SCHOOLS 



from John Bochere ids. for a garden adjoining the High School.' In 

 the Valor EC c lesiasticus 1 of 1535, the rental of the keeper of the chapel 

 of the Blessed Mary for divers tenements and gardens in the city of 

 Winchester, together with the High School (unacum Alta Sco/a), is 

 returned at a total of 4 8j. 8</., but no details are given. 



THE NOVICES' SCHOOL 



We now pass to the internal monastic or priory schools. There 

 are traces of two so-called schools in the priory, the Novices' School and 

 the Almoner's School. The Novices' School no doubt existed from the 

 beginning of the priory, but it was entirely confined to novices and, in 

 the times of which we have any records, from 1312 onwards, never ex- 

 ceeded nine in number and sometimes contained no scholar. Indirectly 

 we have evidence 2 of the Novices' School in the entries in the Almoner's 

 Rolls for 1312 and 1352." In the first is a charge of ^\d. for beer sent 

 to the 'youths' bishop' on Innocents' Day ; and in the last a charge for a 

 ' courtesy,' or present, sent to the officers of the monastery and ' five 

 youths ' at the time of St. Giles' Fair. This courtesy is explained by 

 subsequent account rolls, that for 1390 containing the entry 'to two 

 youths in school for their knives 2s.' ; while the Hordarian's Roll 

 for 14956* distinguishes between 'twenty-four brethren out of the 

 school ' who received 1 3^. a head ' for their knives ' and ' four youths 

 in school ' who were paid i id. each for the same. It hardly says much 

 for the quality of the steel that these knives, dinner knives presumably, 

 were bought new every year. In 1533 there were thirty-seven brethren 

 out of school and only one in school, who with the prior, sub-prior, 

 third and fourth priors and two students at Oxford made up the total 

 number of the convent to forty-four. The convent does not appear 

 to have ever exceeded sixty-five in number and in 1353, after the 

 ravages of the Black Death, was under twenty. It is not surprising 

 therefore that the highest number of ' youths ' ever in the school was 

 nine in 1459 60 6 ; that out of thirty-six years, from 1353 onwards, in 

 which the numbers are given, in only eight years was the number in 

 school as high as six ; and that in 1 48 5 6 and I5i6 5 there were no scholars 

 in school at all in the latter year the entry in the Almoner's Roll 

 running, ' for knives this year nothing, because no one in the school this 

 year.' They are always called 'youths' (juvenes) not boys (pueri}, 



1 Vol. vi. Appendix, p. x. 



' The Obedientiaries or Officers' Account Rolls of the monastery furnish the evidence. Obedientiary 

 Rolls of St. Stuithun's, Winchester, by G. W. Kitchin, D.D. Hampshire Record Society, 1892 ; p. 398 

 cf. p. 401 ; p. 406 cf. p. 41 1. 



8 Ibid. p. 413. 



4 Ibid. p. 301. It is not quite clear whence the hordarian (hordarius) derived his name, but he 

 was more probably the grain-keeper (hordeum). He owned several manors, producing in 1327 an income 

 of .262 odd, of which 243 6s. SJ. was paid over to the kitchener at the rate of 13*. \d. a day. 

 Ibid. pp. 254, 255. 



6 Ibid. pp. 450, 298, 464. 



" 257 33 



