[10] The commissioners included Hugh Price, who had petitioned the queen to found a college at Oxford "that he might bestow his estate of the maintenance of certain scholars of Wales to be trained up in good letters.

The particular intention was to satisfy a need for dedicated, learned clergy to promote the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in the parishes of England, Ireland and Wales.

The letters patent issued by Elizabeth I made it clear that the education of a priest in the 16th century included more than just theology, however:[6] ...to the Glory of God Almighty and Omnipotent, and for the spread and maintenance of the Christian religion in its sincere form, for the eradication of errors and heresies, for the increase and perpetuation of true loyalty, for the extension of good literature of every sort, for the knowledge of languages, for the education of youth in loyalty, morality, and methodical learning, for the relief of poverty and distress, and lastly for the benefit and well-being of the Church of Christ in our realms, [...] we have decreed that a College of learning in the sciences, philosophy, humane pursuits, knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, to the ultimate profession of Sacred Theology, to last for all time to come, be created, founded, built, and established....Price continued to be closely involved with the college after its foundation.

On the strength of a promised legacy, worth £60 a year on his death (approximately £21,100 in present-day terms),[12] he requested and received the authority to appoint the new college's principal, fellows and scholars.

[14] The main benefactor, other than the King, was Eubule Thelwall, from Ruthin, North Wales, who became Principal in 1621; he succeeded in securing a new charter and statutes for the college from James I, having spent £5,000 of his own money on the hall and chapel, which earned him the title of its second founder.

[16] Other benefactions in the 17th century include Herbert Westfaling, the Bishop of Hereford, who left enough property to support two fellowships and scholarships (with the significant proviso that "my kindred shallbe always preferred before anie others").

The library, constructed above an over-weak colonnade, was pulled down under the principalship of Francis Mansell (1630–1649), who also built two staircases of residential accommodation to attract the sons of Welsh gentry families to the college.

[21] The Napoleonic Wars saw a reduction in the numbers of students and entries in the records for the purchase of muskets and other items for college members serving in the university corps.

[21][22][12] During the first half of the 19th century, the academic strength of the college diminished: scholarships were sometimes not awarded because of a lack of suitable candidates, and numbers fell: there were only seven new entrants in 1842.

Some refugee students from Belgium and Serbia lodged in empty rooms in the college during 1916, and officers of the Royal Flying Corps resided from August 1916 to December 1918.

[27] In the inter-war years (1918–1939) Jesus was seen by some as a small college and something of a backwater; it attracted relatively few pupils from the public schools traditionally seen as the most prestigious.

[36] A long-standing rivalry with nearby Exeter College reached a peak in 1979, with seven police vehicles and three fire engines involved in dealing with trouble in Turl Street.

The arch of the chancel was widened, the original Jacobean woodwork was removed (save for the screen donated by Edwards and the pulpit), new seats were installed, new paving was placed in the main part of the chapel and a stone reredos was added behind the altar.

[47] The principal of the college resides in the lodgings, a Grade I listed building,[48] on the north side of the first quadrangle between the chapel (to the east) and the hall (to the west).

[49] Sir Eubule Thelwall, principal from 1621 to 1630, built the lodgings at his own expense, to include (in the words of the antiquarian Anthony Wood) "a very fair dining-room adorned with wainscot curiously engraven".

[49] Pevsner noted the "elaborately decorated columns" of the screen (installed in 1634) and the dragons along the frieze, and said that it was one of the earliest examples in Oxford of panelling using four "L" shapes around a centre.

[57] In 1640, Francis Mansell (appointed principal in 1630) began construction of a second quadrangle with buildings along the north and south sides; further work was interrupted by the English Civil War.

[43] Pevsner described the second quadrangle as "a uniform composition", noting the "regular fenestration by windows with round-arched lights, their hood-moulds forming a continuous frieze".

[55] The writer Simon Jenkins said that the quadrangle has "the familiar Oxford Tudor windows and decorative Dutch gables, crowding the skyline like Welsh dragons' teeth and lightened by exuberant flower boxes".

[63] It holds 11,000 antiquarian printed books and houses many of the college's rare texts, including a Greek bible dating from 1545 and signed by Philipp Melanchthon and others, much of the library of the scholar and philosopher Lord Herbert of Cherbury and 17th-century volumes by Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton.

[64][65] The long but narrow third quadrangle adjoins Ship Street, on the north of the site and to the west of the garden of the principal's lodgings, where the college has owned some land since its foundation.

The college purchased 10 acres (0.040 km2; 0.016 sq mi) of land in east Oxford (near the Cowley Road) in 1903 for use as a sports ground.

[76] The Principal has "pre-eminence and authority over all members of the College and all persons connected therewith" and exercises "a general superintendence in all matters relating to education and discipline".

As a Welshman, I have watched with pleasure and pride the prosperity, especially since you have been Principal, of the college which is so closely connected with our country, little thinking ever to find myself a member of it; and I can honestly say that no honour can fall to my lot which I shall prize more highly than this Fellowship which you have conferred upon me.

[134] Medieval and early modern manuscripts owned at Jesus College date back to the 11th century and since 1886 have been deposited at the Bodleian Libraries.

Barney Williams, a Canadian rower who studied at the college, won a silver medal in rowing at the 2004 Summer Olympics, and participated in the Boat Race in 2005 and 2006.

[144][145] Another college rower, James Page, was appointed Secretary of the Amateur Rowing Association and coached both the Oxford and Cambridge University boat clubs.

[152] The college's undergraduate gossip sheet is entitled The Sheepshagger in allusion to an offensive joke about Welsh people's supposed penchant for sheep.

[159] The bowl, which weighs more than 200 ounces (5.7 kg) and holds 10 imperial gallons (45 L), was used at a dinner held in the Radcliffe Camera in 1814, to celebrate what was supposed to be the final defeat of Napoleon.

[166] The green background became generally (but not universally) used by the 1730s, still appearing as horizontal hatchings indicating azure were in use on bookplates for the college library as late as 1761.