(Vol. viii., p. 528.)
_Parvise_ seems to have been a porch, used as a school or place for
disputation. The _parvise_ mentioned in the Oxford "Little-Go"
(Responsions) Testamur is alluded to in Bishop Cooper's book against
Private Mass (published by the Parker Society). He ridicules his opponent's
arguments as worthy of "a sophister in the parvyse schools." The
Serjeant-at-law, in Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, had been often at the
_paruise_. In some notes on this character in a number of the _Penny
Magazine_ for 1840 or 1841, it is farther remarked that the choristers of
Norwich Cathedral were formerly taught in the _parvise_, _i. e._ porch. The
chamber over a porch in some churches may have been the school meant.
Instances of this arrangement were to be found at Doncaster Church (where
it was used as a library), and at Sherborne Abbey Church. The porch here
was Norman, and the chamber Third Pointed; and at the restoration lately
effected the pitch of the roof was raised, and the chamber removed.