The Oxford Degree Ceremony Part 7

It is also the final legislative body of the University, and controls all expenditure.

APPENDIX II

THE UNIVERSITY STAVES

The old University staves, which are now in the Ashmolean Museum at the University Galleries, seem to date from the reign of Elizabeth; they have no hall-marks, but the character of the ornamentation is of that period. No doubt the mediaeval staves perished in the troubles of the Reformation period, along with other University property, and the new ones were procured when Oxford began to recover her prosperity.

Two of the old staves were discovered in 1895 in a box on the top of a high case in the Archives; their very existence had been forgotten, and they were covered with layers of dust. The legend that they had been concealed there by the loyal Bedels must be given up; no doubt they were put away when the present staves were procured in 1723. The third staff was in the keeping of the Esquire Bedel, and was brought to the University Chest, when that office ceased to exist.

The present staves are six in number, three silver and three silver-gilt. The three former are carried by the Bedel of Arts and the two sub-bedels, the three latter are carried by the Bedels of the three higher faculties, Divinity, Law, and Medicine. All of them date (as is proved by the hall-marks) from 1723, except one of the silver staves, which seems to have been renewed in 1803. The three silver staves bear the following inscriptions:--

No. I. On the top 'Ego sum Via'; on the base 'Veritas et Vita'.

No. II. On the top 'Aequum et Bonum'; on the base 'Iust.i.tiae Columna'.

No. III. On the top 'Scientiae et Mores'; on the base 'Columna Philosophiae'.

The inscriptions are the same on the silver-gilt staves, except that the staff of the Bedel of Divinity has all the mottoes on it--'Ego sum Via', 'Veritas et Vita' on the top, and the others on the base.

The letters on the bases of all the staves are put on the reverse way to those on the tops; this is because the staves are carried in different ways; before the King and the Chancellor they are carried upright, before the Vice-Chancellor always in a reversed position, with the base uppermost.

It should be noted that they are staves and not maces, as the University of Oxford derives its authority from no external power, but is independent.

The arms on the tops of three of the staves present a very curious puzzle; one roundel bears those of Neville and Montagu quarterly, and seems to be a reproduction of the arms of the Chancellor of 1455, George Neville, the Archbishop of York; another bears the old Plantagenet 'England and France quarterly' as borne by the sovereigns from Henry IV to Elizabeth; a third the Stuart arms as borne from James I to Queen Anne; yet the work of all three roundels seems to be seventeenth century in character, and does not match that of the rest of the fabric of the staves.