259
ALL SOULS' COLLEGE.
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whom Cranmer's visitation took place, that All
Souls' was robbed of its greatest ornament— the
decorations of its chapel. In 1449, by order of
the Royal Commissioners appointed by Protector
Somerset, havoc was made with the whole interior of
the building. The organ was removed, the windows
broken, the high-altar and seven side-altars taken
down, and, worst of all, the whole reredos gutted ;
its fifty statutes and eighty-five statuettes were de-
stroyed, and so it remained, vacant but graceful,
though much chipped about in the course of ages, till
in the reign of Charles II. the Fellows in their
wisdom concluded to plane down its projections, stuff
its niches with plaster, and paint a sprawling fresco
upon it ! .
On the whole, save in the loss of its Reredos, All Souls' did not suffer much from the Reformation. In Elizabeth's reign we find it flourishing greatly under Warden Hoveden. As a builder and an administra- tor alike he left his mark on All Souls. '
By the end of Hoveden's time a new subject of interest comes to the front in the management of the College. The rise in wealth and in prices which cha- racterized the Tudor epoch resulted in the develop- ment of the annual surplus from the College estates into unexpected proportions. When all outgoings were paid there were often .£500 or £600 left to be transferred to the strong-box in the gate-tower. It naturally occurred to the Fellows that some of this
money might reasonably come their way. Arch-
bishop Whitgift allowed them to augment their daily
commons from it, and afterwards bade them com-
mute their " livery " in cloth for a reasonable equiva-
lent in cash. This was done, but still the annual
surplus cash grew. Archbishop Bancroft directed it
"to amendment of diet and other necessary uses of
common charge." He soon found that this merely
led to luxurious living. "It is astonishing," he
wrote, " this kind of beer which heretofore you have
had in your College, and I do strictly charge you,
that from henceforth there be no other received into
your buttery but small and middle beer, beer of
higher rates being fitter for tippling houses." Yet
the College strong ale still survives ! Nor was it only
in its drinking that the College offended : its eating
corresponded ; the gaudes, and the annual Bursar's
dinner, became huge banquets, costing some £40 ;
guests were invited in scores, and the festivities pro-
longed to the third day. Such things were only
natural when the Fellows had the disposal of a large
revenue, yet were not allowed to draw from it more
than food and clothing. At last, Archbishop Abbott,
in 1629, bethought him of a less demoralizing way of
disposing of the surplus : he boldly doubled the livery
money. Then for the first time a Fellowship became
worth some definite value in hard cash. The next
step was easy enough ; instead of a fixed double
livery, there was distributed annually so many times
the original livery as the surplus could safely furnish.
tripod. — From Lascelles.
SALT CELLAR. — From Lascelles.
