SCHOOLS 



The plague was then in sober truth the proximate cause of the 

 foundation of Winchester College, the ultimate cause being the wish to 

 have a learned clergy to carry on the duties of the Church and the busi- 

 ness of the State to the best advantage. 



It has been said and repeated that Winchester College was not an 

 ecclesiastical foundation. This is a fundamental error. All educational 

 foundations were then also ecclesiastical. All education was a matter of 

 ecclesiastical cognizance. At Oxford even the bookbinders and parch- 

 ment sellers were clerks. No college could be founded without a papal 

 bull, such as Wykeham duly obtained for Winchester, Henry VI. for 

 Eton and Cardinal Wolsey for Christchurch. Colleges were indistinguish- 

 able from collegiate churches. When Eton was founded the parish 

 church was specifically made into a collegiate church. The whole cast 

 of the constitution of Winchester and New College is that of a collegiate 

 church. We have only to study the statutes to see this. 



THE STATUTES 



In the foundation charter Wykeham specially reserved power to 

 make further statutes and rules for the direction of school life and the 

 school arts. 1 We know from the account rolls that there was a new 

 edition of the statutes in 1394, and another probably in 1397. But 

 these are not preserved any more than the first edition of 1382. 



The founder put the finishing touch to his work by the authorita- 

 tive issue of a revised edition of the statutes on 11 September, 1400. 

 To them all members of the college above fifteen years of age were 

 required to swear obedience. These statutes were the binding rules of 

 the place until a goodly number were repealed by the Oxford University 

 Commissioners in 1857. The beautifully written original with Wyke- 

 ham's seal attached, the headings of the statutes rubricated and the initial 

 letters illuminated, is preserved in the muniment room together with a 

 like copy of the final statutes of New College issued in the same month 

 of the same year. In 13991400 a copy of the statutes was it this 

 splendid book ? cost exactly i6j. 8</. for the scribe, including the 

 binding. 



Of forty-six chapters, or rubrics as they are called, only six deal in 

 any way with scholars and learning. The other forty might belong to 

 any collegiate church. While some of them deal with the duties of 

 warden and fellows and their management of property, by far the longest 

 and most elaborate, rubric xxix., is entirely concerned with the services 

 and works to be performed, to which also two other statutes are devoted. 

 The incorporation consisted of' the warden and scholars, clerks (clerict).' 



The whole society consisted of the warden, headmaster, ten ' per- 

 petual ' fellows, three conducts or stipendiary chaplains, usher, three 

 chapel clerks, seventy scholars, sixteen choristers, ten commoners ; in all, 

 excluding the latter, who were not * on the foundation,' one hundred and 

 five persons. 



1 Vite scolastice et artium scolasticarum. 

 II 265 34 



