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One of the secondary disagreements in the extended debate about Samuel Johnson's politics concerns oath-taking requirements and practices at the University of Oxford in the 1720s. The chief participants in this debate-within-the-debate have been J. C. D. Clark and Howard Weinbrot. Clark and Weinbrot have disagreed over which oaths were taken, when, and by whom, and have put forward rival hypotheses as to how accessible Oxford was to Nonjurors in the 1720s.1
Clark has argued that Oxford practices in the 1720s were consistent with the regulations set out in the Laudian statutes of 1636.2 The Laudian statutes concerning matriculation stipulated that "all those of 16 years of age who come to be matriculated shall subscribe the Articles of Faith and Religion [the Thirtynine Articles], and shall take their corporal oath to acknowledge the supremacy of the King [the oath of supremacy], [and shall swear] to be faithful to the University, and to observe its statutes, privileges, and customs." As far as graduation was concerned, the Laudian statutes stipulated that all students wishing to take a degree must first subscribe the oath of allegiance.3 In short, according to the Laudian statues, the oath of allegiance was required at graduation, but not at matriculation.
Clark has suggested that the arrangement and timing of the various oaths created a loophole that could be exploited by Nonjurors: young men who doubted the legality of the government could matriculate, pursue a course of study at an Oxford college, and leave without ever taking the oath of allegiance, as long as they were willing to leave without a degree. Clark concedes that this loophole was narrowed in 1702, when Parliament passed additional legislation. 13 W. Ill, c. 6 imposed additional oath-taking requirements on tutors, professors, and heads of houses, and also on one specific group of undergraduate matriculants: it required that all members of colleges "that are or shall be of the foundation (being of the age of eighteen years)" swear a new oath of allegiance describing the monarch as "lawful and rightful king" as well as the strongly worded abjuration oath, explicitly abjuring the Stuarts' claim. These new matriculation requirements were more stringent, but they applied only to students who were (a) eighteen years of age and (b) "of the...