as St. John's House or Hospital, 'upon' which St. John's College was founded several centuries afterwards, was instituted by Nigellus, second Bishop of Ely, rests on no solid grounds (see, 13, 14); the origin of this house was, in fact, due, as stated above, to the munificence of a Cambridge burgess. Eustachius, fifth Bishop of Ely, it is true, 'stands in the front of the founders and benefactors' of St. John's hospital (ib. 17), and it was he who appropriated to it St. Peter's Church without Trumpington Gate. Hugh Northwold, eighth bishop, is said by at least one authority to have placed some secular scholars as students there, who devoted themselves to academical study rather than to the services of the church. (The authority is, Sceletos Cant., 1622, cited by , and by , 147, note 4.) Bishop Northwold also obtained for the hospital the privilege of exemption from taxation with respect to their