Anticipating Oriel

In January 2026 Oriel - my college - will celebrate its 700th anniversary, the fifth oldest college in Oxford and the oldest continuous royal foundation in either Oxford or Cambridge.

However in order to be founded in 1326 there had to be some preparation and that began just seven centuries ago. In April 1324 - different secondary sources I consulted today give the 20th, 24th, and the 28th, and the text of the Patent Rolls was not available - King Edward II granted a licence to acquire property in mortmain to Adam de Brome, a Suffolk born Chancery clerk and inter alia rector of St Mary’s in the High to found a college in Oxford. Adam was essentially what today would be termed a civil servant, and who had been in royal service since at least 1297. In recent years he appears to have been based in Oxford and intended to found a small college for higher studies. His inspiration may well have been Merton, whose statutes he simply copied for his ultimate creation. 

With his licence he proceeded to bu the quite recently built Tackley’s Inn on the High, and which still houses Oriel students, Perilous Hall on Horsemonger Street, now Broad Street, but then, in part, the town ditch, and as a source of income the advowson of the church at Aberford in the West Riding - which is still an Oriel living.

His college consisted of a Rector ( like Exeter founded in 1314 ) and ten Fellows. With the new house of studies established and under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin, after some twenty or so months, on January 1st 1325-6 Adam transferred his college to King Edward who three weeks later refounded it in his own name, gave the advowson of St Mary’s and its rectory which became St Mary Hall, and appointed Adam de Brome as the new head of house as first Provost. So began the House of Blessed Mary the Virgin in Oxford. Not until 1329 did the King’s cousin Master James of Spain, give to the new college the house called the Oriel, by which name the foundation came to be known. That, however, is another story.

So as Oriel begins in earnest its plans to celebrate seven centuries of study and learning, one can recall those first beginnings just as King Edward’s governance began to disintegrate, and say with heart and voice “Floreat Oriel”