Volume 4

Register of the University of Oxford.

Date:
1885-1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Register of the University of Oxford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/464 (page 6)
    entry with another rests on no statement in the degree registers, but on bare conjecture or inference. Towards the end of this volume it will be observed that there are an unusual number of errors and omissions in the register of degrees, especially in the Christian names. The explanation is to be sought in the failing health of the Registrar, Thomas French, and the incompetency of his deputy. In the beginning of the next volume, when John French succeeded his father (see Part I, p. 249), these errors become still more numerous; as A Wood has noted in his transcript of the licences to M.A. for i6f§- :—c Nota quod Johannes French, in officium scribae noviter electus, multa omisit.’ John French’s delinquencies were, how- ever, due to more causes than his newness in office. In de- scribing ‘P. 15’ (the register of Congregation from 7 April 1630 to July 1634), A Wood says:—‘All which is written by John French, who though a good scholar, yet he was much given to bibbing, and has committed many misnomers, neither hath he timed1 things well.’ (Wood, MS. E. 4, fol. 169.) (IV.) As regards the matriculation references. I have added to the degree entries within square brackets [ ] the reference, where I seemed satisfied with its probability, to the matricula- tion as given in Part II, and occasionally to similar records in Part I. In every such case the attachment of a degree to a matriculation is a mere conjecture. In most cases the con- jecture is not only easy but also certain; but with frequently recurring names, such as John Williams, William Jones, Richard Smith, certainty, or even probability, is out of the question. We have to remember that there are great gaps in the matricu- lation register; that names are entered under wrong Colleges; that changes of College are frequent. Hence, to take a hypo- thetical example, it is impossible to say whether a William Powell, who took his B.A. from Gloc. H. in a given year, is to be identified with a William Powell who matriculated at Jes. C. four years before, or with another who entered Oriel C. about the same date, or whether it is to be supposed that he refers to neither, but that the record of his admission has been omitted. A great many identifications of degrees with matricula- tions, which at first sight seemed plausible, have had to be rejected when all the possibilities of the case were taken into account. 1 I. e. given the dates of the entries. This is particularly true of the licences to preach from 1630 to 1633, and of the admissions to B.D. in 1631.