fix William at New college. But besides these, an evidence deserving particular attention is on record, John Langland, or Longland, fellow of Magdalen, a bursar there in 1515, and bishop of Lincoln in 1521, only twenty-five years after the death of the founder, whom, it is therefore probable, he remembered. This prelate informed the antiquary Leland, that William was of New college; and his testimony, corroborated, as it will be, by other circumstances, must have appeared decisive, had it been contradicted in a manner less positive, or by a writer of inferior authority to the biographer of Wykeham.

Budden, I know not on whose testimony, has represented William, while an academic, endowed with intense application to the studies of humanity and eloquence.' The having excelled in them far beyond what was common, he would have ascribed to him

Longland, John, Athen. i. 70. M. A. 1521. Fasti, i. 3. quære if not 1501? B. D. Dec. 1510. Ib. 15. See College Register.

y Itin. pt. i. p. 50.

P. 57. Cujus cum præclaræ aliquot ab ipso habitæ orationes recensentur.-Joannes Vuaynflete, Carmelitanæ sodalitatis amator, &c. Balæus de Scriptor. Britt. centur. xii. n. L.

as

as his peculiar praise, had he not discovered that his brother had a claim to partake in the eulogium. Some noted sermons of John Waynflete, which were published, made him almost of opinion that the prerogative was not that of an individual, but of his family. The margin refers to Bale, whose account is, I apprehend, of another John Waynflete, a Carmelite professor in the university of Cambridge, and afterwards a public reader of divinity in a college of his order in the city of Lincoln.

Not

The university of Oxford, about this period, was the seat of dull scholastic disputation, rather than of liberal science. long since, those eminent doctors had flourished, who, mutually complimenting each other with sounding titles, the profound, the angelic, and the seraphic, drew on themselves the reverence of their own times, and the contempt of all posterity. William, we may suppose, listened to the jargon which then prevailed, with the same attentive admiration as other students; and the wonder is, that his mind ever became enlarged from the shackles of authority and fashion. We

b Gilpin, Life of Wickliffe.

are

are told, indeed, of his pursuing with vigour, polite literature, philosophy, and divinity; but, though the industry of the antiquarian had now begun to redeem the Greek and Roman authors from the obscurity of barbarism, the study of them, which had its origin in Italy, was not yet arrived in the university of Oxford; and what was polite literature, philosophy, and divinity, before. the Reformation?

The Latin language was an essential part of the studies of a person intended for an ecclesiastic. John Leland, or Leilont, then a noted preceptor, and principal of Peckwater Inn at Oxford, was author of a New Grammar, which he published by the persuasion of William, who, it is obvious to suppose, had been a pupil, and had profited by the instructions of this master; and per

• Warton, Life of sir T. Pope, p. 140, 2d edit. observes"This Grammatica Nova I saw among Mr. Wise's books (now dispersed) many years ago. I am confident there is an uncata. "logued copy in the Bodleian, among Hearne's or Tanner's. It was " in black letter, and, as I faintly recollect, printed about 1520. "I think there was something in it about Waynflete as an encour

ager of the work, and a patron of letters. I will endeavour to re"cover it." I have not been able to procure any further information concerning this book; but, I apprehend, it was not the first edition which Mr. Warton saw.

haps,

haps, instead of either of the colleges to which he has been ascribed, he belonged to that Inn. Leilont died in 14284. The art of printing was not yet invented, or not practised in England.

SECT. III. William, which

THE literary attainments of may be supposed not inconsiderable for the age he lived in, did not qualify him for an ecclesiastic more than his disposition to piety. I have endeavoured to trace his progress in the orders of the Romish church, not wholly without success; and in particular am enabled to fix the time of his assuming the name of Waynflete in lieu of Barbor, under which, if I mistake not, he is found in the episcopal register of the see of Lincoln. The ordinations were held in the parish church of Spalding by bishop Fleming; and

1420, April 21st, Easter Sunday, among the unbeneficed acolytes occurs William Barbore.

1420, January 21st, William Barbor became

A. Wood, Hist. et Antiq. ii.

a sub

Regist. Fleming. fol. 175.-In the archdeaconry of Lin

coln

a subdeacon by the stile of William Waynflete of Spalding.

1420, March 18th, William Waynflete of Spalding was ordained deacon; and

1426, January 21st, presbyter, on the title of the house of Spalding.

The same prelate admitted Reginald Pecock of Oriel college, Oxford, afterwards a learned doctor and bishop, to some of the orders of the church, at the same place, and at the same times, as William Barbor or Waynflete.

"It was a fashion in those days from a "learned spirituall man to take awaie the

coln is a gap between 16th June 1423 and 5th July 1425, where begin Institutions by the official, sede ibid. vacante, with this memorandum, hoc loco tria folia desiderantur, excisa scalpello. See Collections from Ancient Registers by Dr. Matthew Hutton, in the British Museum. Catal. MSS. Harl. No 6949.

Pope Martin issued a rescript, transferring by provision bishop Flemmyng to the archbishopric of York, vacant by death. The dean and chapter resisted him as he was about to enter the church, The pope was compelled to re-transfer him to Lincoln by a contrary rescript. Duck v. Chich. p. 39.

Spalding. About 1074, the church of St. Mary and the manor were given to the abbey of St. Nicholas at Angiers, from whence were sent over some Benedictine monks, and it became an alien priory to that foreign monastery. It was given 20 Hen. VI. to King's college, Cambridge, and 1 Edw. IV. to Sion abbey. Tanner Notit. Mon. p. 251.

See chap. v. sect. i. note 2.

"father's