IV - PROFESSORSHIPS

Summary

DIVINITY, GREEK, HEBREW, LAW, PHYSIC (Regius). 1540.

These five Professorships are commonly stated to have been founded by King Henry the Eighth in 1540, but no deed of foundation appears to be in existence. The single piece of direct evidence available for this date is that afforded by the letters patent dated 9 November, 1540, appointing Thomas Wakefield, M.A., Reader in Hebrew with a salary of £40 a year to be paid out of the revenues of the suppressed Abbey of Westminster (A).

There is indirect evidence that the other four Readerships were filled up in 1540 or soon afterwards.

In the statutes which Queen Mary gave to Trinity College it was provided that the stipends of the Readers in Divinity, Greek, and Hebrew, should be paid by that College; and minute directions were added respecting the mode of election, status of the Readers, etc. (B). This statute, with a few unimportant alterations, forms the fortyfirst chapter of the statutes given by Queen Elizabeth to the same College, 1559–60.

This statute shews that so early as the reign of Queen Mary the election of the Regius Professors of Divinity, Hebrew, and Greek was entrusted as at present to a body of electors resident in the University, the salaries of the Professors being paid by Trinity College. The Regius Professors of Law and Medicine on the contrary were always on a different footing.