Pensioners, Prisoners, and Pupils: Corpus Christi College’s Charity in Tudor Oxford

Abstract

This chapter examines the impact of early Reformation on Corpus Christi College. If one takes the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses in the traditional way as the starting-gun for the Protestant Reformation, then Corpus Christi is as old as the Reformation itself. Of course, ‘the Reformation‘ did not begin as early as 1517. It would be another ten years before the Reformation made any recorded impact in Corpus itself, although Luther’s ideas reached Oxford pretty soon. With the exception of the Nicholas Udall affair, the impact of the early Reformation on Corpus Christi is evident largely by its absence during the lifetime of the first president, John Claymond. After Claymond’s death, the college’s peace was briefly disturbed by a new brand of Reformation, by the ideas arising from Henry VIII’s Break with Rome.