456 MEETON COLLEGE AND CANADA. 



there shall be provided aliquid quod ad scholarium instructionem et 

 edificationem pertineat, something that might tend to instruct and 

 edify the scholars. 



Before the construction of the Library by Bishop Rede, the books 

 of the College would be kept in chests. Such was the custom then 

 and later. Antony h, Wood speaks of the cistas oiim in Bibliothecai 

 Mertonensi repositm, filled with Mathematical and Astronomical 

 works by members of the College; books, he says, quas barbara 

 superiorum secidorum p)ietas, tanquam Artis Magicce pn'oseminatores, 

 reique proptered, Christiance damnasos, execrari non destitit. (In the 

 same place he speaks of the loss out of the Library, from the same 

 cause, of the instrwrnenta 3Iathematica, qucdia sunt Astrolabia, 

 radii, quadr antes, &g., denique integrum darissimce iScientice Arma" 

 mentarium. ) 



Walter de Merton was born soon after 1200, and died Oct. 27,. 

 1277. He was twice Lord High Chancellor of England : first in 

 1258, under Henry III.; and again in 1272, for a short time, under 

 Edward I.; in 1274 he was made Bishop of Bochester, occupying 

 the See only three years. A portrait of him exists in the Bodleian 

 Library, and has been copied in Ackermann's History of Oxford. It 

 shews a countenance of a cast modem, rather than mediaeval ; refined, 

 thoughtful and intelligent ; the hair and eyebrows snowy white. 



As a preliminary to the foundation of his College in Oxford, he 

 established at Maiden, in Surrey, a Domus Scholarium de Merton, 

 an institution which in addition to educational and other work at 

 Maldon was, in accordance with rules laid down by himself, to supply 

 means out of its endowments for the sustenance of twenty scholars 

 frequenting the Schools at Oxford, or anywhere else where learning 

 for the time being might be flourishing. Then after the lapse of six 

 years, in 1270, the Domus Scholarium de Merton, intended to aid 

 in the sustenance of scholars at Oxford, is removed to that place ; 

 and a reason is implied why it was not in the first instance estab- 

 lished there. The date 1264 is spoken of as tempus turbationis in 

 regno Anglice subortoi, an unsettled time, — ^as indeed ii was, the 

 struggle of the Barons with the King still going on. But now, 

 1270 is described as a period of peace {nunc tem,pore pads); and 

 therefore the Domus Scholarium de Merton is removed to Oxford, 

 where the founder had desired and intended it to be. A power of 

 removal, however, to any other locality, should circumstances so- 



