SCHOOLS 



The public grammar school of Winchester next appears as the 

 subject of a contest for the mastership and the master's right to a mono- 

 poly of teaching in the twelfth century, in the case, to adopt modern 

 terminology, of Phantom v. Jekyll, reported in John of Salisbury's 

 Letters. 1 



The plaintiff, Jordanus Fantasma in Latin, and in Anglo-Norman 

 Jordan Fantosme, was afterwards the author of a poem * on the war be- 

 tween Henry II. and his rebellious son in 1 174. The case seems to have 

 been heard some time between 1 154 and 1 158, when John of Salisbury 

 was acting as official principal of the prerogative court of the arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury. 8 



'The case of master Jordan Fantosme and master John Joichel, 

 clerks of the lord bishop of Winchester, has been carried before me. 

 Having heard the case and inspected the documents, we inhibited the 

 said John against teaching school in the same city against Jordan's will.' 

 The parties alleged mutual breach of faith, and Joichel appealed to the 

 pope ; but John of Salisbury, while reserving this question, says that he 

 ' being clear on the right of master Jordan to the school, after consulting 

 the bishops of Chichester, Hereford and Worcester, charged the lord of 

 Winchester not to suffer the said Jordan to be further vexed by the said 

 John on the matter of the school, on pain of excommunication. A few 

 days afterwards however the parties came before us again, Jordan alleging 

 that John had usurped the school again and incurred excommunication. 

 He denied it and was prepared to swear that he had desisted from the 

 mastership after the injunction.' Jordan was ready to produce witnesses, 

 but the other ' refused a day ' on the ground that he was ' starting for 

 Rome.' ' Pray,' says the harassed judge, ' by the help of the Lord put 

 an end to their litigation.' 



In the next reign the Winchester School appears under the patron- 

 age of royalty, King John* on 13 April, 1205, directing William of 

 Cornhill ' to make the bearer Geoffrey attend school (scolas) at Win- 

 chester and find him reasonable necessaries ' and send his account in to 

 the king. Towards the end of the century among certain diocesan 

 statutes 6 made in 1295 occurs one concerning the distribution of holy 

 water to the sick. It directed that ' in churches which were near the 

 schools of the city of Winchester or of the fortified towns (castrorum) of 

 the diocese only scholars were to be allowed to carry it,' and, by im- 

 plication, earn the fees for doing so. The same statute directed rectors 

 and other parish priests to see that the boys in their parishes knew the 

 Lord's Prayer, the Creed and the Ave Maria, and how to sign them- 

 selves rightly with the sign of the cross. ' And parents should be in- 

 duced to let their boys learn singing after they know how to read the 



1 No. xix. ed. J. A. Giles, 1 848. 



* Surtees Society, No. n, 1840, ed. Francisque Michel. 



3 This appears to be the position he occupied, and not that, as I mistakenly said in Hiitoty, p. 37, 

 of papal delegate to Pope Adrian. 



4 Chie Rolls of King John (Rec. Com.) under date. 



5 Winton. Epis. Reg., John de Pontissara, f. 55. 



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