Issue 19, 2013 - Balliol College - University of Oxford

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Domus Scolarium de Balliolo
1263–2013
By John Jones (1961)
The Chronicle of Lanercost records, without exact
date, that John Balliol quarrelled with Walter Kirkham,
Prince Bishop of Durham, who died in 1260. Kirkham
had the upper hand, and humiliated Balliol with
a public whipping to which he added a penance:
supporting some scholars at Oxford. The whipping is a
scene in Gilbert Spencer’s murals in Holywell Manor;
I prefer the mural at Broad Street by Christopher
Fremantle showing Balliol accepting the penance.
Thus the legend, but John Balliol supported a group
of scholars in Oxford willingly in his lifetime, and
favoured them in his will. Never mind that what he left
them was mostly uncollected debts. In the Archives
we have an undischarged bond for what had been due
for two horses. From 1269 his widow Dervorguilla of
Galloway consolidated his work, giving his scholars
Statutes, a seal, endowment, and his name.
We do not know when John Balliol’s
dole began. Probably well before May
1264, when he was taken prisoner
at the Battle of Lewes, and definitely
before mid-1266, when his scholars
John Balliol accepting his
penance from the Bishop of
Durham. From the mural
by C E Fremantle (1925)
on Staircase II, c.1927.
are mentioned in a Royal writ.
When Henry Savage wrote the first
Balliol history in 1668, the College’s
foundation year had been accepted as
1263 since time immemorial.
So this year we
celebrate the College’s
750th anniversary, and I
am prompted to reflect
on changes since 1263.
What do we have from
those early days
Our corporate name
for a start. Dervorguilla
defined it as Domus
Scolarium de Balliolo, and
a Royal Charter of 1588
changed it to The Master
and Scholars of Balliol
College in the University of Oxford.
Both names survive, in our traditional
toast Floreat Domus de Balliolo and in
our everyday name. We also still have
the earliest symbol of our corporate
identity: the original matrix of the
common seal given by Dervorguilla.
Then we have our current arms,
By the simple
criterion of
continuity on our
original site, Balliol
. . . is the oldest
college in the
English-speaking
world.
which are taken from the back of
the seal with which Dervorguilla
authenticated our first Statutes (which
also survive) in 1282. Almost all the
early endowment land was sold in
modern times. The only
exception is the freehold of
part of our ancient property
in the London Parish of St
Lawrence Jewry, which was
acquired along with the
Church and its incumbency
in 1294. That land was
unfortunately leased to the
City Corporation for 999
years in 1778 for a modest
fixed corn rent: the London
Guildhall is partly built
on it.
Dervorguilla was devoted to St
Catherine of Alexandria, who thus
became the College’s Patron Saint.
The earliest Chapel was dedicated
to St Catherine, and celebrating her
feast-day, 25 November, is probably
the most consistent thing the College
has ever done.
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