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YORK.
their bounty in the erection of new colleges in the
Universities for the promotion of learning. Schools
also were founded. We have an instance of both in
the prelate who occupied the chair of Paulinus in
the closing years of the fifteenth century. The foundation
of Lincoln College, Oxford, which had been begun
by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1428, was
completed by his successor Thomas Rotherham,
afterwards Archbishop of York, who in 1479 finished
the buildings of the college, augmented the number
of fellows and gave it a body of statutes.
Rotherham was a Yorkshireman, born at the town
of that name. He held many great preferments, was
chancellor in the reign of Edward IV., and became
Archbishop of York in 1480. After his elevation to
that see he took no part in public affairs, devoting
himself entirely to the oversight of his diocese. He
cherished a great affection for his birthplace, and in
1482 laid the foundation of a college there, which
was formally constituted by his own ordinary and
metropolitical authority in the following year. He
endowed it for a provost and two fellows. The
provost was to preach the word of God in the parishes
of Rotherham, Laxton, and Ecclesfield, and in other
places within the diocese of York. The duty of the
fellows was carefully laid down. One was to teach
grammar, poetry, and rhetoric ; the other music. Six
poor boys were to be maintained in the college until
the age of eighteen, and to receive instruction in the
subjects mentioned. His primary object seems to
have been to train these boys in such a manner that
they might hereafter be fitted for the priesthood. But