SCHOOLS 



daily to serve at divine worship, and 25 poor and 

 needy (pauperes et indigentes) scholars to learn grammar 

 there, and further of 25 poor and disabled men to 

 pray for the souls of Henry V, Queen Katharine and 

 all his forefathers, and all the faithful departed ; also 

 of a Master or Teacher (Informator) in grammar to 

 teach the said needy scholars and all others whatso- 

 ever from any p.irt of our realm of England coming 

 to the said college freely (gratis), without exaction of 

 money or anything else.' 



When the foundation was completed and its 

 objects were precisely stated, they were expressed 

 in the very words of William of Wykeham in 

 founding Winchester College, by saying that it 

 was to be a seminary for the better education of 

 an orthodox clergy. 



The first charter was but a sketch. Under it 

 the provost and the rest were to be appointed 

 and removed according to statutes yet to be 

 made, and were to dwell in a certain site, 300 ft. 

 long by 260 ft. broad, next to Eton church- 

 yard ; the patronage of which had been recently 

 bought by the king. The patent named Henry 

 Sever as first provost, John Kette, clerk, William 

 Haston and William Dene as first priest-fellows, 

 Roger Flecknore, William Kente, John Haly- 

 wyn and Henry Cokkes as first choristers, and 

 William Stokkes and Richard Cokkes as the first 

 'needy scholars,' with two clerks and two 

 almsmen. The master or informer in grammar 

 was not named, probably because none had been 

 appointed. The college was incorporated under 

 the name of the ' Provost and King's College of 

 the Blessed Mary of Eton by Windsor.' To 

 that corporation the parish church was granted, 

 with power to transmute it into a collegiate 

 church and appropriate it to themselves, and 

 with licence in mortmain to hold other property 

 up to 1,000 marks, or 666 131. 4^. a year. 



Two days later, 13 October 1440, the com- 

 missioners of the Bishop of Lincoln, in whose 

 huge diocese Buckinghamshire then was, viz. 

 William [Ayscough], Bishop of Salisbury, 

 Thomas Bekynton and Richard Andrew, doctors 

 of law, appointed 29 September, met the king's 

 proctor William Lynde at Eton, ' erected ' the 

 parish church into a collegiate church and 

 decreed that it should be appropriated to the 

 college. On 20 October, with the consent of 

 Bekynton, in whose jurisdiction, as Archdeacon 

 of Buckingham, the church was, and of Kette, 

 who was rector and resigned it, the commis- 

 sioners admitted Provost Sever to the rectory on 

 behalf of the college. The whole proceeding 

 was recited and confirmed by Pope Eugenius IV 

 at Florence ' at the King's humble supplication ' 

 on 28 February 14401. The same day another 

 bull gave the king leave to provide and assign 

 whatever dress he liked for the provost, master, 

 and others, to grant the use of amices of grey, 

 of vzir or other furs, the distinctive dress of 

 cathedral or secular canons, and to make statutes 



about wearing them whether in church or else- 

 where, while a third bull empowered the college 

 to farm out its lands to laymen as well as 

 ecclesiastics the ordinary canon law forbidding 

 ecclesiastical property being farmed out to any 

 but ecclesiastics. 



The first stone of a new church was laid by 

 Henry VI himself at some date unknown, but 

 before Passion Sunday, 2 April 1441,* when he 

 laid the first stone of the sister college, the King's 

 College of St. Nicholas at Cambridge ; the name 

 of which was due to the king's birthday being 

 6 December, the day of St. Nicholas, and 

 perhaps also to the chantry 4 in Eton church 

 with an altar in honour of this patron saint of 

 schoolboys and learned clerks. 



In all this there was nothing novel, nothing 

 exceptional. It was simply the ordinary process 

 of converting a parish church, the endowment of 

 a single priest, into a collegiate church, to be the 

 home of several priests, with the canonical free 

 grammar school and an almshouse attached. 

 There were scores of such colleges then existing 

 scattered through the country. Many of them, 

 like Beverley Minster, Yorkshire, Southwell 

 Minster, Nottinghamshire, dated from imme- 

 morial antiquity before the Conquest. But many 

 of the older foundations had been converted, like 

 St. Frideswide's, Oxford, and St. Paul's, Bedford, 

 into monasteries. So at the time Eton was 

 founded, probably the majority of these colleges 

 were of later date than the middle of the I3th 

 century. For ever since the monastic furore had 

 abated, and the founding of friaries had ceased, 

 and the reaction in favour of the secular clergy 

 had set in, that is from the middle of the 1 3th 

 century onwards, hardly a year had passed with- 

 out some similar institution being founded. 

 Walter of Merton in 1275 had taken a new 

 departure in founding at Merton College a 

 collegiate church in which education and not 

 religious worship was the primary purpose. 

 After that, education had tended to become 

 more and more prominent in the new founda- 

 tions. In 1382 William of Wykeham, in 

 founding Winchester College, had taken a 

 double new departure, first, in incorporating a 

 collegiate church of schoolboys instead of 



' Robert Willis and John Willis Clark, Archil. Hilt, 

 of the Univ. of Camb. i, 321 : 



Unctum qui lapidem poitquam ponebat in Eton 

 Hunc fixit clcrum commemorando mum ; 



M Domini, c quater quadraginta monoi patet annit, 

 Pasiio cum Domini concelebrata fuit 



Annul crat dccimut nonui, meniii ted Aprilii I 

 Hie flectentc genu Rcge Kcunda diet. 



4 Lincoln Epis. Keg. Repingdon, fol. 251. In 14*5, 

 inhibition against the admission of anyone to chantry 

 at altar of St. Nicholas in church of St. Mary Eton, 

 pending a suit between Kathcrinc widow of Sir 

 Thomas Aylesbury and Sir Thomas Wauton, Sheriff 

 of Bedfordshire and others. One wonders whether this 

 chantry priest was not also a grammar school master. 



149 



