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528
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
citizens of Oxford were obliged to pay $zs. a year to Oseney
abbey in usus pauperum scolarium. About 1260 John Balliol in
part compensation for an outrage against the Church in the
diocese of Durham was required by the bishop to maintain a
certain number of poor scholars at the university. Out of this,
with the added munificence of his widow, Devorguilla, there
grew Balliol College. But it was Merton College, founded
about 1260, furnished with statutes in 1270 and 1274, that
became the
prototype
for subsequent collegiate foundations.
A few years later, about 1280, Cambridge received her first
college, Peterhouse, founded by Hugh Balsham, bishop of
Ely, and provided by a subsequent bishop, Simon Montacute,
with statutes on the model of those of Merton.
In days when residence was required as a qualification for the
higher degrees a scholar was faced with a lengthy and expen/
sive sequence of study. The early founders of colleges were
prompted, in the main, by a desire to provide means for a sue/
cession of select scholars to pursue post/graduate studies in arts
or theology: in some colleges a small proportion ofthe fellows
were allowed to read canon or civil law or medicine. Very often
the choice ofthese scholars was limited to parts ofthe country in
which a founder was interested. By the middle years ofthe four/
teenth century six secular colleges (University, Balliol, Merton,
Exeter, Oriel, and Queen's) had been founded at Oxford, and
eight (Peterhouse, King's Hall, Michaelhouse, Clare, Pern/
broke, Gonville, Trinity Hall, and Corpus Christi College)
at Cambridge. King's Hall and Trinity Hall are noteworthy:
the former because it was 'supported by public funds, founded
in the first place for laymen connected with the Court* and the
latter because it was the first college in either university in/
tended for study of canon or civil law. Nine of these colleges
were founded by ecclesiastics, three by women (the lady De/
vorguilla, the lady Elizabeth of Clare, and Marie Valence,
countess of Pembroke); two of those founded by ecclesiastics
were fortified by royal patronage (Oriel and Queen's). Corpus
Christi College was the singular achievement of two Cam/
bridge guilds
which combined to found it.