John Gunthorpe

John Gunthorpe (died 1498) was an English administrator, Keeper of the Privy Seal and Dean of Wells.

He was a student at Cambridge University and he had already entered into clergyship and had received holy orders. By private appointment Gunthorpe served as a secretary to Queen Elizabeth I. By 1452 he was the master of the arts at Cambridge University and served as a junior proctor in 1454-5. Gunthorpe traveled to Italy and was in Ferrara in August 1460. He had been attending lectures of Guarino on rhetoric at Ferrara. His teacher Guarino died at the end of 1460 and this may be why Gunthorpe moved on. In January 1462 Gunthorpe was formally taken into papal service. Pope Pius II examined Gunthorpe for fitness, and the pope appointed Gunthorpe as a papal chaplain and a minor penitentiary in St. Peter’s Basilica and in the Papal Curia. From 1460-1465 Gunthorpe went through a period of post-graduate study in Italy where he perfected his Latin rhetorical style. He also learned Greek and presumably Italian, and gained experience in the international arena of the papal court.

Gunthorpe returned to England in 1465 and became intimately integrated into the religious, diplomatic, financial, and political life of the court and government of Edward IV. Gunthorpe's involvement in Anglo-Castilian diplomacy concluded in 1470 when he was one of the ambassadors commissioned on 14 March by King Edward IV to embark upon an ultimately fruitless effort to persuade Enrique IV against the repudiation of the treaty between their kingdoms. Gunthorpe was in the royal household as a king’s chaplain by the summer of 1466.

In 1468, he returned to Cambridge University and was granted a baccalaureate in theology. On 9 December 1468, Gunthorpe became the king’s almoner. The almoner was the person who had charge of the king’s charities from gifts of money to the distribution of surplus food from the king’s table and the office can be traced back at least to the twelfth century. John Gunthorpe was the first person on record to have been called ‘King High Almoner’. Gunthorpe was also a warden.

In 1472, Gunthorpe became a monk at St. Stephen’s chapel and remained a monk of St. Stephen’s for the rest of his life. He was also a monk of many other chapels. However, even though he was a monk at all of these chapels, his place of residency was with the king. In 1476 Gunthorpe became dean of the king’s household chapel. The dean had supervisory authority over every aspect of the chapel’s function.

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