Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rickinghale, John
RICKINGHALE, JOHN (d. 1429), bishop of Chichester, was educated at Cambridge, where he proceeded D.D. He was ordained acolyte at Ely in 1376, and was then described as of Little Shelford in Cambridgeshire. He was rector of Thorpe Abbots, Norfolk, from 1381 to 1399, and vicar of the mediety of Fressingfield, Suffolk, from 1399 to 1421. He was chancellor of York Minster in 1400, archdeacon of Northumberland in 1408, and dean of St. Mary's College, Norwich, 1405 to 1426. He was chancellor of Cambridge University from 1415 till 1422 (cf. Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, II. ii. 550), and from 1416 to 12 July 1426 master of Gonville Hall, now Gonville and Caius College. He was confessor to John, duke of Bedford, and by his agency was consecrated bishop of Chichester at Mortlake church on 3 June 1426. He died in the summer of 1429, his will being made on 2 April, and proved on 14 July of that year at Lambeth (Lamb. Libr. II. 11. 95); in it he makes bequests to places he had been connected with, and mentions his nephew, John Mannyng. He was buried in the north aisle of the cathedral.
[All the important facts in the life of Rickinghale have been collected by Dr. Venn, who has very kindly allowed his materials (including his copy of the will) to be used; Sussex Arch. Coll. xxix. 8; Dallaway's Sussex, Chichester, pp. 60, 133, Paroch. Hist. p. 290; Godwin, De Præsulibus (epitaph).]