Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Orum, John
ORUM, JOHN (d. 1436?), vice-chancellor of Oxford University, was a member of University College, and graduated as D.D. He is mentioned on 29 Jan. 1399 (Boase, Reg. Exeter College, p. 25;, and in 1406 and 1408 was vice-chancellor or commissary for Richard Courtenay. Orum was made archdeacon of Barnstaple on 1 Nov. 1400, and held this office till 1429; he also appears as archdeacon of Cornwall in 1411 (Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Angl. i. 398, 406). He held the prebend of Holcomb at Wells in 1408, and in 410 received a canonry there. On 4 Jan. he received the prebend of Fridaythorpe, York, which preferment he had vacated before October 1412 (ib. iii. 187). On 21 Dec. he received the church of Road, Somerset (Weever, Somerset Incumbents, p. 177), but exchanged it for Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire, on 18 April 1414. On 23 Feb. 1429 Orum became chancellor of Exeter (Oliver, p. 281 ; but Tanner says 18 Feb.) He seems to have resigned the chancellorship before 21 Sept. 1436, and probably died soon afterwards. In accordance with his will, dated 27 Sept. 1436, Orum was buried in the porch of Exeter Cathedral. He left 40s. for the perpetual chanting of an antiphon there, and gave a cope to the cathedral.
Orum was author of 'Lecturæ super Apocalypsim habitæ in Ecclesia Wellensi: 1, De ecclesia; 2, De avaritia; 3-6, De cantu.' These lectures are contained in Bodleian MS. 2722. Some of the other anonymous tracts in the same manuscript may possibly be by him.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. 562-3; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. i. 398, 406, iii. 187, 471; Oliver's Bishops of Exeter, pp. 217, 281, 294, 346.]