St. Mary-le-Bow Grammar School
The history of the school of St. Mary-le-Bow is unfortunately soon exhausted. The only references to it, apart from the various mentions of it in connection with the two other privileged schools, which I have been able to find, are in the Archbishop’s Register at Lambeth. The first of these is an order from Archbishop Robert Winchelsea,[[84]] September 25, 1309, settling a dispute as to the right of appointment of the schoolmaster. It is addressed “To our official,” i.e. the Official Principal or Judge of the Archbishop’s Consistory Court. The archbishop says that he had received a petition from “Mr. John, rector of the Grammar School (scolarum gramaticalium) of the Church of the Blessed Mary le Bow (de arcubus) London,” showing that he had been appointed master of the school by the Dean of the church (the Dean of the Arches, as he is now called), to whom “by ancient and hitherto peacefully observed custom the order and government and appointment of Master is well known to belong.” But “after he had quietly taught (rexerit) the school,” the Official, “wishing to change this custom,” had appointed one Mr. Robert Cotoun and removed Mr. John. The Archbishop informed the Official that, if the facts were as stated, he was to let Mr. John enjoy the teaching of the said school freely.
The fact that the patronage of the school was vested in the Dean of Arches explains why we do not find appointments of the master in the Archbishop’s Registers as we do in the case of the Canterbury Grammar School. On March 23, 1382/3, however, an entry in Archbishop Courtney’s Register shows him committing to “his beloved son, William Poklyngton, clerk, the teaching and governance of the Grammar School of the deanery of our Church of Blessed Mary of the Arches now vacant and to our disposition belonging,” and appointing him master of the same school. The peculiar form of the appointment suggests that it was made by the Archbishop either because the deanery was vacant, or because the appointment had lapsed to him in default of the Dean. For some reason unknown this entry is cancelled in the original MS.
On October 4, 1399, Archbishop Arundel[[85]] “at his manor of Lambeth”—it is never called a palace in ancient documents; his “palace” was at Canterbury—in like manner “committed the teaching and governance of the Grammar School of the Arches of London with all its rights and appurtenances in the Deanery of the Arches” to “Mr. Thomas Barym, master in grammar.”
The school was clearly still in existence in 1446, when it is mentioned among the five grammar schools authorised by the ordinance of the ecclesiastical authorities, confirmed by Henry VI. Letters Patent of that year to be discussed later. These Letters Patent were interpreted by Stow[[86]] into a creation of the school of St. Mary-le-Bow. “In this parish,” he says, “was a Grammar-School by commandment of Henry VI., which school was of old time kept in a house for that purpose prepared in the churchyard, but that school being decayed, as others about the city, the school house was let out for rent, in the reign of King Henry the 8th for 4s. a year, a cellar for 2s. a year, and two vaults underneath the church for 15s. both.” It is probable, however, from the terms of the Letters Patent, that the school was held actually in the church, since St. Paul’s School is expressly described as being in the churchyard, while this school is, with equal exactness, described as being in the church.