RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



The Valor of 1535 names John Pory as 

 master with a stipend of £6 135. ^d., and 

 William Fletcher and John Gunnar the two 

 priests, each receiving £$ 6j. 8;^. a year. There 

 were also two clerks in receipt of a salary of 

 20s. each. The clear annual value was then 

 only estimated at £21, 14;. 



In 1538, the mayor and commonalty being 

 desirous of obtaining a charter of incorporation, 

 sold all the valuable plate of the gild chapel for 

 j^54 15J. ^\d. towards the expenses of procuring 

 it. Though the corporation sold most of the 

 gild property about this date for a like alleged 

 reason the college remained technically un- 

 suppressed during the reign of Henry VIII, being 

 •eventually resigned into the hands of Edward VI 

 in 1547 by John Gunnel, the last master, who 

 had a pension of ^5. The college, with its 

 chapel, was at once demolished ; and the site 

 (with 80 acres of land and other messuages and 

 tenements) granted in 1548 in the first instance 

 to the Duke of Norfolk, but soon afterwards to 

 Sir Richard Fulmerston. 



115. THE COLLEGE OF THOMPSON 



Towards the end of the fateful year, 1349, 

 Sir Thomas de Shardelowe and Sir John 

 •de Shardelowe his brother founded a chantry 

 in the church of St. Martin, Thompson or 

 Thomeston, to be served by a college of five 

 ■chaplains and a warden. They were to cele- 

 brate for the souls of Sir John de Shardelowe, 

 justice of the common pleas, and Agnes his wife, 

 the parents of the founders, and for the founders' 

 ■souls, and for all the faithful departed. The 

 •elder Sir John de Shardelowe died in 1344, and 

 his wife Agnes presumably in 1349, as losses 

 from the Black Death were in so many instances 

 the occasion of the foundation of various im- 

 portant chantries. The family of Shardelowe 

 held much property in SuflFolk, their chief 

 residence being at Flempton ; but their burial 

 ■place for several generations was the church of 

 Thompson, Norfolk. Sir John de Shardelowe, 

 the judge, was succeeded by his grandson of the 

 ■same name, the son of Edmund who predeceased 

 his father.^ Sir Thomas and Sir John, the 

 founders of the college, were the judge's younger 

 sons. 



The church of Thompson was appropriated 

 to the college, without any provision for a vicar, 

 .as the church was always to be served by one 

 •of the chaplains. For this privilege a pension of 

 four marks was assigned to the bishop. The 

 master was to be elected by the chaplains from 

 their own number ; he had to be episcopally 

 instituted, and if the chaplains failed to elect, the 

 •collation to the mastership rested with the 



' Inq. p.m. 18 Edw. Ill, No. 37. Blomefield 

 {Hist, of Norf. ii, 366-9), m.Tkes confusion of the 

 ."Shardelowe generations ; see Gage, Suff. 59, 60. 



bishop. The fellows or chaplains were to give 

 due obedience to the master ; they were all to 

 lodge and board together in the college ; and 

 were to meet in the church daily for mattins 

 and evensong as well as for masses. 



Sir John de Shardelowe, one of the founders, 

 died childless in 1369 ; his widow Joan took a 

 vow of chastity before the bishop of Norwich, in 

 the presence of John Grene, master of Thompson 

 College and others. Sir John de Shardelowe, 

 nephew of the co-founders, died in 1391. His 

 will provided that he should be buried in the 

 church of Thompson near his parents and 

 ancestors ; he also gave to the college lOOs., and 

 to a chaplain to celebrate there for him for a 

 year after his decease seven marks. 



In June, 1392, the master and chaplains of 

 the chantry at the altar of St. Martin in the 

 church of Thompson paid fifty marks for licence to 

 hold the manors of Shudy Camps and Horseheath, 

 with appurtenances, in Cambridgeshire, and in 

 Shropham and Thompson, the gifts of John 

 Methewold, John Coke, and Thomas Horstede." 

 In the following September the college paid the 

 large sum of ^^40 for the king's licence to hold 

 an acre of land at Shropham, with the advowson 

 and appropriation of the church and the annexed 

 chapel of St. Andrew ; a certain competent sum 

 being assigned to the poor parishioners out of the 

 fruits of the rectory, and a vicarage being duly 

 ordained.' 



Archdeacon Goldwell, as commissary for the 

 bishop, visited the college of Thompson on 

 10 November, 1492. John Joys one of the 

 fellows, and proctor for Master Ambrose Ede, 

 the warden, produced the foundation deed 

 ordaining five chaplains with a master, and 

 assigning to the master an annual payment of 

 12 marks, and to each brother 11 marks. 



There were then only three fellows or 

 brethren, John Joys, John Pepyr, and William 

 Cowper. The last of these was absent at his 

 studies at the university of Oxford. After the 

 separate examination of Joys and Pepyr the 

 commissary dissolved the visitation as he found 

 that no reform was needed. ■* 



The college was visited on 23 June, 15 14, by 

 Bishop Nicke. After Master Forth had preached 

 from the text Jgite poenitentiam the warden 

 and three chaplains were examined. John 

 Purpett, the warden, said that the annual income 

 of the college was upwards of a hundred marks, 

 and they had 3,000 sheep. He said that divine 

 service was laudably observed, and that all was 

 going on well. Thomas Barnesdale gave a good 

 account of everything, the master annually 

 presented his accounts, the common seal was 

 kept in a chest under two locks, the third lock 

 being broken, and the books, vestments, and 



' Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 32. 



^ Ibid. pt. ii, m. 23. 



* Jessopp, Norw. Fisit. (Camd. Soc), 30, 31. 



461 



