12.01 - The Paedagogium, or St Mary's College, St Andrews

APPENDIX A (p. 19). THE PAEDAGOGIUM, OR ST MARY’S COLLEGE, ST ANDREWS.[321]

St Mary’s College, if in one sense the youngest, is in another sense the oldest, college within the University. It occupies the earliest site of the University, and gathers up into itself not only the old Paedagogium, but also a still older college. In January 1418 ... a certain Robertus de Monte Rosarum mortified a site on the south side of South Street, with the buildings thereon, as a college for the study of theology and arts. This was the strip of ground on which the eastern portion of the Library, as well as the new south wing, now stands, but on which, in the oldest bird’s-eye view of the city, a sort of collegiate building is represented as standing. That was undoubtedly the College, or Hall, or "Inns" of St John, to which repeated reference is made in the oldest manuscript records of the University. It had probably a lecture-room, rooms for the students to lodge in, and a chapel also, dedicated to St John the Evangelist, in which daily service was maintained, but, so far as we now know, it was very poorly endowed. In 1430 Bishop Wardlaw, the illustrious founder of the University, mortified as a site for a Paedagogium or common school for the faculty of arts the strip of land and buildings thereon immediately to the west of St John’s College—the frontage now covered by the western portion of the Library, the porch of St Mary’s College, and the Principal’s house. After the erection and endowment of St Salvator’s College by Bishop Kennedy, and of St Leonard’s College by Prior Hepburn, the attendance on the Paedagogium, which was but slenderly endowed, seems to have fallen off, and the number of its regents to have been curtailed. Archbishop Alexander Stewart, the favourite pupil of Erasmus, and one of the most accomplished of our long line of chancellors, was the first who formed the purpose of enlarging and endowing Bishop Wardlaw’s foundation, but his life was prematurely brought to a close on the fatal field of Flodden. His successor, Andrew Forman, appears to have taken no interest in the work on which Stewart had set his heart. But James Betoun, who came next in succession, acted a nobler part. He brought with him from Glasgow John Major—the one great schoolman of whom Scotland in the sixteenth century could boast, who had upheld the reputation of his country in the University of Paris as an able and successful teacher of the philosophy and theology of the day. Major and Patrick Hamilton—the one the representative of the old, the other of the new learning—were incorporated into the University of St Andrews on the same day (9th June 1523); and, for at least two years, the former presided over the Paedagogium, and probably lectured both on philosophy and theology. In 1525-26 he returned to Paris, partly that he might publish there his commentaries on the Gospels, and partly that he might act again as a teacher in that wider sphere; but a few years later, on a vacancy occurring in the principality of St Salvator’s College, he returned to St Andrews, and continued in that more lucrative charge till his death.

It was mainly in his last years, however, that James Betoun set himself in right earnest to complete the work which Archbishop Stewart had begun. At his solicitation Pope Paul III., on 12th February 1537, issued a bull annexing the teinds of the church of Tannadice, in Forfarshire, and of the wealthier church of Tyninghame, in East Lothian, to the old foundation, and erecting it into a privileged college under the title of the Blessed Mary of the Assumption. In this college, medicine, law, and theology, as well as arts, were henceforth to be taught, and the privilege was granted to it of conferring degrees in all lawful faculties, and of conferring them on those who had gained their knowledge elsewhere as well as on those who had studied within the college—in fact, making it almost a university within the University, and conceding to it more extensive powers than were conceded to many universities. His first work was to replace the decaying buildings of the Paedagogium by others more massive and commodious. That work was far from finished at the time of his death, and having been intermitted by his successor [the cardinal], was only completed by Archbishop Hamilton, who, with papal sanction, reconstituted the college and added to its endowments.

Early, however, in 1538, the first staff of teachers entered on their work as a college organised and equipped "ut militans Dei ecclesia indies abundet viris litterarum scientia praeditis," and few institutions through a long and eventful history have more illustriously fulfilled this object, though in another sense than its founders meant, and handed on the torch of sacred learning from generation to generation. Bannerman, who succeeded Major, had the honour of reorganising the old institution and starting it on its new career. Archibald Hay, who came next, was the child of the Renaissance, and more in earnest about religion than many of that school; and, had his life been spared, and the cardinal given heed to his counsels, the old Church might have been able to make a better fight for privilege or for life in the struggle which ensued. John Douglas, his successor, bridged the passage from the old to the new without any violent break, probably taking part with Wynram in the composition of Archbishop Hamilton’s Catechism, as he did afterwards in the preparation of the Reformed Confession of Faith and the First Book of Discipline. He was a man of the ancient academic type, content to live in single blessedness, to treat his pupils, who also lived in college, with the familiarity and affection of a father. He had the honour of training the youthful Andrew Melville, and perhaps it was with some presentiment of his future eminence that, as he held the precocious youth between his knees at the college fire, he fondly said, "My sillie fatherless and motherless chyld, it is ill to wit what God may mak of thee yit."

God watched over that weakly youth, and prospered his studies at Paris, Poictiers, and Geneva, so that with a mind stored with all the learning of his time, he returned to his native land to complete the reformation of its universities, and to delight successive generations of students by his stores of learning and wit, and by his accessibility and generosity. It was to meet his ideas of what a theological school should be that the college was set apart "allenarly" for the study of theology, and furnished with professors of the Old and the New Testament, who were to "expone" the various books of Scripture as well as to read them in the original, comparing the Hebrew of the Old Testament with the Septuagint and the Chaldee paraphrases, and the Greek of the New Testament with the old Syriac translation, while the principal was to teach the loci communes or the systematic theology of the age. The first assistants in the "wark of theology" were Mr John Robertson, who acted as professor Novi Testamenti, and his own nephew, James Melville, who taught Hebrew and the Old Testament, and to whom we owe that graphic diary which gives us several interesting glimpses of college life in those early days. To John Robertson succeeded Mr John Johnston, author of Latin poems in praise of our reformers and martyrs, and of Latin verses descriptive of the line of our Scottish kings.

Melville was by no means an illiberal theologian, and he and Johnston wrote to the Protestant churches of France urging moderation on them in controversies which were then being discussed with great bitterness. Both lived with and for their pupils, and secured in an unusual degree their reverence and affection. Both ultimately lost the favour of the king; and Melville, after being cruelly used in London, had to spend his declining years in the French Protestant University of Sedan.

FOOTNOTES:

[321] [This is taken from a paper on "St Mary’s College," contributed by Dr Mitchell to the "Student’s Handbook to the University of St Andrews," 1895, pp. 12-15.]