the close, nor hath any such school near unto it adjoining founded by any person." The emphasis is no doubt on the word "free." There was already an obligation to keep a grammar school. The reference to neighbouring schools is aimed at such a case as Winchester, in which cathedral alone, of Henry VIII.'s foundations, no provision was made for a grammar school on account of "that famous foundation of Bishop Wickham" hard by, or as S. Paul's, where Dean Colet's Free School had absorbed the old Cathedral School. Where there was no free grammar school, one was to be maintained out of the common fund of the church, with stipends for the master of twenty marks (13 6s. 8d.) and a house, for the usher half that and a chamber free. The Chapter were also to see that every chorister who had served for five years was, when his voice broke, sent to a grammar school with an exhibition of £3 6s. 8d. a year. A provision of this kind had already been made by Henry VIII. in the cathedrals of his new foundation. It was now extended to cathedrals like York and Lincoln. The injunction as to the grammar school being free would not have been operative in the case of York, if the Cathedral Grammar School was, as one suspects, not free, for Archbishop Holgate's own Free Grammar School in the close had been founded only a few months before.

In 1552 Archbishop Holgate, holding a visitation of the minster, directed "that the deacons," if they did not “apply themselves to the grammar school daily after three monitions," or "not applying their books for their better advancement in learning," were to be expelled. It is clear, therefore, that the Cathedral Grammar School was still going on, and that the younger members of the cathedral staff, far above choir-boys in age and position, were required to attend it.

The injunctions of Edward VI. and of Archbishop Holgate are evidence enough, if evidence were really needed, that the Reformers were anxious to preserve the grammar schools. The Catholics under Queen Mary were no less interested in learning. Both parties in fact were eager to "capture the schools." At the Synod of Westminster, held under the legatine authority of Cardinal Pole in 1555 (Wilkins' Concilia. iv. 125), it was decreed (p. 235) that "in every cathedral church a certain number of boys, a kind of seminary, according to the revenue of each, shall be maintained and taught free." They were to be taught grammar and instructed in the discipline of the church. They were to be in two classes, the elder to be acolytes and to be promoted to benefices when of age, the others to succeed them. "Other boys of the same

city and diocese may be taught grammar and letters with them, provided only that they be of gentle birth (honesti) and use the same clothing and mode of life (moribus); and these may be admitted to the places of the clerks, if any for any reason are wanted." To provide the funds both to pay the masters and keep the boys, all archbishops and bishops were to pay th of their net incomes, after deducting tithes, tenths, and other outgoings, and all holders of benefices of £20 a year and upwards were to pay the same, the bishop and chapter to nominate the collectors. Whether this magnificent scheme, which would have endowed in an adequate way the schools in all the cathedral cities, was ever really put into operation, I am not aware. It seems to have been sufficient, the Archbishop of York being Chancellor, to put pressure on the Dean and Chapter of York to do something to supply the want of the 50 boys boarded in the close of S. Mary's Abbey. With this end they procured the appropriation to themselves for the purposes of the school of an old hospital known as the Bootham or Horsefair Hospital, from its lying in the open space of ground outside Bootham Bar, used for the horse fair.

This hospital had been founded by a Dean of York, Master Robert of Pickering, a considerable lawyer, who was also a canon of Beverley, where he looms largely in the Chapter Act Book (edited by me for the Surtees Society). He was, Canon Raine informed me, one of the Bruces of Pickering, who on taking orders dropped his family for his place name, like the Percy who was Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln in the next century. The date of foundation is very oddly given in one Chantry Certificate (p. 41) as 12 Edward II., 2 March, 1330, while in another the chantries connected with it are said to have been founded, one by Archbishop William Melton, the other by Robert and William Pickering. 12 Edward II. would be 1318-9. 1330 would be the fourth year of Edward III. The undated ordinance (p. 33) of Archbishop William, if it belongs to 1330, must be Melton's, and if it belongs to 12 Edward II. must be Archbishop William Greenfield's. It is more probable that 12 Edward II. is the correct date, as the Inquisition ad quod damnum was taken 29 Sept., 8 Edward II., 1314. (No. 137). The Inquisition shows that even before that time the site was dedicated to pious uses, being described as a "chapel of the Blessed Mary where the Prior and Friars of the Order of the Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel used to live." The Ordinance shows that the hospital was founded for a master to act as chaplain, and,

two other chaplains to pray for the soul of Edward II., Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield, the archbishops and canons of York, Mr. Robert Pickering and Mr. William Pickering, (who preceded him as dean), Thomas of Fishborn and all the faithful departed; and "for 6 other chaplains old and sick, not able to perform divine service." The master was to perform service daily. He was to pay £10 a year to the sub-treasurer of the minster for two chaplains, chantry priests, to be called "parsons" (as were the other chantry priests of York) to pray one for the archbishop and his successors, the other for the two Pickerings and the rest. It is in virtue of this chantry that the Chantry Certificate has converted Melton the recipient of the benefit into a founder. The sick chaplains were to have a shilling a week, about £1 of our money, for commons, the same as a fellow of Winchester College, and 6s. 8d. a year for clothes. The two hospital chantry chaplains were to have 24s. a year for clothes. endowment was the Rectory of Styvelingeflete, or Stillingfleet, the rector of which was pensioned off with £26 13s. 4d. a year, and a vicar was established instead. At the time of the Valor Ecclesiasticus, 1535, and the Chantry Certificate, 1548, the two chantry priests in the minster were duly paid, and also the two chaplains in the hospital were duly found, but the six decayed chaplains, or, as the certificate puts it, the "six lame priests not able to minister" were not found, for the possessions will not extend thereto." The master, how

The

ever, pocketed the residue, 11 6s. 8d. The master was Mr. Thomas Magnus, a noted diplomatist of the day, who had some very fine possessions, being also master of S. Leonard's Hospital (p. 38), which brought him in about £200 a year, or £4,000 of our money, sacrist or warden of the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, a destroyed collegiate church built against the north wall of the minster, archdeacon of the East Riding, and holding many other preferments in other cathedral, collegiate, and parish churches. He used his wealth, among other purposes, for the munificent endowment (for he was not as commonly reputed, the founder) of the Grammar and Song Schools at his native place, Newark, Notts.

By Mary's reign Magnus was dead, and Robert Johnson, Bachelor of Canon Law, was master. The dean and chapter therefore petitioned the authorities for the grant of this hospital to the school. It took a vast number of documents to effect the transformation. First came a licence in mortmain from the Crown for the master and fellows of the hospital to grant, and the dean and chapter to receive the hospital. The letters

C

patent bear eloquent testimony to the state of the hospital. "For many years past, partly through the malice of the times, partly through the negligence of men, or rather their inexhaustible greed, the original foundation of the hospital has been ignored, and it has long remained empty, so that while retaining the name of hospital it has lost all the merit of a hospital and place of pity, and no hospitality is kept in it, no poor are there maintained, and lastly no beauty of divine worship is there preserved, but all the revenues of the same hospital are improperly converted to the use of a master and 2 chaplains always living away from the hospital, and probably beneficed elsewhere; and the chapel there, as the remains of it show, fairly built and to which a sufficient number of ministers was assigned, is so rent and ruined in walls, structure, and roof that it cannot easily be repaired and restored to its original purpose; to the injury of its founders and the peril of the souls of those who thus abuse it." A perusal of the Chantry Certificates shows that this description might have been applied to many another hospital in the country. In case after case we read that there are no sick or poor, and the master, or sometimes the master and fellows, take the whole income. In the case of lepers' hospitals of course there was a bonâ fide failure of the objects of the trust; but in hospitals for the sick and the poor there was no such excuse. The Savoy Hospital in London was a notable example. The desertion of the Horsefair Hospital was solemnly proved by witnesses before the archbishop's vicar-general (p. 57). According to them the very chambers in which the chaplains and poor were to lie were very ruinous and almost fallen to the ground," "the rents and profits had been let on long leases," and, it is said, somewhat inconsistently, that "Lord Wharton and Sir Thomas Curwen and other laymen hired the hospital from the master for the time being, and lived in it as renters at certain times and not otherwise." They used it in fact as a town house. Under these circumstances, the master and two fellows (who received pensions for life) and the patrons, Lord Eure, Thomas Egglesfield of Barton in the Willows, gentleman, and Richard Marshall, gentleman, consenting, the Crown found no difficulty in granting the licence to the dean and chapter to convert the Hospital into a grammar school " SO that in the cathedral church and elsewhere divine worship, almost vanished in the past time of pernicious schism, may be more becomingly adorned." The dean and chapter were to found the school "in or near the city of York, in such place as they might think fit," with a

CONVERSION OF HOSPITAL TO SCHOOL..

XXXV

master or pedagogue and a sub-pedagogue or under master, ludi magistrum seu pedagogum, unumque sub pedagogum vel hipodidasculum, as they are called in the affected language of the period. The scholars were in no way limited, being "boys and youths of this kingdom," and were to be taught gratis. The school was to be "called the School of the Cathedral Church of S. Peter of York,' and to depend solely and wholly on the same church as a member on its head." The dean and chapter were to make statutes with the approval of the archbishop. They were also at liberty to receive further endowments under the Act 1 and 2 Philip and Mary suspending the Statute of Mortmain "for the grant of lands to holy places for twenty years."

Next came the grant by the master and fellows of the hospital dated 5 April; the letter of attorney by the dean and chapter to receive "livery of seisin," or in modern parlance, to take possession, on 30 April; with note of delivery to Mr. George Williamson, canon and prebendary, on 3 May.

On 30 April the dean and chapter also executed the foundation-deed (erectio) of the grammar school. Their preamble is interesting:

"Among other works of piety by which it is fitting that we should be moved, that is of the first consideration, and first to be desired, by which the Christian religion may be propagated, and by which in the church militant shepherds may everywhere be preferred who with the sword of the spirit, that is the word of God, may be able to drive away and put to flight the rapacious wolves, that is, devilish men ill underunderstanding the Catholic faith, from the sheepfolds of the sheep intrusted to them, which object we hope may be more easily attained if the giddy and ignorant youth is kept in tight reins by the work of schoolmasters, and having been exercised alike in letters and learning as in sound morality may afterwards pass into the broad field of sacred and canonical literature and emerge learned." So welcoming Pole's synodical decree they founded a grammar school (scolam gramaticalem) of fifty boys, "if the rents of the school are sufficient, to be taught in our house, late called the Hospital of Blessed Mary outside Bootham Bar of the City of York, called in the vulgar tongue the Horse Fair."

All was not yet done. Papal and archiepiscopal sanction were needed for the appropriation of a hospital for the poor to the chapter and its school. This, however, had already been provided for. On 15th March letters had been written by Cardinal Pole, as legate a latere, to the Archbishop of York,