egiate ideal which had advanced so rapidly under
the successive constitutions of Merton College a hundred years before.
William of Wykeham, in providing for the needs of his scholars,
availed himself of the experience of the past and created a new model
for the future. The Fellows of New College were to be efficiently
equipped at Winchester for the studies of the University, and, as we
shall see, they were to receive in College special instruction in
addition to the teaching of the University. Their magnificent home
included, besides their living-rooms, a noble chapel and hall, a
library, a garden, and a beautiful cloister for religious processions
and for the burial of the dead. King Henry VI. built a still more
magnificent house for his Cambridge scholars, and his example was
followed by Henry VIII. The later College-founders, as we have said,
expected obedience in proportion to their munificence, and the simpler
statutes of earlier colleges were frequently revised and assimilated
to those of later foundations. We reserve for a later section what we
have to say about education, and deal here with habits and customs.

The Merton rule that conversation must be in Latin is generally (p. 059)
found in College statutes. At Peterhouse, French might occasionally be
spoken, should just and reasonable cause arise, but English very
rarely. At New College, Latin was to be spoken even in the garden,
though English might be used in addressing a layman. At Queen's
College, Oxford, which was founded by a courtier, French was allowed
as a regular alternative for Latin, and at Jesus College, Oxford,
conversation might be in Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. In spite of the
influence of the Renaissance, it seems unlikely that either Greek or
Hebrew was much used as an alternative to Latin, but the Latin-speaking
rule had become less rigid and in sixteenth-century statutes more
generous provision is made for dispensations from it. The Latin rule
was not merely an educational method; it was deliberately intended to
be a check upon conversation. College founders accepted the apostolic
maxim that the tongue worketh great evil, and they were convinced that
a golden rule of silence was a protection against both ribaldry and
quarrels. In the later statutes of Clare, the legislator recognises
that not merely loss of time, but the creation of a disposition to be
interested in trifles can be traced to "frequentes collocutiones," and
he forbids any mee