A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



been increased to about ^45 a 7 ear or > taking the rough and undoubt- 

 edly too low approximation of twenty times the value, about 9,000 a 

 year of our money. By the time of Edward VI. this income had been 

 about doubled by gifts given by later benefactors. Since that time the 

 only increments have been in the shape of special gifts for special 

 purposes, leaving exhibitions, prizes, buildings and extension of 'Meads,' 

 as the playing fields are called. 



The earliest and largest individual piece of endowment given by 

 Wykeham was the rectory of Downton near Salisbury, which he bought 

 from his see and appropriated by papal bull to his own table and then 

 transferred to the college. For this purpose licence in mortmain was 

 obtained in 1384, enabling the college to hold lands up to 100 a year 

 in value, which was the value of Downton rectory in tithe and glebe at 

 the time. 



The next endowment was the manors or manor of Meonstoke 

 Ferrant and Meonstoke Ferrers. The former was bought from John of 

 Blewbury, a noted Berkshire ecclesiastic of the day. The two Meons 

 were worth about 13 a year each. 



At about the same time Combe Bissett in Wiltshire, producing 

 about 20 a year, was acquired. In 1387 another 20 a year was 

 purchased in Ropley, Hants. Then came the great purchases of ' alien 

 priories ' which have made the name of Wykeham famous as a precursor 

 of the confiscation of the monasteries, and have gained him the reputa- 

 tion of having set the example which Chicheley, Wayneflete, Wolsey 

 and other great founders, including Henry VI. and Henry VIII., 

 followed in diverting to the secular clergy and to education, endowments 

 originally given for ' religious ' purposes, that is for monasteries. 



In point of fact the precedent of expropriating the possessions of 

 foreign houses in England to English uses had been set when Bishop 

 Grandisson of Exeter established the college or collegiate church and 

 grammar school of Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire by purchasing, after 

 very keen bargaining, in 1334-7 from the dean and chapter of Rouen, 

 to whom it was appropriated, the church and manor of Ottery. 1 The 

 Rouen chapter found it more profitable to sell their alien properties and 

 concentrate their possessions at home. Grandisson was only following 

 the example of the Archbishop of York who had previously made 

 purchases from the same house. Ottery manor however was not a 

 monastic possession. 



Wykeham's first purchase in this kind was that of the alien 

 priories in Hampshire of Hamble-en-le-Rise, Andwell near Basingstoke, 

 and St. Cross, or Croos as it is spelt in the Accounts, in the Isle of 

 Wight, all belonging to the abbey of Holy Trinity, Tiron, near 

 Chartres. 



A more extensive purchase was that of possessions of the house of 

 St. Valery-sur-Mer in Picardy, which included a batch of churches on 



1 Grandtsimfs Register, ed. R. C, Kingeston Randolph, pp. 280-1, 285, 288 and 117. 



288 



