The Unofficial Founding: St John’s College

Imagine that it’s 1413. 600 years ago this year. Scotland is as Catholic as it ever was, and the University of St Andrews, Scotland’s first University, is being founded by Papal Bulls coming from ‘Anti’-Pope Benedict XIII in France at the end of the ‘Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy’.

Now imagine that it’s 6 years later—1419. A chapel dedicated to St. John the Evangelist stands on the south side of South Gait (Street) (somewhere near the intersection of the current King James Library and Parliament Building) and is given to the founding of Faculties of Theology and the Arts within the University, colloquially known as The Pedagogy.

And now it’s 1430, 11 years later. The University of St Andrews is 17 years young and boasts two Colleges: St Salvator’s College and St. Leonard’s College. The Pedagogy has grown as other buildings along South Gait have been slowly erected over the last eleven years, and is now declared by the current Roman Catholic Bishop, Bishop Wardlaw, as the official site of the third College of the University of St Andrews.  Not St. Mary’s, but St. John’s College.

Unfortunately, St. John’s College failed to develop any further, and by 1527 was so obsolete that it was officially abandoned as a College of the University.

Today, only one of the original buildings from St. John’s College remains: The Principle’s House. Since its inception, the College has been governed by an acting Principle—someone who overseas the governance of the school.  Today the role is entirely administrative and far less authoritative, given that the College has basically lost its original autonomy and is now governed more by the University at large than by its own adjudicators.  Nevertheless, the Office of Principle of the College remains, and, historically, has been a rather prestigious position to hold. 

What doesn’t remain, however, is his residence.  For most of the College’s history, the Principle and his family lived on-site, as did most of the faculty and a major portion of the students of the College, and he lived in this house.  Today it plays host to faculty offices, what’s known as the Senior Common Room, and a few classrooms; but more on that anon!

You can see approximately half of the original Principle’s House in the photo below, the box-like building with the white gable just to the right of centre. At this point in the College’s history, a stone wall stood in the place of the current gated entrance and the tower-like building with a staircase entrance and building extending to the left did not exist. The Principle’s House stood alone and, at this point, was unadorned by lintels.

Here’s the less-photogenic, but more clearly visible street-side view.  When it was part of St. John’s College, the archway extending to the left was a simple stone wall and, from what I can tell by some drawings I’ve seen, the roof had a more flat-like appearance, or perhaps the third level didn’t exist at all.  The paint doesn’t do much for the aesthetics of the building today, but, along with the lack of lintels, it does keep its appearance slightly more basic and true what the original probably looked like. 

Now imagine that the street is a simple dirt path with horses drawing carriages and men and women pushing carts and wheel barrows filled with fresh produce and grains, and you have yourself a proper mid-1400’s Principle’s House of St. John’s College scene!  Most passers by would have no clue that it is one of the oldest buildings of St Andrews still in use today.