English University Benefactors in the Middle Ages

Abstract

The medieval universities of Oxford and Cambridge owed an enormous debt to the generosity of a plurality of benefactors of diverse social origins. Given their limited incomes, the universities could not have functioned at a successful level without the substantial material aid of benefactors. Although the English monarchy made a valuable contribution to several areas of university and collegiate life, it nevertheless appears that this monarchical beneficence was less extensive than might have been supposed. The English male nobility gave the occasional gift of property and made donations to loan‐chests but before 1500 only one nobleman was a principal founder of a secular academic college. This opened the way for queens consort and female members of the greater aristocracy to emerge as significant benefactresses in both the university and collegiate spheres. Indeed, it could be argued that women from the upper echelons of society came to rank in importance as university and college benefactors with lesser ecclesiastics, knights, burgesses, merchants, current and former members of colleges and university servants. However, taking the donations of the episcopate in the round, it is probably true to say that the English bishops made the most decisive contribution