A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



The selection of Merton as the model for Winchester College is 

 not surprising. The earliest of Oxford colleges (for though the original 

 endowments of University and Balliol were earlier, their organization as 

 colleges took place later), it still remained in spite of the foundations of 

 Exeter, Queen's and Oriel all founded, like Merton, by successful king's 

 clerks the largest and greatest. Edward III. in a letter to the pope in 

 1331 1 called it * a magazine of the church militant,' and this was just 

 what Wykeham designed his college to be. 



The statutes of New College and Winchester are clearly adapted 

 in all the main provisions from those of Merton. The name of the 

 head is ' warden ' as at Merton, not master as at University or Balliol, 

 or provost as at Oriel and Queen's. The title provost would be 

 specially avoided as being that of the head of St. Elizabeth's College 

 next door to Wykeham's College at Winchester. As at Merton, 

 followed also by Oriel and Queen's, a certain proportion of the 

 fellows were to be not theologians but lawyers, civilians and canon- 

 ists. But the proportion of such at New College was larger, twenty 

 out of seventy instead of four or five only as at Merton, while in addition 

 two might and were required to study medicine and two astronomy. 

 The institution of deans, the bible-reader in hall, the scrutinies or 

 terminal stated meetings, the progresses of the warden and fellows to 

 visit the estates, the provisions for chaplains to do the praying and sing- 

 ing on ordinary days while the scholars stuck to their studies, the direc- 

 tion for Latin to be spoken in hall, even the preference for election to 

 founder's kin and the diocese of Winchester and then for other dioceses 

 in which the college estates lay, are all taken from the statutes of Merton. 

 A few additions have been adopted from the statutes of Queen's, notably 

 among them the provision for the fellows acting in turn as stewards of 

 the hall, and the provision for the services being in a private chapel, 

 while Merton had simply ' collegiated ' an existing church. 



The boys at Winchester were not required to attend chapel at all 

 except on Sundays and feast days, nor were any special prayers or hymns 

 prescribed for them. The full round of religious services was left to 

 the fellows. 



Even in the main innovation of placing his college for boys in a 

 different place from his Oxford college, Wykeham was to a large extent 

 following precedents. A grammar school was, as has been stated already, 

 a recognized appendix to a collegiate church. Thus when Bishop Gran- 

 disson founded the collegiate church of Ottery St. Mary by an ordinance 

 dated 22 January, 1337 8 2 for eight canons, eight vicars choral, eight 

 clerks and eight choristers, he provided also for ' a master of the gram- 

 mar school (scolarum gramaticalium) there, and to teach the said boys,' 

 i.e. he was not only to teach the choristers but keep a general grammar 

 school. 



The chief novelty of Winchester College was in the first place the 



1 Brodrick's Memorials of Merton College, p. 34. 

 * GraaJisson's Registers, ed. Rev. J. C. Hingeston-Randolph, pp. 121 seq. 



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