The Annals Of University College
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''The Annals of University College. Proving William of Durham the True Founder: and Answering all their Arguments who Ascribe it to King Alfred'' is a 1728 book on the history of
University College In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies ...
,
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
by the college archivist and antiquary William Smith. The book, controversial upon its release, has since been hailed as a remarkable, and exceptionally scholarly, early work of college history. The book, composed while Smith was retired in
Melsonby Melsonby is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. It lies a west of the A1(M) motorway and north of the A66. Etymology The second element in the name ''Melsonby'' is the Old Norse suffix ''-by'' ...
and riddled with
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, was provoked by a controversy over the Mastership of University College. A botched election had led to a dispute over whom had visitational authority over the college, and therefore the last say in its elections, with one party claiming that only the Crown had such an authority, citing a widely believed medieval myth of
King Alfred Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who ...
founding University College. This ahistorical claim incensed Smith so much that, in his distant Melsonby rectory, he produced the ''Annals'', with the express purpose of proving William of Durham to be the genuine founder. The book was published too late to effect the dispute's result, and Smith's arguments were overlooked by the Court. The book was met with cold reception initially, especially from those personally invested in the Alfredian myth, with harsh reviews describing it as "the private opinion of a partial disgusted old man". For a century, the book elicited little notice, and "made not the slightest difference to the pride which the University continued to take in its Alfredian identity", as the college's foundations continued to be attributed to Alfred in the histories of Hume and de Rapin. By the 20th-century, the book finally came to be regarded as "a remarkable achievement" and "the first scholarly history ..of any
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
or
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", if also "maddening" and "confused" in its style.


Background

Reverend William Smith (–1735) was born in
Easby, Richmondshire Easby is a hamlet and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated near Richmond on the banks of the River Swale, approximately north west from the county town of Northallerton. The population taken b ...
to the locals, William and Anne Smith. In 1668, he
matriculated Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now. ...
from University College, Oxford, going on to obtain an MA and BA. In 1678, following shortly from his MA, he was elected a Fellow of the College. Here he gained a reputation as a hard man to work with and a "puzzle cause", according to Thomas Hearne. While still at Oxford, he came across disorganised and poorly recorded archives of University College, and promptly set about cataloguing and transcribing the college's large collection of documents. According to the college's archivist Robin Darwall-Smith, Smith's system of cataloguing was "much more modern system ..than any of his predecessors so far encountered" and his diligent transcribing of the college's documents, many of which are now illegible or lost, has left future scholars "deeply in debt" to his work. Thomas Hearne rumoured that, while a Fellow, Smith secretly married and had a child, in blatant disregard of the university rules. Later research has revealed this claim to be true, with Smith marrying Mary Greenwood in 1697, and having a child, William (previously thought to be from Mary's first marriage), in 1692. Smith pushed for the college purchase of the
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(or '
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') of Melsonby, and was appointed to its rectorship in 1704, where he remained, with his family, for the rest of his life. While in Melsonby, Smith corresponded with fellow antiquaries and continued to brief himself on the affairs of his former college. One college controversy that caught his eye was over the Mastership of University College, between two Fellows: Thomas Cockman and William Dennison. Upon the death of the unpopular previous Master,
Arthur Charlett Arthur Charlett (1655 – 4 November 1722) was an Oxford academic and administrator. He was Master of University College, Oxford for thirty years until his death in 1722. He was noted for his love of society, and for his expensive way of living. ...
(in office, 1692–1722), a profound divide emerged between the Northern and Southern Fellows with regards to who should be the next Master. On 4 December 1722, an election was held, wherein Cockman (the Southern candidate) was elected by a bare majority. The Northerners (supporting Dennison) complained the election was contrary to the statutes of the college, and held their own election on 17 December, in absence of the senior Fellow, where Dennison was elected. Neither group would yield to the other's result, so the
vice-chancellor A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system. In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor ...
, Robert Shippen, and doctors of Oxford were called upon by both parties to make decide in favour of one candidate. The vice-chancellor and doctors made their decision in favour of Dennison, but Cockman's supporters did not relent. Citing an apocryphal medieval legend that King Alfred had founded University College in 872, they declared that only the Crown, as 'Visitor of the College', could determine the right of election, as opposed to the university convocation they had appealed to earlier. This myth originates in a 1384 "French petition" to King Richard II, concerning a major property dispute which the College wished to be heard in the King's Council. The document appealed to the young Richard's interest in his genealogy with invented claims as to Alfred's part in founding the college, and successfully persuaded the Council to hear the case; the Alfredian myth perpetuated onward subsequently. He continued to be cited as the founder well into the 18th century, with many imaginative portraits of Alfred gifted to the college and financial donations citing this myth. Cockman's petition came before the Solicitor and Attorney General, who moved to a 'prohibition' in the
Court of King's Bench The King's Bench (), or, during the reign of a female monarch, the Queen's Bench ('), refers to several contemporary and historical courts in some Commonwealth jurisdictions. * Court of King's Bench (England), a historic court court of common ...
. Long delays ensued from the Court, as the college continued headless for five years, until 10 May 1727 when the case was finally heard before the judges and jury of the Court. This Court declared in favour of Cockman, uncritically affirming the Alfredian myth and declaring that the convocation of Oxford did not exert visitational authority, a result which William Smith protested ineffectually from the King's bench. Smith, so perturbed by this judgement, set about writing ''The Annals of University College'' in his remote Melsonby rectory. The book was written with the express purpose of refuting the Alfredian myth which had so propagated itself and therefore maintaining that the university convocation still held visitational authority, though Smith was unconcerned with any partisan affiliation to the candidates. While composing the book, Smith made much use of the transcripts in his personal collection, which put him a good position to consult the true deeds and statutes of the college for his history. Smith rushed the work to completion, recalling that his sheets 'went from me to the Press as fast as I writ it', while his work was 'hastened by
gout Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of a red, tender, hot and swollen joint, caused by deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals. Pain typically comes on rapidly, reaching maximal intens ...
' in his feet and hands, as he attempted to get the work printed in time to appeal before the Court. This hope was, unfortunately, unfulfilled, as it was published in 1728, too late to influence the Court's decision. On 29 April 1729, the Crown visited the college, and declared in favour of Cockman, settling the dispute once and for all, again disregarding Smith's protests.


Content

Smith begins with a preface, composed on 17 November 1727, lamenting his many ills at such an advanced age, the lies of Alfred's foundation (which he blames as being perpetuated by Charlett), and recounting the sequence of events that led him to write this book. The first chapter looks at, what Smith terms, the "founding, settlement, ndprogress" of the college. He acquaints the reader with the circumstances surrounding William of Durham's founding of University College, including his life and the use to which his foundational donation was put. Next, he considers the arguments used to allege Alfred as the founder, and systematically discredits them, showing how the falsehood began in misinterpretations of documents, "only feigned to serve a turn". In the following chapter, Smith discusses Richard's connections with the college, through its aforementioned petition to him. Smith discusses the statutes of the university at length, especially in relation to claims of Alfred's involvement in them. Throughout the work, Smith discusses the archives of University College, which he was so acquainted with, including the previous archival system, created by
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, which he disparages as "without any Coherence or Dependance".


Reception and legacy

Initially, the book met with a cold reception among Oxford Fellows. Though the author had no political motivations, and was a personal friend of both candidates, the book quickly came to be seen as an attack on Cockman's legitimacy. Cockman himself responded unsympathetically, dismissing it as "the private opinion of a partial disgusted old man, who was always famous for opposition and confounding things". Thomas Hearne, a particular devotee of the college's founding myth, found Smith's conclusions hard to accept, denigrating them as "a studied Rhapsody of Lyes" to fellow antiquaries, and accusing Smith of making "every thing spurious that happens to be against himself" and disregarding established historical authorities. Eventually, the book's conclusions on the Alfredian myth would be understood as inescapably true, but for a century the book "made not the slightest difference to the pride which the University continued to take in its Alfredian identity", according to
Simon Keynes Simon Douglas Keynes, ( ; born 23 September 1952) is a British author who is Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon emeritus in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Trinity Colleg ...
, as the Alfredian myth continued to be uncritically reproduced by popular historians such as
David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
and
Paul de Rapin Paul de Rapin (25 March 1661 – 25 April 1725), sieur of Thoyras (and therefore styled de Rapin de Thoyras), was a Huguenot historian writing under English patronage. His ''History of England'', written and first published in French in 1724– ...
. According to Darwall-Smith, the "last hurrah" of the myth took place on the 1872 "Millenary Dinner", grandly celebrating a thousand years since Alfred's alleged foundation of the college. In 1949, the 700th-anniversary of the William of Durham's true founding of University College was finally celebrated, and the following Alfredian centennial was duly overlooked. The book has now come to be hailed as a remarkably scholarly early work of college history. Robin Darwall-Smith and Michael Riordan have lauded it as "the first scholarly history, not just of University College, but of any Oxford or Cambridge college", and "the basis for all further histories of the college". Early-20th-century historian of University College, William Carr, named it "the first Oxford College history of real historical value", still maintaining "its position as an authority to which many writers on early Oxford have since been beholden". Arthur Oswald, in the 1954
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of the college, acknowledged his debt to the ''Annals'', summarising it as "a remarkable achievement", affirming that "though such iconoclasm was highly unpopular", "the 'Annals''conclusions were inescapable". One of the ''Annals'' salient characteristics, commented on by several reviewers, is the total absence of any logical consistency in the book's structure. Perhaps caused by the hurry in which it was produced, Smith constantly distracts himself with more or less unrelated, erudite digressions. Oswald lamented that, while remarkable, the work was "confused in arrangement and the style
prolix Verbosity or verboseness is speech or writing that uses more words than necessary. The opposite of verbosity is plain language. Some teachers, including the author of ''The Elements of Style'', warn against verbosity; similarly Mark Twain and Er ...
and circuitous". Darwall-Smith and Riordan have colourfully described it as "a maddening work, resembling a non-fictional ''
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''", wherein "all attempts at a structure break down regularly, as the author is diverted by a succession of digressions". Darwall-Smith, a modern historian of University College, summed it up as "a work distinguished equally by scholarly rigour and its total lack of any coherent structure."


Notes


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Annals of University College, The 1728 non-fiction books 18th-century history books History books about education History books about the Middle Ages History of the University of Oxford University College, Oxford Cultural depictions of Alfred the Great