46

WYLDE'S ENTRY.

mentions' Henry Milward's1 lease of Beef Hall for forty years, dated 26 Martij, 41 Eliz. anno 1599.' Langbaine (after 1646) adds a note: This lease is expired and another in being.' Hutten (1626) says: 'Beefe Hall, not inhabited by anie scholars, but become the Tenement of some private person 2.

In or close to the extreme west corner of the Lane was a small plot of ground, a 'habitation for clerks,' belonging afterwards to Magdalen, called Wylde's Entry. Wood says: All the mention of which is only (I have yet found) in the testament of one Richard Couper (1348), wherin he leaveth to Richard Seukworth, junior, a solar situated juxta Wylde's Entre ex parte australi in parochia S. Ebbae 3. William le Wylde, who made his will March 9, 1313, and was buried in St. Ebbe's Church, had two, or possibly three, properties in this corner. One is described in 136 as having a hall called Brodegates in the parish of St. Ebbe's' (Beef Hall?) on the east and a place formerly belonging to Robert de Kidlington on the west. A third part of it was granted in that year by Nicholas Forester to Henry de Witteney, otherwise Sclatter. By his will made on St. Mark's day, 1349 (23 Edw. III), John Peggy, alderman and cordwainer, bailiff 1338, 1342, 1347, and 1348, afterwards buried in St. Frideswyde's, bequeathed to the priory, besides four cottagia' in a row in St. Ebbe's parish, and his tenement with corner shop just outside St. Michael's at South Gate, and other properties, 'j tenementum quod quondam fuit Willielmi Wilde, situatum in parochia S. Ebbe, inter tenementum quod quondam fuit Willielmi Wilde ex parte una et venellam que ducit ad Ecclesiam S. Aldathi Oxon' ex parte altera .' He had the same month acquired this property from the executors of John de Brekhale. The Wylde tenement to the south of Peggy's gift to the canons is, no doubt, the same as a cellar and solar in St. Ebbe's parish granted by Hugh le Wylde to John de Langrish and Sara his wife, situate between a tenement formerly belonging to Sir Roger de Bellofago, knight, on the south, and a tenement formerly belonging to William le Wylde on the

1 He was University' stationer' (stationarius, or virgifer, some kind of marshal) and retired through old age April 11, 1597. 'Henry Milward, stationer,' occurs as early as 1552 (Register of the University, ed. Clark, O. H. S., II. part I. pp. 257, 262). He was licensed to sell ale in 1596, and his widow in 1605 (p. 326). Elizabethan Oxford, ed. Plummer, O. H. S., p. 89.

3 City, i. 210.

He refers to 'liber testamentorum burgensium Oxon,' fol. 486; Twyne, xxiii. 147. Twyne gives the name William le Wylde.

4 Wood MS. D. 2, fol. 224.

5 Cartulary of St. Frideswyde, ed. Wigram, O. H. S., p. 305.

Wood MS. D. 2, fol. 145.

4.

SITE OF THE COLLEGE-EXTREME WEST. 47

north. John de Langrish granted it in 1350 to Henry Sclatter of Witney; and Henry de Witney, in his will made on the feast of Leonard the abbat, 1391, directed that after his wife's decease the tenement should be sold by the executors, and the money go to the repair of St. Ebbe's Church, where he was to be buried'.

As the Wylde property on the west of 'Brodezate's Hall in St. Ebbe's' had Robert de Kidlington's land on the other side of it, it cannot have been actually in the corner. There would not be much need of an Entry in a corner. Couper's land, again, was close to Wylde's Entry on the north. At Wood MS. D. 2, fol. 145, mention is made of a tenement of All Souls between Wylde's tenement and Beef Hall Lane.

Littlegate

Solar left by Couper to Seukworth, 1348

Wylde's Entry

Beef Hall Lane

5. All Souls Land

Wylde's tenement.

'Wood MS. D. 2, fol. 224. In 11 Ric. II (1387), 'Henry Wytteney, sclatter,' paid the town 75. for a solar and cellar at Little Gate towards the Friars Preachers (City Documents, O. H. S., p. 302).

The Magdalen land was demised, temp. Elizabeth, to Henry Milward, gent. It is described in a lease of 1781 as 'two small pieces of ground on which formerly stood a tenement.' The ancient rent of 4s. and a groat acquittance was redeemed by Pembroke College, with that of Minote, Dec. 10, 1781, for £18.

It only remains to describe Dunstan, Wolstan or Adulstan ('Adulstan's,' Athelstan's, Atherton) Hall, situated on the west and south side of Beefe Hall,' and 'having its door or forefront butting on that street or lane that leadeth from St. Ebb's Church to Littlegate?!' Wood says this street was for that reason more properly styled Wolstan's Hall Street. Adulstan' is very likely a corrupt variant of 'Wolstan.' The name Dunstan, or Dunster, remained till recent times. The land, like that of Beef Hall, was leased from the University, and measured 115 feet from east to west, and 98 feet from the Magdalen land southwards to the city wall. It was an academic hall at least as early as 1446, in which year, March 1, Robert Darry, Clerk, principal of Adulstane Halle, juxta Beefe Halle,' summoned one of his scholars, Roland Barrys, for non-payment of 7s. 6d., being three terms' rent of his chamber. Roland confessed, was condemned to pay within eight days, and took an oath to do so on the Gospels. It was allwaies till the decay of halls supplied by clerks.' Twyne (according to Wood) affirms it to have been given to the University by Dr. Hall,' who was principal in 1458, 1463 and 1469. He himself merely appends to the name the words, 'S. Wolstan, Rob. Wolstan.' He thinks it may be the same as a hall of uncertain site called Minard's, or Maynard's (though this may be only a variant of Minote's), 'quia non inseritur 1501.' It' would seem from these last words that Dunstan had disappeared 1 City, i. 211. 2 Gutch's Wood.

before 1501. But à Wood says, 'Hibernici illic studuerunt et in aliis aulis proximis (1513).' Rowse gives it as a hall for legists in his day. Standish mentions' Dunstan's' or 'Wlstan' among 'old halls ' no longer existing. A hall however is described in the catalogues as not 'existens' when it had ceased to be used for academic purposes, though the building may have remained. In the Register of Congregation, April 10, 1548, 'a garden called Donstone Hawle vel Wolstone Hawle' was let with Beef Hall to Henry Crosse, who was living near University College in 1552. The two properties were finally purchased by the College from the University in 1872 for £162 6s. 4d.

It is to be noticed that all the six halls, Broadgates, Polton, James, Michael, Beef and Dunstan, are joined together by Rowse, and described as being for legists, and 'near St. Aldate's Church,' though the last two were in St. Ebbe's parish, and almost touched St. Ebbe's Church. Dunstan's was a long way from St. Aldate's. The reason must be that these halls were connected with the civil law school in St. Aldate's Church, which however Standish speaks of a little later as no longer used for academic purposes. All of them are now part of Pembroke College.

The list given in Mr. Anstey's Munimenta Academica (ii. 519) is dated Sept. 9, 1438, and enumerates seventy-three Halls then existing 'pro quibus expositae sunt cautiones.' Among them are (besides a 'Brodegate') 'Latarum portarum,' ' Bovina,' and 'Sancti Jacobi.'

NOTE ON A FORMER OWNER OF THE MASTER'S HOUSE.

John Rous, through whose hands Cambey's passed in becoming part of Pembroke, was fellow of Oriel, and from 1620 till his death in 1652 Bodley's librarian. It is to him that Milton wrote, on Jan. 23, 1646, the curious Latin ode in mixed metres beginning 'Gemelle cultu simplici gaudens liber.' He is almost certainly our common friend Mr. R.' mentioned by Wotton in a letter to Milton, who may have become intimate with Rous when, in 1635, he incorporated as M.A. at Oxford. The occasion of the ode Ad Joannem Rousium' was that at Rous's request his friend had, in 1645, sent him for the Library his Prose writings and Poems, but, the latter being lost on the way, Milton sent a second copy. In this volume, on an inserted MS. sheet, supposed to be the poet's autograph, is this ode, which is addressed to the little book. The Bodleian is sedes beatae, whence (in Cowper's translation) ‘the coarse unlettered multitude' which now censures his political writing shall babble far remote.' The Librarian is 'Aeternorum operum custos fidelis,' and

'Si quid meremur sana posteritas sciet

Rousio favente.'

Rous may have been a kinsman of Francis Rous, the Pembroke benefactor. His body lies in Oriel chapel. There is a three-quarters portrait of him, in a clerical dress, among the protobibliothecarii. His refusal to allow Charles I to borrow a volume from the Library, as contrary to the Statutes, is well known, and the King's kingly reply.

E

CHAPTER V.

STREETS ROUND THE COLLEGE.

ST. ALDATE'S STREET, or Grampound, which bounds the College on the east, is the cross-thoroughfare of the city of Oxford, the time-honoured road leading through the south port to the principal passage of the Thames and the country district beyond. The name Grandpont or Southbridge Street began from the Gate, and is older than the long causeway of above forty arches of stone1 which crossed the numerous streamlets and the river. This street was in antient times meadow and plashy ground 2.' There were halls (Water, Parmuncer, Littlemore, Rack, Pope, St. Mary's House, and others) on either side of it. Here the Abbot of Abingdon held his court, and the Justices in Eyre the assizes 3. The upper part of the street was once called Southgate Street or, from the fish market held in it, Fish Street. Here stood Fishmongers' Hall, and the traders in fish, like John de Doclinton, had their abodes in and near the street 5. It was on Fish Street, opposite St. Aldate's Church, that Peter Martyr's rooms in Christ Church looked, until, his windows being frequently broken and his sleep and studies disturbed by 'opprobrious Language from the R. Catholicks, as well scholars as Laicks,' he removed to the Cloisters. Between Christ Church and Pembroke, just before reaching the South gate with its chapel of the Prince Archangel, and its towers on each side, the hill grew very steep, 'as may be seen,' writes Mr. Parker, 'by the marks left of the former level both on the walls of Christ Church and the Almshouses, particularly from a blocked-up doorway in the latter.' The incline was made more gradual in 1834. This point of the road was called Tower Hill, and also Cutler's Hill. Wood says in his account of the City :

'Wee come to the place where South Gate formerly stood. The signes and tokens therof though not apparent by ruinous buildings, yet it may be discerned by a fall or discent that parts Fish Street from Grandpont, and wheron those stately towers adjoyning therto were sometimes standing'.'

Nothing remains of the gate. But the twelfth-century wall, obliterated for some distance on the Christ Church side till it comes out again in the 1 Elizabethan Oxford, O. H. S. p. 83. They can still be traced. 2 City, i. 296, n. 3.

Ibid. i. 305.

In Agas (1578) 'South Streate,' in Peshall's map (1773) Fish St.' 5 This lingered on till the establishment of the new market. • City, i. 296. 7 Ibid. i. 164.