The Bill Gates of the 15th century?

 

The picturesque remains of Chichele College

The town of Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, perhaps a little larger today than a village, with a population around 8,000, is not so different to many other small towns in the Midlands: an old church, a market square, a few old buildings, some small-scale industry (shoemaking). But in the centre is the intriguing Chichele College, the ruined remains of a religious institute set up in the 15th century for canons. Today, the property is owned by English Heritage, and is open to the public, courtesy, it would appear, of volunteer curators. I was intrigued by the idea of a “chantry college”, and how it came to exist.

On the site there were a few information boards, but these seemed more interested in the building over the more succeeding centuries following the dissolution of the monasteries (according to Wikipedia, Henry VIII seized the college in 1542). There was no guide, and Pevsner, as usual, focuses on the buildings, rather than about its purpose. What was a chantry college? Wikipedia has an entry for the founder and benefactor Henry Chichele (pronounced “Chichly”) which, although a poor entry, gives some idea about his career: a rapid rise to the top of the English Church, partly as a result of his wealthy connections, notably, his brother. In the town of Higham Ferrers, Chichele also built a grammar school and a “Bede House” (an alms house), both in the grounds of the parish church.

What was a Chantry College?

That, to me, is a mystery. I was aware of Chantry chapels, founded to say masses for wealthy donors, but Chichele College appears to have had at least partially an educational function. Its responsibilities included teaching grammar and song. It appears to have been abolished because it was not part of a university or school.

What was the motivation behind Chichele’s philanthropy?

Clearly, Chichele was wealthy. In addition to Chichele College, founded 1422, he also founded two colleges in Oxford, one for Cistercians in 1437 and one, All Souls, founded 1438, which still exists, as well as Chichele College, and the impression comes to mind of a 15th-century equivalent of Bill Gates or Howard Hughes – whatever was spent on philanthropy only amounted to a small proportion of their total wealth. But is that assumption correct? Chichele’s money came from multiple benefices – at one point, he had at least eight, and was instructed to give them all up except one. Owning more than one benefice was, of course, one of the complaints by reformers against the established Church. English law prevented a bishop having multiple benifices, but nonetheless, Chichele appealed to the Pope, and was granted an exemption in 1407 on being made bishop of St David’s in Wales, enabling him to keep them.

 

Was Chichele corrupt?

According to the Wikipedia entry for Chichele obtained clerical benefices (that is, the position of rector as well as the income from the parish) via his wealthy brother (at least initially). It also mentions how, as archbishop of Canterbury, he investigated and condemned heretics who complained about the corruption of bishops and archbishops. Complaints about corruption in the senior clergy were clearly already widespread in the 15th century, even before Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in 1517.

So my questions are: how corrupt was Chichele (compared with other clergy in the Church of England in Chichele’s time)? Was the founding of the College at Higham Ferrers motivated by genuine altruism or simply face-saving? The Wikipedia entry for Chichele, although over 3,000 words long, gets too involved in trying to arguing with scholars to give a good summary (“The struggle between them [Chichele and Pope Martin V] has been represented as one of a patriotic archbishop resisting the encroachments of the papacy on the Church of England. In point of fact it was almost wholly personal, and was rather an incident in the rivalry between the Duke of Gloucester and his half-uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, than one involving any principle.”, but no citation for this claim). The Wikipedia entry uses the term “diplomatist”, an outdated term today replaced by “diplomat”, and which suggests that much of the Wikipedia entry was lifted from an earlier source, probably the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 edition (acknowledged in the references).

It will require some detective work to try to establish, if the sources are sufficient, the real background to Chichele’s philanthropy.