SCHOOLS 



salary and provender for a horse. In 1538' John Potynger was appointed 

 at a salary of 4 a year, with the same additions, his chamber being ' at 

 the east end of our dormitory called the Second Dorter.' He was to 

 teach grammar, not only to the younger brethren, but also sign of the 

 changing times ' the boys whom we board and educate in the monas- 

 tery, " the chyldern of the chapell " and " the chyldren of the almery." 

 This John Potynger was presumably the same person who was rector of 

 Oakley and Hostiarius or Second Master of the college from Michaelmas, 

 1535 to 1537, and had been a scholar in 1527. A note to his name in 

 the College Register, seemingly by way of reproach, says he was after- 

 wards married (post duxit uxorem). 



THE ALMONRY SCHOOL 



The children of the chapel and the almonry were the choristers 

 who sang in the Lady Chapel and the charity boys who performed 

 menial services and were kept in the almonry or almshouse (elymo- 

 sinaria). In the absence of the priory registers before 1400 it is im- 

 possible to ascertain when choristers were introduced. It was almost 

 certainly not before the building of the existing Lady Chapel in the 

 fourteenth century. In 1402 there were only four of them, as we learn 

 from the appointment of John Dyes, 8 their master. He contracted to 

 serve the prior and convent for twenty years in the daily Mass of our 

 Lady at our Lady's altar in singing and organ playing, and in the choir 

 on the greater feasts when the organ was played ; and to teach the boys, 

 who were not to exceed four in number, singing. Like the grammar- 

 master of the young monks, he was to have a room in the precincts and 

 a robe with fur, but only of the clerks' not of the gentlemen's suit ; and 

 he only dined in the prior's hall during the Christmas and Easter holy 

 days and on double feasts or when ' he sang to the organ ' (canfaverit 

 organice) in choir. His salary was 5 6s. 8d. 



In 1404 the prior and convent contracted 3 with William of 

 Wykeham for the maintenance of Wykeham's chantry in the cathedral, 

 the masses to be done by three monks, while every evening the boys of 

 the almonry ' living by the alms of the priory ' were to sing there the 

 anthem Salve Regina or Ai)e Regina and the psalms De Profundis with 

 the prayer Fidelium or Inclina. The prior was to pay 6s. %d. every 

 year at Lady Day for the boys' benefit. This identifies the almonry 

 boys with the choristers. 



The next choristers' master of whom we hear was Edward 

 Pyngbrygge, appointed by Prior Hunton on Michaelmas Eve, 1482.* 

 The choristers had then been doubled in number, for he was to teach ' all 

 the boys of the said prior and convent now serving or hereafter serving 

 in the choir in chant and descant, to the number of eight or less, never 



1 Cath. Mun., Prior's Register, iii. f. 53. December 5. William Basyng, Prior. 



2 Prior's Register, i. f. I5b. September 29. ' Indentura Dyes ad terminum 20 annorum." 

 8 Ibid. f. 1 8. August 16. * Ibid. f. 107. 'Cam Edwardi Pyngbrygge.' 



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