A history of Merton College, Oxford

Abstract

Merton College, established in 1264, was the first self-governing college in Oxford, and the model for all the historic colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. Its endowment was unmatched in either university until the foundation of New College in 1379. It attracted outstanding talent within its first half-century, when Walter Burley inaugurated a long tradtion of metaphysical studies, reinforced by the mathematical skills of John Maudith and Thomas Bradwardine. Recent work on the history of the University has underlined the pre-eminence and international influence of the Mertonian school, and the college remains a notable focus of mathematical science, including astronomy, and of medicine throughout the Middle Ages. A History of Merton College discusses the development of the college library, and the impact of John Wyclif on Merton and the University. After the Reformation the re-equipment of Merton Library by Warden Savile and Thomas Bodley provided a model for Bodley's great endowment. In the later seventeenth century, Anthony Wood is a figure of great historiographical (and some human) interest. Merton maintained its character as a mainly graduate society until the nineteenth century, and its modern development has preserved a strong, scholarly tradition. In the twentieth century the names of T.S Eliot, Louis Mac-neice and Angus Wilson emphasize the place of English studies in college life, which is exemplified by the two Merton chairs, but the natural sciences, classics, history and mathematics have also held their own.

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