Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, founded a college at Higham Ferrers, his birthplace, in the last year of King Henry V., for a master, six secular chaplains, four clerks, and six choristers; of these, “unus eorundem capellanorum sive clericorum ad grammaticam, et alius capellanus sive clericus de eisdem capellanis sive clericis ad cantum instruendum et docendum ibidem deputetur et assignetur.”[669] The act of Chicheley in making his schoolmasters an integral part of the foundation marks an advance on Wykeham, who made them stipendiary officers only.[670]
An institution, which was of the nature of a hospital rather than a college, was founded in 1432, at Ewelme, by the Earl of Suffolk. It consisted of an almshouse for two chaplains and thirteen poor men,[671] and to the almshouse a grammar school was attached. The school statutes provide that the schoolmaster was to be “a well disposed man, apte and able to techyng of grammar to whose office it shall long and perteyne diligently to teche and inform chylder in the faculte of gramer, provyded that all the chylder of our chapelle, of the tenauntes of our lordshyp of Ewelme and of the lordshypes perteyning to the said Almesse Howse, now present and at alle tymes to com, frely be tawt without exaccion of any scole-hir.”[672]
In 1432, John Kempe, at that time Archbishop of York and afterwards Cardinal, obtained a licence from Henry VI., to establish a college for celebrating divine service and for the education of the youth in the parish of Wye.[673] The college was to consist of “a maister and six priests, two clerks and two queristers and over that a maister of grammar that shal frely teche withoutyn anything takyng of hem al thos that wol come to his techyng.”[674]
At Tattershall, in Lincolnshire, a college was founded and endowed by Sir Ralph Cromwell, in 1439. It consisted of a warden, six priests, six clerks, six choristers, and an almshouse for thirteen poor persons. The existence at this college of a master of grammar and of a master of the choristers can be traced.[675]
We now pass to consider the two chief colleges which were founded prior to the Act of 1547 which brought about their dissolution—Acaster College and Rotherham College.
The original documents of the foundations of Acaster College do not appear to be extant. No reference to the college is made in the Monasticon. A private Act of Parliament passed in 1483 for the purpose of settling a dispute relating to a question of enclosure, which had arisen, recites that the college was founded[676] by Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and that this foundation included “three dyvers Maisters and Informatours in the faculteies underwritten; that is to witt; oon of theym to teche Gramer, another to teche Musyk and Song, and the third to teche to Write, and all suche thing as belonged to Scrivener Craft, to all maner of persons of whatsoever Cuntre they be within the Reame of Englond ... openly, and freely without exaction of money or other thyngs of any of their suche Scholars and Disciples.”[677]
The chantry certificate relating to this college stated that:—
“There ys a provost and three fellows being all preistes whereof one dothe kepe a free scole of grammar according to the foundacion.”[678]
Full information is available of the foundation of a college at Rotherham, by Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, under licence of Jan. 22nd, 1483.[679]
In the college statutes[680] the founder stated that he would have grown up “unlearned, unlettered, and rude,” if by chance a “vir in gramatica doctus” had not come to the neighbourhood and thus made it possible for those who were desirous of doing so, to learn the elements of grammar. In order, therefore, to provide for the youth of the future, he had established a college to consist of a provost, three fellows, and six scholar-choristers.