the time of King Henry II. of whom more may be seen in Newcourt's Repertorium, and in Sir William Dugdale's History of St. Paul's, 2d ed. p. 10, where by mistake (as Le Neve says) it is called Disca, in Suffolk; though in page 501 it is called Disce.
William of Disse,
Was sacrist of St. Edmund's Monastery at Bury, duly elected; but he continued so but four days, having so great fear upon him that he should not discharge his office well, that all that time he could take no rest, and therefore petitioned Abbot Samson that he might resign, who consenting thereto, Robert de Gravely was chosen in his place.
Walter of Disse,
Born here, was a Carmelite friar at Norwich, one of the most ignorant of all that convent in his youth; at length he turned the reverse, continually applying himself to gain knowledge and learning, in which he so much profited, that he took his doctor's degree in Cambridge, with the utmost honour. He was afterwards confessor to John Duke of Lancaster and Acquitain, King of Leon and Castile, and also to Constance his queen; and a great stickler for Pope Urban, and the other popes, that were by him and his faction named the Anti-papes, of whom he obtained, through the duke's favour, certain faculties, to be distributed to such as would pray, and pay for them, of which one was, to make all those, whom he thought good, the pope's chaplains, according to form of law, and the custom used in the court of Rome; and because such as obtained this favour enjoyed great liberties, (viz. to hold as many ecclesiastical preferments as they could get, &c.) many were glad to give largely to be so preferred. Another bull gave him power to create fifty doctors, and as many prothonotaries; to reconsecrate such things or places as had been profaned; to legitimate bastards, and such like. In 1587 he was made the pope's legate a latere, to preach up the crusade against the anti-pape's faction, granting indulgences to all those that helped or went to those wars, in as ample a manner as if they went against the common enemies of religion, the Turks: this he did in Urban's and Pope Bonniface the Ninth's time, with success, and that not in England only, but in Castile, Portugal, Acquitain, Leon, Navarre, Gascoign, and several foreign parts; at last he returned to his monastery, in which he died, and was buried August 14th, 1404, near the high altar of their church.
William of Diss,
A friar preacher, was confessor to King Henry V. with whom he went to Caen in Normandy, in the sixth year of his reign, where the King hearing of the holy life and frequent miracles of one Vincent of Arragon, a friar preacher, he sent this William to him, who brought him to the King, of whom he was honourably received, anno 1417.
John Skelton, Rector of Diss
Was a pleasant merry poet, so much esteemed for his oratory, as well as poetry, that he was made poet laureat and King's orator. He flourished in the times of King Henry VII. and VIII. was rector, and lived here in 1504 and 1511, as I find by his being witness to several wills
