A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



(Rev. P. Brown) ceased to use the topmost story, and turned the washing room into a schoolroom, 

 as it still remains. Adjoining the school on the east is the prebendary's house, and east again the 

 sub-dean's residence. Both houses were rebuilt in the latter part of the eighteenth century at the 

 cost of the prebendary of Highley and the sub-dean respectively. The bequest of the sub-dean's 

 tenant to the schoolmaster in 1479 therefore strongly supports the theory that the school was on 

 the same spot before Story's gift. 



Lastly, the bishop gave to the bishopric all the tenements and lands in the town ot Amberley 

 and in the fields of the episcopal manor of Amberley which he had bought of John and William 

 Symonds. The grant was 



on condition that every bishop will well and inviolably observe and keep as far as in them lies, and will 

 cause to be observed and kept by others as far as possible, the ordinance and statutes concerning 

 the canonry and prebend and our grammar school ; and if our successors have not done or observed 

 the premises but break or impugn or change or contravene them in part or in whole then 



the lands were to go over to the dean and chapter to hold to themselves 'in pure and per- 

 petual alms.' 



It is difficult to see how in view of this clause Bishop Day in 1550 and Bishop Carr in 1828 or 

 Bishop Durnford in 1880 could validly make any change, as they purported to do, in these statutes ; 

 especially in the direction of imposing restrictions on the openness of the school or in limiting the 

 number of free scholars, confining them to churchmen or imposing fees on them. Nothing but an 

 overriding power derived from an Act of Parliament could do it, or can do it now. 



It was stated by Mackenzie Walcott, and has been repeated by Dr. Swainson and others, that 

 the effect of the annexation of the prebend to the school was ' to relieve ' the chancellor ' from his 

 duty' of teaching. But it is quite clear from the facts quoted that already in 1232 the chancellor 

 had relieved himself of this duty, by devolving it on a deputy, just as the precentor had relieved him- 

 self of the duty of teaching singing by devolving it on his deputy the master of the choristers. In 

 the absence of documents we cannot ascertain what the chancellor paid his deputy the grammar 

 schoolmaster ; but no doubt it was a sum settled at the latter part of the twelfth century or begin- 

 ning of the thirteenth century which had become quite inadequate by lapse of time and change in the 

 value of money. If a guess may be hazarded, it was somewhere about 2 a year. In other secular 

 cathedrals and colleges, as Lincoln and York, Southwell and Beverley, the difficulty of lack of 

 endowment was met by the grammar schoolmaster being also a chantry priest or vicar choral ; 

 while he also charged fees. Story met it more efficiently, and in a way more in accord with the dignity 

 of the office of schoolmaster, not by making an inferior officer of the cathedral master ad hoc, but by 

 permanently making the master one of its governing body, a canon and prebendary himself, and 

 making the school free, forbidding him to take tuition fees. At St. Paul's, London, twelve years 

 later, Colet took the more revolutionary course of severing the school from the cathedral body 

 altogether, and with papal, episcopal, and capitular sanction giving it over with a new endowment to 

 an outside body, the Mercers' Company. In the result that has proved the more excellent way. 

 But Story's was probably the more effective at the time. 



It has been questioned whether Bishop Story and his chapter had power to annex a prebend to 

 the school, but there seems to be no doubt about it. Similar statutes so made by Bishop Ralph in 

 1224-44 had annexed the prebend of Wittering to a theological lectureship, directing that it should 

 always be given to an actually teaching theologian (theologo actualiter /(genii), and it was conferred on 

 Mr. William Ruffus, theologian (i.e. D.D.), with the duty of lecturing (cum onere /egendi), and these 

 statutes were, on appeal to the archbishop of Canterbury in 1259, confirmed as binding, and again 

 by Pope Gregory XI in 1373. Story was a learned canonist, and no doubt was well acquainted 

 with the canon of the Lateran Council in 1275, which directed that in every cathedral and col- 

 legiate church of sufficient means a prebend should be assigned to a grammar schoolmaster ; and in 

 this case he carried it out literally. At all events, for 400 years since that date it has been a school 

 endowment in virtue of these statutes, and it is too late to say they were invalid. 



The first schoolmaster-prebendary was Nicholas Wykley, B.A., whose nomination by the 

 chapter on 14 December, 1497, ' s contained in the statutes. He may perhaps be identified with 

 Master Wakle, 11 who paid 2cW. on incepting in Arts at Cambridge in January, 1481-2, as the 

 Cambridge bishop is pretty sure to have selected his first nominee from his own university. He does 

 not seem to have stayed long. In 1500 John Holt was appointed. There is good reason to think 

 that this John Holt was the well-known author of the first Latin grammar in English. The 

 dates fit, as he was John Holt of the county of Sussex, B.A., admitted probationer fellow of 

 Magdalen College, Oxford, 27 July, 1490, actual fellow 26 July, 1491. About 1494 he was 

 usher of Magdalen College School, but he is said to have resigned about 1495. As a dis- 



11 Camb. Grace Bk. A. i6z. He is printed Walle in the text, but starred in the index as being properly 

 read Wakle. 



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