Here then we have a scheme of building which is neither monastic nor feudal. It may with propriety be called scholastic but it is also essentially domestic architecture. The college quadrangle as we see it evolved in Cambridge is the earliest attempt at devising a dwelling which should resemble neither the cloister nor the castle, should suggest neither enclosure nor self-defence--a scholastic dwelling. The college is the outcome of that moment in our history when feudalism had played its part and monasticism was losing its power; it represents what the rise of the universities themselves represents and its architectural interest is unique. No monastic terms are retained; the hall is not a refectory, the one constant monastic and canonical feature, the church, has no part at all in the scheme--the scholars were men not separated from their fellows and they used the parish church.
The first collegiate dwelling houses, like the English manor-house, consciously or unconsciously followed one of the oldest house-plans known to civilisation--the scheme of dwelling-rooms round a court was that of the Roman house. The _aula seu domus scholarium_ had moreover as its starting point--like the earliest _domus ecclesiae_--a hall in a house; the hall is the nucleus of the college.[130]
Marie de Saint-Paul, like her predecessor Elizabeth de Burgh, purchased university property for the site of her college. "University hostel" which stood here formed one side of the narrow quadrangle the building of which was at once begun, and a messuage of Hervey de Stanton's formed the other. Within five years the complete area had been acquired, and it is probable that the south side was also partly built before the founder's death in 1377. On the west were the hall and kitchen, on the east, abutting on the street, was the gate with students' chambers on either side of it. With the hostel the founder bought an acre of meadowland which she converted into an orchard--"the orchard against Pembroke Hall" it is called in her lifetime. She also obtained permission from two of the Avignon popes--Innocent VI. and Urban V.--to erect a chapel and bell tower, and these were built, after the middle of the xiv century, at the north west corner of the closed quadrangle. This interesting site was used later as a library and is still a reference library and lecture room. Traces of fresco remain under the panelling, and the chaplain's room with its hagioscope for the altar is on the east. The lower part of the bell tower also still exists.