CHAPTER VII - THE CULTIVATION OF MUSIC AT THE UNIVERSITIES

Summary

Music has been always more or less cultivated at the Universities by others than those taking degrees (who, as we have seen, generally resided anywhere except at Oxford or Cambridge). Although we have no definite descriptions of musical performances in early times, yet ancient inventories and account books, &c, show that the rooms of the students could not have always been without music; and it is probable that in the palmy days of English music it was cultivated here as much as elsewhere.

In Anstey's “Munimenta Academica” several inventories of the goods of Oxford students are given, among which the following items occur:—

Inventory of the goods of Master J. Cooper. 1438.

Item, una antiqua cithera.

Item, una “lute ‘n fracta.

Inventory of Symon Beryngton, Scholar. 1448.

Item, unum hornpipe.

Inventory of Sir John Lydberg.

Item, a lewt.

Inventory of John Hosear. 1463.

Item, an harpe.

In 1452 Robert the Harpmaker finds sureties that he will not molest Master J. Van, and that he will not enter the house of John Fytz-John at unseasonable hours. That a harpmaker could find a means of livelihood at Oxford shows that there must have been a demand for instruments.

Frequent mention is also made of organs in Chapels and in the University Church. In 1489 an organ was set up in St. John's Chapel, at a cost of £28. It survived the Commonwealth, and was not pulled down till 1677. In 1492 the following entries occur in the books of St. Mary's Church:—

“Paid for mending the bellows of the organs, iid.”

“Received of Mr. Waller towards the organs, xxs.”