Oriel College

Oriel College, located in Oriel Square, Oxford, is the fifth oldest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Oriel has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford, a title formerly claimed by University College, whose claim of being founded by King Alfred is no longer promoted. In recognition of this royal connection, the college has also been known as King's College and King's Hall.

The original medieval foundation set up by Adam de Brome, under the patronage of Edward II, was called the House or Hall of the Blessed Mary at Oxford. The first design allowed for a Provost and ten Fellows, called 'scholars', and the College remained a small body of graduate Fellows until the 16th century, when it started to admit undergraduates. During the English Civil War, Oriel played host to high-ranking members of the King's Oxford Parliament.

The main site of the College incorporates four medieval halls: Bedel Hall, St Mary Hall, St Martin Hall and Tackley's Inn, the last being the earliest property acquired by the college and the oldest standing medieval hall in Oxford. The College has nearly 40 Fellows, about 300 undergraduates and some 160 graduates, the student body having roughly equal numbers of men and women.

Oriel's notable alumni include two Nobel laureates; prominent Fellows have included John Keble and John Henry Newman, founders of the Oxford Movement. Amongst Oriel's more notable possessions are a painting by Bernard van Orley and three pieces of medieval silver plate. As of 2006, the college's estimated financial endowment was £77 million.

History

Middle Ages

On 24 April 1324, the Rector of the University Church, Adam de Brome, obtained a licence from Edward II to found a "certain college of scholars studying various disciplines in honour of the Virgin" and to endow it to the value of £30 a year. De Brome bought two properties in 1324, Tackley's Hall, on the south side of the High Street and Perilous Hall, on the north side of Broad Street, and as an investment, he purchased the advowson of a church in Aberford.

De Brome's foundation was confirmed in a charter of 21 January 1326, in which the Crown, represented by the Lord Chancellor, was to exercise the rights of Visitor; a further charter drawn up in May of that year gave the rights of Visitor to Henry Burghersh, Bishop of Lincoln, Oxford at that time being part of the diocese of Lincoln. Under Edward's patronage, de Brome diverted the revenue of the University Church to his college, which thereafter was responsible for appointing the vicar and providing four chaplains to celebrate the daily services in the church. The college lost no time in seeking royal favour again after Edward II's deposition, and Edward III confirmed his father's favour in February 1327, but the amended statutes remained in force with the Bishop of Lincoln as Visitor. In 1329, the college received through royal grant a large house belonging to the crown, known as La Oriole, standing on the site of what is now First quad; it is from this property that the college acquired its common name, "Oriel", the name being in use from about 1349. The word referred to an oratoriolum, or oriel window, forming a feature of the earlier property.

In the early 1410s several Fellows of Oriel took part in the disturbances accompanying Archbishop Arundel's attempt to stamp out Lollardy in the University; the Lollard belief that religious power and authority came through piety and not through the hierarchy of the Church particularly inflamed passions in Oxford, where its proponent, John Wycliffe, had been head of Balliol. Disregarding the Provost's authority, Oriel Fellows fought bloody battles with other scholars, killed one of the Chancellor's servants when they attacked his house, and were prominent among the group that obstructed the Archbishop and ridiculed his censures.

In 1442, Henry VI sanctioned an arrangement whereby the town was to pay the college £25 a year from the fee farm in exchange for decayed property, allegedly worth £30 a year, which the college could not afford to keep in repair. The arrangement was cancelled in 1450.

In 1643 a general obligation was imposed on Oxford colleges to support the Royalist cause in the English Civil War, the King called for Oriel's plate and almost all of it was given, the total weighing 29 lb.0 oz.5 dwt. of gilt, and 52 lb.7 oz.14 dwt. of "white" plate. In the same year the College was assessed at £1 for the weekly sum of £40 charged on the colleges and halls for the fortification of the city. When the Oxford Parliament was assembled during the Civil War in 1644, Oriel housed the Executive Committee of the Privy council, Parliament being held at neighbouring Christ Church. Following the defeat of the Royalist cause, the University was scrutinised by the Parliamentarians, and five of the eighteen Oriel Fellows were removed. The Visitors, using their own authority, elected Fellows between 1648 and October 1652, when without reference to the Commissioners, John Washbourne was chosen; the autonomy of the College in this respect seems to have been restored.

In 1673 James Davenant, a Fellow since 1661, complained to William Fuller, then Bishop of Lincoln, about Provost Say's conduct in the election of Thomas Twitty to a Fellowship. Bishop Fuller appointed a commission that included the Vice-Chancellor, Peter Mews, the Dean of Christ Church, John Fell, and the Principal of Brasenose, Thomas Yates. On 1 August Fell reported to the Bishop that;

When this Devil of buying and selling is once cast out, your Lordship will, I hope, take care that he return not again, lest he bring seven worse than himself into the house after 'tis swept and garnisht.

On 24 January 1674, Bishop Fuller issued a decree dealing with the recommendations of the commissioners — a majority of all the Fellows should always be insisted on, so the Provost could not push an election in a thin meeting, and Fellows should be admitted immediately after their election. On 28 January Provost Say obtained a recommendation for Twitty's election from the King, but it was withdrawn on 13 February, following the Vice-Chancellor's refusal to swear Twitty into the University and the Bishop's protests at Court.

During the early 1720s, a constitutional struggle began between the Provost and the Fellows, culminating in a lawsuit. In 1721, Henry Edmunds was elected as a Fellow by 9 votes to 3; his election was rejected by Provost George Carter, and on appeal, by the Visitor, Edmund Gibson, then Bishop of Lincoln. Rejections of candidates by the Provost continued, fuelling discontent amongst the Fellows, until a writ of attachment against the Bishop of Lincoln was heard between 1724 and 1726. The opposing Fellows, led by Edmunds, appealed to the first set of statutes, claiming the Crown as Visitor, making Gibson's decisions invalid; Provost Carter, supported by Bishop Gibson, appealed to the second set, claiming the Bishop of Lincoln as Visitor. The jury decided for the Fellows, supporting the original charter of Edward II.

In a private printing of 1899 Provost Shadwell lists thirteen Gaudies observed by the College during the 18th century; by the end of the 19th century all but two, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Purification of the Virgin, had ceased to be celebrated.

Modern

In the early 19th century, the reforming zeal of Provosts John Eveleigh and Edward Copleston gained Oriel the reputation of being the most brilliant college of the day and the centre of the "Oriel Noetics" — clerical liberals such as Richard Whately and Thomas Arnold were Fellows, and the during the 1830s, two intellectually eminent Fellows of Oriel, John Keble and John Henry Newman, supported by Canon Pusey of Christ Church and others, formed a group known as the Oxford Movement, alternatively as the Tractarians, or familiarly as the Puseyites. The group were disgusted by the indolence prevailing in the Church, and they sought to revive the spirit of early Christianity, this caused tension in College as Provost Edward Hawkins was a determined opponent of the Movement.

During World War I, a wall was built dividing Third quad from Second quad to accommodate students of Somerville College, while their college was being used as a military hospital. At this time Oxford separated male and female students as far as possible; Vera Brittain, one of the Somerville students, recalled an amusing occurrence during her time there in her autobiography, Testament of Youth;

[...] the few remaining undergraduates in the still masculine section of Oriel not unnaturally concluded that it would be a first-rate "rag" to break down the wall which divided them from the carefully guarded young females in St. Mary Hall. Great perturbation filled the souls of the Somerville dons when they came down to breakfast one morning to find that a large gap had suddenly appeared in the protecting masonry, through which had been thrust a hilarious placard:

"'OO MADE THIS 'ERE 'OLE?"

"MICE!!!"

Throughout that day and the following night the Senior Common Room, from the Principal downwards, took it in turns to sit on guard beside the hole, for fear any unruly spirit should escape through it to the forbidden adventurous males on the other side.

In 1985, the college became the last all-male college in Oxford to admit women for matriculation as undergraduates. In 1984, the Senior Common Room voted 23-4 to admit women undergraduates from 1986. The Junior Common Room president believed that "the distinctive character of the college will be undermined".

A second Feast Day was added in 2007 by a benefaction from Orielensis George Moody, to be celebrated on or near St George's Day (23 April). The only remaining gaudy had been Candlemas, the new annual dinner will be known as the St. George's Day Gaudy. The dinner is black tie and gowns, and by request of the benefactor, the main course will normally be goose. The inaugural event took place on Wednesday 25 April 2007.