Are the colleges and their chapels in the University of Cambridge peculiars? Peculiars have been described thus: ‘Exempt jurisdictions are so called, not because they are under no ordinary; but because they are not under the ordinary of the diocese, but have one of their own. These are therefore called peculiars, and are of several sorts.’Footnote ¹

Of course, ordinary is also defined, the diocesan bishop being described by Burn as ‘having ordinary jurisdiction in causes ecclesiastical’.Footnote ² The word comes from Roman civil law and the ordinary with jurisdiction as of common right does not have to be an ordained cleric. Ecclesiastical visitation is part of ordinary jurisdiction, as ‘every spiritual person is visitable by the Ordinary’.Footnote ³ The purpose of a visitation is that the visitor may ‘get some good knowledge of the state, sufficiency, and ability of the clergy and other persons whom he may visit’.Footnote ⁴ In other words, there must be ecclesiastical jurisdiction in peculiars just as in all churches but by someone other than the bishop in whose diocese the peculiar is situated. This ordinary may be a bishop or a lay person appointed as ‘visitor’. There is a further distinction between charitable and ecclesiastical visitors that comes to the fore in the University of Cambridge. In most cases, the heads of college, sometimes together with fellows, act as ordinary, but they still require ecclesiastical supervision by a visitor, who may supersede the powers of the domestic ordinary in cases ecclesiastical.

Turning to the question of whether the Cambridge colleges and chapels are, in fact, peculiars, let us look at the evidence. There is no scholarly examination of this subject other than two obscure discussions. One is an article in this Journal entitled ‘What is a peculiar?’. The findings are the result of a working party on peculiars, and the article lists what it considers ‘definite’ and ‘possible’ peculiars, without providing any evidence.Footnote ⁵ The other is a chapter in a book on monasteries in England by Dom David Knowles. Although the subject is monasteries, the general criteria for a peculiar would apply equally to the pre-Reformation colleges, which were quasi-monastic institutions. Both texts affirm that each case is individual; what links them is that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction is unusual and special to each institution. Knowles also remarked that ‘this subject [of peculiars] like the kindred case of monastic exemption has not yet been fully studied’.Footnote ⁶

The earliest evidence of peculiar status in Cambridge is that of King's Hall. The college evolved from the Society of King's Scholars from about 1317, became an endowed college in 1337 and may have had a charter in 1342. Because it was a royal foundation, Cobban finds that it was the most highly privileged and protected of the Cambridge colleges, and assumes that the charter would have included the usual exemptions.Footnote ⁷ The foundation of a mediaeval college required the approval and confirmation of the local bishop. It was further assumed that, because of the royal status of the college, the Bishop of Ely's confirmation was nominal. It appears, however, that in purely ecclesiastical and spiritual affairs the whole university and its colleges (including King's Hall) were subject to ordinary diocesan control. There is documented evidence that King's Hall was exempt from archiepiscopal visitation, but ‘as far as can be determined’ it never acquired a papal bull of exemption. Nevertheless, it seems abundantly clear, in spite of some assumptions, and in the context of the fourteenth century, as well as because of its origins, that the college of King's Hall not only enjoyed the status of a royal peculiar but also that this was probably more in the nature of the peculiars of the Chapel Royal. In fact, it was the only certain Cambridge peculiar before the Barnwell Process exempted the whole university (on which, see further below). King's Hall later became part of the royal foundation of Trinity College, so its status of peculiar lasted into our own age.

The oldest college of the University is Peterhouse, founded by the Bishop of Ely, Hugh de Balsham, in 1284. The college was in his diocese, so he would have been the ordinary. The bishop endowed the college with much ecclesiastical property including the church of St Peter without Trumpington, which served as a college chapel from the beginning, until a dedicated college chapel was built in 1632, where the services were held in Latin, as was still common at that time.Footnote ⁸ The Bishop of Ely remains the visitor of the college.

The other colleges considered ‘possible’ peculiars by the working party fall into two categories: those founded before 1433 and those founded later but before the Reformation. In the Cambridge foundations, Pembroke College was one of the earliest colleges to plan a chapel from the outset. Previously, colleges were as close to the parish churches as possible, and had used them for their devotions.Footnote ⁹ The foundress of the college was Mary de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke. On Christmas Eve 1347 Edward III granted her the licence for the foundation. She received papal bulls for building a chapel and there is evidence that it was completed in her lifetime.Footnote ¹⁰ Did the papal bulls for the chapel include exemption from the supervision of the Bishop of Ely? If so, it might be the first instance of a Cambridge college chapel peculiar.

Another early foundation also lays a claim as possibly the oldest college chapel still in use today. Caius College was founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, who died shortly afterwards. His friend William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, as a second founder, continued the work. The annals inform us that a chapel was contemplated from the beginning. It was completed by the second Master before 1393.Footnote ¹¹ However, at first it was only an oratory. The formal consecration as a chapel was not until 1493 by Bishop Alcock of Ely, who celebrated a solemn mass in full pontificals; bishops were the ones needed to consecrate chapels. Did he know that the college had not been legally incorporated and was therefore not strictly covered by the Barnwell Process? This was later rectified by John Caius re-founding the college in 1557. Of the other ‘possible’ peculiars, Clare, Trinity Hall and Corpus Christi were well-established colleges of the university by 1433.

The ancient claims of the University of Cambridge to ecclesiastical independence had come under dispute, and to resolve the matter Pope Martin V appointed the Prior of Barnwell to investigate the University's claim. In the proceedings known as the Barnwell Process, the university presented a document of Pope John XXII of 9 June 1318, as well as some forged documents purporting to be even earlier, claiming exemption from episcopal supervision. In the view of scholars, the documents did not in fact deal with exemption, as the pope only ‘desires that the general place of study at Cambridge in the diocese of Ely … should flourish’. The prior nevertheless delivered his judgment in favour of the university: ‘We therefore … approve, praise, ratify, and confirm these writings by our sentence’.Footnote ¹² The real exemption from episcopal supervision of the university can therefore be dated to this process, which was confirmed by a bull from Pope Eugenius IV in September 1433.Footnote ¹³ The university and its established colleges at that time became peculiars.

King's College, Cambridge, is the quintessential college peculiar. Henry VI made very sure that his foundation was to be independent of any ecclesiastical authority. Rather than accepting the judgment of the Prior of Barnwell, although confirmed by papal bulls, he himself secured a series of nine bulls from Pope Eugenius IV in 1445. They confirmed the foundation and conferred more privileges, in particular exempting the college, its members and servants and all their goods from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop and Archdeacon of Ely, the Chancellor of the University and all other judges ordinary, and placing them under the sole jurisdiction of the Bishop of Lincoln. He gave the Provost (the head of the college) the authority of a diocesan bishop in the execution of the wills of members and servants of the college. Thus, the college established ecclesiastical and academic immunity. The visitor, the Bishop of Lincoln, whom the Provost was to call in if his orders or punishments were resisted, might hold a visitation, reform and punish what he found amiss, and deprive the Provost or any other member of the college.Footnote ¹⁴ The statutes of the college state that the bishop was both charitable and ecclesiastical visitor and guardian of its statutes and also charged with the conservation of its rights and possessions, including those of the Provost.Footnote ¹⁵ This description of King's College is that of a royal peculiar distinct from those royal peculiars that are directly governed by Her Majesty through the office of the Clerk of the Closet; it was the crown that determined the ecclesiastical exemptions and appointed the visitor.

The same report of the working party classifies the other pre-Reformation colleges as ‘possible’ peculiars. That would indicate that the working party had not yet examined each of the colleges to see if indeed it qualified as a peculiar, and the report stated that it was ‘proceeding on two fronts’. However, no further report seems to have emerged. Of the ‘possible’ peculiars, Magdalene stands out because of its monastic foundation. Henry VI gave property by letters patent in 1428 to Abbot Lytlington of Crowland (or Croyland) Abbey to establish a hostel for monks to study at the university. Crowland was a Benedictine abbey and thus would have required individual papal bulls in order to become a monastic peculiar. These, apparently, they did not have. On the other hand, the abbey was one of great importance and had exemption rights that implied the suspension within a restricted area of the bishop's power of excommunicating and interdicting. These rights may have applied to its four dependencies, including the hostel in Cambridge.Footnote ¹⁶ The Barnwell Process probably did not have any effect on this hostel but, because of benefactions from the Duke of Buckingham, sometime in the 1470s the Monk's Hostel morphed into Buckingham College, and presumably came under the same jurisdiction as the other colleges of the university. Because the abbot had subscribed to the royal supremacy, Crowland was one of the last monasteries to be dissolved. One result of the dissolution was that Thomas, Lord Audley came into possession of one of the abbeys involved in the college and re-founded it as the College of St Mary Magdalene in 1542. He decided that he and his heirs would be visitors of the college, a rare instance of a person as visitor who is neither cleric nor academic. Of course, if there arose an issue of an ecclesiastical nature, it would be incumbent upon the charitable visitor to call in a bishop to adjudicate. Overall, the only basis for the claim of Magdalene College to be a peculiar is being one of the established colleges of the university, as there is little early documentary evidence.

John Alcock, another Bishop of Ely, founded Jesus College in 1496. He obtained powers from Henry VII to suppress the monastery of St Radegund and to endow the college with its properties; the Pope confirmed these powers. Nevertheless, the earliest surviving statutes laid down that Bishop Alcock and his successors as Bishops of Ely should always be the visitors of the college.Footnote ¹⁷ The bishop is both charitable and ecclesiastical visitor, which differs from the role of diocesan bishop in that he has only visitorial powers and not ordinary jurisdiction. For instance, he issues a licence to the Dean of Chapel for work outside the college, but not for his position as dean.Footnote ¹⁸ Bishop Alcock had previously been Lord Chancellor and he ensured the legal implications that he and the Bishops of Ely after him should have the visitorial powers of supervision that otherwise a diocesan bishop would yield. He evidently had no doubts that his foundation would be a peculiar.

The Bishop of Ely is also the Visitor of St John's College. Lady Margaret Beaufort had summoned the Bishop of Ely in 1508 to discuss the suppression and conversion of the Hospital of St John, over which the bishop had authority. As it happened, the bishop died before he drew up a formal agreement, and Lady Margaret herself died in 1509. Lady Margaret's confessor, John Fisher, had proposed to her the founding of a college on the decaying hospital. Her will of 6 June 1508 did not mention this, and it took Fisher two years to prove what he maintained was a verbal will by Lady Margaret to secure a papal licence for the suppression of the hospital. The Bishop of Ely concurred on condition that he became the visitor. Because of the provenance and the Bishop of Ely's involvement, the college appears to be similar to the other foundations for which the Bishops of Ely are visitors, and they acknowledge these colleges to be ‘extra-diocesan’ peculiars.

Of the other ‘possibles’, Christ's is a peculiar by its statutes, in which the Bishop of Ely declared it exempt forever from him and his successors: ‘We appoint therefore that John, by Divine permission Bishop of Rochester … be Visitor of said college … and after his death all other chancellors’.Footnote ¹⁹ Queens' and St Catharine's also considered themselves in the same category as their older neighbouring colleges. There can be no doubt that before Henry VIII's reformation all colleges considered themselves as equal regarding their independence from ecclesiastical supervision.

Henry VIII founded Trinity College, the other royal foundation, in 1546 and it therefore did not obtain any papal bulls. Henry used his authority as Head of the Church not only to suppress the colleges of King's Hall and Michaelhouse and incorporate them (together with the Physwick's Hostel) in his new foundation, but also to endow the new college with a plethora of privileges. The working party confirmed its status as a ‘definite’ royal peculiar.

The question arises why Emmanuel and Sidney Sussex colleges, founded during the reign of Elizabeth I, were not included in the list of ‘possible’ peculiars. One reason may be that their foundations were subsequent to the Oxford and Cambridge Act of 1571, which was the culmination of a series of Acts by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I that replaced the Pope as universal Ordinary and confirmed the validity of all former privileges.Footnote ²⁰ Puritanism dominated in the university during Elizabeth's reign, and in religious affairs much independence of belief was permitted, provided that adherence to the established Church was not threatened. Visits to Emmanuel and Sidney Sussex by Elizabeth I and James I strongly stressed this aspect of the religious life. The status of ecclesiastical peculiar was subordinated to political independence. Nevertheless, the Bishop of Ely never seems to have questioned the extra-diocesan, peculiar status of any college.

After William Laud was made Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I, he became determined to exercise a visitation, a right that he was successful in securing from the king in spite of objections from the university. There were further attempts to influence the university and its colleges by both the Commonwealth government and James II, though none in the eighteenth century, but none of these affected the underlying privileges of the university and colleges, which continued to work under the Elizabethan statutes, including their peculiar ecclesiastical jurisdiction. During this time, Downing College was founded on the expectation that it would be another Cambridge college with the same interrelations and its own statutes which would make it similar to the other colleges, including being exempt from the supervision of the Bishop of Ely. The changes in university and college statutes in the latter half of the nineteenth century would also not have altered these privileges.

The period from the second half of the nineteenth century saw the foundation of a number of institutions that did not at first fulfil the requirements for full college status. Girton, Newnham, Selwyn, Fitzwilliam and Homerton were established in the nineteenth century and in due course became full colleges. Twentieth-century foundations followed a similar course including Churchill College, which was established like older foundations with fellows and undergraduates. Hughes Hall, Murray Edwards (New Hall), Lucy Cavendish, Clare Hall, Darwin, Wolfson and Robinson all began with the intention of becoming full colleges of the university, and in due course they received their royal charters. Some of these specialised, by admitting, for instance, only mature students, graduates or women students. St Edmund's College is a Roman Catholic institution, and therefore outside the scope of this study (the visitor of the college is the Archbishop of Westminster).

The question of whether the colleges were peculiars has become academic rather than a sign of independence from ecclesiastical supervision. Not all have chapels; some of those that do have interdenominational chapels, over which the bishop would, in any case, have limited jurisdiction. However, all appear to consider their Master or head of house in the position of Ordinary with powers to regulate religious services, and all have visitors. The chaplains of those that have chapels are, in the main, Anglican clergy, and even where there are no chapels if Anglican clerics perform sacraments they are liable to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. One chaplain told me ‘but for the purposes of licensing weddings, and any other legal or ecclesiastical connection that relates to the Church of England, we too operate as another peculiar’.Footnote ²¹ It is a question of how far one can stretch the interpretation of peculiar in this modern world, where the power of bishops is very much restricted to governing their no longer obedient parish clergy. The position of the Bishop of Ely is that ‘while the Cambridge Colleges are referred to for local purposes as “extra-diocesan”, I am not quite sure whether that qualifies them to be peculiars in the sense that, for example, applies to Royal Peculiars’.Footnote ²²

Here we must consider the important role of the visitor. Were it not for the exemption of the university and its colleges, the Bishop of Ely would in the normal course of events exercise his episcopal right of regular ecclesiastical visitation. In the case of the university, those individuals named as visitors in the college statutes perform this function. It is strange that Thomas Fuller in his history of Cambridge gives full details of each college, with Masters from the beginning, members who had become bishops, other eminent graduates who had excelled in politics and the arts, a list of advowsons and the extent of property owned by each college, but he omits any mention of the important role of visitor.Footnote ²³ The task of the visitor is visitation with full powers of inquiring into such matters as relate to the government and discipline of the Church.Footnote ²⁴ However, only five colleges have a bishop as visitor, which leaves the question of the need for an ecclesiastical visitor open. In this modern age, the task is more generally concerned with overall discipline in the college, usually performed by the lay ordinary, but it may be presumed that in cases involving the chapel a charitable visitor will call on an ecclesiastical visitor.

Selwyn College appears to be an exception to most other colleges. Its foundation required (as Arthur Lyttleton, the first Master, announced) that only Anglicans would normally be admitted. Although this was not formally enshrined in the original charter, the college was limited to Anglicans by the statutes of 1913 and remained so until the late 1950s when Selwyn changed its statutes, abandoned its Anglican claims and became a full college of the university.Footnote ²⁵ The relationship with the Diocese of Ely continues and the college is considered extra-diocesan. Although the bishop still has dining rights in Selwyn, he has no official role in the governance of the college. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the charitable visitor and the Master of the college acts as Ordinary (and, if in holy orders, as Dean of Chapel as well). The question of who could be the ecclesiastical visitor of the college remains open.

It is the practice and order in the Church of England that parish incumbents who have questions about church matters must address these to the Ordinary, the local bishop. Many deans and chaplains of the Cambridge colleges have told me that they also bring these matters to the attention of the Ordinary, who in their case is usually the Master or head of the college and/or its governing body. One told me ‘on any contested point (reservation of the sacrament for example) there is no indication that a bishop can tell me what to do from outside, and the statutes indicate that, as far as the College is concerned, the decision is mine’.Footnote ²⁶ That is the description of a peculiar: ‘Exempt jurisdictions are so called, not because they are under no ordinary; but because they are not under the ordinary of the diocese, but have one of their own. These are therefore called peculiars.’Footnote ²⁷ In the jurisdiction of the local bishop is included the right of visitation of ecclesiastical places in his diocese. Colleges of the University of Cambridge, because of their exemption from this jurisdiction, have their own visitors, of which only three are bishops: the Bishop of Lincoln (of King's), the Bishop of Ely (of the two colleges his predecessors founded, Peterhouse and Jesus, and St John's, where he was appointed as Visitor by the foundress) and the Archbishop of Canterbury (of Selwyn). The working party of the Ecclesiastical Law Society considered the pre-Reformation colleges of the University of Cambridge as ‘possible’ peculiars. It established criteria for other inclusions, which were whether a peculiar jurisdiction had been exercised and not abolished.Footnote ²⁸ The later Cambridge colleges conform to these criteria, and may be considered peculiars.

Nevertheless, peculiars are jurisdictions and not places. Because the jurisdiction of the bishop, the ordinary, is ecclesiastical, how in today's world can the ordinaries, who are mostly lay people, exercise this jurisdiction? The original concept was that the visitor would ensure that the colleges adhere to all the provisions and discipline that the Church required, but the bishop's role as both charitable and ecclesiastical visitor was divided, whereby lay people (except in only a few instances) carry out the objects of visitation. Does the status of peculiar allow for circumstances that deviate considerably from the norm of ecclesiastical supervision, whereby this is called upon when needed? It appears that the Diocese of Ely does accept all the colleges of the University of Cambridge as ‘extra-diocesan’. They are therefore of the nature of peculiars.

An even more intricate question is that of the university. The article on peculiars considers ‘The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge’ to be a ‘definite’ archiepiscopal peculiar.Footnote ²⁹ The argument goes as follows: the Pope exercised jurisdiction over the whole of Christendom. At the Reformation, the jurisdiction of the Pope was shared between the King of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who continued to have the legatine powers previously conferred by the Pope. The legatine powers are exercisable even over royal peculiars. However, the various royal acts of supremacy determined that the sovereign is the ‘supreme ordinary’. That is a specious argument, as the university was never a ‘papal peculiar’ and the legatine powers do not seem to have been used since a visitation by Cardinal Pole. Archbishop Laud specifically asked for and was granted metropolitan authority for visiting the University.Footnote ³⁰ More to the point is the fact that, at the Reformation, the university continued as a mostly clerical institution, with chapels, churches, deans and other clerical officials, that had only visitorial episcopal supervision, owing to the exemptions continued at the Reformation. As the Bishop of Ely did not claim episcopal supervision, it fell to the Archbishop of Canterbury to exercise this supervision within the Diocese of Ely; hence, it became an archiepiscopal peculiar. If this argument in favour of the archiepiscopal peculiar prevails, it must lead to the inevitable, but not necessarily legal, conclusion that the University of Cambridge (as well as those colleges that can lay claim to the status of ecclesiastical peculiar), is an Anglican institution, in the same way that Lambeth Palace is an archiepiscopal peculiar, and the Temple Church or Westminster Abbey are Anglican institutions. Whether university and collegiate authorities challenge this specious conclusion or not, there is little doubt that they would view this situation with considerably qualms.

It seems clear that in the University of Cambridge there exist a number of college peculiars. There are two royal peculiars by the definition that the sovereign determined the ordinary jurisdiction; and the pre-Reformation foundations of colleges that had received exemptions that were never revoked continues them as peculiars. Later foundations that were Anglican institutions with chapels served by ordained Anglican priests not subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ely must also be considered as peculiars. This includes Emmanuel, Sidney Sussex, Downing and Fitzwilliam (as long as its appointed dean or chaplain is an Anglican), and perhaps Selwyn. Other colleges may not fall into a strict description of peculiar, but some have assured me that they consider themselves exempt from much of the supervision of the Bishop of Ely and act as if they were peculiars. The University of Cambridge is from an ecclesiastical point of view a ‘peculiar’ institution.