A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Roman schoolmaster's grammatical works, published 1487-1506, Sallust, Ovid's Metamorphoses, 

 Virgil's Eclogues, Cicero's Letters. They did Latin verses and wrote Latin epistles and Latin 

 prose. Form III read Aesop's Fables and Lucian's Dialogues in Latin. Forms II and I did the 

 Babies' Book or Parvulorum, and Vocabula or Word Book of John Stanbridge, a Wykehamist predecessor 

 of Twychener's, head master first of Magdalen College School at Oxford and then of Banbury. 

 The Babees" Book was a humane production, being a first Latin book in English, instead of in 

 Latin, as had previously been the case. 



Twychener gave up the school and prebend of Highley for the prebend of Wittering and its 

 theological lectureship in 1538. The next master we hear of was Anthony Clarke, B.D., in 1541. 

 Clarke in his Oxford days was a Cistercian monk at St. Bernard's College. At the dissolution of 

 the monasteries he became a secular priest. The Certificate of the Chantry Commissioners in 1548 

 returned 14 



in the cathedrall churche in Chichester, Anthony Clarke, scholemaister prebendarie in the said churche 

 of the prebend called Vyley impropried [i.e. impropriated] for a gramer schole for ever 13 whereof 

 the said prebendary of his benevolens alloweth towarde the fyndyng of an usher yerely 4. Also the 

 Deane and Chapter have graunted and paid syns Michaelmas 'anno primo Regis Edwardi Sexti ' to the 

 finding of the said usher 5 3/. i^d., and have graunted to continewe the same accordinglie out of the 

 lyving of the said Deane and Chapiter for ever. 



For ever, however, is a long day ; and the dean and chapter have not thought fit to make this pay- 

 ment for many years. In this, as in so many other cases, the deans and chapters of the Reformation 

 era showed a zeal for higher education which their modern successors have by no means imitated. 

 Anthony Clarke retired to the prebend of Firle in 1550. 



His successor, Thomas Garbard, admitted to the prebend 26 July, 1550, bore a name which 

 had many variants at the hands of the scribes, occurring as Harbarde and Jarbarde. He was an 

 Oxford man, B.A. 16 May, 1526, M.A. 26 March, 1533-4. It was, no doubt, in view of the 

 approaching retirement of Anthony Clarke, and the intention to appoint Garbard, who was not a 

 priest, as his successor, that on 26 July, 1550, the then bishop, George Day, in due form, with the 

 consent of the dean and chapter and the then prebendary, made an amending statute abolishing the 

 requirement of priesthood and mass-saying. ' We George the bishop aforesaid,' says the statute, 

 in words which the governing bodies of the public schools would do well to ponder, 



greatly desiring . . . that a devout honest and learned man should be from time to time preferred to 

 the prebend with the duty of teaching the said school . . . considering that this duty can fitly enough 

 belong not only to priests but also to other educated men (litteratii) sufficiently instructed and fit to 

 teach, and that ... a worthier and fitter person may be elected and the election can be from a larger 

 number than if it was only from the order of the priesthood 



and considering also that the masses specified are no longer performed, therefore the dean and chapter 

 might nominate and present ' a priest or any other man whomsoever honest discreet and learned in 

 grammar sufficiently instructed and fitted for teaching and willing to teach.' 



This one and only lay prebendary, however, only held office for four years, when, probably 

 because of the Marian reaction, he left to become head master of Guildford Grammar School, then 

 lately" re-established with a new endowment under a charter of Edward VI, 27 January, 1553, 

 with 20 a year and a new school building, which he held for ten years. 



One unfortunate result of the schoolmaster being a canon and a member of the chapter 

 was that the chapter had nothing to do with paying him and nothing to do with the management 

 of the school ; as even in case of neglect of duty on his part it was hardly to be expected that they 

 would interfere with their own colleague. Consequently the usual reservoir of the history of a 

 cathedral grammar school, the Chapter Act Books, even when they begin to be extant, afford 

 us no information. 



The Chapter Accounts 16 which begin in 1555 show us that here as elsewhere there is not the 

 smallest foundation for the convenient theory advanced by deans and chapters and their advocates 

 that the grammar school was a choristers' school. In 1554 the accountant credits himself with 

 payment to Richard Basse, vicar choral but a layman, together with the rest of the sums usually 

 allowed him every term, viz. for nine stalls and for the teaching of the choristers, for the anthem of 

 Our Lady and for keeping the library, 231. 5</. So in the whole to the same for the four quarters of 

 this year 4 131. 8d.' He also charges 17 'For the stipend of Richard Basse, master (mformatort) of 



" A. F. Leach, EngRsh Schools at the Reformation, 223, from Chant. Cert, co No 2 



15 V.C.H. Surrey, \\, 166-7. 



" White Book, fol. zb. I am indebted to Canon Deedes for these items. 



17 Ibid. fol. 4. 



406 



