SCHOOLS 



indeed, from 1478 to the dissolution all the priors had been wardens ; and Hugh Whitchcnd, 

 ex-warden and prior, became the first dean of Durham ; while one Richard Bell passed from the 

 office of prior of Finchale to the sec of Carlisle, 1478-96. 



The college was included among the possessions of the monastery of Durham surrendered to 

 Henry VIII. Among the king's projects has been found a design for a Durham college, with a 

 provost, four readers, one of humanytie in Greke,' another of ' Dyvinitie in Hebrew,' a third ' both of 

 Dyvinitie and humanytie,' and a fourth in ' ph}sikc' ; nine ' scoUars, to be taughte both gramer and 

 logyke, in hebrewe, greke, and lattyn,' twenty students in Divinity, ten at each University, and a 

 schoolmaster and u>her ; total estimated cost ;{^7 10 a year. Unfortunately the easier expedient was 

 adopted of the establishment of a dean and chapter, and the college was granted to them. On 20 March, 

 I 544, it was again given up to the king ; and eventually on 30 Mav, i 556, taken possession of by a 

 president, twelve fellows, and eight scholars, as part of Trinity College founded in 1555 by Sir 

 Thomas Pope. But the new college had no connexion, either in endowment or in the place from 

 which its inmates came, with the old. 



THE NOVICES' SCHOOL 



We now pass to the sciiool which fed the college. Though a novices' school must have existed 

 ab initio in the monastery, we have absolutely no light thrown on it or its working until we come 

 to that c\ix\o\x% laudatio tnnporis acti,'' The Rites of Durham,' written, perhaps, soon after 1540, 

 and known to us through a copy of about 1593. The account of the novices, a locus classicus 

 on the so-called novices' school,^ tells ' how in the Weast ally of the cloisters towards the northe 

 ende there was a fair great stall of wainscott where the novices did sitt and learne, and also the 

 master of the novices had a pretty stall or seat of wainscott adjoyning on the south side of the 

 Treasure house, down over against the stall where the novices did sitt and look on their bookes ; 

 and there did sitt and teach the novices both forenoon and afternoon ; and also there were no 

 strangers nor other persons suffered to molest or trouble any of the said novices or monks in their 

 carrells, they being studying ... for there was a porter ... to keep the cloyster door . . . 

 There ' was alwayes vi. novices which went daly to schoule within the house for the space of vii. 

 yere, and one of the eldest mounckes that was lernede was appoynted to be there tuter. The sayd 

 novices had no wages, but meite, drinke, and clothe for that space. The maister or tuteres office 

 was to see that they lacked nothing, as, cowles, frockes, stammynge,' beddinge, bootes and sockes; 

 and whene they did lacke any of thes necessaries, the maister had charge to caule of the chamber- 

 laynes for such tilings; for they never receyved wages nor handled any money in that space, but 

 goynge daly to there bookes within the cloyster. And yf the mr. dyd see that any of theme weare 

 apte to lernyng and did applie his booke and had a prignant wyt withall, then the mr. did lett ye 

 prior have intelligence ; then streighte way after he was sent to Oxforde to schoole, and there dyd 

 lerne to study devinity ; and the resydewe of the novices was keapt at there bookes tyll they coulde 

 understand there service and the scriptures ; then at the foresayde yercs end they dyd syng their 

 first messe.' They had their recreation. 'On the right hand as you goe out of the cloysters in to 

 the fermery and ye commone house, there was belonging to ye commone house a garding and a 

 bowling allie on the back side of the house towards the water for the novices some tyme to recreat 

 themselves, when they had remedy* of there master, he standing by to see ther good order.' We 

 are not told what the novices were taught in this school ; a modicum of grammar, no doubt, 

 and a modicum of song ; but, judging from the title of the master of the novices at Canterbury — 

 that of magistir ordinis — chiefly the rule of the order. For otherwise it would have hardly been 

 necessary to provide, as was done in the Benedictine statutes of 1334, for a grammar master 

 at the monastery, who might be, and generally was, a secular clerk. There is no evidence 

 of any such grammar master ever being appointed at Durham. Having diligently searched the 

 prior's registers, the only person I can find appointed to do any teaching of the novices is a 

 master not of grammar, but of song ; and that not until 4 December, 15 13.' Then an indenture 

 was made between Prior Thomas Castell and Thomas Hashewell, singer (cantorem), by which 

 Hashewell was ' retained and firmly sworn to serve the prior and his successors for term of his life, 

 in form underwritten ; viz. that he shall freely (gratis) labour to instruct assiduously and diligently 

 those monks of Durham and eight secular boys whom the prior or his deputy should appoint to 

 learn it, in the best way he knows, both to play on the organ* and plain song and accompanied song, 



1 Ritei of Durham (Surtees See), 84. ' Ibid. 96. This passage comes from an MS. c. 1600. 



* 'Estamine,' ' stamina,' shirts of linscy-wooIscy. 



* This is the old medieval word for a holiday, of. Memorials of Soutkaell Minster, when in 1487 the 

 complaint was made that the master 'indiscrete dat remcJium scolaribus.' At Winchester a ' remedy' is still 

 the term for a holiday, which is not a holy day. " Prior's Reg. v. 156. 



« Tarn ad modulandum super organa quam ad planum cantum ct organicum, dctantando, scilicet, plane 

 songs, priknott, faburdon, dischant, sware note, ct countre. 



Z^7 



