PARADISE AND TRILL MILL.

63

cloister 'was trained up yong lads to be fitted for their covent. And in this they did soe transgress in cogging away yong novices from their severall halls in the University'' that a statute was made to prevent it, and 'it was agreed they should not take any to their profession under the age of eighteen.' But this was annulled in 1366, six years later. In 1352, Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, in his Defence of Curates or Apology against the Friars, preached before the Pope at Avignon, gave instances of young boys being got away from their studies.

From the windows of Pembroke College one gazes down upon a wilderness of dingy brick boxes, mixed with public houses and gas works, where once, in grove and arbour and cloister, scholastic theses of realism and nominalism were debated by the sons of St. Dominick and St. Francis beneath the towers of their majestic fanes 2. From below, in lieu of 'solemn psalm and silver litany,' arise the shrieks of the corybantic religionists, who issuing from their adjacent barrack go nightly about the wall of our Jericho.

A few yards from St. Ebbe's Church the unlovely street brings you to a squalid square, till lately surrounding a few shrubs and vegetables. Its name shows it to be the once nightingale-haunted paradise of the Grey Friars, given them by the Lady Agnes, 'uxor Guydonis'; and here stood anciently the churches of St. Bennett and St. Budoc, guarding the West Gate of the city. Paradise was divided formerly by a rivulet, which also encompassed it in part:

'A large plott of ground partly inclosed with the said rivelet and wheron was soe pleasant a grove of trees divided into severall walks ambits and recesses, as also a garden (and orchard adjoyning) 3.

Wood, speaking of his own time, says, 'the place now is far from pleasure'; but in 1744 Salmon, in his Present State of the Universities, describes 'a pleasant Garden which goes by the name of Paradise, in which are Camomile and grass walks planted with evergreens and all manner of Fruit Trees and Flowers.' Thirty years later it supplied the Pembroke tables with cucumbers.

The city pound at Paradice' was taken down in 1781. Hereby flowed and flows (though now for the most part underground)

'the little streame called Trill from the trull or mill theron, which commeth from the Weyr streame under the quondam habitation of the Grey Fryers; then under Preachers' Bridge; and soe on the south side of the houses in Lumbard Lane, where, parting into two, one part runneth under Trill-Myll-bow and soe on the east side of Grandpont, and the other on the west side by the place where somtimes the Preaching Fryerys stood. Which stream is very advantagious (especially formerly when kept deep and cleer) for [brewers, dyers, tanners, and laundresses]; and better would it be if greater care were taken against the rubbish often cast into it, and the houses of easement over it, which renders the water very unwholsome and unfit to be used by brewers as now it is.'

1 City, ii. 397.

* Savonarola taught his scholars under a rose-tree in the convent garden of St. Mark's, in 1490. 3 City, ii. 410. * Ibid. i. 398.

64

MORS ETIAM SAXIS.

Twyne remarks 'Ropy ale brewed from these rivers'.' Trill passes 'by Bishop Howson's house,' the well-known timbered house just below the College, built by Bishop King, last Abbot of Oseney, about 15482, and passes under St. Aldate's Street about seventy yards south of the Almshouse. In the thirteenth century deeds it is 'aqua extra portam australem.' Trill Mill was 'owned antiently by the Kepeharmes of Oxon, of whome Benedict Kepeharme being one gave it to S. Frideswyde's Priory, circ. an. 1180, A series of charters refer to this mill, which was 'upon South bridge outside South Gate' (Wigram, 8-23, 191-198). The Bow, originally of wood, belonged to the Priory. The Franciscans had a 'water-milne' by this stream to grind their corn. It wound its way among the 'groves and privat meanders and recesses' beneath 'faire structures,' of which even in à Wood's time every vestige had disappeared.

'Methinks it cannot otherwise be but a bewailment to divers persons especially to such that have a respect for venerable antiquity to see such places that have been so much renowned among men, to have their names buried in their ashes, and their very ruines suffer the death of a sepulcher and dye twice because they want a monument that they lived. But 'tis no great marvaile, seeing that

Mors etiam saxis nominibusque venit 5.

The isle of the Preaching Friars was in his day

a peice of ground desolate and naked, and yeilding nothing not so much as one stone to give testimony to the world that soe famous a place as the college of the Dominicans of Oxon was there once standing... Had their bin but the pittance of a monument left of each place from which wee retaine something of memory of our auncestors, wee should not have bin soe much at a losse as with Tully to seek the sepulcher of Archimedes at Syracusa which was by the inhabitants therof utterly forgotten ".'

A few small ruins were left of

'the college sometimes of the learned Franciscans. Which at this time scarce acknowledgeth a large and venerable structure to have bin once extant there and containing in severall centuries the learnedest heroes of our nation'.'

And

The chief entrance had been just below Little South Gate, on the west side. The site of the monastery was mostly inhabited by tanners. so in Peshall's time.

The sites of the Black and Grey Friars were, in 1544, sold by Henry VIII, with other monastic lands, to private speculators for £1,094 35. 2d., and

1 City, i. 399, n. 4.

2 The front was rebuilt in 1628. John Howson was Bishop of Oxford 16191627. Ibid. i. 415, n. 2.

3 Ibid. i. 405.

The stream however was as dirty as in a later age. In 1293 the use of the 'corrupt water' of Trill Mill stream was forbidden by royal edict to the bakers and brewers, as obnoxious to health. Collectanca, II. 27. For its course see Early History of Oxford, p. 299, n. 4;

5

City, ii. 389.

and City, i. 415, n. 3. Ibid. i. 309.

7 Ibid. i. 310.

THE PLACE THEREOF.

65

quickly axes and hammers were at work. 'The trees were soon cut down, all the greens trod under foot, the church thrown down, and the stones, with the images and monuments of the greatest value, scattered about'.' The 'pleasant groves and gardens,' the 'private meanders and recesses'—but it is a thrice-told tale. Johnson, viewing the decaying ruins of Oseney and Rewley, was so filled with indignation that for at least half an hour he could find no words. There were no ruins of the great buildings of the Dominicans and Franciscans for him to gaze upon, for wreck and pillage had left not one stone upon another. Their memory lives only in the names of a few miserable purlieus and dreary modern streets.

What were the sins of that age that its beauty and honour could deserve the fate that has befallen them? The words of Mr. Froude are well known :

'The heavenly graces had once descended on the monastic orders, making them ministers of mercy, patterns of celestial life, breathing witnesses of the power of the Spirit in renewing and sanctifying the heart. And then it was that art and wealth poured out their treasures to raise fitting tabernacles for the dwelling of so divine a soul. Alike in the village and in the city, amongst the unadorned walls and lowly roofs which closed in the humble dwellings of the laity, the majestic houses of the Father of mankind and of his especial servants rose up in sovereign beauty. And ever at the sacred gates sat Mercy, pouring out relief from a never failing store to the poor and the suffering; ever within the sacred aisles the voices of holy men were pealing heavenwards in intercession for the sins of mankind; and such blessed influences were thought to exhale around those mysterious precincts that even the poor outcasts of society-the debtor, the felon, and the outlaw-gathered round the walls as the sick men sought the shadow of the apostles, and lay there sheltered from the avenging hand till their sins were washed from off their souls. The abbeys of the middle ages floated through the storms of war and conquest, like the ark upon the waves of the flood, in the midst of violence remaining inviolate, through the awful reverence which surrounded them.'

Golden ideals treasured in vessels, alas! of earth and clay.

The back way from the College to Oseney and the railway stations, along the line of the City wall, past the Norman keep and the ancient Castle mill, and so into High Street St. Thomas to the ivy-clad Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, is about the pleasantest bit left of the old town, and has many almost Dutch glimpses of water and skyline. On the right in Castle Street are some remains of White Hall, which survived the fire of 1644. Dr. Ingram gives a picture of it as it was in 1837.

1 Dugdale, vi. c. 3. p. 1529.

F

CHAPTER VII.

SCHOLARS OF BROADGATES HALL.

No name of a Principal of Broadgates Hall is known certainly before 1436; but it had produced some eminent canonists at an earlier date. A mediæval soldier, writer, and ecclesiastic, whom Prince (Danmonii Orientales Illustres) assigns to this Hall1, was NICHOLAS UPTON, author of the treatise in four books, De Studio Militari, printed in 1654 by Bish. He served over seas under the Earl of Salisbury, and was before Orléans when it was relieved by the Maid. Duke Humphrey, styled by Fuller 'the Mecaenas-General of goodnesse and learning,' 'observing the parts and vertues of Mr. Upton, who at that time was not meanly skilled in both the laws, perswaded him to lay aside the sword and to take up his books again and follow his studies; withal encouraging him to take upon him holy orders.... Returning to the University he took the degree of bachelour of the canon and civil laws, and after that he proceeded doctor therein: a sort of learning much valued in those days.'

He was made canon of Wells, 1431, being then rector of Cheadsey, which he exchanged, Oct. 12, 1434, for Stapleford, Wilts. He became prebendary of Sarum May 14, 1446, and succeeded Edward Prents as chantor. He was also prebendary of St. Paul's. Upton built one of the houses in Sarum Close for the chantors. In 1452 he went to Rome to obtain the canonization by Nicholas V of Bishop Osmund. Fuller (Worthies of Devon), says that in expression of his gratitude to the Duke of Gloucester he 'presented his Patron with a Book (the first of that kind) of Heraldry.' He was himself' of an Ancient family' in the west country.

1 Prince was supplied with his information by Wood, who says: 'I am almost persuaded that Nicholas de Upton was borne in Sumersetshire (at Upton so called); that also, from our registers, he was bred in the famous hostle for Civilians and Canonists called Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College) which was a noted receptacle in his time, and other times that followed, for Somersetshire But of these matters I will not be confident.' (Life and Times, iii. 467 n.)

men.

CARDINAL REPYNGDON.

67

A still earlier student at the Hall1 was CARDINAL REPYNGDON, Chancellor of the University in 1397, 1401, and 1402.

Philip Repyngdon, a canon regular of the Austin priory of Sta. Maria de Pratis at Leicester, and afterwards abbot, a man of 'great and notable dexterity of wit,' had shown anti-transubstantiationist leanings in a sermon at Brackley, but 'while he was Bachelaur of Divinity he appeared an humble and benign person, insomuch that he was by all accounted a good man; but when he was doctorated in the summer of [1382], he began in his first Lecture to magnify Wycleve and his doctrine, and said he would defend it "in materia morali," and for that time keep silence till the Lord would enlighten the hearts of the Clergy concerning the Sacrament of the Altar, on which he was to preach on Corpus Christi Day next?' Mr. Green writes: 'In an English sermon at St. Frideswyde's, Nicholas Herford had asserted the truth of Wyclif's doctrines, and Archbishop Courtenay ordered the Chancellor [Robert Rugge] to silence him and his adherents on pain of being himself treated as a heretic. The Chancellor fell back on the liberties of the University, and appointed as preacher another Wycliffite, who [i.e. on Corpus Christi Day, 1382] did not hesitate to style the Lollards "holy priests," and to affirm that they were protected by John of Gaunt. Party spirit meanwhile ran high among the students; the bulk of them sided with the Lollard leaders, and the Carmelite, Peter Stokes, who had procured the Archbishop's letters, cowered panic-stricken in his chamber, while the Chancellor, protected by an escort of a hundred townsmen, listened approvingly to Repyngdon's defiance. "I dare go no further," wrote the poor friar to the Archbishop, "for fear of death"; but he soon mustered courage to descend into the schools, where Repyngdon was maintaining that the clerical order was "better when it was but nine year old than now that it has grown to a thousand years and more."' The harangue contained incitements to the people to pillage churches. Repyngdon did not show much more courage in this defiant utterance than in his subsequent recantation, for he had close at hand a band of men 'privily weaponed under their garments.' 'There was not a little joy throughout the whole University for that sermon,' says Foxe. The scholars threatened the friars with death. Courtenay however acted with much vigour. He procured royal breves ordering the instant banishment from Oxford of all who should receive into their Houses or Inns Wyclif, Herford, Repyngdon, or Ashton, and the destruction of all Lollardite tracts on pain of forfeiture by the University of its privileges. Herford and Repyngdon, now suspended from all academical acts, appealed in vain to John of Gaunt and then to Convocation. The duke

now

1 Wood points it out as one of the errors of Gabriel Powell's book De Antichristo that Repyngdon is assigned in it to Merton College; whereas it appears from Record that he was of Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College.' (Ath. Ox.) * Gutch's Wood, i. 503.

In Lent, Herford argued that no religious should be admitted to any degree. The sermon was in the open air at St. Frideswyde's Cross.