RELIGIOUS HOUSES The Valor of 1535 names John Pory as master with a stipend of £6 135. ^d., and William Fletcher and John Gunnar the two priests, each receiving £$ 6j. 8;^. a year. There were also two clerks in receipt of a salary of 20s. each. The clear annual value was then only estimated at £21, 14;. In 1538, the mayor and commonalty being desirous of obtaining a charter of incorporation, sold all the valuable plate of the gild chapel for j^54 15J. ^d. towards the expenses of procuring it. Though the corporation sold most of the gild property about this date for a like alleged reason the college remained technically un- suppressed during the reign of Henry VIII, being •eventually resigned into the hands of Edward VI in 1547 by John Gunnel, the last master, who had a pension of ^5. The college, with its chapel, was at once demolished ; and the site (with 80 acres of land and other messuages and tenements) granted in 1548 in the first instance to the Duke of Norfolk, but soon afterwards to Sir Richard Fulmerston. 115. THE COLLEGE OF THOMPSON Towards the end of the fateful year, 1349, Sir Thomas de Shardelowe and Sir John •de Shardelowe his brother founded a chantry in the church of St. Martin, Thompson or Thomeston, to be served by a college of five ■chaplains and a warden. They were to cele- brate for the souls of Sir John de Shardelowe, justice of the common pleas, and Agnes his wife, the parents of the founders, and for the founders' ■souls, and for all the faithful departed. The •elder Sir John de Shardelowe died in 1344, and his wife Agnes presumably in 1349, as losses from the Black Death were in so many instances the occasion of the foundation of various im- portant chantries. The family of Shardelowe held much property in SuflFolk, their chief residence being at Flempton ; but their burial ■place for several generations was the church of Thompson, Norfolk. Sir John de Shardelowe, the judge, was succeeded by his grandson of the ■same name, the son of Edmund who predeceased his father.^ Sir Thomas and Sir John, the founders of the college, were the judge's younger sons. The church of Thompson was appropriated to the college, without any provision for a vicar, .as the church was always to be served by one •of the chaplains. For this privilege a pension of four marks was assigned to the bishop. The master was to be elected by the chaplains from their own number ; he had to be episcopally instituted, and if the chaplains failed to elect, the •collation to the mastership rested with the ' Inq. p.m. 18 Edw. Ill, No. 37. Blomefield {Hist, of Norf. ii, 366-9), m.Tkes confusion of the ."Shardelowe generations ; see Gage, Suff. 59, 60. bishop. The fellows or chaplains were to give due obedience to the master ; they were all to lodge and board together in the college ; and were to meet in the church daily for mattins and evensong as well as for masses. Sir John de Shardelowe, one of the founders, died childless in 1369 ; his widow Joan took a vow of chastity before the bishop of Norwich, in the presence of John Grene, master of Thompson College and others. Sir John de Shardelowe, nephew of the co-founders, died in 1391. His will provided that he should be buried in the church of Thompson near his parents and ancestors ; he also gave to the college lOOs., and to a chaplain to celebrate there for him for a year after his decease seven marks. In June, 1392, the master and chaplains of the chantry at the altar of St. Martin in the church of Thompson paid fifty marks for licence to hold the manors of Shudy Camps and Horseheath, with appurtenances, in Cambridgeshire, and in Shropham and Thompson, the gifts of John Methewold, John Coke, and Thomas Horstede." In the following September the college paid the large sum of ^^40 for the king's licence to hold an acre of land at Shropham, with the advowson and appropriation of the church and the annexed chapel of St. Andrew ; a certain competent sum being assigned to the poor parishioners out of the fruits of the rectory, and a vicarage being duly ordained.' Archdeacon Goldwell, as commissary for the bishop, visited the college of Thompson on 10 November, 1492. John Joys one of the fellows, and proctor for Master Ambrose Ede, the warden, produced the foundation deed ordaining five chaplains with a master, and assigning to the master an annual payment of 12 marks, and to each brother 11 marks. There were then only three fellows or brethren, John Joys, John Pepyr, and William Cowper. The last of these was absent at his studies at the university of Oxford. After the separate examination of Joys and Pepyr the commissary dissolved the visitation as he found that no reform was needed. ■* The college was visited on 23 June, 15 14, by Bishop Nicke. After Master Forth had preached from the text Jgite poenitentiam the warden and three chaplains were examined. John Purpett, the warden, said that the annual income of the college was upwards of a hundred marks, and they had 3,000 sheep. He said that divine service was laudably observed, and that all was going on well. Thomas Barnesdale gave a good account of everything, the master annually presented his accounts, the common seal was kept in a chest under two locks, the third lock being broken, and the books, vestments, and ' Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 32. ^ Ibid. pt. ii, m. 23.
- Jessopp, Norw. Fisit. (Camd. Soc), 30, 31.
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