John Wycliffe, his great contemporary, who complained of men being
made bishops because they were "wise in building castles." But many
forms of service were needed to create England; Wykeham and Wycliffe
both have a place in the roll of its "Makers." At all events, if
Wykeham obtained his wealth by secular service, he spent it for the
promoting of the welfare of the Church, as he conceived it. The
purpose of his two colleges was to remedy the shortness of clergy in
his day, and to assist the /militia clericalis/, which had been
grievously reduced /pestilentiis, guerris et aliis mundi miseriis/
(an obvious reference to the Black Death).

New College was planned on a scale of magnificence which far exceeded
any of the earlier colleges. It was emphatically the "New College,"
[1] and its foundation (it was opened in 1386) marks the final
triumph of the college system.

[1] The popular name has entirety displaced its official style.
Rather more than a generation ago, an historically minded Wykehamist
tried to revive the proper style of his college, and headed all his
letters "The College, of St. Mary of Winchester, Oxford." The result
was disastrous for him; the replies came to the Vicar of St. Mary's,
to St. Mary's Hall, to Winchester, anywhere but to him; and very soon
practical necessity overcame antiquarian, propriety.

Its Warden was to have a state corresponding to that of the great
mitred abbots; the stables, where he kept his six horses, on the
south side of New College Lane (to be seen in Plate X on the right),
show, by their perfect masonry, how well the architect-bishop chose
his materials and how skilfully they were worked.