Brian Twyne: University History and the Traditions of English Antiquarianism

This chapter focuses on Brian Twyne, who, by 1625, was a recognized authority on Oxford’s medieval documents. In 1633, he would become Oxford University’s first archivist. Even more important were the archives themselves: especially his own collections, which would serve as the basis for every history of Oxford for centuries. Brian Twyne’s official education took place at Corpus Christi College, to which he came as a scholar in 1594, at the age of 14. From his twenties until his death in 1644, Twyne was fascinated by the history of Oxford. However, his training in the techniques of documentary scholarship had little to do with his official education. Rather, quite early in life, he encountered three distinct traditions of antiquarian scholarship. Each was embodied in a person or a text, and from each he took away ideas and practices that went into the finished body of his work.

Corpus Christi College, the City, and the Court in the Reign of Henry VIII

This chapter explores the living conditions in Corpus Christi College. At Corpus Christi, the private chambers were not regarded as living quarters but bed chambers since, on most days, from first light until after supper, all members of the community—whether engaged in scholarly, liturgical, or domestic activity—would have had little leisure to spend in their room. Chambers were, as the statutes stated, ‘places of quiet and sleep and places to retreat to after cares and labours‘. Part of the day of the members of the college would naturally be spent in the chapel, but on a working day the greater part of the liturgical burden would have been carried by members of the chapel establishment. Much of the rest of the day would have been spent in studying, teaching, or examining—depending on academic status—much of it taking place in hall, although certain members were required to attend lectures elsewhere.

Corpus Christi College’s ‘Trilingual Library’: A Historical Assessment

This chapter assesses Corpus Christi College before Erasmus. The first promoters of humanism at the start of the Quattrocento had positioned themselves as counter-cultural. Humanism, that is to say, did not require institutional recognition to thrive, and, in England as elsewhere, it carved out space for itself in the fifteenth-century cultural landscape, within and beyond institutions. Yet, humanists proved a quarrelsome tribe: where the early Quattrocento trailblazers laid their path, others sometimes refused to follow. Over the century, the identity of humanism developed, ramified, and splintered, drawing strength from its conflicts, not only with those it characterized as its implacable opponents, but also among its own proponents. Corpus could draw on these plural identities, and the implication is that the affiliation to Erasmus and his own formulation of humanism was only one possible inspiration among several.

Fox’s Choice: Founding a Secular College in Oxford

This chapter discusses the powerful impact of education on the service of the British state and empire. It had been reasonably clear, in 1390, what skills an education in the Oxford and Cambridge schools could bring to the service of the crown and the high nobility—the ability to see the weak points of an argument and to put the case against it persuasively, and for those with a training in the learned laws, to deploy an accepted code of practice in a way favourable to the Crown’s or another patron’s cause. As a result, England had been represented by intelligent graduates, canonists, and theologians with a broad outlook and forensic skills, both at the Council of Constance and in the diplomacy of the Lancastrian kings. The chapter then looks at Dr. Thomas Chaundler’s pedagogy and its influence on graduates in the service of the crown.

Corpus Before Erasmus, or the English Humanist Tradition and Greek Before the Trojans

This chapter looks at aspects of identity and emotion in life at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, as envisaged by its founder and as experienced in its early decades. Many historians now strive to discern emotions from the past and to understand the lives of their subjects as experienced in bodies and with feeling. To study emotions is to understand what inspired fear, love, anger, or anxiety, while acknowledging that both the triggers for these emotions and the ways they were expressed are historical indeed. Thinking of Corpus Christi, such embodied experiences happened at its dining tables, in its chapel and library, and in the chambers shared by pupils and teachers; outdoors too, along the paths that led from task to task, and in the gardens. The chapter then considers the spaces inhabited by Corpus members, and the objects which helped form the experiences that made Corpus an ‘emotional community‘.

Closing Remarks III: Life of the Mind

This concluding chapter argues that scholars still debate the nature of Richard Fox’s evolving views concerning his college and the extent to which the humanist curriculum he implemented is indicative of a ‘secularist‘ agenda—as some contemporaries assumed. Erasmus, for one, believed the new foundation aimed ‘expressly for the humanities‘. Richard Fox’s statutes exhibited a more circumscribed position insofar as the humanities were concerned. He conceived virtue and knowledge to be two poles of a ladder, the steps of which would assist his bees—and those whom they nourished—to soar heavenward. In other words, learning was subservient to the true goal of the college: to bolster religion. Thus, when discussing the responsibilities of the theology lecturer, Fox made it explicit how it ‘behooves‘ other lecturers ‘to obey, wait on, and serve‘ him.

Pensioners, Prisoners, and Pupils: Corpus Christi College’s Charity in Tudor Oxford

This chapter examines the impact of early Reformation on Corpus Christi College. If one takes the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses in the traditional way as the starting-gun for the Protestant Reformation, then Corpus Christi is as old as the Reformation itself. Of course, ‘the Reformation‘ did not begin as early as 1517. It would be another ten years before the Reformation made any recorded impact in Corpus itself, although Luther’s ideas reached Oxford pretty soon. With the exception of the Nicholas Udall affair, the impact of the early Reformation on Corpus Christi is evident largely by its absence during the lifetime of the first president, John Claymond. After Claymond’s death, the college’s peace was briefly disturbed by a new brand of Reformation, by the ideas arising from Henry VIII’s Break with Rome.

Building Corpus Christi

This chapter describes musical participation in Corpus Christi College. Richard Fox’s apparently modest provision for liturgical music at Corpus is intelligible once the chapel ministers are viewed within their wider collegiate community. The musical capabilities of this mixed community can in turn be mapped onto the genres and repertoires cultivated in Henrician England. Plainsong formed the bedrock of the liturgy: all members of college except the domestic staff were to be proficient in cantus planus, which would have constituted most of what was sung in chapel. Indeed, all members of college should, at least in theory, have been able to participate in the singing of chant. Ultimately, Fox’s economy of means at Corpus arguably represents neither a repudiation of more demonstrative forms of ritual expression, nor an ascetic disavowal of the spiritual worth of church music; instead, it can be read as a serious attempt to engage the whole community as active participants in worship.

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, as an Emotional Community

This chapter focuses on the aesthetic of the cultural moment at which Corpus Christi College was founded: 1517 lies on the cusp between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in England. If one accepts that cusp as fundamentally contested, it remains fruitful to explore how the main actors in affairs of Church and State manifest certain tastes and ideas, combining ‘medieval‘ and ‘Renaissance‘ themes, that are identifiable as elements of coterie-signalling. Two artefacts directly associated with Richard Fox, the College’s founder, stand as such signals, that is material testimonies to group-definition in the dominant sub-culture. The chapter then draws on the wider ecclesiastical and court milieu to explore how performative gestures in the patronage of the built environment have counterparts in actual performance, in the pageantry and plays of the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century.

Church, State, and Corpus: The Founder’s Years

This chapter examines Richard Fox’s establishment of a secular college in Oxford. Fox’s initial intention had been to establish a monastic college in Oxford which, without question, looks to have been a distinctly conservative choice. His wish was to benefit, in the main, the Benedictine monks of St. Swithun’s priory who served the cathedral church of Winchester and, as such, formed the community at the heart of the see that he served for the last twenty years of his life. However, he changed his mind and opted instead for a secular establishment. The chapter then considers the ramifications of his decision to establish a secular college and sets his plans for Corpus Christi College within the broader environment of collegiate foundation in the English Church in the decades that preceded the Reformation.