# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merton, Walter de

​MERTON, WALTER de (d. 1277), bishop of Rochester and founder of Merton College, Oxford, was by family connected with Basingstoke. His mother was Christina Fitz-Oliver; of his father nothing is known save that his name was William. Foss is no doubt mistaken in identifying him with the William de Merton who was archdeacon of Berkshire, and died about 1239. Walter de Merton probably owed his surname either to Merton being his birthplace, or to having received his education at the priory there. He was afterwards at Oxford, where he is traditionally said to have studied at Mauger Hall, afterwards the Cross Inn, in the Corn​market. He was probably a pupil of Adam de Marisco, who recommended him to Robert Grosseteste for ordination as subdeacon (Monumenta Franciscana, i. 405, Rolls Ser.) This must have been after June 1235, but the first dated reference to him occurs in 1237, in an inquisition of Walter's lands at Basingstoke, where his parents are described as dead; they are known to have been buried at St. Michael's, Basingstoke. Not long after Walter founded a hospital at Basingstoke to their memory; grants to this foundation were confirmed by the king in 1253 and 1262, and it was eventually placed in close relationship with Merton College. In 1237 Merton is spoken of as ‘clericus’ simply. Afterwards he became a clerk in the royal chancery, and is spoken of as ‘clericus noster’ in a grant of free-warren for his lands at Maldon in 1249. Merton obtained the living of Sedgefield, Durham, from Nicholas de Farnham [q. v.], between 1241 and 1248. He also held the livings of Potton, Bedfordshire; Stratton; Staindrop, Durham; Haltwistle, Northumberland; Codington, Surrey; Benningbrough, Yorkshire; and Branston, Lincoln (Foss, iii. 129; Hobhouse, p. 45). In August 1256 he was one of the clerks who were acting for Walter de Kirkham [q. v.], bishop of Durham, in his dispute with St. Albans about Coniscliffe (Matt. Paris, vi. 326–7, 340). Merton received, on 15 June 1259, the prebend of Kentish Town at St. Paul's, which he afterwards exchanged for that of Holywell or Finsbury (Le Neve, ii. 394, 403). On 4 July 1259 he became prebendary of Exeter, and previously to 1262 was prebendary of Yatesbury, Salisbury, and canon of Wells. He was prothonotary of the chancery, and perhaps it is in this capacity that he had charge of the seal for Henry de Wingham on 7 May 1258, and on 14 March and 6 July 1259. In the former year he was employed in the negotiations with the pope as to the grant of Sicily to Edmond, the king's son. In 1261 the king appointed him chancellor, in place of the baronial official, Nicholas of Ely; probably this was in April, when Hugh Despenser gave way to Philip Basset as justiciar, though the appointment does not seem to have been formally made until 5 July (Ann. Mon. iv. 129; Flores Historiarum, ii. 470). On 15 Oct. Merton was granted four hundred marks for the support of himself and the chancery. Merton retained his office as chancellor until 12 July 1263, when the baronial party recovered their position, and he was displaced by Nicholas of Ely. In March 1264, owing to his support of the king, some of Merton's prebendal property near London was plundered by the rioters (Ann. Mon. iv. 141). After the royal victory in 1265, Merton was not restored to the chancery, but he is mentioned as a justiciar on 10 Dec. 1271 (Excerpta e Rot. Fin. ii. 555). On the death of Henry III in November 1272, the council appointed Merton to act as chancellor, and he attests a document in that capacity on 29 Nov. (Fœdera, i. 498). The contemporary chronicles, however, speak of him as being appointed in the parliament held at Westminster in January 1273, when he was directed to remain at Westminster till Edward's return to England (Ann. Mon. ii. 113, iv. 462). Merton retained his office throughout the regency, but resigned soon after Edward's return to England on 2 Aug. 1274, for in his final statutes for Merton College, which are dated in this month, he styles himself ‘quondam cancellarius.’ He had previously been elected bishop of Rochester about the end of July, and on 21 Oct. was consecrated by Archbishop Kilwardby at Gillingham (ib. iv. 462; Flores Historiarum, iii. 44). The Rochester chronicles say that, though Merton was a man of great authority and power, he did no special good to the prior and convent, though he gave them the manors of Cobhambury and Middleton (ib.) Merton's episcopate only lasted three years. While fording the Medway his horse stumbled and fell, and though the bishop was rescued by his servants, he died from the effects of the accident two days later on, 27 Oct. 1277 (Ann. Mon. iii. 278, iv. 275). The Osney annalist speaks of Merton as a man of liberality and great worldly learning, who had always been very ready in his assistance to the monastic orders, and elsewhere preserves some complimentary verses on his character (ib. iv. 259–60, 275). Merton was buried in Rochester Cathedral in the north transept of the choir, near the tomb of St. William; his original monument was much injured in the reign of Edward VI, and in 1598 another was erected in its place by Sir Henry Savile, warden, and the fellows of Merton College. This monument in its turn gave way, in 1852, to a restoration of the original tomb, erected in accordance with the description in the accounts of the bishop's executors, and at the expense of Merton College. Merton's chalice was removed from his tomb to Oxford in 1598. Merton had seven sisters, but no brother; full genealogical tables will be found in Bishop Hobhouse's ‘Sketch of the Life of Walter de Merton,’ p. 51. His will is summarised by Hobhouse, pp. 44–50. A portrait (engraved by Faber) is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. ​Merton's chief title to fame is the foundation of Merton College, Oxford, and therefore, in a sense, of the collegiate system of the English universities. In 1261 he obtained a charter from Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester, empowering him to assign his manors at Farley and Malden in Surrey to the priory of Merton, for the support of ‘scholars residing at the schools,’ an expression which probably means scholars at Oxford. A little later, probably in September 1263, he published a deed of assignation of these and other lands. Under this deed special provision was made for the education of eight nephews under a warden and chaplains; the care of his nephews, who are here spoken of as ‘scholares in scholis degentes,’ appears indeed to have been the first object of Merton's foundation. On 7 Jan. 1264 there came a regular charter of incorporation, which established the ‘House of the Scholars of Merton’ at Malden in Surrey, under a warden and bailiffs, with ministers of the altar, and with power to maintain twenty scholars at Oxford or any other place of general learning. During the next few years Merton acquired the site of the present college, together with the advowson of St. John's Church, and other property at Oxford. In 1270 the statutes of 1264 were reissued without any material alteration, but eventually, in August 1274, Merton put forth his final statutes, transferring the warden, bailiffs, and ministers to Oxford, and designating Oxford as the exclusive and permanent home of the scholars. Under these statutes provision was made for such a number of scholars as the college revenues would support, and for their common life as a corporate body under the rule of a superior called the warden. Merton's intention appears to have been to provide for the training of secular clergy, and though he borrowed from monasticism the idea of a corporate life under a common rule and head, he expressly prohibited his scholars from taking vows, and provided that any who entered one of the regular orders should forfeit his scholarship. Above all, the college was to be a place of study, in the first place of philosophy and the liberal arts, and afterwards of theology. The Rochester chronicler describes the college as established for the perpetual sustenance of students ‘in arte dialectica et theologia’ (Flores Historiarum, iii. 44). The establishment of Merton College was the beginning of the true collegiate system, for though the benefactions of William of Durham and of John and Devorguila de Balliol are of earlier date, they did not provide for the formation of regular corporate bodies, and the establishment of University and Balliol colleges followed, and did not precede, that of Merton. At Cambridge, Merton College was avowedly the model of the collegiate system, for when Hugh de Balsham [q. v.] obtained license for the foundation of Peterhouse, it was expressly stated to be for ‘studious scholars who shall in everything live together as students in the university of Cambridge, according to the rule of the scholars of Oxford who are called of Merton.’ So in the statutes actually drawn up for Peterhouse by Simon Montague in 1284 constant reference is made to the fact that they are ‘ad instar aulæ de Merton.’ It is needless to add that the system initiated by Walter de Merton has moulded the whole history of both universities, and thus fully justifies the words of Savile's epitaph:—
Re, unius Exemplo, omnium quoquot extant Collegiorum, fundatori.
[Annales Monastici; Flores Historiarum (both in Rolls Ser.); Hobhouse's Sketch of the Life of Walter de Merton, 1859; Percival's Foundation Statutes of Merton College; Brodrick's Memorials of Merton College, Oxf. Hist. Soc. (a translation of the statutes of 1274 is given on pp. 317–40); Lyte's Hist. of Univ. of Oxford; Foss's Judges of England, iii. 129–31.]
C. L. K.