Note 198 — X. MAGDALEN COLLEGE.

Another duty incumbent upon the members of the Hospital was the preaching of a sermon ad populum on St. John Baptist’s Day. This, with certain other duties, was transferred to the College. The sermon was at one time preached as a rule from the stone pulpit in the corner of what is now called St. John’s Quadrangle; but the stone pulpit was not always employed even in early times. Thus in 1495 there is a record of a payment of 4d. to “four poor scholars” for bringing a pulpit from New College for St. John Baptist’s Day, and taking it back again. In the early part of the eighteenth century the sermon was preached in the chapel if the day chanced to be wet; and what was then the exception has become the rule.