A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



contested. Thus on 31 January, 1286-7, Bishop Godfrey GirFard l issued a 

 commission to his Official Principal, or chancellor, 



to inquire as to the right of collation to the school in the borough of Gloucester and 

 the possession or quasi-possession of this right, also how the collation has been hitherto 

 accustomed to be made and by whom, and to do further thereon and concerning the pre- 

 misses as the course of law demands, giving notice to those who are interested to be present 

 at the inquiry. 



The register, as usual, does not give us the return to the commission, but 

 by a fortunate accident we learn it from an entry in a later register, that of 

 Bishop Silvester de Giglis, when nearly two and a half centuries later the 

 same dispute had arisen. A propos of this later dispute, which took place in 

 1512-3, Thomas Hanibal or Hannibal, LL.D., vicar-general of the bishop, 

 who was in remote parts (as indeed he always was, being one of the Italian 

 absentees whom the popes were fond of fattening on English endowments), 

 recites 2 a mandate of Bishop Henry Wakefield in 1380, which itself recited 

 a mandate of Bishop Godfrey Giffard, clearly the result of the inquiry 

 ordered by him in the commission quoted. Bishop Wakefield says he 

 has searched the registry of the date of Bishop Godfrey and found the 

 letter and process underwritten. He then sets out letters patent of Bishop 

 Godfrey dated 21 November, eleventh year of his consecration, i.e. 1287, 

 addressed ' to his beloved son in Christ the archdeacon of Gloucester or his 

 Official or other deputy.' 



The collation 3 of the school in the borough of Gloucester to which scholars flock, 

 for the sake of learning, some from our diocese and others from divers parts, clearly belongs, 

 as we have been informed by the evidence of trustworthy witnesses, and as clearly appears 

 by inspection of the muniments and charters which they have concerning the same school, 



* to the religious men the Prior and Convent of Llanthony by Gloucester, and is recognized 

 as belonging to them of old time ; and they from the time during which they have held the 

 collation, as we are informed by trustworthy witnesses, have held possession of the right of 

 collation to the same, though others indeed may, though not without incurring the guilt of 

 usurpation, perhaps claim the right. 



Who these others were who claimed the right does not appear, but we may 

 perhaps suspect that it was the monks of St. Peter's Abbey. Bishop GirFard 

 therefore, 



to put an end to all controversy and prevent fierce disputes arising hereafter, commands 

 (mandamus] the Archdeacon to cause public notice to be given on three Sundays during high 

 mass, in all the parish churches in the municipality and others in the neighbourhood, of an 

 inhibition against anyone calling himself a scholar keeping any school for the sake of teach- 

 ing in the said borough, except that one the teaching (regimen) of which has been granted 

 to a fit master (doctori ydoneo] by the collation of the Prior and Convent of Llanthony who 

 have been and are notoriously in possession or quasi-possession of the right of collation to 

 such school from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. 



* Other schools, if there are any there, to which anyone has been collated 

 to the prejudice of the said religious ' the bishop directed ' to be wholly 

 suspended (totaliter suspendt}' Sixty years later, 1340-1,* the priory of 



1 Wore. Epis. Reg. Giffard, fol. 265. Commissio Sea/arum Glouc. Official! suo. Ad inquirendum de jure 

 conferendi scolas infra municipium Gloucestrie ac de possessione juris hujusmodi vel quasi, necnon de modo 

 quo ipsa collacio hactenus fieri consuevit, et per quas personas. 



* Wore. Epis. Reg. Silvester, &c. fol. 202. 



* Ibid. Pretextu siquidem scolarum in municipio Gloucestrie existencium ad quas nonulli scolares de 

 nostra diocesi et alii de diversis partibus confluunt intuitu discipline. 



4 Chart. R. 14 Edw. Ill, m. 13, No. 26. 



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