Merton was destined to have a
great development. In the document of 1284, Peckham speaks of Merton
as a "College," and its Founder was the founder of the Oxford College
system. Although he repeated in his last statutes his permission to
move his Society from Oxford, he regarded Oxford as its permanent
home. Now that the civil war was over and England at peace, he had, he
says, purchased a place of habitation and a house at Oxford, "where a
University of students is flourishing." Not only had he provided a
dwelling-place, he had also magnificently rebuilt a parish church to
serve as a College-Chapel. The example he set was followed both at
Oxford and at Cambridge, and the rule of Merton became the model on
which College founders based elaborate codes of statutes. English
founders generally followed Walter de Merton in making their (p. 057)
societies self-governing communities, with an external Visitor as the
ultimate court of appeal. There were in many colleges "poor boys" who
were taught grammar, performed menial offices, and were not members,
nor always eligible for election as members, of the Society; but as a
general rule the Fellows or Socii all had a share in the management of
the affairs of the House. Routine business was frequently managed by
the Head, the officers, and a limited number of the Senior Fellows,
but the whole body of Fellows took part in the election of a new Head.
A period of probation, varying from one year to three, was generally
prescribed before an entrant was admitted a "full and perpetual"
Fellow, and during this period of probation he had no right of voting.
This restriction was sometimes dispensed with in the case of
"Founder's kin," who became full Fellows at once, and the late Sir
Edward Wingfield used to boast that in his Freshman term (1850) he had
twice voted in opposition to the Warden of New College in a College
meeting. As in a monastic house, this freedom was combined with a
strict rule of obedience, and though the Head of a medieval College
might be irritated by incidents of this kind, he possessed great
dignity and high authority within his domain. As founders did more for
their students, they expected a larger obedience from them, and (p. 058)
attempted to secure it by minute regulations; and the authority of the
Head of the College increased with the number of rules which he was to
enforce. The foundation of New College at Oxford in 1379 marks the
completion of the coll