After a patron had appointed a master to a particular school, that master possessed the monopoly of keeping school in the prescribed area as long as he held the mastership of the school. No other school was allowed to be kept except with the consent of the master of the school. If any individual attempted to establish a school without such consent, then it was open to the schoolmaster to take the necessary steps to end this infringement of his monopoly. One of the earliest cases of this character, of which records still exist, dates from 1138. Apparently some unlicensed schools had been set up in some parts of London. The schoolmaster of St. Paul's reported the matter to the Bishop of Winchester (who was acting as Bishop of London during a vacancy in the see). The Bishop consequently issued a writ, in which sentence of excommunication was passed against all those who should continue to keep school in the city of London without the permission of Henry, the schoolmaster.[287] Other cases are recorded in the Beverley Chapter Act Book,[288] one of which may be taken for illustrative purposes. It seems that in 1304 Thomas of Brompton was the recognised master of the school of grammar in connection with the collegiate church at Beverley. An attempt was made by an unauthorised person to set up a school.[289] The schoolmaster reported the offender to the chapter; the chapter determined that if the offence was continued, then the intruding schoolmaster would be, _ipso facto_, excommunicate and that the chapter clerk was to announce, every Sunday, the fact of such excommunication. There is no real evidence that there was any ground of appeal against such a sentence of excommunication. Only one instance of an appeal having been made is on record. It seems that a dispute as to the right of keeping school arose at Winchester, and that the party dissatisfied with the verdict carried the case to Rome. It has not been found possible, so far, to trace the result of the appeal.[290] One of the most important of the cases in which an alleged infringement of monopoly took place, is the "Gloucester School Case," which has come to be regarded as the leading case on the subject. Briefly, the facts are: the prior of Llanthony, as patron of the schools at Gloucester, had appointed John Hamlyn to the mastership of the school. A priest named Thomas More, who had previously been "scolemaster atte Herford," set up an unlicensed school at Gloucester. Hamlyn therefore took action against More but, instead of bringing the defendant before a spiritual court, as had previously been customary, he brought the action in the Court of Common Pleas, and the case was tried before the Lord Chief Justice and two other judges.