Hereford Cathedral School

An edict of the Lateran Council of 1179 (a meeting of the Western Churches held in Rome) directed that a school should be set up in every cathedral town, and 13th century deeds in the Hereford Cathedral Archives mention a property in the "Olde Schole Strete".

Several scholars, such as the astronomer Roger of Hereford (c.1178) and sometime poet Simon de Freine (c.1200), can be named in connection with Hereford Cathedral, and the earliest cathedral statutes (1246-1264) imply the existence of a school. However, the first direct reference to the school itself is from 1384, when Bishop Gilbert appointed Richard Cornwaille as schoolmaster.

Originally, cathedrals did not educate the sons of laymen for professions outside the church. The earliest types of pupil would have been choristers and priests in training.

Choristers, aged between seven and fifteen, lived within the cathedral precinct (boarding with individual canons) and attended lessons, such as learning to sing plainsong (simple unadorned and unharmonised chant) which was part of the daily services. By the Tudor period, polyphonic music (music in several interweaving parts) had been developed and the role of choristers in cathedral services became more pronounced.

Later in the Middle Ages, the grammar school would have been separate from the song school. Young men from the town who were not choristers would have studied subjects such as Latin, Greek and mathematics at the school associated with the Cathedral.

During the reign of Henry VIII many schools attached to monasteries suffered, often being shut and refounded by the government with uniform primers and other textbooks. Hereford Cathedral School was left relatively unchanged. However, during the reign of Edward VI the school was obliged to become a free grammar school and take in non-fee paying students. Choristers whose voices had broken, and who therefore had to leave the song school, were also allowed to take up places at the grammar school.

To what extent and for how long pupils were educated free of charge at the Cathedral School is unclear. In the early 17th century there are records of endowments which allowed pupils to study at the school and for a limited number to continue their studies at Oxford University. For instance, Charles Langford, dean of Hereford, left 298 acres of farmland to the school in 1607. Four Hereford-born boys, chosen by the trustees, were funded by the income from this bequest. These pupils were expected to attend services in the Cathedral dressed in gowns and surplices. In 1615 Roger Philpotts, mayor of Hereford, left a house in what is now Church Street to the school to pay for two of its scholars at Brasenose College, Oxford.

For a detailed history of the Hereford Cathedral School, see Nicholas Orme, "The Cathedral School before the Reformation" and "The Cathedral School since the Reformation" in Gerald Aylmer and J. Tiller (eds.), Hereford Cathedral : A History, published in 2000.

[Original author: Toria Forsyth-Moser, 2003]