SCHOOLS 



Martyr by London Bridge. He probably never 

 resided at Southwell. 



Barre or Barry, his appointee, held office for 

 no less than thirty years. He was perhaps the 

 John Barry, elder brother of Robert Barra, called 

 also Barrye, doctor of decrees and Canon of York 

 (Osbaldwick) and Southwell (Dunham), admitted 

 27 August 1499, to whom the latter gave by his 

 will 6 of 4 October 1526 a legacy of 201., while 

 appointing as an executor Robert Barra his 

 nephew, son of his brother John. The ' custom 

 of York,' of holding a schoolmastership for only 

 three or four years, was therefore extinct at South- 

 well by this time as at York itself. After the 

 Black Death the scarcity of masters of arts had 

 caused appointments to be made for life or at the 

 pleasure of the chapter. 



Barry occurs several times in the Act Book. 

 The year after his appointment, on 6 May 1476,' 

 he appeared in chapter as plaintiff against Thomas 

 Button, executor of Robert Button, chaplain, 

 for 141. $d. debt. He produced a chantry priest 

 as witness that in the chamber of another chantry 

 priest, William Barthorp, who also gave evidence 

 to the same effect, Thomas Button promised to 

 give him 14*. $d. The executor was ordered to 

 pay accordingly. 



At the visitation of the minster by the chapter 

 through Mr. William Worsley, the canon resi- 

 dentiary, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, on 

 I July I478, 8 one of the articles of inquiry was 

 ' if the schoolmasters were sufficient and diligent 

 in their office.' The schoolmasters (maghtri 

 scolarum) means the masters of the grammar 

 school and of the song school. For though there 

 is no direct mention of the latter school, a song 

 school was of course kept, as in all great colle- 

 giate and cathedral churches, to teach singing to 

 choristers and others. As will be seen, the 

 Chantry Commissioners of 1546 give definite 

 evidence of there being one at Southwell, as 

 usual under the control of the precentor, while 

 the grammar school was under the chancellor. 

 As no complaint is made of the schoolmasters at 

 the visitation in 1478 we may conclude that 

 Mr. John Barre was doing his duty effectively. 

 All the junior members of the church were 

 expected to attend the grammar school. Thus 

 on 12 September 1483' Richard Gurnell, a 

 deacon, was ' suspended from his habit ' for 

 frequent quarrels with laymen, and he and 

 Palmer ' and all the clerks of the Sacrist ' or 

 treasurer, were ordered ' on pain of perpetual 

 suspension from office and benefice to attend the 



6 Mem. of Southwell Minster (Surt. Soc.), 125 ; Test. 

 Ebor. v, 220. Mrs. Agnes Barra, widow, made her 

 will 26 June 1525, and mentions besides Mr. Dr. 

 Barra, Robert Rirra, a married man, while James 

 Barra, priest, and Edward Barra, brothers of the 

 doctor, are also mentioned in the doctor's will. 



7 Leach, Mem. of Southwell Minster, 30. 



8 Ibid. 39. 9 Ibid. 45. 



grammar school daily, unless there was any law- 

 ful impediment (quod vacent cotidie absque legi- 

 timo impedimento scolis gramaticalibus).' At 

 the visitation in the following year this matter 

 was again brought up. Richard Gurnell was 

 complained of for playing cards with laymen 

 and for the quarrels and threats of murder 

 which arose from it, and grave complaint is 

 made of his and the master's slackness. 10 ' Note 

 generally. The ministers of the church do not 

 attend the grammar school. The Grammar 

 Master does not attend at the proper hours of 

 teaching his scholars in school ; and often gives 

 remedies indiscriminately to his scholars on 

 whole school days, so that for the time they 

 learn nothing, expending their parents' substance 

 in vain and to no purpose ; and they do not 

 speak Latin in school, but English.' This is an 

 illuminating passage about grammar schools. It 

 is one of many proofs that could be cited to 

 overthrow the assertion made by Dr. Kennedy 

 of Shrewsbury in support of his doctrine that 

 free schools did not mean free from fees, that 

 before the days of Edward VI schools were all 

 free. If this school had been free there would 

 have been no point in the complaint that the 

 boys were wasting their parents' goods by not 

 learning. It is also the earliest instance known 

 of casual holidays, not holy days, being called 

 remedies, as they are in Colet's statutes for St. 

 Paul's School, by which remedies were wholly 

 forbidden, and as they still are at Winchester to 

 this day. The complaint as to not speaking 

 Latin in school is interesting. It was the 

 universal rule in grammar schools that the 

 boys should talk only in Latin, and the rule is fre- 

 quently found in school statutes, till the end of 

 the 1 7th century. Nor is this general note the 

 only complaint. William Norram, John Adcot, 

 and Robert Cook, clerks of the church, are said 

 ' not to frequent the grammar school scarcely in 

 the whole year.' Mr. John Barre, the use of 

 the title showing that he was an M.A., is 

 specifically complained of. He ' receives 40*. a 

 year for teaching the grammar school,' this time 

 the plural is used, 'and does nothing for this 

 stipend, nor does he share any part of it with Sir 

 William Barthorp, who has the charge of 

 teaching grammar for him.' 



William Barthorp, whom we saw above giving 

 evidence on Barre's behalf, was probably usher 

 in the school. He was chantry priest of St. 

 John the Baptist's chantry in 1469, and was a 

 very irregular attendant at the services, being 



10 Ibid. 49. Nota generaliter. Ministri ecclesie 

 non vacant scole gramaticali. Magister Grama- 

 ticalis non attendit debitis horis doctrine suorum 

 scolarium in scola ; et quam pluries dat remedium suis 

 scolaribus diebus ferialibus, quod quasi ad tempus 

 nichil addiscunt, expendendo bona suorum parentum 

 frustra et inaniter ; et non locuntur Latinum in scola 

 sed anglicum. 



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