This exhibition is based on the fourth Lincoln Unlocked lecture given by Visiting Researcher Dr Andrew Foster.
A College Visitor is an external figure of authority on whom the College can call for advice and for arbitration if insoluble dispute arises amongst its Governing Body, as a successor to the Founder.
At Christ Church and Oriel College, for example, as Royal foundations, the Visitor is the reigning monarch. The Queen is also Visitor at University College. At All Souls, Keble, and Merton it is the Archbishop of Canterbury; at Queen’s, the Archbishop of York; Corpus Christi, Brasenose, Exeter, Lincoln, Magdalen, New, St Anne’s, St John’s, St Peter’s, Trinity, and Wadham have bishops; Hertford, Lady Margaret Hall, Pembroke, St Edmund Hall’s, and Somerville colleges have the Chancellor of the University as their Visitor. (Oxford Archives Consortium, accessed 16/02/2022)
In succession to our Founder, Lincoln College’s Visitor is the Bishop of Lincoln. Bishops of Lincoln were also Visitors of Balliol (although the link was severed in 1691), Oriel, and Brasenose and King’s College, Cambridge.
A Visitor ‘had the power to interpret statutes, to issue injunctions, to deprive heads and fellows, to settle disputes among the members and to carry out formal visitations, investigating the conduct of secular and spiritual business.’ (History of the University v.3, Penry Williams). In his exploration of the role of the College Visitor in Oxford, 1550-1700 in the fourth Lincoln Unlocked Lecture, ecclesiastical historian Dr Andrew Foster made clear that whilst the above description sounds like one of great power and influence, the records suggest that Visitors were in practice more usually called upon to provide judgements with reference to college statutes when heads of colleges or fellows were in dispute; there is little evidence that they were much engaged in major changes of policy and practice. Rarely do we have details of a visitation with questions that go beyond checking compliance with the statutes and an audit of accounts.
Of the 16 bishops of Lincoln between 1557 and 1705, there is evidence for substantial involvement of only about half of those men in Lincoln College affairs. There was a break in the relationship between 1646 and 1660, as there were no longer any bishops with jurisdiction, and after 1647, all Oxford colleges answered to a board of Parliamentary Visitors. The archives post-Reformation indicate contact was largely initiated by those within the colleges, with no sign of a regular relationship other than through routine rituals of appointment and occasional disputes.
So when did Lincoln’s Visitor get involved? Bishop Cooper was concerned about Catholic recusants in the College in 1574, and later drawn into the contested election of Rector John Underhill in 1577. Elections of Fellows gave Bishop Chaderton headaches in the 1590s. In 1627, there were disputes about payment of battells, problems that occurred on a grander scale in the 1680s, when the incompetence of a Bursar led to a fellowship being temporarily suspended with the agreement of Bishop Barlow. And when the diocese of Oxford was carved out of the sprawling diocese of Lincoln in 1542, the rights of Visitors and colleges relating to their livings were protected, but the bishops of Oxford needed reminding of this by the Visitor several times during the 17th century.
Expenses in the annual accounts
Expenses incurred by the College in entertaining the Visitor and his entourage appear in the annual accounts. In 1539, the College Bursar recorded the cost of fish and spices purchased for the Visitation dinner, and the payment for laundering the table linen afterward.
Bishop Cooper’s involvement from Accounts
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Rectors Henry Henshaw, Francis Babington and John Bridgewater were all Roman Catholics who eventually defected to the continent, the last one, Bridgewater, as late as 1574. Lincoln College was a notorious den of Roman Catholics with a distinguished role call of those who helped to reinforce the Counter Reformation on the continent. Bishop Cooper’s role in underpinning the election of Underhill in 1574 perhaps marks a turning point in bringing the College firmly within the Elizabethan Church.
This page from the Lincoln Accounts shows the expenses related to the election to rector of the Subrector John Gibson, and of the journey to the College Visitor’s residence at Buckden to inform him of the result. Bishop Cooper responded by sending commissioners to enquire into the election and overruling it, possibly because his own chaplain was a potential candidate. After several further attempts by the Fellows to fill the post with candidates of their choosing were overruled by the the Chancellor of the University and favourite of the Queen, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the Chancellor forced his own choice, John Underhill, upon the College.
Chaderton M.R. f.33v.
From early on in John Kilbye’s Rectorship, there were disputes over elections to Fellowships which required the Rector to appeal to the Visitor, Bishop Chaderton. In 1594, he asked the Visitor’s approval when he proceded against four Fellows who had been absent from Chapel. Later in the year, he called for the restoration of a Fellow deprived of his Fellowship and the following year, the Fellows asked the Visitor to arbitrate about the selection of lecturers. But matters really came to a head in 1597 when the Subrector, Edmund Underhill, attempted to get Rector Kilbye removed from the rectorship. The Visitor could not approve of this and ordered the Rector to be re-instated, as recorded in this entry in the Medium Registrum.
College Register I
In the first College Register we can see the Visitor behind the actions of Rector Hood, who is trying to hold John Reade (Fellow 1606-1633) to account for his fiduciary duties as Bursar in 1622.
Engraving of John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln 1621-1641
Engraving of John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln 1621-1641. The Lincoln College Chapel was constructed thanks to his munificence 1629-31.
Yet owing to his fall from favour at the accession of Charles I, Williams was effectively exiled in his diocese and had to sign a legal mandate giving authority to the Bishop of Oxford, Richard Corbet, to conduct the consecration service.
College Register II
During the suspension of John Williams as Bishop of Lincoln, Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud acted as Visitor. Here is a letter written 26 July 1639 from the Visitor which been copied in to the second College Register.
Laud is meting out punishment after an appeal by John Webberley (Fellow 1632-1648) against Rector Hood and the other Fellows for unfair treatment and corruption. Webberley had been involved in several altercations by this point: he had broken down a door in College and had assaulted Richard Kilbye on another occasion. Though Laud notes Rector Hood’s statute breaches, he supports Hood by putting Webberley out of commons for two months and requires an apology.
Miniature of Rector Paul Hood by engraver David Loggan
This drawing by engraver David Loggan depicts Rector Paul Hood, who was head of house from 1620-1668. During his extraordinarily long tenure, he sees the College through the Civil War and Commonwealth periods, despite several disputes over statute infringements with successive Visitors, including Archbishop Laud. The present College Chapel was consecrated in 1631 during his Rectorship.
The miniature is executed in pencil on vellum and dates from 1675; it was donated to the College in 1962.
Engraving of Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln 1660-1663
Engraving of Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln 1660-1663.
Fellow, 1606, He was deprived by the Parliamentary Visitors of the Professorship of Divinity.
Letter from the Visitor Thomas Barlow to Rector Marshall in November 1684
This letter from the Visitor Thomas Barlow to Rector Marshall in November 1684 aims to settle a dispute over the vacant Darby Fellowship. Barlow informs Marshall that Sir Halifax was found inhabilis though Mr Adams was deemed fit. William Adams was duly elected to the Fellowship a few months later in February 1685. Barlow writes, '…I have hitherto writt as your Visitor, and now…to give my advise, as a friend…'.
Letter dated 27 September 1683 from the Visitor to Rector Marshall
An excerpt of a letter dated 27 September 1683 from the Visitor to Rector Marshall regarding the freedom of the parishes of All Saints and St Michael at the Northgate from Oxford episcopal jurisdiction. In the 1680s, Bishop Barlow was called upon to remind the then Bishop of Oxford, John Fell – who should have known better – that the Oxford livings of Lincoln were exempt from his jurisdiction, and that of his archdeacons, a right enshrined in the documents creating the new diocese. On another occasion, the Bishop of Oxford was offended to learn that Bishop Barlow had been allowed to carry out ordinations in Lincoln College Chapel without seeking his permission.
View of Lincoln College and its Oxford livings of All Saints and St Michael at the Northgate
View of Lincoln College and its Oxford livings of All Saints and St Michael at the Northgate, first published in 1743 in the Oxford Almanack. Engraving by G. Vertue. The figures on the left are: Founder Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln (seated); John Forest, Dean of Wells; Thomas Beckington, Bishop of Bath & Wells; William Finderne, Benefactor; and John Bucktot, Benefactor. On the right: Edward Darby, Benefactor; Thomas Rotherham, Bishop of Lincoln then Archbishop of York (seated); and William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln; John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and Edmund Audley, Bishop of Salisbury.
Sermons by Robert Sanderson, 1657
Robert Sanderson. Sermons. London : 1657.
Whilst in their other colleges, particularly Balliol, the bishops of Lincoln assisted in rebuilding and using their influence to help in networking and fund-raising, this was not so necessary for Lincoln College. To use books as an example: Bishop Longland who died in 1547, left Lincoln some books, but the only other bishop of Lincoln who gave the college books was Robert Sanderson, and then probably by dint of his having been a Fellow rather than in his role as Visitor. It is clear from Lincoln’s Donors’ Book that our chief benefactors were our Rectors.
Dr Foster concludes that the College “may have been protected from many problems during the Interregnum by its long-serving, long-suffering, ever-adaptable Rector, Paul Hood, the only head of college to survive until 1660. He was succeeded by Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, a wonderfully generous benefactor to this college. Crewe was succeeded as rector by Thomas Marshall, who was great friends with Bishop Thomas Barlow, and yet scarcely needed to turn to him for advice, such was the strength of the college by this date. Fitzherbert Adams completes the run of very able, practical Rectors who steered a successful course for Lincoln College after 1660. I think this run of sound rectors fully explains why we see less of the bishops of Lincoln as Visitors in the latter half of the seventeenth century.”
Dr Andrew Foster FRHistS, FSA, FHA is an ecclesiastical historian who has written numerous articles on bishops, cathedrals, clergy, parishes and churchwardens of early modern England. He is a long-standing Literary Director of the Sussex Record Society and is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Kent.
