The Venerable English College (), commonly referred to as the English College, is a Catholic seminary in Rome, Italy, for the training of priests for England and Wales. It was founded in 1579 by William Allen on the model of the English College, Douai.
The current Rector is Rev. Stephen Wang from the Diocese of Westminster.
History
St Thomas' Hospice (1362–1579) The English Hospice of the Most Holy Trinity and St Thomas was founded in the Regola quarter of Rome in 1362 when the English community in Rome purchased a house from the rosary sellers John and Alice Shephard. The Jubilee Year of 1350, which had seen the influx of over a million pilgrims anxious to gain the Plenary Indulgence offered by Pope Clement VI, had exposed the notorious shortcomings of accommodation in the Eternal City. English pilgrims had paid extortionate prices to stay in damp and filthy hostels far from St Peter's Basilica and the Holy Door through which they had come to pass. Innkeepers gave rooms designed to accommodate four people to groups of eight or more and often treated the pilgrims with violence and extortion. Many had drowned in the Tiber after the collapse of a temporary bridge and others died from the disease endemic to their rat-infested lodgings. The foundation of the Hospice was in direct response to this situation, with the stated aim of caring for "poor, infirm, needy and wretched persons from England".
The Hospice of St Thomas grew into the major centre for English visitors and residents in Rome. In 1376 a Chapel was erected on the site of the present College Church, and remnants of the impressive structure still remain in the College Garden. The new Chapel attracted royal patronage and by the reign of Henry VII the institution had become known as "The King's Hospice", with a Warden appointed by the Crown. Evidence of this early royal connection may be seen in the present-day building, which contains a corbel of fumed oak and a stone shield, both bearing the arms of the Plantagenet Kings.
Wardens included Thomas Linacre, founder of the Royal College of Physicians, and Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge, Archbishop of York and Papal Legate, who was poisoned by one of his chaplains at the Hospice on 7 July 1514 and whose magnificent marble tomb remains in the College Church. Robert Neweton, described in 1399 as chaplain procurator of the Hospice of the Holy Trinity & St Thomas the Martyr, may have been a warden as might William Holdernes (fl. 1396)
During the 237 years of its existence, the English Hospice received many thousands of pilgrims, one of the most famous being the mystic, Margery Kempe, who visited in 1416. In 1481, 218 pilgrims stayed here, and during the plague of 1482, the Hospice cared for 96 sick pilgrims. However, two events in the early sixteenth century led to a radical decline in the fortunes of the Hospice.
During the Sack of Rome in 1527 troops of the Holy Roman Emperor broke into the Hospice and carried away the greater part of its gold and silver ware, its movable property and its extensive archive of papers and manuscripts. The decision of Henry VIII to break with Rome almost entirely impeded the flow of English pilgrims to Rome. Pope Paul III took over the Hospice in the year 1538 and placed it in the hands of Cardinal Reginald Pole, himself cousin to Henry VIII. When Pole returned to England as Archbishop of Canterbury under Mary I, it seemed that the Hospice would revive as a pilgrim institution, but the accession of Elizabeth I brought darker days. Acting as little more than a refuge for a few decrepit chaplains and exiles, the Hospice spent less than a tenth of its income on welcoming guests.
Foundation of the college (1579) In 1576, with the encouragement of Gregory XIII, William Allen converted the moribund Hospice into a seminary, known as the Collegium Anglorum or English College. Allen had already founded a seminary, the English College at Douai (now in France) in 1568 and had drawn to it 40 students. Its first students arrived there from Douai in 1577 and Gregory XIII issued the Bull of Foundation in 1579. The Pope gave the new English College a yearly grant and property, including the Abbey of San Savino at Piacenza. The tradition of hospitality continued, and the College received several eminent guests, including the philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, (26 December 1635), the physician, William Harvey (1636), the poets John Milton (1638) and Richard Crashaw (1646), and the diarist, John Evelyn (1644).