Pope Benedict XII in 1337 laid down, in the bull Pastor bonus, that 5% of Benedictine monks should be university students.

Even though the catchment area after 1337 included the Province of York, numbers of students were never high, one reason being the cost of living in Oxford (which the home monastery had to meet).

[8] At the Dissolution the property passed to the English Crown, then to the Bishop of Oxford in 1542,[9] who sold it to Sir Thomas White.

The penultimate Principal of Gloucester Hall, Benjamin Woodroffe, established a "Greek College" for Greek Orthodox students to come to Oxford, part of a scheme to make ecumenical links with the Church of England.

The status of Gloucester Hall changed in the 18th century, when it was refounded in 1714 by Sir Thomas Cookes as Worcester College, Oxford.