Early English Meals and Manners Part 1

Early English Meals and Manners.

by Various.

FOREWORDS.

"The naturall maister Aristotell saith that euery body be the course of nature is enclyned to here & se all that refressheth & quickeneth the spretys of man[1] / wherfor I haue thus in this boke folowinge[2]"

gathered together divers treatises touching the Manners & Meals of Englishmen in former days, & have added therto divers figures of men of old, at meat & in bed,[3] to the end that, to my fellows here & to come, the home life of their forefathers may be somewhat more plain, & their own minds somewhat rejoiced.

The treatises here collected consist of a main one--John Russell's _Boke of Nurture_, to which I have written a separate preface[4]--extracts and short books ill.u.s.trating Russell, like the _Booke of Demeanor_ and _Boke of Curtasy_, and certain shorter poems addressed partly to those whom Cotgrave calls "_Enfans de famille_, Yonkers of account, youthes of good houses, children of rich parents (yet aliue)," partly to carvers and servants, partly to schoolboys, partly to people in general, or at least those of them who were willing to take advice as to how they should mend their manners and live a healthy life.

[Headnote: EDWARD THE FOURTH'S HENCHMEN]

The persons to whom the last poems of the present collection are addressed, the

yonge Babees, whom{e} bloode Royall{e} With{e} grace, feture, and hyhe habylite Hath{e} en{ou}rmyd,

the "Bele Babees" and "swete Children," may be likened to the "young gentylmen, Henxmen,--VI Enfauntes, or more, as it shall please the Kinge,"--at Edward the Fourth's Court; and the authors or translators of the Bokes in this volume, somewhat to that sovereign's Maistyr of Henxmen, whose duty it was

"to shew the schooles[5] of urbanitie and nourture of Englond, to lerne them to ryde clenely and surely; to drawe them also to justes; to lerne them were theyre barneys; to haue all curtesy in wordes, dedes, and degrees; dilygently to kepe them in rules of goynges and sittinges, after they be of honour. Moreover to teche them sondry languages, and othyr lerninges vertuous, to harping, to pype, sing, daunce, and with other honest and temperate behaviour and patience; and to kepe dayly and wekely with these children dew convenity, with corrections in theyre chambres, according to suche gentylmen; and eche of them to be used to that thinge of vertue that he shall be moste apt to lerne, with remembraunce dayly of G.o.ddes servyce accustumed. This maistyr sitt.i.th in the halle, next unto these Henxmen, at the same boarde, to have his respecte unto theyre demeanynges, howe manerly they ete and drinke, and to theyre communication and other formes curiall, after _the booke of urbanitie_." (Liber Niger in _Household Ordinances_, p. 45.)

That these young Henxmen were gentlemen, is expressly stated,[6] and they had "everyche of them an honest servaunt to keepe theyre chambre and harneys, and to aray hym in this courte whyles theyre maisters he present in courte." I suppose that when they grew up, some became Esquires, and then their teaching would prove of use, for

"These Esquiers of houshold of old [were] accustumed, wynter and sumer, in aftyrnoones and in eveninges, to drawe to lordes chambres within courte, there to kepe honest company aftyr theyre cunnynge, in talkyng of cronycles of Kings and of other polycyes, or in pypeyng or harpyng, synging, or other actes martialles, to help occupy the courte, and accompany straungers, tyll the tyme require of departing."

But that a higher station than an Esquier's was in store for some of these henchmen, may be known from the history of one of them. Thomas Howard, eldest son of Sir John Howard, knight (who was afterwards Duke of Norfolk, and killed at Bosworth Field), was among these henchmen or pages, 'enfauntes' six or more, of Edward IV.'s. He was made Duke of Norfolk for his splendid victory over the Scots at Flodden, and Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were his granddaughters. Among the 'othyr lerninges vertuous' taught him at Edward's court was no doubt that of drawing, for we find that 'He was buried with much pomp at Thetford Abbey under a tomb designed by himself and master Clarke, master of the works at King's College, Cambridge, & Wa.s.sel a freemason of Bury S.

Edmund's.' Cooper's _Ath. Cant._, i. p. 29, col. 2.

[Headnote: RICH MEN'S EDUCATION IN EARLY ENGLAND.]

The question of the social rank of these Bele Babees,[[6a]] children, and _Pueri_ who stood at tables, opens up the whole subject of upper-cla.s.s education in early times in England. It is a subject that, so far as I can find, has never yet been separately treated[7], and I therefore throw together such few notices as the kindness of friends[8]

and my own chance grubbings have collected; these as a sort of stopgap till the appearance of Mr Anstey's volume on early Oxford Studies in the _Chronicles and Memorials_, a volume which will, I trust, give us a complete account of early education in our land. If it should not, I hope that Mr Quick will carry his pedagogic researches past Henry VIII.'s time, or that one of our own members will take the subject up.

It is worthy of being thoroughly worked out. For convenience' sake, the notices I have mentioned are arranged under six heads:

1. Education in n.o.bles' houses.

2. At Home and at Private Tutors', p. xvii. (Girls, p. xxv.) 3. At English Universities, p. xxvi.

4. At Foreign Universities, p. xl.

5. At Monastic and Cathedral Schools, p. xli.

6. At Grammar Schools, p. lii.

One consideration should be premised, that manly exercises, manners and courtesy, music and singing, knowledge of the order of precedency of ranks, and ability to carve, were in early times more important than Latin and Philosophy. 'Aylmar e kyng' gives these directions to Athelbrus, his steward, as to Horn's education:

Stiwarde, tak nu here Mi fundlyng for to lere 228 Of ine meste{re}, Of wude {and} of riuere; {And} tech him to harpe Wi his nayles scharpe; 232 Biuore me to kerue, And of e cupe serue; u tech him of alle e liste (craft, AS. _list_) at u eure of wiste; 236 [And] his feiren ou wise (mates thou teach) Into oere s{er}uise.

Horn u underuonge, {And} tech him of harpe {and} songe. 240

_King Horn_, E. E. T. Soc., 1866, ed. Lumby, p. 7.[9]

So in Romances and Ballads of later date, we find

The child was taught great nurterye; a Master had him vnder his care, & taught him _curtesie_.

_Tryamore_, in Bp. Percy's Folio MS. vol. ii. ed. 1867.

It was the worthy Lord of learen, he was a lord of hie degree; he had noe more children but one sonne, he sett him to schoole to learne _curtesie_.

_Lord of Learne_, Bp. Percy's Folio MS. vol. i. p. 182, ed. 1867.

Chaucer's Squire, as we know, at twenty years of age

hadde ben somtyme in chivachie, In Flaundres, in Artoys, and in Picardie, And born him wel, as in so litel s.p.a.ce, In hope to stonden in his lady grace ...

Syngynge he was, or flowtynge, al the day ...

Wel cowde he sitte on hors, and wel cowde ryde.

He cowde songes wel make and endite, Justne and eek daunce, and wel purtray and write ...

Curteys he was, lowly, and servysable, And carf beforn his fadur at the table.[10]

Which of these accomplishments would Cambridge or Oxford teach? Music alone.[[10a]] That, as Harrison says, was one of the Quadrivials, 'arithmetike, musike, geometrie, and astronomie.' The Trivium was grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

[Headnote: HOUSES OF n.o.bLES AND CHANCELLORS WERE SCHOOLS.]

1. The chief places of education for the sons of our n.o.bility and gentry were the houses of other n.o.bles, and specially those of the Chancellors of our Kings, men not only able to read and write, talk Latin and French themselves, but in whose hands the Court patronage lay. As early as Henry the Second's time (A.D. 1154-62), if not before[11], this system prevailed. A friend notes that Fitz-Stephen says of Becket:

"The n.o.bles of the realm of England and of neighbouring kingdoms used to send their sons to serve the Chancellor, whom he trained with honourable bringing-up and learning; and when they had received the knight's belt, sent them back with honour to their fathers and kindred: some he used to keep. The king himself, his master, entrusted to him his son, the heir of the realm, to be brought up; whom he had with him, with many sons of n.o.bles of the same age, and their proper retinue and masters and proper servants in the honour due." --_Vita S. Thomae_, pp. 189, 190, ed. Giles.

Roger de Hoveden, a Yorkshireman, who was a clerk or secretary to Henry the Second, says of Richard the Lionheart's unpopular chancellor, Longchamps the Bishop of Ely:

"All the sons of the n.o.bles acted as his servants, with downcast looks, nor dared they to look upward towards the heavens unless it so happened that they were addressing him; and if they attended to anything else they were p.r.i.c.ked with a goad, which their lord held in his hand, fully mindful of his grandfather of pious memory, who, being of servile condition in the district of Beauvais, had, for his occupation, to guide the plough and whip up the oxen; and who at length, to gain his liberty, fled to the Norman territory."

(Riley's _Hoveden_, ii. 232, quoted in _The Cornhill Magazine_, vol. xv. p. 165.)[12]

All Chancellors were not brutes of this kind, but we must remember that young people were subjected to rough treatment in early days. Even so late as Henry VI.'s time, Agnes Paston sends to London on the 28th of January, 1457, to pray the master of her son of 15, that if the boy "hath not done well, nor will not amend," his master Greenfield "will truly belash him till he will amend." And of the same lady's treatment of her marriageable daughter, Elizabeth, Clere writes on the 29th of June, 1454,

"She (the daughter) was never in so great sorrow as she is now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, ne not may see nor speak with my man, nor with servants of her mother's, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than she meaneth; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice on a day, and her head broken in two or three places." (v. i. p. 50, col. 1, ed. 1840.)

The treatment of Lady Jane Grey by her parents was also very severe, as she told Ascham, though she took it meekly, as her sweet nature was:

"One of the greatest benefites that G.o.d ever gave me, is, that he sent me so sharpe and severe Parentes, and so jentle a scholemaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merie or sad, be sewyng, plaiyng, dauncing, or doing anie thing els, I must do it, as it were, in soch weight, mesure, and number, even so perfitelie as G.o.d made the world, or els I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened; yea presentlie some tymes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other waies which I will not name for the honor I beare them, so without measure misordered, that I thinke my self in h.e.l.l till tyme c.u.m that I must go to _M. Elmer_, who teacheth me so jentlie, so pleasantlie, with soch faire allurementes to learning, that I thinke all the tyme nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping." --_The Scholemaster_, ed. Mayor.

The inordinate beating[13] of boys by schoolmasters--whom he calls in different places 'sharp, fond, & lewd'[14]--Ascham denounces strongly in the first book of his _Scholemaster_, and he contrasts their folly in beating into their scholars the hatred of learning with the practice of the wise riders who by gentle allurements breed them up in the love of riding. Indeed, the origin of his book was Sir Wm. Cecil's saying to him "I have strange news brought me this morning, that divers scholars of Eton be run away from the school for fear of beating."

Sir Peter Carew, says Mr Froude, being rather a troublesome boy, was chained in the Haccombe dog-kennel till he ran away from it.

[Headnote: BP. GROSSETETE TAUGHT n.o.bLES' SONS.]

But to return to the training of young men in n.o.bles' houses. I take the following from Fiddes's Appendix to his Life of Wolsey: