Is Balliol the oldest college in Oxford?
We think so, of course, but it depends on the criteria you use to define ‘oldest’. Merton, University (known as’Univ’) and Balliol Colleges are certainly the three oldest colleges in Oxford; each has a different claim to being ‘the oldest.’ Balliol’s is that the college was founded on the front part of its present Broad Street site ca 1263 as a house of scholars living on land owned by the founder, and has been on this site ever since without interruption, except for several general decampments in the 16th and 17th centuries to avoid outbreaks of plague in the city. Merton has the oldest statutes (1274) constituting it as a college. Walter de Merton originally founded a house of priests and probably scholars as well at Malden in Surrey in 1264. The manors attached to this house also helped to support scholars in Oxford. Over the next 10 years, William de Merton systematically acquired properties which are still part of the college’s present site in Merton Street (then St John’s Street)
