SCHOOLS 



In the absence of the chapter muniments there is little more to be found bearing on the early 

 history of this grammar school. There are no episcopal registers before 1397, and no chapter act 

 books before the sixteenth century. But from the will of one of the chancellors of the cathedral, 

 John Bishopston, or Busshopeston as it is spelt, made 16 November, 1384,* we get the name, and 

 a very famous name it happens to be, of the grammar schoolmaster at that time. After giving 2Os. 

 to the church of Bishopstone, in which he was baptized, and from which he took his name, and 

 handsome presents of 6s. Sd. to each canon, 6*. to each vicar choral being a priest, is. 8d. to each 

 vicar of less rank, is. to each chorister, and 3^. to each holy water carrier (aque bajulo) present at his 

 funeral, he gave to Master Richard le Scrope, dean, the prayer book he had lent him, to his vicar 

 choral a long gown furred with beaver (bevere). ' Item to Master Thomas Romesey, rector of the 

 Grammar School of Chichester, my green robe with taffity covered with moons to pray for me as 

 above.' After providing for the saying of 1,000 masses and 1,000 psalters for his soul, his residue 

 he gave to youths of the first tonsure, acolytes, sub-deacons, and deacons. 



Now the bequest to Thomas Romsey is very interesting, in the first place because Bishopston 

 uses the old term, still or lately prevalent in Scotland, of rector of the school for master ; and in the 

 second place, because this Thomas Romsey is almost certainly the person of the same name some- 

 times called Magister Thomas de Romsey, sometimes Romsey simply, who at Michaelmas, 1395, 

 became the head master (magister Informator) of Winchester College, 7 on the retirement of the 

 master who had been teaching between the date of the charter, 1382, and the entry of the college 

 into the existing buildings. Previously to the discovery of this will, the provenance of Romsey was 

 unknown to the historians of Winchester College. Romsey held office for ten years, till Easter, 

 1407. Then, after an interval of seven years of another master, he returned to office again in 1414, 

 and held until 1418, and frequently afterwards up to 1425 appeared as an honoured guest in hall at 

 Winchester. The college library long preserved a grammatical work given by him, 8 ' a certain 

 treatise of grammar on phrases, called "Iron,"' a thirteenth-century production, so called because it 

 began with saying that as iron rusted by disuse, so did learning without practice. 



It is interesting to note that the master of the ancient Chichester Cathedral school thought it 

 promotion to go to the mushroom school of Winchester College, as it must then have seemed, 

 though undoubtedly a mushroom of a very fine growth, the appearance of which made no small stir 

 in educational circles. But the next time we find a connexion between the two, it was a master of 

 Winchester College who found it promotion to go to Chichester, which had then acquired a new 

 and important endowment. 



In 1402, at Bishop Robert Reade's visitation of Chichester Cathedral, among the complaints, 

 detecta et comperta, things revealed and proved, was one that ' the Chancellor does not find a master 

 diligent in teaching the choristers grammar ' (non invenit magistrum diligentem ad instruendum 

 choristas in gramatica). The chancellor, appearing in person, protests that he is prepared 'to do his 

 duty in the premisses as he ought and is bound to do.' In other words, probably, he meant that he 

 appointed a master, and if he did not teach the choristers grammar he ought to do so. But the 

 teaching of choristers was always a difficulty, their choral duties preventing them from keeping the 

 same hours as and doing work regularly with the other boys. 



The next appearance of a schoolmaster does not suggest that the school was in a very high 

 state of efficiency. Between 1460 and 1466 a petition was presented in Chancery by 9 'Thomas 

 Gyldesburgh, parson of St. Olavys in Chechester, whyche hath be scole master there 30 yeres and 

 more, beyng of the age of 80 yeres and more and now right corpolent and hathe a maladie in hys 

 legge that he may neyther well ryde ne goe.' The petition throws no light on the school. The 

 matter was purely personal. Gyldesburgh had gone bail for one John Stephens to William Stele, 

 bailiff of Chichester, giving a bond for 2O marks for Stephens's appearance in the Exchequer. 

 Stephens had failed to appear, and Stele was fined 6s. 8d. and had to pay costs. So he sued 

 Gyldesburgh for 10 marks in the mayor's court at Chichester, and after Gyldesburgh had kept 

 indoors for a long time to avoid process, he was told by his counsel he could go abroad. He went 

 to say mass in his church, and was then arrested by the mayor's Serjeant and put in prison. There 

 he remained, and petitioned the chancellor for a ' supersedeas,' or a writ of ' corpus cum causa,' or a 

 ' certiorari,' or ' other remede that your lordshipp shall think convenient.' What the boys did 

 under ' a right corpolent ' master of over eighty years, who had been master for over thirty years, 

 and also held a living and was now in the mayor's prison, one shudders to think. 



The next reference to the master shows one in better repute. Some twenty years later, 

 26 October, 1479, William Jacob, ' mair of the cite of Chichester,' who was apparently tenant of 



* P. C. C. Rouse, 5 d. In the text the will is dated 1 6 Nov. 1374, but ' J ' s sa 'd to have been proved 

 II Dec. 1384, and as it was very unusual, if not unknown, for a will in those days to be made long before 

 death, it is practically certain that the true date is 1384. 



7 Leach, Hist, of Winchester Coll. 153, 156, 197. ' V.C.H. Hants, ii, 283-4. 



9 Early Chanc. Proc. bdle. 29, No. 59. 



2 401 5 ! 



