The growth in power and importance of academic corporations having
now been sketched, let us try to see what the outer aspect of the
town was like in these rude times, and what manner of life the
undergraduates led. For this purpose we may be allowed to draw a
rude, but not unfaithful, picture of a day in a student's life. No
incident will be introduced for which there is not authority, in
Wood, or in Mr. Anstey's invaluable documents, the Munimenta
Academica, published in the collection of the Master of the Rolls.
Some latitude as to dates must be allowed, it is true, and we are not
of course to suppose that any one day of life was ever so gloriously
crowded as that of our undergraduate.
The time is the end of the fourteenth century. The forest and the
moor stretch to the east gate of the city. Magdalen bridge is not
yet built, nor of course the tower of Magdalen, which M. Brunet-
Debaines has sketched from Christ Church walks. Not till about 1473
was the tower built, and years would pass after that before
choristers saluted with their fresh voices from its battlements the
dawn of the first of May, or sermons were preached from the beautiful
stone pulpit in the open air. When our undergraduate, Walter de
Stoke, or, more briefly, Stoke, was at Oxford, the spires of the city
were few. Where Magdalen stands now, the old Hospital of St. John
then stood--a foundation of Henry III.
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