page_title: History of Trinity College, Oxford
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: History of Trinity College, Oxford / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Trinity College in 1566, the year of Elizabeth I's visit to the city. Part of a series depicting the colleges as then were. The view is more or less North from Broad Street; only a little of the structure survives, though the view remains easily recognisable to present students.
context_page_description: The history of Trinity College, Oxford documents the 450 years from the foundation of Trinity – a collegiate member of the University of Oxford – on 8 March 1554/5. The fourteenth oldest surviving college, it reused and embellished the site of the former Durham College, Oxford. Opening its doors on 30 May 1555, its founder Sir Thomas Pope created it as a Catholic college teaching only theology. It has been co-educational since 1979.
context_section_description: In 1553, King Edward VI awarded the buildings and much of the grounds of the former Durham College, Oxford (established in the second half of the thirteenth century and seized by the crown in 1545) to Dr George Owen of Godstow and William Martyn of Oxford. Two years later, on 20 February 1555 (20 February 1554 in contemporary notation), Owen and Martyn sold the property on to self-made politician Sir Thomas Pope. As an executor of Thomas Audley, Pope had been deeply involved with the foundation of Magdalene College, Cambridge and the plot, situated on Broad Street, Oxford, included a recently constructed library, refectory and sleeping quarters. The political climate was also favourable: the new Queen Mary I was taking a great interest in reviving Oxford as a place of Catholic study. As well as gaining influence with Mary, Pope (who was rich but childless) may also have seen the potential for ensuring that his family name lived on. On 8 March 1555, sixteen days after acquiring the Broad Street site, Pope was given permission to found a college in royal letters patent.
  The new statutes drawn up named the new (Catholic) establishment as "The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the Foundation of Thomas Pope", a name which persists. Durham College had been dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St Cuthbert, and the Trinity, and it is thought that Trinity College took its name from the last element of this dedication. The original statutes of the college provided for a President, twelve fellows, eight scholars and twenty commoners, making it one of Oxford's smallest colleges even at the time of its inception. The fellows were to study theology, a point insisted upon by Pope, who selected Thomas Slythurst, fellow of Magdalen, to be Trinity's first President. All the relevant property was transferred to the new college during Pope's only visit on 28 March 1555. Tuition for undergraduates included that in classical texts, philosophy (including arithmetic, geometry and arithmetic) and astronomy. Despite a delay whilst fellows were found, on 25 March 1556 revenues from the estates began to be transferred to the college. On 1 May the statutes officially came into force and 29 days later Trinity College Oxford opened its doors to its first students.
caption: Trinity College in 1566 (looking north), shortly after its foundation
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