Earlier in the Introduction, I mentioned Thomas Gregory, a rector at Peckleton in 1534. An essay by W.G. Hopkins published in 1950 concluded that church ministers in the late medieval period ‘were largely poor men living obscure lives in country parishes’.
Of the clergy in Leicestershire in 1576, only twelve met the standard of ‘skilled in Latin and moderately skilled in holy scripture and a teacher in his benefice’. Ninety-three members of the Leicestershire clergy were considered ‘insufficient’ or ‘ignorant’! No names appear of those who fell into the latter category, but given the size of the community in Peckleton, it would be no surprise that Thomas Gregory was one of them. I have not been able to trace any record of his ordination.
Little about Thomas Gregory is known, but it is unlikely that he originated from the Peckleton area. Parish records for the period suggest that Gregory was not a familiar surname in Leicestershire, and it was, for instance, much more common in Derbyshire during the Tudor period. Given the relative rarity of the name, it would appear at least possible that Thomas could have been the father of Rychard Gregorye, born about 1534?
