CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE (Oxford). One of the smaller colleges in the university. It was the first of the Renaissance foundations, and its establishment marks an epoch in the intellect ual history of the university. It was founded in 1516 by Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, and Lord Privy Seal, the principal Secretary of State and chief counselor and diplomat of Henry VII., partly at the suggestion and cost of Oldham, Bishop of Exeter. In Corpus Christi College we find the first noteworthy attempt to depart from the older educational tradition of the university, in the establishment of an en dowed chair of Greek, the first in Oxford, and in throwing open the professorial lectures to all members of the university. The honor of found ing the professorial system Fox shares with Bishop Waynfiete and Margaret of Richmond, whose executor he was. The statutes of his foundation contain the most. stringent rules for life and work, quaintly worded in the form of an allegory of a hive of bees. These. with the liberal provisions for the study of Latin and Greek, and humanistic studies in general, called ferth the high praise of Erasmus. Though his
prediction of the future preeminence of the col lege in the university has not been fulfilled, Cor pus Christi has always maintained an excellent reputation for scholarship. It has counted its members. John Keble, Thomas Arnold, 'the judicious Hooker,' his patron Bishop Jew ell, Nicholas Udall, the author of the first Eng lish comedy, and, for a very brief period, Ogle thorpe, the founder of Georgia. Chief Justice Coleridge, and Thomas Day, author of Sandford and Merton. The buildings of the college, though of several periods. are among the most harmoni ous in Oxford, and in this, as in its size. charac ter, and standing. it has been aptly reckoned among the three typical colleges of the university. Its statutes were revised in 1881, and the new provisions are not as yet fully carried out. It consists on its present foundation of a president, thirteen ordinary and two professorial fellows, twenty-eight scholars, and seven exhibitioners, 1,e-ides undergraduates.