No . 138 The Trusty Servant
Not the man ?
William White and Winchester
Dr Nicholas Townson ( CoRo , 16- ), College Tutor , unravels the confusing records of one of the earliest Wykehamists .
A misericord in the New College chapel shows a bishop , perhaps William Wykeham , calling scholars to Oxford . On the other side is a group of graduates , including a cardinal . Like the misericords at Winchester , it belongs to an original and didactic scheme ; and like most things about Wykeham ’ s new foundations , the carving had been fully thought out . In line with this , early Wykehamist culture is generally seen as typical and orthodox . By the 1430s and 1440s , Wykehamists were founding institutions of their own that were deliberately modelled on Winchester and New College , while men like Thomas Chaundler and Andrew Hole were cultivating newly influential forms of humanist scholarship . There is not much in this familiar narrative about religious controversy and dissent .
Yet the 1390s were a time of religious and political uncertainty , a fact which complicated the business of preparing men for ecclesiastical and royal service . Early in 1395 , the Twelve Conclusions , which called for ‘ the reformation of the holy church of England ’, had been posted on the doors of Westminster Hall and St Paul ’ s . The second version of the Wycliffite Bible was nearing completion , along with the Floretum theologie , a handbook of Wycliffite theology . Wycliffites remained in prominent positions at Oxford , where the question of translation was freely debated . Richard II had issued a directive to the chancellor of Oxford , expressing concern over heretical activity and ordering the expulsion of all Lollards from the university .
The Burning of William White from a copy of Foxe ' s Actes and Monuments ( 1596 ) in the Fellows ’ Library
These controversies touched the lives of early Wykehamists . Robert Lechlade , who had been expelled from his living at Merton College in 1395 , was an early fellow at Winchester . Henry Chichele and William Warham were – as Wykeham had been – involved in the repression of heresy . Bishop Russell and William Grocyn wrote anti-Wycliffite treatises . It has also been argued that the scale of the liturgical provisions in the Winchester and New College statutes may have been a response to contemporary Wycliffite criticisms . On their own these details do not challenge the traditional picture of Winchester ’ s early years , but they do make it more representative . This article considers a piece of evidence from the archives , which suggests we might add another name to this story of Winchester and religious dissent , that of the Lollard preacher William White .
The story begins in 1395 , the same year as Robert Lechlade ’ s banishment , when William Whyte , a scholar from Andover , was admitted to Winchester . From 1398 to 1404 , he was at New College . A glance down the Register shows it was not an unusual name : William Whyte of Adderbury was admitted in 1427 at the age of thirteen . A later marginal annotation adds that this William Whyte was a Lollard who was burnt at Norwich during the reign of reign of Henry VI . This must be an error , since the heretic William White was executed in Norwich in 1428 . The note is made in a neat , regular hand that appears relatively infrequently among the various marginal annotations . Interestingly , we can find it again alongside the entries for 1567 , glossing the names of Edmund Harward and Henry Garnet , two prominent Jesuits .
Such small acts of commemoration are interesting on their own , but if there is truth behind the note , it would help to fill a large gap in our picture of William White ’ s career , as well as potentially adding to our understanding of the relationship between academic Wycliffism and Lollardy . But is it likely that one of the College ’ s earliest scholars later became a prominent Lollard preacher ? We should not dismiss the idea . After all , at points in the 1370s Wycliffism had effectively been royal policy ; what it meant to serve the King and Crown was still unclear . Wykeham played a role in the persecution of heretics , and Chichele and later Warham followed his lead , but William Whyte
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