A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



the sub-deanery, or perhaps merely lived in the sub-dean's parish, as he gave ' to my curate the 

 subdean 40*.,' made his will, proved on 1 5 November following, and made very elaborate arrange- 

 ments for his funeral. 10 The dean and every canon present was to have a shilling. 



Also I will that the morrow masse preste and the Scoolemaster of the Gramer Scole, if it please them to 

 be present at my dirge and say masses for me the day of my burying, that ayther of them have 6d. for 

 their labour, and ayther of them to have ^s. for saying of Davied sauter, if it please them. Also I will 

 that every vicary aforesaid, the morrowe masse preste and Scolemaister, beyng present at my dirige, at 

 my moncthe mynde, and att my masse at morrowe, have every of thaim 8tf. and the Decon and every 

 chanon lod. 



The morrow-mass priest was the priest who said mass at dawn, and in many places, as e.g. at 

 Wotton under Edge in Gloucestershire, was himself the schoolmaster. We may perhaps conjecture 

 that Mayor Jacob particularly invited the schoolmaster's presence, because he had himself been at the 

 grammar school. At all events, he was regarded as an important person, whose assistance was worth 

 paying for at a rate exceeding that of a canon. 



A generation later the school received a new endowment and status which lifted it into a much 

 greater position and formed a precedent for the new foundations of Henry VIII. There seems 

 reason to believe that the old endowment of the school was only a sum of 2 a year or 2 13*. 4^., 

 an amount settled perhaps in the twelfth century, when it would have been a considerable endowment. 

 In 1498 the bishop, Edward Story, a Cambridge man who had been fellow of Pembroke College 

 there and afterwards master of Michaelhouse, soon to be swallowed up in Trinity College, appears 

 to have been so much exercised either at the ignorance of the Chichester clergy or at the neglect of 

 the school that he determined to put it on a new and better basis by following the precedent then 

 established, and afterwards to be improved upon by Wolsey and Henry VIII and succeeding kings, of 

 applying to education other endowments which were abused or not doing such useful work. It 

 was quite a common proceeding to attach a chantry to a school as an endowment to a schoolmaster 

 or even a vicar-choralship, and we have instances at York, Southwell, Lincoln, and Beverley. The 

 attachment of a canonry for this purpose is quite exceptional and shows a remarkable zeal for educa- 

 tion on the part of the learned Cantabrigian. By statutes made 1 8 February, 1497-8, he, with the 

 assent and consent of the dean and chapter, converted into an endowment of the grammar school 

 the prebend of Highley, getting the then canon or prebendary to resign, and appointing a new pre- 

 bendary who, being expressly described as B.A., was no doubt a schoolmaster. 



The bishop fulminates at considerable length on the causes which induced him to found the 

 school, namely the wickedness of the clergy due to their ignorance, which he speaks of in almost as 

 strong terms as did Alfred the Great in his day, showing that it was perhaps somewhat of a common 

 form. 



Having not seldom before our eyes the immeasurable ignorance 01 our subject priests, and the 

 excessive promotion of wicked priests too often made heretofore in our diocese of Chichester through 

 the scarcity of good ones, since daily many evils arise therefrom, because as the holy page bears witness 

 (Luke vi) If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch ; wherefore the Canon Law (textus 

 Jecrett) under the heading Ignorance (Distinction 38) says 'Ignorance the mother of all errors is 

 especially to be avoided in the priests of God who have taken on themselves the office of teaching 

 among the people of God.' . . . Thinking how to meet the evils recited, since by the office imposed 

 on us we are bound to provide for the health of our subjects as far as possible, at length we have come 

 to the conclusion that an increase of the knowledge of grammar would be the best remedy for the evils 

 aforesaid. For grammar, which hath but little flourished hitherto in these shores, as Peronius bears 

 witness, is profitable for eternal salvation as in the Canon law ' If anyone grammar' (Distinction 37), 

 where the text ends ' But the teaching of Grammarians is able also to profit for life eternal if it be 

 taken up for the best purposes.' Therefore we have thought well for the purpose of constituting a 

 perpetual Grammar School in this city of Chichester invoking first the name of Christ to proceed in 

 manner following. 



After this highly rhetorical preamble he goes on to make his statutes ' for us and our suc- 

 cessors with the express assent and consent of the Dean and Chapter and of Sir Nicholas Taverner 

 now canon and prebendary of Highley in our cathedral church of Chichester.' 



Whenever after this our ordinance the canonry and prebend of Highley fall vacant . . the 

 Dean and Chapter or the majority of them shall nominate to us or our successors for the said canonry 

 and prebend a priest well and sufficiently instructed in grammar and other good literature and fit to 

 teach and experienced in fulfilling the duty of teaching ; and on him shall without any inconvenient 

 delay be conferred the canonry and prebend of Highley with the charge as aforesaid of teaching in our 

 Grammar School of Chichester according to our ordinance and statutes hereunder written. 



The bishop might refuse their nominee, but he was obliged to appoint some one named by 

 them, and if any other appointment was made it was to be void. If the bishop failed to collate the 



"P.C.C. Logge,fbl. 93. 

 402 



