personal interest did its part in wasting or misdirecting the scanty funds. It is certain that at the Reformation the academic treasury was found empty; but the former managers might plausibly assert, that they had spent the money, as was right, in defending the privileges of the University: and who could refute the assertion?

§ 91. General poverty of the Academicians.

The ordinary poverty of the Universities and their members may seem to be attested by their begging alms on every extraordinary occasion; a word which I would not use contemptuously, but I know no other word which so well expresses the actual proceeding. The ecclesiastical stamp which the Universities had received, resulted in this; that the pupils were nearly all of the poorer sort,-the remuneration of the common clergy being scanty enough, so that in fact few of the academic population could support themselves. Even respectable families who sent a younger son into the Church, did so to avoid dividing the family estate; and after sending him to the University, grudgingly contributed any thing to his maintenance, thinking that he ought to be provided for by the University, which was justly looked-on as a part of the Church. Thus Scholars and Teachers were alike straitened. Numerous benefactions were dependent on the

lives and fortunes of the donor, or were liable to be wrecked in the storms of those times. In the civil wars of the Roses even real estates were with difficulty preserved, and all other possessions vanished like chaff before the wind. Under the first Tudors a partial calm was followed by attacks on Church property, forerunning the great revolution of the time; and the distress of the University reached its height. Many students had nothing left but to betake themselves to begging, after the example of Alma Mater; but this would not go far.

§ 92. Benefactions from Prelates and other great men.

The last gleam of light which the poor academicians had received, was in the reign of Henry VI., who, beside founding King's College, gave many benefactions and stipends to scholars. It was also the custom for Prelates and other great men to maintain a certain number of students at their own expence. Indeed, after the Bishops attached themselves to the Royal Court, they gradually diminished or withdrew their benefactions: most of them among the intrigues of party forgetting every thing but to look after their own interests and court the favor of the Sovereign. Yet it cannot be doubted that some of the Bishops and Prelates most creditably performed their duty to the Universities, by stipends, donations, and legacies; indeed we have

both express and indirect testimony to the fact. Every circumstance of those times thus tended to make the Universities more and more intimately dependent on the Church.

Ecclesiastical endowments were another more considerable livelihood for the academicians; and on the lowest step of this Church-ladder, we find the poor scholars and masters. Even these, after the necessary ordination, might hope to gain a slender subsistence by reading Mass. Those who obtained the higher prize of one or more benefices, must often have found difficulty in combining the vocations of a parish priest and of an academic teacher. But the same difficulties still exist, and are yet surmounted; nor could it have been harder then than now, to evade the laws of the Church or to obtain a dispensation.

§ 93. Church-Livings, how far bestowed on Members of the University.

Not only must the number of the students have depended greatly upon the number of benefices ultimately attainable in this channel; but the academic studies were become only means to the end of attaining some such living. The scholar was reared for the Church; and the Master existed for the Church, which finally determined his position. But as usual, more came to compete for the scanty

prizes, than could be rewarded: and the complaints which rise towards the end of the thirteenth century swell louder and louder at the end of the fourteenth, that the scholars raised for the Church are neglected in the bestowal of patronage.

The direct interference of Rome to fill up foreign benefices, had caused in England, as elsewhere, great bitterness: more peculiarly, because Italians or other non-resident and unknown persons were appointed to the revenues. Out of this abuse rose the celebrated and rigorous statute of Præmunire,* in the reign of Edward III. and Protestant writers are unanimous in ascribing, eminently to this Papal practice, as well as to other parts of the Romish system, the decay of the Universities. But this is a very one-sided view, and quite untenable. The Parliamentary enactments of Edward III. were rigorously executed in England, and all complaints against that particular abuse soon ceased entirely. But it is not to be inferred that Church-patronage was any the better bestowed, when confined to native holders and native clergy; and it is certain that the Universities in particular gained nothing by the anti-Romish system. In fact after the end of the fourteenth century their complaints against the Præmunire are still more frequent and more violent than they had been against the Papal Provisions; insomuch that they occasionally

*

[It declares a person outlawed by the very fact of corresponding with Rome, &c.]

extorted from the King* exceptions in their own favor. These were mere temporary alleviations : but at the time of the great assemblies of the Church, the grievance was urged so forcibly, that the King and Prelates, not choosing to open again the way for Rome, sought for another remedy. In the convocation of 1417, the patrons of livings were ordered to fill up their appointments in part from University-students, according to a fixed arrangement. In practice however, the Universities were the first to object to the working of the system; nor did the patrons adhere to the rule prescribed. The same orders were re-enacted by the Prelates in 1438,† but without effect; which is not strange, considering the political aspect of the times. The Universities gained no relief, and continued to reiterate their complaints.

Thus both the Romish and National system failed to cooperate aright with the academico-ecclesiastical institutions: and whichever system was at work, appeared by far the more oppressive of the

The academicians of that day, forgetting the past and feeling the present, fell into panegyrics of the good old times, with the usual simplicity or self-deception of human nature. Catholic writers‡ have made a dishonest use of the facts for party

* In 1392 and 1401 the Parliament pleaded for exemption in behalf of the Universities.(Rolls of Parl. iv. 81.)

† See Wilkins' Concilia, (iii. 381, 383, 399, 525).

I allude particularly to Lingard, whom it is not easy to acquit of this reproach.