RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



to the bedmaker, and id. to the barber. Tlie 

 woman chosen to be bedmaker and attendant 

 was to be fifty years of age, of good name and 

 fame, and ready to help the poor men if they fell 

 sick. Each brother should buy his meat on the 

 Saturday and bring it to the woman, telling her 

 what portion she should cook for the morrow, 

 and the remainder she was to ' powder up ' 

 (sprinkle with salt and pepper) against Wednes- 

 day. On Sunday she was to set on the pot and 

 make them good potage, giving each man his own 

 piece of meat and a mess of potage in his dish, 

 and saving the rest for Monday's dinner. On 

 Wednesday she was to set on the pot and give 

 them potage and meat as on Sunday. On Friday 

 she should go into the town and get barm to 

 make them good bread. She should wash the 

 men's clothes on Monday, and on that day and 

 no other was she entitled to hired help. In the 

 spring-time the poor men were to dig and dress 

 the garden, those absent paying the dressers a 

 penny a day. The woman should rise every 

 morning and make a fire before the men rose, and 

 set a pan of fair water and a dish by it for 

 them to wash their hands. She should sweep the 

 house daily and attend to any one who might be 

 ill in the night. The wages were to be de- 

 livered to the prior on Friday by noon, and by 

 him to be distributed to the men and the woman. 

 The woman should have as much for her pains 

 as any of the twelve men in every respect ; she 

 could be dismissed by the warden of the college 

 and the prior if she did not keep the statutes. 

 The men were not to wander abroad without 

 leave from the prior, and they should always 

 return home again at night to prayers. In addi- 

 tion to jd. a week in wages to each of the thir- 

 teen, they were to have yearly as much black 

 frieze as would make them a gown apiece at 

 Christmas, including the woman ; 55. yearly for 

 their lamp ; 3/. for the barber ; nine loads of wood 

 delivered without charge, and los. for other fuel.i 

 The house seems to have been intended more 

 for those in reduced circumstances, with no one 

 to care for them, than for those only in great 

 poverty ; for men of moderate means were ad- 

 mitted on condition that they should after death 

 bestow their land or tenements freely on the 

 hospital for ever. Before the foundation of 

 Chicheley's college, or bedehouse, there was a hos- 

 pital dedicated to St. James at Higham Ferrers. 

 All that is known of it are two presentations to 

 the mastership made by Bishop Gravesend in 

 1258 and 1265.' The last three masters of the 

 college, Richard Whellys,' William Fauntleroy, 



1 The original statutes are given in Lans. MS. 846, 

 f. 78, and are set out at length in a revised form in 

 Cole's Hist, of Higham Ferrers (1838), 75-83. 



2 Bridges, Hist. ofNorthavts, ii. 178. 



^ On the last folio of the college chartulary is an 

 entry recording a grant made by Richard Wylles, 

 warden, and the fellows of the college, to Sir John 



and Robert Goldson, were also vicars of the 

 parish church. This was not, however, the 

 church of the college, as mistakenly asserted in 

 the extended Monasticon, and by Dean Hook in 

 his Lives of the Archbishops. The collegiate 

 church or chapel stood to the south of the college 

 quadrangle. The remains of the college, the 

 bedehouse, and the school, will be discussed in the 

 topographical section. 



Pointed oval seal of the fifteenth century taken 

 from a cast at the British Museum * representing 

 the Virgin and Child between St. Thomas on the 

 left and St. Edward the Confessor on the right, 

 standing in three canopied niches. In base a 

 shield of arms per pale dex. See of Canterbury, 

 sin. a chevron between three cinquefoils ; Arch- 

 bishop Chicheley, founder, between two cinque- 

 foiled flowers. Legend partly defaced : — 



MARIE VIRG • THOE MATYRIS • 



ET • EDWARDI CONFESSORIS • DE • HEIGH • 



44. THE COLLEGE OF IRTHLING- 

 BOROUGH 



In 1353 Sir Simon de Drayton conveyed his 

 manor in Irthlingborough to John Pyel, citizen 

 and mercer of London, ^ who, a few years later, 

 became possessed of other property in the neigh- 

 bouring lordships of Cransley, Sudborough, and 

 at Woodford, where he purchased a moiety of 

 the manor and the advowson of the church.* 

 In 1 37 1 John Pyel was appointed one of the 

 commissioners to Flanders for redressing the 

 grievances of the English merchants,^ and in 

 the following year he became Lord Mayor of 

 London. In 1375 he obtained a royal licence 

 to found in the church of St. Peter, Irthling- 

 borough, a college for six secular canons — one 

 of whom should be dean — and four clerks,* but 

 died before his intention was actually carried 

 out. The design was eventually accomplished 

 by his widow, Joan, in 1388.' 



The letters patent, for which Joan paid a fee 

 of twenty marks, provided that the abbot and 

 convent of Peterborough, patrons of the rectory 

 of St. Peter's, should have alternate patronage 

 with the heirs of the founders to both canonries 

 and clerkships. The scheme was not to come 

 into operation until the death or resignation of 

 the then rector. 



Catt and Elizabeth hi.i wife, of association and partici- 

 pation in all the prayers and celebrations in the colle- 

 giate church and chapel throughout their lives. Stowe, 

 MS. 93!, f. 82b. * B. M. Ixix. 75. 



s Vincent MSS. College of Arms, cited by Bridges, 

 Hist. ofNortkants, ii. 235. 



6 Ibid. pp. 89, 91, 254, 265. 



'' Rymer, Faedera (Rec. Com.), iii. pt. 2, pp. 921, 

 932. 933. 939. 943, 1026. 



s Pat. 49 Edw. III. pt. I, m. 33. 



' Ibid. II Ric. II. pt. 2, m. 21. 



179 



