Early English Meals and Manners Part 7

t. Hen. VIII. 1509-47 Warwick. College or Gr. Sch.

t. Hen. VIII. 1509-47 Earl's Colne, near Halsted. Fr. Gr. Sch.

t. Hen. VIII. 1509-47 Carlisle. Gr. Sch.

1512 Southover and Lewes. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1513 Nottingham. Fr. Sch.

1515 Wolverhampton. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1517 Aylesham. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1512-18 London.[73] St Paul's Sch.

1520 Bruton or Brewton. Fr. Gr. Sch.

ab. 1520 Rolleston, nr. Burton-upon-Trent. Fr. Gr. Sch.

bef. 1521 Tenterden. Fr. Sch.

1521 Milton Abbas, near Blandford. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1522 Taunton. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1522 Biddenden, near Cranbrook. Free Latin Gr. Sch.

bef. 1524-5 Manchester. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1524 Berkhampstead. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1526 Pocklington. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1526 Childrey, near Wantage. Fr. Sch.

bef. 1528 Cuckfield. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1528 Gloucester. Saint Mary de Crypt. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1528 Grantham. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1530 Stamford, or Stanford. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1530 Newark-upon-Trent. Fr. Gr. Sch.

bef. Reform. Norwich. Old Gr. Sch.

t. Ref. Loughborough. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1532 Horsham. Fr. Sch.

1533 Bristol. City Fr. Gr. Sch.

ab. 1533 Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Royal Gr. Sch.

ab. 1535 Stoke, near Clare. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1541 Brecknock. Gr. Sch.

1541 Ely. Fr. Sch.

1541 Durham. Gr. Sch.

1541-2 Worcester. The King's [t.i. Cathedral Grammar] or College School.

1542 Canterbury. The King's School.

1542 Rochester. The King's Sch.[74]

1542 Findon, properly Thingdon, near Wellingborough. Fr. Sch.

1542 Northampton. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1543 Abergavenny. Fr. Gr. Sch.

1544 Chester. [Cathedral] Gr., or King's School.

1544 Sutton Coldfield. Gr. Sch.

bef. 1545 Gloucester. Cathedral [t.i. King's], or College School.

1545 St Mary of Ottery. Gr. Sch.

bef. 1547 Wisbech. Gr. Sch.

bef. 1549 Wellington. Gr. Sch.

About 1174 A.D., Fitzstephen speaks of the London schools and scholars thus:--I use Pegge's translation, 1772, to which Mr Chappell referred me,--

"The three princ.i.p.al churches in London[75] are privileged by grant and ancient usage with schools, and they are all very flourishing. Often indeed through the favour and countenance of persons eminent in philosophy, more schools are permitted. On festivals, at those churches where the Feast of the Patron Saint is solemnized, the masters convene their scholars. The youth, on that occasion, dispute, some in the demonstrative way, and some logically. These produce their enthymemes, and those the more perfect syllogisms. Some, the better to shew their parts, are exercised in disputation, contending with one another, whilst others are put upon establishing some truth by way of ill.u.s.tration. Some sophists endeavour to apply, on feigned topics, a vast heap and flow of words, others to impose upon you with false conclusions. As to the orators, some with their rhetorical harangues employ all the powers of persuasion, taking care to observe the precepts of art, and to omit nothing opposite to the subject. The boys of different schools wrangle with one another in verse; contending about the principles of Grammar, or the rules of the Perfect Tenses and Supines. Others there are, who in Epigrams, or other compositions in numbers, use all that low ribaldry we read of in the Ancients; attacking their school-masters, but without mentioning names, with the old Fescennine licentiousness, and discharging their scoffs and sarcasms against them; touching the foibles of their school-fellows, or perhaps of greater personages, with true Socratic wit, or biting them more keenly with a Theonine tooth: The audience, fully disposed to laugh,

'With curling nose ingeminate the peals.'"

Of the sports of the boys, Fitzstephen gives a long description. On Shrove-Tuesday, each boy brought his fighting c.o.c.k to his master, and they had a c.o.c.k-fight all morning in the school-room.[76] After dinner, football in the fields of the suburbs, probably Smithfield. Every Sunday in Lent they had a sham-fight, some on horseback, some on foot, the King and his Court often looking on. At Easter they played at the Water-Quintain, charging a target, which if they missed, souse they went into the water. 'On holidays in summer the pastime of the youths is to exercise themselves in archery, in running, leaping, wrestling, casting of stones, and flinging to certain distances, and lastly with bucklers.'

At moonrise the maidens danced. In the winter holidays, the boys saw boar-fights, hog-fights, bull and bear-baiting, and when ice came they slid, and skated on the leg-bones of some animal, punting themselves along with an iron-shod pole, and charging one another. A set of merry scenes indeed.

"In general, we are a.s.sured by the most learned man of the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon, that there never had been so great an appearance of learning, and so general an application to study, in so many different faculties, as in his time, when schools were erected in every city, town, burgh, and castle."

(Henry's Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 472-3.)

In the twenty-fifth year of Henry VI., 1447, four Grammar schools were appointed to be opened in London[77] for the education of the City youth (_Carlisle_). But from the above lists it will be seen that Grammar Schools had not much to do with the education of our n.o.bility and gentry before 1450 A.D.

[Headnote: AN ETON BOY IN A.D. 1478.]

Of Eton studies, the Paston Letters notice only Latin versifying, but they show us a young man supposed to be nineteen, still at school, having a smart pair of breeches for holy days, falling in love, eating figs and raisins, proposing to come up to London for a day or two's holiday or lark to his elder brother's, and having 8d. sent him in a letter to buy a pair of slippers with. William Paston, a younger brother of John's, when about nineteen years old, and studying at Eton, writes on Nov. 7, 1478, to thank his brother for a n.o.ble in gold, and says,

"my creanser (creditor) Master Thomas (Stevenson) heartily recommendeth him to you, and he prayeth you to send him some money for my commons, for he saith ye be twenty shillings in his debt, for a month was to pay for when he had money last; also I beseech you to send me a hose cloth, one for the holy days of some colour, and another for working days (how coa.r.s.e soever it be, it maketh no matter), and a stomacher and two shirts, and a pair of slippers: and if it like you that I may come with Alweder by water"--would they take a pair-oar and pull down? (the figs and raisins came up by a barge;)--"and sport me with you at London a day or two this term-time, then ye may let all this be till the time that I come, and then I will tell you when I shall be ready to come from Eton by the grace of G.o.d, who have you in his keeping." _Paston Letters_, modernised, vol. 2, p. 129.

This is the first letter; the second one about the figs, raisins, and love-making (dated 23 Feb. 1478-9) is given at vol. ii. p. 122-3.

Tusser, who was seized as a Singing boy for the King's Chapel, lets us know that he got well birched at Eton.

"From Paul's I went to Eton sent To learn straightways the Latin phrase When fifty-three stripes given to me At once I had:

For fault but small or none at all It come to pa.s.s thus beat I was.

See, Udall,[78] see the mercy of thee To me poor lad!"

I was rather surprised to find no mention of any Eton men in the first vol. of Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_ (ed. Bliss) except two, who had first taken degrees at Cambridge, Robert Aldrich and William Alley, the latter admitted at Cambridge 1528 (Wood, p. 375, col. 2). Plenty of London men are named in Wood, vol. 1. No doubt in early times the Eton men went to their own foundation, King's (or other Colleges at) Cambridge, while the Winchester men went to their foundation, New College, or elsewhere at Oxford. In the first volume of Bliss's edition of Wood, the following Winchester men are noticed:

p. 30, col. 2, William Grocyn, educated in grammaticals in Wykeham's school near Winchester.

p. 78, col. 2, William Horman, made fellow of New Coll. in 1477.

Author of the _Vulgaria Puerorum_, &c. (See also Andrew Borde, p. x.x.xiv, above, note.)

p. 379, col. 2, John Boxall, Fellow of New Coll. 1542.

402, col. 2, Thomas Hardyng 1536.

450, col. 2, Henry Cole 1523.

469, col. 1, Nicholas Saunders 1548.

678, col. 2, Richard Haydock 1590.

[Headnote: POST-REFORMATION GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.]

That the post-Reformation Grammar Schools did not at first educate as many boys as the old monastic schools is well known. Strype says,

"On the 15th of January, 1562, Thomas Williams, of the Inner Temple, esq. being chosen speaker to the lower house, was presented to the queen: and in his speech to her ... took notice of the want of schools; that at least an hundred were wanting in England which before this time had been, [being destroyed (I suppose he meant) by the dissolution of monasteries and religious houses, fraternities and colleges.] He would have had England continually flourishing with ten thousand scholars, which the schools in this nation formerly brought up. That from the want of these good schoolmasters sprang up ignorance: and covetousness got the livings by impropriations; which was a decay, he said, of learning, and by it the tree of knowledge grew downward, not upward; which grew greatly to the dishonour, both of G.o.d and the commonwealth. He mentioned likewise the decay of the universities; and how that great market-towns were without schools or preachers: and that the poor vicar had but 20_l._ [or some such poor allowance,] and the rest, being no small sum, was impropriated.

And so thereby, no preacher there; but the people, being trained up and led in blindness for want of instruction, became obstinate: and therefore advised that this should be seen to, and impropriations redressed, notwithstanding the laws already made [which favoured them].--Strype, _Annals of the Reformation_, vol.

i. p. 437.

Of the Grammar Schools in his time (A.D. 1577) Harrison says:

Besides these universities, also there are a great number of Grammer Schooles throughout the realme, and those verie liberallie endued for the better relief of pore scholers, so that there are not manie corporate townes, now under the queene's dominion that have not one Gramer Schole at the least, with a sufficient living for a master and usher appointed to the same.