Durham College for the southern and northern
Benedictines. Nothing more than a site and building was required by way
of endowment, as the young monks, who were sent there to study under a
provisor, were supported by the houses of the order to which they
belonged. The site was five acres, and the building is described in the
letters patent "as a fitting and noble college mansion in honour of the
most glorious Virgin Mary and St Bernard in Northgates Street outside
the Northgate of Oxford." It was suppressed with the Cistercian abbeys
in 1539, and granted on the 11th of December 1546 to Christ Church,
Oxford, who sold it to Sir Thomas Pope in 1553 for St John's College.

The college at Higham Ferrers was a much earlier design. On the 2nd of
May 1422 Henry V., in right of the duchy of Lancaster, "hearing that
Chicheley inflamed by the pious fervour of devotion intended to enlarge
divine service and other works of piety at Higham Ferrers, in
consideration of his fruitful services, often crossing the seas,
yielding to no toils, dangers or expenses ... especially in the
conclusion of the present final peace with our dearest father the king
of France," granted for 300 marks (L200) licence to found, on three
acres at Higham Ferrers, a perpetual college of eight chaplains and four
clerks, of whom one was to teach grammar and the other song ... "and six
choristers to pray for himself and wife and for Henry IV. and his wife
Mary ... and to acquire the alien priory of Merseye in Essex late
belonging to St Ouen's, Rouen," as endowment. A papal bull having also
been obtained, on the 28th of August 1425, the archbishop, in the course
of a visitation of Lincoln diocese, executed his letters patent founding
the college, dedicating it to the Virgin, St Thomas a Becket and St
Edward the Confessor, and handed over the buildings to its members, the
vicar of Higham Ferrers being made the first master or warden. He
further endowed it in 1434 with lands in Bedfordshire and
Huntingdonshire, and his brothers, William and Robert, gave some houses
in London in 1427 and 1438. The foundation was closely modelled on
Winchester College, with its warden and fellows, its grammar and song
schoolmasters, but a step in advance was made by the masters being made
fellows and so members of the governing body. Attached was also a bede
or almshouse for twelve poor men. Both school and almshouse had existed
before, and this was merely an additional endowment. Th