A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



BEDFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



In nine cases out of ten, grammar schools reputed to be foundations of King Henry VIII, or 

 any of his children who succeeded him on the throne, will be found to have existed before — in many 

 cases centuries before. 



Bedford Grammar School is a striking example of this. Four hundred years before the days of 

 William ' Harpur ' and Alice his wife, its reputed founders under Queen Elizabeth, two hundred 

 years before the beginning even of New College, Oxford, on which Edward VI by charter conferred 

 the appointment of the master, whom Harper afterwards endowed, there is evidence of the existence 

 of Bedford School. It is evidence, too, of a kind which suggests that the school was then ancient, 

 and existed probably before the Conquest, or, at all events, before the great record of the Conquest, 

 the Domesday Book of 1086. As such the writer ventured to claim it in a chronological table of the 

 schools mentioned in the still extant chantry certificates.^ But let no one therefore proceed to claim 

 Bedford as ' our oldest school,' for it is not. There is no direct evidence of the existence of Bedford 

 School before the Conquest, whereas, to mention no more, there is direct evidence of the existence 

 of Warwick School in the days of Edward the Confessor, York School in the days of Archbishop 

 Egbert in 735, and of a school in Kent, which cannot be other than Canterbury School, in 

 the days of King Edwin a hundred years before that. 



Suffice it for the antiquity of Bedford that its existence is demonstrated in a copy of a 

 document of the twelfth century, preserved in writing of the fifteenth century, which brings 

 it into connexion with the Collegiate Church of St. Paul, Bedford, which ceased to exist about 

 the year 11 62. The document in question is a writ which runs, when translated from its 

 original Latin, thus : — 



To all the sons of holy Mother Church, Nicholas, Archdeacon of Bedford, greeting. Know 

 ye all that the chapel of St. Mary of Bedford with the tithes of Hordelhide and Bedford School 

 {jcolas' Bed.), which I have held for some time {aRquamdiu) with the consent of my fellow- 

 canons, I confess to be of the right and appurtenant to St. Paul's Church, Bedford. And therefore I 

 have voluntarily resigned it to Auger, Prior, and the convent of canons regular of that church : before 

 these witnesses : 



But in the chartulajy' of the canons regular of Newnham Priory, in which this document 

 occurs, ' these witnesses ' are not named. 



We are fortunately able to fix pretty closely the date of this undated deed by what is known 

 of Archdeacon Nicholas himself. In the library of Lincoln Cathedral is an ancient Bible,* pre- 

 served in its original oaken boards, and inscribed in it is, ' Nicholas, canon and archdeacon, gave this 

 book {bibUothecam) in two volumes to St. Mary's, Lincoln.' The donor was probably our Nicholas, 

 archdeacon of Bedford. The first volume, which alone is now extant, contains towards the end 

 (p. 203) an obituary or list of death-days of persons whose anniversaries were celebrated in the 

 cathedral church of St. Mary of Lincoln. On 31 March is entered the obit of 'Nicholas, arch- 

 deacon of Bedford, who gave St. Mary a missal and gilt chalice and [a set of] priests' vestments.' A 

 page or two later this Bible contains ' a list of canons, then fifty-six in number, which Canon 

 Wordsworth places in 1 1 84, and it does not contain our archdeacon, but does contain ' Laurence 

 archdeacon,' who was archdeacon of Bedford. Nicholas therefore was dead by 1184. On the 

 other hand. Archdeacon Nicholas does not appear in the division of the Psalter among the then forty- 

 four canons, dated in 1 145.' Nicholas must therefore have been appointed archdeacon between that 

 year and about 1 156, when he witnessed' the foundation deed of Chicksands Priory. 



In investigating the purport of Nicholas's deed we may be able to fix its date a little more 

 closely. But the question at once arises, ' Why did the archdeacon of Bedford say that Bedford 

 School was a right or property of St. Paul's Church, Bedford, and was resigned to the prior and 

 canons regular of that church, and who were they ? ' Thereby hangs a tale which is vital to 

 the whole history of early schools. The answer to the question is that St. Paul's was originally a 



' A. F. Leach, Engl. Schools at the Reformation, pt. i, 89, pt. ii, 322. 



' The plural is generally used for a single school up to about 1450. 



' Newenham Cart. Karl. MS. 3656, fol. 94 (88 pencil). ' Recognicio quod decime de Hordelhide et scole 

 Bed. sunt de jure ecclesie S. Pauli Bed.— Universis S.M. ecclesie filiis Nicholaus Archidiaconus Bedfordensis 

 salutem. Noverit universitas vestra quod capellam 8. Marie de Bedfordia cum decimis de Hordelhida et 

 scolas Bed. quas ego aliquamdiu assensu concanonicorum meorum in manu habui confiteor esse de jure et per- 

 tinencia ecclesie S. Pauli Bed. Et ideo eas Augerio Priori et conventui canonicorum regularium eiusdem 

 ecclesie sponte mea resignavi.' 



* Christopher Wordsworth, Line. Cath. Statutes, pt. ii, ccxxxiv and 787. 



' It)'^- 793- " Ibid. 789. ' y.CH. Beds, i, 3 1 3. 



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