Education, Ashford College and the Other Late Medieval Collegiate Churches of Kent

75 EDUCATION, AshfOrD COllEgE AND ThE OThEr lATE mEDIEvAl COllEgIATE ChUrChEs Of kENT gillian draper This article is based on a talk on Ashford College given by the author to the Friends of St Mary’s, Ashford, in 2002 and now updated. It also discusses the general character of collegiate churches including reference to the five other Kentish Colleges founded in the later Middle Ages. The role of Sir John Fogge (c.1418-1490) in establishing Ashford College is referred to in the paper. A more detailed study of the Fogges and their connections with other influential local families will appear in the next volume. Ashford’s was one of half a dozen large collegiate churches founded in parish churches in kent in the late medieval period, the 1300s to the early 1500s (Fig. 1, Plate I).1 Their development, as at Ashford, Cobham, maidstone and Wye, involved the setting-up of a chantry by a wealthy patron, an expensive and extensive rebuilding of the parish church and the building of an adjacent college for the priests. Wingham college was similar but earlier, and Bredgar ‘chantry’ a small though significant college (see below).2 Part of the purpose in the establishment of the colleges was to provide choristers, and part was to provide education to priests and scholars with, for instance, a ‘skolehous’ known at Cobham in 1383.3 fig. 1 map showing locations of kent’s collegiate churches (from An Historical Atlas of Kent, 2004, p. 43). GILLIAN DRAPER 76 The Church had come to the view that a better-educated priesthood would more surely overcome the challenges of heresy from the late 14th century onwards, in particular the beliefs of John Wyclif and his followers or ‘lollards’. lollard beliefs were strongly supported by some in the Ashford area and in the nearby Weald and romney marsh. lollardy presented challenges to the established social and political order as well as the religious one. It could be contained not only by seeking a well-educated priesthood but also by monitoring priests locally and by burning of a number of local laymen and women who supported Wyclifite beliefs. Wyclif’s supporters wanted to hear or read and interpret the gospels for themselves, i.e. in English. Clearly, this required an ability to read and write since such heretics circulated biblical texts and manuscripts of their interpretations among themselves, as well as preaching their views in the market places of towns such as Ashford, and especially in nearby Tenterden. It posed a major threat to the Church to have alternative views propounded by laypeople and relayed to the wider populace.4 The nature of Collegiate churches What were the cultural, educational, spiritual and social activities of a collegiate PlATE I The parish church of st mary the virgin Ashford. The late 13th-century church was enlarged and heightened in the next century. The central tower was heightened as were the walls and roofs of the nave, chancel and transepts in the 15th century when sir John fogge established his chantry and college. (from the Ashford Heritage Trail by Ashford Borough Council and Ashford museum, by kind permission. http://ashfordsheritage.uk/ heritage-assets/central-ashford/parish-church-of-st-mary-the-virgin/) ASHFORD COLLEGE AND OTHER LATE MEDIEVAL COLLEGIATE CHURCHES OF KENT 77 church such as Ashford? They were usually intended by their so-called founders to be places where a group of priests or scholars served one particular church; there was normally a special residence in the church precinct. They were not intended to be a purely intellectual community. These men were in holy orders, but not monks who had taken vows and made a lifelong commitment to the institution. The priests and scholars of a college were likely to be members of it for a few years only while being educated, perhaps before moving on to university or becoming a royal servant or canon lawyer. The model for their communities was the medieval hospital rather than the monastic house. Those who endowed colleges with funds for the building and an annual income for the members expected those members to ‘eat and live together’.5 Archbishop John kemp’s foundation statutes for Wye ordained that there should be a master of grammar who was ‘to teach all scholars gratis, both rich and poor’, and there was still such a master at the Dissolution.6 At Maidstone College there were a Master, a submaster and five fellows (each also called capellanus or chaplain). One of the fellows who acted as steward was responsible for the vestments and plate, etc., ‘abowte the free schole’, as the inventory of 1548 put it.7 The number of surviving medieval stalls in the choir in Ashford church (eight on each side, with fine misericords) indicate the number of priests and scholars of the college here.8 At Cobham, founded in 1362, the surviving account roll for 1365- 6 shows a community comprising a master, four chaplains, two clerks and four choristers; by 1391 the number of chaplains had increased to thirteen.9 kent’s large collegiate churches varied in character but there are some important common elements. firstly of course, the worship of god, not least in singing, the display of status and undertaking chantry functions for the founders. These went together with the standard duties of a parish church – the daily masses and celebration of canonical hours, special services on feast days, and the pastoral care of parishioners – confessions and baptisms, weddings and funerals. All had links to the archbishops of Canterbury in various ways, and sometimes close involvement in the civic and other activities of the local community. lastly, they had a special involvement in the education and learning of both priests and laypeople. Education and literacy The surviving list of clergy in the deanery of lympne, in south-eastern kent, from 1374 covers the churches in romney marsh, on the marshland fringe, up towards (West) hythe and also towards Ashford as far as sevington, kingsnorth, hinxhill and Willesbrough (Fig. 2).10 most of the churches in the deanery had only a parish priest. A few churches had a ‘parochial’ or ‘celebrant’ chaplain as well as the priest (lydd, Brookland, st martin and st Nicholas – both in New romney – snargate and Ivychurch on romney marsh; and hinxhill). These men were probably acting as elementary teachers.11 They would have taught boys, and perhaps girls, from their own parishes and possibly from surrounding ones. The places on romney marsh just mentioned are ones where sizeable numbers of documents such as titledeeds are known to have been produced in the middle Ages, or where chantries existed. There is a large proportion of romney marsh parishes with such teachers on the list. This is due to the very early culture of literacy among places which were members of the Cinque Port confederation such as romney, lydd and hythe. GILLIAN DRAPER 78 These places had particularly early traditions of urban record-keeping too, predating other important market towns like Ashford by a couple of centuries.12 Medieval (parish) schools were generally not fixed in buildings, but were informal groupings of pupils around a particular teacher.13 These kinds of schools came and went according to demand and the teaching on offer, and did not generally have a permanent building. (They seem often to have been held in the church, sometimes in the porch: the ‘parvis’ room of st Nicholas’ Church, sevenoaks, is a good example). The establishment of schools in permanent buildings dedicated to the purpose was largely a post-reformation development, such as the grammar school buildings of sir Norton knatchbull in the quadrangular ‘close’ or ‘churchyard’ of Ashford. however, such grammar schools often had earlier origins in the chantries or hospitals or colleges of the medieval period. Educational Role of Chantries schools in later middle Ages were provided from charitable and religious motives. This was often closely linked to the endowment or re-foundation of a chantry, fig. 2 map of lympne Deanery parishes. ASHFORD COLLEGE AND OTHER LATE MEDIEVAL COLLEGIATE CHURCHES OF KENT 79 which could include setting up a college like the one at Ashford. The high mortality from the plague in the later 14th century refocused people’s thoughts on god. In practical terms, people wanted to make provision for the spiritual wellbeing of themselves, family and friends after death. They achieved this through charity to the church and especially through specific requests for services to pray for their souls. This particularly applied in the days, weeks and months immediately after the death. Chantry provision could be quite small or very large. Essentially it involved funding a priest or priests to pray for the soul of the founder and his or her family: a building, a separate chapel within a church, did not necessarily have to be part of this. The running of a school was a by-product or an accepted part of chantry foundation. The usual way that chantry foundations are known is from the existence of a will in which a person leaves a bequest to provide a certain amount every year to support a chantry priest to pray, i.e. chant, in the parish church. These chantries often lasted only a few decades. A good instance is at Ivychurch on romney marsh where one was founded by John lynot after the Black Death.14 John left some land to provide for a priest and it seems a relative, Elias lynot, was to be the chantry priest. That chantry was no longer operating by the 1420s, and in fact Canterbury Cathedral Priory had acquired the land. however, a man called robert stonestrete started another chantry at Ivychurch in 1449, possibly because the teaching of the children was an important activity which needed to be continued.15 It is a fallacy that in the middle Ages laypeople were uneducated and could not read. many boys, and some girls, were taught to read English, initially at home and probably by their mothers. some, mainly boys, went on to learn to read latin in school; some learnt to write English and even latin.16 Occasionally the will endowing a chantry mentions that the chantry priest should teach the local children. Occasionally his activities are revealed in a passing comment. In an example from east kent, the churchwardens of Ickham (near Wingham) made clear that it was the chantry priest who provided the only education in their parish: ‘There hath not bene any gramar scole kepte, preacher maytened or pore people releved, other then afore is declared by the same chauntreye’.17 some chantries were small local operations. Others could be very large. Whole institutions could be founded, or just as likely re-founded, as chantries. This could be a run-down leper hospital, for instance at New romney where John fraunceys re-established the hospital of ss stephen and Thomas in 1363-4.18 Archbishops and kings endowed colleges at Oxford and Cambridge which were chantries for their founders as well as part of the development of universities. But at a local, county, level, to found or re-found a college as a chantry was a feasible activity for people in the gentry or knightly groups, the lesser landowners. At Ashford, sir John fogge’s chantry of two chaplains and two secular clerks was founded in 1462 for the souls of Kentish men who had died fighting at the battles of Northampton, st Albans and Towton which had brought Edward Iv to the throne.19 The college, which was linked to the chantry, was headed by the master or prebendary, the vicar of Ashford parish church, its foundation taking place between 1462 and 1468.The college was identical with the choir of the church in the mind of Edward hasted, but there was also the (still-remaining) timber-framed college in the quadrangle or close surrounding the church, on the opposite side to knatchbull’s later school.20 GILLIAN DRAPER 80 Although only part of the college building survives (Plate II), it was the subject of a detailed report by the royal Commission on historic monuments and its layout has been reconstructed based on the details recorded by William Warren, a curate, in 1712 (Fig. 3). There were three ranges around a rectangular courtyard with rooms as below.21 The Kentish Colleges The college of Wye was founded by John kemp, the archbishop of York, in the 1430-40s in the parish where he was born. kemp and the provosts were granted a licence to acquire property in, and the churches of, Newington-next-hythe, Broomhill and Brenzett, on the marsh, and to grant these to the college. The kemps of Wye were connected by marriage to the fogges in the late 15th century.22 The college was built fronting onto Wye high street and next to the Wye parish church graveyard. It consisted of three ranges around a rectangular garden, with the range on the high street being the grammar or ‘latin’ school ordained by kemp. There PlATE II The surviving part of Ashford College (1468) on the eastern side of quadrangular churchyard. (from the Ashford Heritage Trail by Ashford Borough Council and Ashford museum, by kind permission. http://ashfordsheritage.uk/heritage-assets/central-ashford/ the-college/) ASHFORD COLLEGE AND OTHER LATE MEDIEVAL COLLEGIATE CHURCHES OF KENT 81 fig. 3 The layout of Ashford College (see note 21). A. hall. later a kitchen, then a dining room and at one time a schoolroom. The north wall (hatched) was rebuilt in 1765. B. Stairs enclosed in a stair turret, the hall having always been floored over. C. Cross Passage. The broken lines probably represent the original screen with its two doors (x1). At some time the screen was moved to its present position (x2). Earlier the stairs went from the hall. D. The Buttery, with its hatches (Warren, in 1712). E. A large kitchen (Warren). f. Three ‘ground rooms’ behind the kitchen (Warren). There is some evidence that they were here. g1/g2. These rooms were probably studies. The east wall of g has exposed timbers. h. This area may have contained stairs to the chambers above as in other similar colleges, e.g., Cambridge, Peterhouse. J. The corridor and new stairs were formed when the ‘modernisation’ was carried out when Dr Andrew was vicar (1765-1774). k. Porch (conjectural). l. gate house and wicket gate (conjectural). m. The Parlour (Warren). N. This section was probably similar to g1/g2. O. The Courtyard. GILLIAN DRAPER 82 were also a master’s lodging and a hall. kemp had a small square chapel built on the south side of the eastern end of the chancel of the church, suggested to be for the daily performance of mass by the members of the college.23 Cobham College was founded in the parish church of st mary magdalene in 1362 by sir John Cobham (died 1408), one of the wealthier landholders of kent in the tax assessment of 1412.24 The medieval college buildings, which were linked to the church, were ‘refounded’ as an almshouse at the end of the 16th century, although its quadrangular building was probably essentially that of the medieval college.25 how did such colleges differ from chantries and chantry chapels in ordinary parish churches? Aspects of the communal life of their members have already been mentioned. The wealth of the men who endowed them, whether lay or ecclesiastical, was important. several colleges in kent (e.g. Wye and maidstone) were endowed by archbishops and were located where their estates were concentrated. Archbishops sometimes used the colleges to provide ‘livings’, and possibly a residence, for their officials. For example, Wingham college was used in this way in the case of John kemp, future bishop of rochester, archbishop of York and of Canterbury, and cardinal, who entered the service of Archbishop Chichele before becoming a royal servant.26 Archbishops were not above using a college, especially All saints College, maidstone, as a place to contain a priest whose views were regarded as heretical. In 1420 master William James, m.a., a lollard heretic, foreswore his beliefs and was confined to Maidstone college where the master was roger heron, a member of the archbishop of Canterbury’s household and one of his administrative officials. Heron was later master of Wingham, which was ‘essentially a college for administrators’.27 In 1429 James Burbache, the archdeacon of Canterbury’s official, was ordered to ‘ride aboute and publisshe’ a papal bull promoting a tax of a tenth ‘against the heretics of Bohemia’ [hussites] and an accompanying indulgence. This was to take place ‘in especial’ in the central and Wealden parts of kent where heresy was known or suspected. A schedule of instructions relating to the tax was also to be written in English and affixed to various church doors, including in towns where there were collegiate churches associated with the archbishopric including maidstone, Wingham and Wye.28 The connections of collegiate churches with education is demonstrated by the increasing literacy of the major landowners themselves. The septvauntz and Brenchelse families with whom the fogge family closely associated were quite unusual, as laypeople, in the survival of manuscripts relating to the administration of their manors and estates in the later 14th century. some of these manuscripts, lists of tenants and rents, etc., may have been written by these landholders themselves.29 Certainly these landholders were familiar with the use of latin documents by their bailiffs in the management of their land locally. These sorts of men required education beyond the initial stages given at home or by the parish priest, and colleges such as Ashford provided it. many aspects of colleges in kent indicate the high level of literacy and learning associated with them. for example, the master of maidstone in the early 16th century was William grocyn, ‘a distinguished humanist, who had been tutor to [Archbishop] Warham at New College, Oxford’.30 Colleges had statutes and ordinances of which they usually possessed a copy in writing. This was supposed ASHFORD COLLEGE AND OTHER LATE MEDIEVAL COLLEGIATE CHURCHES OF KENT 83 to be read out to the members of the college once a year so that they would know what their duties and privileges, or pensions, were. Archbishop Warham’s visitation of Wye College in 1511 found that although ‘the maister should rede or cause to be red the statuts holy that every man moo [more] or lesse may knowe what they are’, he did not do so and thus they ‘kepe not the same’. This was ‘because the fellows have them [the statutes] in their hands’.31 statutes were read out loud not because the members could not have read them for themselves if they had had a written copy, but because hearing, understanding and remembering a document, particularly as part of a group, was a normal way of being literate in the middle Ages. If this reading out did not happen, members would not know, either, what their rights such as their annual pension, should be.32 The collegiate ideal was sometimes lost when college livings were used to provide an income for the administrative officials of the archbishop of Canterbury, but there is no particular reason to believe most college members were not carrying out their duties properly in the 15th century. The small college at Bredgar, in origin a chantry for its founders including master robert de Bradgar, Archbishop Courtenay, and Thomas Chillenden, Prior of Christ Church Canterbury, Cathedral also had a notable role in education. robert de Bradgar himself was a canon of Wingham33 and was closely involved in archiepiscopal administration as the archbishop’s commissary-general in 1395.34 he had been involved in the choice of chaplains of the hospital of romney in 1395.35 John morton, the Bishop of rochester and then the archbishop of Canterbury (1485-1550), was a scholar at Bredgar in 1431. Certain ordinances concerning Bredgar were later recorded in morton’s register and also in one of Canterbury Cathedral Priory.36 Founders of colleges sometimes specified the duty of education: Bredgar college, for instance was to have priests who were scholars, but also (poor) scholars who were not priests.37 This partly reflected a demand for a new kind of curriculum in the later middle Ages, one which taught boys the skills of accounting and estatemanagement as well as fitting some boys to become priests. This kind of ‘business training’ flourished in the private grammar schools in Oxford, Cambridge and london from the late 14th century. One such school was that of a well-known master, Thomas sampson.38 robertsbridge Abbey (sussex), an important landowner locally and on romney marsh, acquired a copy of a formulary written by sampson in the late 14th century.39 robertsbridge’s possession of this formulary indicates some of the educational contacts between those directing estates in this area and Oxford in the late 14th century. The formulary dealt with the concerns of a landowner such as the Abbey, and with the literate skills needed by its lessees: writing charters, conveyancing according to the law and custom of England, and the preparation of bills in connection with yearly accounts.40 These secular skills were the ones which men who leased land needed to possess, such as sir John fogge who leased land in the Ashford area from Canterbury Cathedral Priory towards the end of the 15th century.41 surviving manuscripts demonstrate that a number of lessees possessed these literate skills, and in the case of one John hochon, to have learnt them at a college in kent. The hochon family lived and held land on romney marsh and the Isle of Oxney. The college at Bredgar admitted boys from as far away as romney GILLIAN DRAPER 84 marsh, since John hochon, aged 15, was a scholar at Bredgar in 1421.42 John and his family probably knew about the education available at Bredgar via a local connection with dominus John Promhelle who was the first chaplain of the college. Promhelle was the old spelling of Broomhill on romney (Walland) marsh, and a place with which the hochon family was connected. The Prior and Convent of Christ Church Canterbury made an agreement in 1398 with John Promhelle and two clerks and scholars of the college of Bredgar. This permitted two poor clerks from Bredgar ‘able to read and sing’ always to proceed to the almonry school at Canterbury.43 A few years after the admission of John hochon to Bredgar, in 1428, he is found as scribe of a deed concerning land in the parishes of Old romney, lydd, midley and stone.44 An earlier John hochon, perhaps father of the scholar, was one of the jurors at an inquest of 1365 into the boundaries of Broomhill marsh and the decay of its protective walls.45 A relative, probably the son of the scholar John, leased land at Ebony from Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the 1470s and 1480s, and wrote, in English, schedules of his expenses in so doing.46 One of these schedules contained a list of monastic houses, hospitals, prisoners in castro and the Westgate, Canterbury, etc., on the back, perhaps in connection with charitable purposes.47 Books Colleges providing education needed books and there are some details in an inventory of 1397 and an account of 1402-3 regarding Cobham’s holdings in its library and expenditures on books and bookbinding.48 There was an interesting bequest of books made to Ashford college by the Tenterden priest, master John morer (or more) in 1489. This priest possessed books in latin, greek and English and was interested in the new learning or humanism of the later 15th century. morer probably taught greek to Thomas linacre at Oxford and Canterbury. Linacre was later to study in Florence, and to become influential in the new learning as a royal physician. morer’s own bequests of books are remarkable. he left over fifty books, an extraordinary number at this time for a local priest, since most were in manuscript. They were bequeathed not only to Ashford and Wye college, but also to various Oxford colleges, Eton College as well as local religious houses in the Weald and Winchelsea.49 There were also bequests to a group of university-educated priests from this area and from Canterbury. This intellectual and educational climate should be seen as a significant context for Ashford church and college. sir John fogge’s gifts of ‘many a Book and Ornament’ to Ashford church, and the representation of books on his impressive memorial and his tomb, had been ordained in his will. The window on the north side of the cross aisle showed him ‘kneeling in full armour at his devotions, before him an open missal on a table covered by a cloth diapered with roses, at the side a representation of a church, the badge of a founder’.50 There is every reason to believe John fogge was literate. At the end of his life, fogge had his will written in English and signed it with his own hand.51 This short article has aimed to place Ashford church and college in its wider cultural, social and intellectual relationships. sir John fogge’s ‘foundation’ of ASHFORD COLLEGE AND OTHER LATE MEDIEVAL COLLEGIATE CHURCHES OF KENT 85 the college of priests was crucial to this in the later middle Ages. Exploring the educational functions, in particular, of such colleges opens up both spiritual and secular aspects of learning associated with collegiate churches like Ashford. The building of Ashford college utilized ‘an earlier existing dwelling’, but was rebuilt along similar lines to other contemporary college buildings, not only at Cobham and Wye but also at Peterhouse College and Queens College, Cambridge, and lincoln College Oxford.52 This rebuilding reflected new wealth, renewed pious concerns, an imitation of patrons and the development of the universities. endnotes 1 st mary’s church, Ashford, was transformed in 2013 into a performance venue, http:// revelationashford.co.uk/hire-us/ [19.08.2017]. 2 Wingham was an earlier foundation of the 1280s, with the college building built next to the church, an adjacent provost’s house and row of houses for the six canons on the other side of the road, E.W. Parkin, 1977, ‘ Wingham, a medieval town’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xciii, 64-5. 3 James m. gibson, 2005, ‘The Chantry College of Cobham’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxv, 100. 4 r. lutton, 1997, ‘heterodox and orthodox piety in Tenterden, c.1420-c.1540’ (University of kent ph.d thesis, 255-313 and map 6.1); see also r. lutton, 2006, Lollardy and Orthodox Piety in Pre-Reformation England: Reconstructing Piety (Boydell Press). 5 A. hussey (ed.), 1936, Kent Chantries (kent records 12), Ashford, kent, headley Bros, p. 22. 6 P. Burnham and m. de saxe (eds), 2003, A New History of Wye: the Heritage of a Kent Village (Wye historical society), p. 81; Kent, victoria County history, ii, p. 236. 7 C. Eveleigh Woodruff, 1897, ‘Inventory of the Church goods at maidstone’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxii, 29-33. 8 Described and illustrated by I. Pellett, 2013, ‘The medieval misericords of kent’s Parish Churches’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxxiii, 185-213. 9 gibson, ‘Cobham’, 83-118. 10 CCA-DCc/ChAnt/s/425. The list is discussed in g. Draper, 2000, ‘Church, chapel and clergy on romney marsh after the Black Death’, The Romney Marsh Irregular 16, available on the website of the romney marsh research Trust website http://rmrt.org.uk/the-romney-marsh-irregular-no-16- october-2000/. 11 m.T. Clanchy, 1993, From Memory to Written Record (2nd edn), p. 242. Parochial chaplains could be members of a college of priests, Burnham and de saxe, New History of Wye, p. 3. 12 G. Draper, 2007, ‘Writing English, French and Latin in the fifteenth century: a regional perspective’, The Fifteenth Century VII, ed. l. Clark. (Boydell Press, pp. 215-35, on https://kent. academia.edu/gillianDraper. 13 g. Draper, 2008, ‘The education of children in kent and sussex: interpreting the medieval and Tudor ways’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 52, 213-52, on https://kent.academia.edu/gillianDraper. 14 g. Draper, 1998, ‘The farmers of Canterbury Cathedral Priory and All souls College on romney marsh, c.1443-1545’, in J. Eddison, m. gardiner and A. long (eds), Romney Marsh: environmental change and human occupation in a coastal lowland (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology 46), p. 115; http://rmrt.org.uk/farms-of-canterbury-cathedral-priory-all-soulscollege- oxford-romney-marsh-c-1443-1545/ 15 Kent Chantries, p. 169. 16 Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, pp. 13, 321-52; m. Carlin and D. Crouch (eds), 2013, Lost Letters of Medieval Life, English Society 1200-1250 (University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 13-15. 17 This was at the dissolution of the chantry in 1548, Kent Chantries, p. 168. Now see also, g. Draper, ‘There hath not bene any gramar scole kepte, preacher maytened or pore people releved, other then … by the same chauntreye’: educational provision and piety in kent c.1400-1600’, in Pieties in Transition: Religious Practices and Experiences, c. 1400-1640, ed. r. lutton and E. salter (Ashgate, 2007). available on https://kent.academia.edu/gillianDraper. GILLIAN DRAPER 86 18 A.f. Butcher, 1980, ‘The hospital of st. stephen and st. Thomas, New romney: the documentary evidence’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xcvi, 20-1. 19 P. fleming, 2010, ‘The landed Elite 1300-1500’, in Later Medieval Kent 1220-1540, ed. s. sweetinburgh (Boydell), p. 222; m. mercer, ‘kent and National Politics, 1461-1509’, in sweetinburgh, op. cit., p. 251. 20 E. hasted, 1798, repr. 1972, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 7 (W. Bristow, Canterbury, 1798), p. 542. hasted set out the history of the foundation between 1462-68, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol7/pp526-545. 21 http://ashfordsheritage.uk/heritage-assets/central-ashford/the-college/, citing Briscall W., 1987, Discovering Ashford’s Old Buildings, Ashford, lrB historical Publications [accessed 19.8.2017]; rChmE report, historic England Archive Bf039389. 22 W.k. Jordan, 1961, ‘social Institutions in kent, 1480-1660’, Archaeologia Cantiana, lxxv, 70. 23 Burnham and de saxe, New History of Wye, 83, 95-7, 101, 110, plate 20 (a). 24 Webster, ‘The Community of kent in the reign of richard II’, 1377-99, Archaeologia Cantiana, c, 218-20. 25 E.f. Jacob, with the assistance of h.C. Johnson, 1938, The Register of Henry Chichele Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-1443 (Oxford, Clarendon Press), I, 199; Aymer vallance, 1931, ‘Cobham Collegiate Church’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xliii, 139, 146-7; gibson, ‘Cobham’, 83-94. 26 r.g. Davies, ‘kemp , John (1380/81-1454)’, ODNB, online edn, may 2011, http://www. oxforddnb.com/view/article/15328, accessed 23.8.2017. kemp was instituted to a ‘canonry and prebend’ in the college of Wingham in 1417, for two years, at which time he was aged about 40, Register Chichele, I, xxxvi, 149, 172. 27 Register Chichele, I, 175-6, IV, 203-4. In 1440, Heron succeeded John Druell, who was the first clerk of works at All souls Oxford, reg. Chich. I, lxxv-vi. heron was closely involved in 1430 in the legal documentation surrounding Chichele’s acquisition of land on romney marsh with which to endow All souls College, Oxford, Bodleian ms dd All souls c129, deeds 56 and 57. 28 It suggests the official church feared the popular Hussite heresy as similar to Lollardy. The other churches mentioned were Tenterden, faversham, lydd, Canterbury and sittingbourne, Reg. Chich. I, xlvii-xlix. 29 g. Draper, 2004, ‘literacy and its transmission in the romney marsh area c.1150-1550’ (University of kent ph.d thesis, unpubl.), pp. 127-28, 250. 30 k.l. Wood-legh (ed.), 1984, Kentish Visitations of Archbishop William Warham and his Deputies, 1511-12 (kent records 24), kAs, maidstone, p. 47. 31 Ibid., pp. 188, 190. Wye college had a master (provost), two fellows, a minister or parochial chaplain, seven choristers and two clerks. A copy of the college statutes was said to be (and is) in merton College Oxford, victoria County history, Kent, ii, p. 235, n.3. 32 vCh, Kent, ii, p. 230. 33 Its building and history were described in detail by E.W. Parkin, 1975, ‘The Old Chantry house, Bredgar’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 91, 87-97. 34 Kent Chantries, 243-4. members of the family known as ‘de Bredgar’ had been patrons of the hospital of st James, south-west of Canterbury in the 13th century, s. sweetinburgh, 2002, ‘supporting the Canterbury hospitals: benefaction and the language of charity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxxii, 247-252. The college was said in 1438 to have been founded for the ‘soul of master robert de Bradegare’, formerly the rector of (nearby) hollingbourne, Reg. Chich. I, 250-1. 35 Kent Chantries, 243-4. 36 Reg. Chich. I, cxiii-iv, 273; Kent Chantries, 22. 37 Kent Chantries, pp. 22-3. 38 m. Bennett, 1994, ‘Education and Advancement’, in r. horrox (ed.), Fifteenth-Century Attitudes: perceptions of society in late medieval England (CUP), p. 89; Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters, pp. 12-13. 39 h.g. richardson, 1941, ‘Business training in Oxford’, American Historical Review, 46, pp. 259-80. ASHFORD COLLEGE AND OTHER LATE MEDIEVAL COLLEGIATE CHURCHES OF KENT 87 40 This formulary is British library ms. longleat 37; Formularies which bear on the history of Oxford c. 1260-1420 (vols. I, II, 1942), h.E. salter, W.A. Pantin and h.g. richardson (eds), pp. 284, 339. 41 Draper, ‘literacy and Transmission’, p. 250. 42 Kent Chantries, p. 24. 43 Kent Chantries, p. 22; victoria County history, Kent, ii, p. 230. 44 Bodleian ms. dd All souls c129, deed 53. 45 Bodleian ms. dd All souls c184, item 1 in wooden box. 46 Canterbury Cathedral Archives [CCA], DCc-rE 313, item 24. 47 CCA-DCc-rE 377. 48 gibson, ‘Cobham’, 103. 49 A.h. Taylor, 1915, ‘The rectors and vicars of st mildred’s, Tenterden’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxxi, 215. 50 A.J. Pearman, 1909, ‘Ashford Church’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxviii, lxxxiii -lxxxiv. 51 fogge’s will is in kent history and library Centre, maidstone [khlC], PrC 32/3, fols. 280- 281v. 52 J. Everett, 1995, Changes to the College, Ashford, Kent over the years (friends of st mary the virgin, Ashford), pp. 2, 5 [khlC, k/Ashford EvE]. The similarity with Peterhouse is noted by http://ashfordsheritage.uk/heritage-assets/central-ashford/the-college/.