In the report of the Commissioners of 1548 Giggleswick is recorded as having three chantries. There was the Chantry of Our Lady, the incumbent of which, Richard Somerskayle, is described as "lx yeres of age, somewhat learned" and enjoying the annual rent of £4. The Tempest Chantry with Thomas Thomson as incumbent 70 yeres old and "unlearned." The Chantry of the Rode, "Richard Carr, Incombent, 32 yeres of age, well learned and teacheth a gramer schole there, lycensed to preach, hath none other lyving than the proffitts of the said chauntrie." The net value of the chantry was £5 15s.
Richard Carr was a nephew of the founder and from the description of his two fellow chaplains he was evidently superior to the ordinary chantry priest. They were "unlearned," "somewhat learned," he was "well learned" and "lycensed to preach." For all that the chantry lands were taken from him, but the School was not dissolved: he was maintained as a Schoolmaster by a stipend of the annual value of £5 6s. 8d. charged on the crown revenues of York "for the good educacyon of the abbondaunt yought in those rewde parties."
The population of Giggleswick, which as a parish included Settle, Rathmell, Langcliffe and Stainforth, was roughly 2,400 and at the beginning of the nineteenth century was unaltered. Such a population was too "abbondaunt" for one man to teach, particularly if he took boarders, and it is not surprising to find in the report of 1548 the following paragraph:
"A some of money geven for the meyntenance of scholemaster there. The said John Malhome and one Thomas Husteler, disseased, dyd gyve ... the some of £24 13s. 4d. towards the meyntenance of a Scholemaister there for certen yeres, whereupon one Thomas Iveson, preist, was procured to be Scholemaister there, which hath kept a Scole theis three yeres last past and hath receyved every yere for his stypend after the rate of £4, which is in the holle, £12."
"And so remayneth £12 13s. 4d."
John Malhome was probably the brother of William, who in 1516 had sent James Smith to be a boarder at the School, and, as he was a resident in the neighbourhood and was a "preist," perhaps a chantry priest at Giggleswick, his interest in the School is not unnatural.
Thomas Husteler had an even more adequate reason for leaving money to pay the stipend of a Schoolmaster, for he had been priest of the Chantry of the Rood, and had been wont to "pray for the sowle of the founder (James Carr) and all Cristen sowles and to synge Mass every Friday of the name of Jhesu and of the Saterday of our Lady." He had also to be "sufficientlie sene in playnsonge and gramer and to helpe dyvyne service in the church."
Thus in addition to his chantry duties he had to perform the double office of Grammer and Song Schoolmaster, and the work proving too heavy for him he left money to provide the maintenance of a second Master. Thomas Iveson received this money and probably acted either as an Usher or as Song Schoolmaster. Many schools in England employed a Master to teach music but during the sixteenth century a change was gradually taking place. Many Song Schools ceased to exist and everywhere the song master became of less importance. In 1520 Horman had written "No man can be a grammarian without a knowledge of music;" Roger Ascham, although he quoted with approval Galen's maxim "Much music marreth man's manners" considered that its study within certain limits was useful; and in 1561 Mulcaster declared that all elementary schools should teach Reading, Writing, Drawing and Music. Music then was no longer a part of the general curriculum, but was chiefly restricted to the Cathedral Choir Schools, where the young chorister had a career opened up for him either in the church or as a member of a troupe of boy-actors. It is therefore of some interest to find that in 1548 the Master at Giggleswick had a knowledge of plainsong as well as grammar.
