John Balliol and Balliol College

John I Balliol (died 25 October 1268) was an English nobleman. He married Dervorguilla of Galloway, whose extensive lands (inherited from her family) made her (and by extension, him) very wealthy. He was asked by Henry III of England to take a role as protector of the young Alexander III, King of Scotland. He supported Henry when the Barons were rebelling, and was captured by them at the Battle of Lewes, but escaped and rejoined Henry later.

Balliol and Dervorguilla had many children. Among them was John, who became King of Scotland (though not for long). Their daughter Eleanor married John II Comyn, head of the most powerful family in Scotland, who supported the younger John's ascension to the throne.

The Balliol family had long disputed certain lands in the village of Sadberge in Durham from which the Bishops of Durham believed they were owed the rents. This came to a head between John Balliol and Bishop of Durham Walter of Kirkham in 1260, when (so the legend says) Balliol abducted the bishop. Balliol's penance was to provide funds for the education of young men. In 1263 he rented a house in the suburbs of Oxford to accommodate poor students.

A royal writ in 1266 mentions the institution in Oxford as dependent on Balliol's financial support. After his death, Dervorguilla made several donations that maintained and expanded the "House of the Scholars of Balliol." It was given a set of statutes in 1282.

There were originally 16 students who received eight pence per week to live on. A century later, its headmaster was John Wycliffe, translator into English of the Bible and a church reformer. In the 1400s, Bishop of Ely William Gray donated (gathered from his travels) the single largest collection of medieval manuscripts in England.

Balliol College is the oldest continuously run college in the English-speaking world. Or is it? Despite the story of its founding, there are two other colleges who claim they are the oldest in Oxford. Let's compare their claims tomorrow and ask the question: what makes a start date official?