Parvise seems to have been a porch, used as a school or place for disputation. The parvise mentioned in the Oxford "Little-Go" (Responsions) Testamur is alluded to in Bishop Cooper's book against Private Mass (published by the Parker Society). He ridicules his opponent's arguments as worthy of "a sophister in the parvyse schools." The Serjeant-at-law, in Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, had been often at the paruise. In some notes on this character in a number of the Penny Magazine for 1840 or 1841, it is farther remarked that the choristers of Norwich Cathedral were formerly taught in the parvise, i. e. porch. The chamber over a porch in some churches may have been the school meant. Instances of this arrangement were to be found at Doncaster Church (where it was used as a library), and at Sherborne Abbey Church. The porch here was Norman, and the chamber Third Pointed; and at the restoration lately effected the pitch of the roof was raised, and the chamber removed.
B. A. Oxon.
Oxford University.
I believe that the parvisus, or paradisus of the Responsions Testamur, is the pro-scholium of the divinity school, otherwise called the "pig-market," from its site having been so occupied up to the year 1554. This is said to be the locality in which the Responsions were formerly held.
It is ordered by the statutes, tit. vi.,—
"Quod priusquam quis ad Gradum Baccalaurei in Artibus admittatur, in Parviso semel Quæstionibus Magistrorum Scholarum respondeat."
However, they go on to direct, "Locus hisce Responsionibus assignetur Schola Metaphysices;" and there they are at present held. (See the Glossary to Tyrwhitt's Chaucer; and also Parker's Glossary of Architecture, ad voc. "Parvise.")
Cheverells.
The term parvise, though used in somewhat different senses by old writers, appears to mean strictly a porch or antechamber. Your correspondent Oxoniensis will find in Parker's Glossary ample information respecting this word, with references to various writers, showing the different meanings which have been attached to it. "Responsions," or the preliminary examinations at Oxford, are said to be held in parviso; that is, in the porch, as it were, or antechamber before the schools, which are the scene of the greater examinations for the degree.
H. C. K.