SCHOOLS 



to effect a restoration of the confiscated property of monasteries and 

 chantries to pious uses. The letters patent re-establishing the gild are 

 dated 24 February, 1 557. They recite * that ' the gild or fraternity lately, 

 through the schism of heretics, the church being decayed on every side, 

 had fallen and was destroyed,' but ' the inhabitants having humbly prayed 

 for the restoration of the brotherhood,' the king and queen ' considering 

 that the chapel and its cemetery are places in which the bodies of the 

 inhabitants are sometimes buried, at the request of the most reverend 

 father-in-chief, Reginald Pole, legate ex latere and Archbishop of Can- 

 terbury,' decreed that the brotherhood be founded anew, and proceeded in 

 set terms to found it under its old name. 



The brethren living in the town were empowered to elect an alder- 

 man and wardens (gardiant), John Runnygear being named as the first 

 alderman and Richard Hall and Roger Reve as the first wardens. Then 

 the lands were granted. The messuage, ' Frymles, otherwise called the 

 Hollie Goste Ferme' ; the horse-mill in Water Street ; Herriards (called 

 Dingley's in 1480) in North Brook Street ; Spicer's (also a possession of 

 1480) in ' Hollie Goste Street, otherwise Whitewaye,' in the occupation 

 of Simon White (whence perhaps its alias) ; the Holy Ghost Barn and i oo 

 acres. All these were granted with the intention that the alderman and 

 wardens ' shall for ever find a fit priest as well for the celebration of divine 

 service in the chapel as for the instruction and education of the youths and 

 boys of the said town.' 



The history of the resuscitated gild has been well preserved. Its 

 first account book, extending over close on a hundred years from 1557 to 

 1654, fortunately reposes in the Hartley Institution at Southampton. It 

 shows that the resuscitated gild lost no time in reassembling. One of its 

 first acts was to have a dinner, which produced 6 i8j. ivd. for the gild 

 funds, while subscriptions to the extent of 14 IQJ. ^d. were forthcoming. 

 The costs however of the ' suit for our corporacion ' cost ig, and repairs 

 of the chapel 7 ; while making the image and dressing the chapel 

 account for other expenditure. The only item mentioning a priest is 

 ' wine for the Holly Gost preste, 4</.,' and no schoolmaster is mentioned 

 at all. In 1558 the priest was paid for one year ^Ti, while he also received 

 * at sundrye times when he lacked his dynner,' one shilling. The rental 

 of the lands was about 5 IQJ., but 2 4 Iar - was received from the 

 tenants for fines on the grant of leases, Goodyer paying 6 & s - %d. for 

 lands worth 2 1 3-r. 4^. a year. No schoolmaster is mentioned till we 

 come to the time of Queen Elizabeth. For the first century afterwards 

 the school history consists of little more than the names of the masters 

 and the amounts of their stipends. In 1559 the schoolmaster received a 

 salary at the rate of 12 by the year. One quarter at the school was 

 enough for him, since at Christmas we find ' Mr. Vicar ' paid ' for teach- 

 ing the school after 4 by the year, 1,' and so the vicar continued to 

 teach, getting i a quarter, till Midsummer, 1560. The living of 

 Basingstoke belonged to Magdalen College, Oxford, and the vicar, 



1 Basing! take, p. 664. The letters pa tent are in Latin. 

 373 



