John de Grandisson was one of the most notable English bishops of the fourteenth century. He was born in 1292, the second son of an English baron who was descended from the lords of Granson near Neuchâtel, and therefore nearly connected with some of the greatest families on the continent. One of his cousins was the Sir Otho de Granson, "flower of them that make in France," to whom Chaucer did the honour of translating three of his balades. In later life, the bishop himself inherited the barony (I358). His second sister was the famous Countess of Salisbury of the honi soit qui mal y pense legend. At seventeen he was a Prebendary of York; he studied in Paris under the future Pope Benedict XII, and became chaplain to Pope John XXII, who "provided" him in 1327 to the see of Exeter. Grandisson ruled this diocese with great vigour until his death in 1369.

EDUCATIONAL REFORM
(13 Feb. 1356-7. Register, p. 1192. A mandate directed by Grandisson to all the archdeacons of his diocese.)

We ourselves have learned and learn daily, not without frequent wonder and inward compassion of mind, that among masters or teachers of boys and illiterate folk in our diocese, who instruct them in Grammar, there prevails a preposterous and unprofitable method and order of teaching, nay, a superstitious fashion, rather heathen than christian; for these masters, - after their scholars have learned to read or repeat, even imperfectly, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, the Creed, and the Mattins and Hours of the Blessed Virgin, and other such things pertaining to faith and their soul's health, without knowing or understanding how to construe anything of the aforesaid, or decline the words or parse them - then, I say, these masters make them pass on prematurely to learn other advanced [magistrales] books of poetry or metre. Whence it cometh to pass that, grown to man's estate, they understand not the things which they daily read or say: moreover (what is more damnable) through lack of understanding they discern not the Catholic Faith. We, therefore, willing to eradicate so horrible and foolish an abuse, already too deeprooted in our diocese, by all means and methods in our power, do now commit and depute to each of you the duty of warning and enjoining all masters and instructors whatsoever that preside over Grammar Schools within the limits of his archdeaconry, (as, by these letters present, we ourselves strictly command, enjoin, and warn them), that they should not, as hitherto, teach the boys whom they receive as Grammar pupils only to read or learn by heart (1); but rather that, postponing all else, they should make them construe and understand the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, the Creed, the Mattins and Hours of the Blessed Virgin, and decline and parse the words therein, before permitting them to pass on to other books. Moreover we proclaim that we purpose to confer clerical orders henceforth on no boys but upon such as may be found to have learnt after this method...

(1) Literally, "learn in Latin," discere literaliter. Literae, literalis, literatura, etc., are frequently applied to Latin exclusivelyg cf. Reg. Epp. Peckham, R.S, vol, III, pp.813, 816.

(Coulton II, p.113-114)