Early English Meals and Manners Part 8

There are in like manner divers collegiat churches, as Windsor, Wincester, Eaton, Westminster (in which I was sometime an unprofitable Grammarian under the reverend father, master Nowell, now dean of Paules) and in those a great number of pore scholers, dailie maintained by the liberality of the founders, with meat, bookes, and apparell; from whence after they have been well entered in the knowledge of the Latine and Greek tongs, and rules of versifying (the triall whereof is made by certain apposers, yearlie appointed to examine them), they are sent to certain especiall houses in each universitie[79], where they are received & trained up in the points of higher knowledge in their privat halls till they be adjudged meet to show their faces in the schooles, as I have said alreadie.

[Headnote: STUDY OF ENGLISH RECOMMENDED IN 1582-1612.]

Greek was first taught at a public school in England by Lillye soon after the year 1500. This was at St Paul's School in London, then newly established by Dean Colet, and to which Erasmus alluded as the best of its time in 1514, when he said that he had in three years taught a youth more Latin than he could have acquired in any school in England, _ne Liliana quidem excepta_, not even Lillye's excepted. (Warton, iii. 1.) The first schoolmaster who stood up for the study of English was, I believe, Richard Mulcaster, of King's College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1561 he was appointed the first head-master of Merchant-Taylors School in London, then just founded as a feeder or pro-seminary for St John's College, Oxford (_Warton_, iii. 282). In his Elementarie, 1582, he has a long pa.s.sage on the study of English, the whole of which I print here, at Mr Quick's desire, as it has slipt out of people's minds, and Mulcaster deserves honour for it:--

"But bycause I take vpon me in this Elementarie, besides som frindship to secretaries for the pen, and to correctors for the print, to direct such peple as teach childern to read and write English, and the _reading_ must nedes be such as the writing leads vnto, thererfor, (_sic_) befor I medle with anie particular precept, to direct the Reader, I will thoroughlie rip vp the hole certaintie of our English writing, so far furth and with such a.s.surance, as probabilitie can make me, bycause it is a thing both proper to my argument, and profitable to my c.u.n.trie. For our naturall tung being as beneficiall vnto vs for our nedefull deliuerie, as anie other is to the peple which vse it: & hauing as pretie, and as fair obseruations in it, as anie other hath: and being as readie to yield to anie rule of Art, as anie other is: why should I not take som pains to find out the right writing of ours, as other c.u.n.trimen haue don to find the like in theirs? & so much the rather, bycause it is pretended, that the writing thereof is meruellous vncertain, and scant to be recouered from extreme confusion, without som change of as great extremitie? I mean therefor so to deall in it, as I maie wipe awaie that opinio{n} of either vncertaintie for co{n}fusion, or impossibilitie for directio{n}, that both the naturall English maie haue wherein to rest, & the desirous st[r]anger maie haue whereby to learn. For the performa{n}ce whereof, and mine own better direction, I will first examin those means, whereby other tungs of most sacred antiquitie haue bene brought to Art and form of discipline for their right writing, to the end that by following their waie, I maie hit vpo{n} their right, and at the least by their president deuise the like to theirs, where the vse of our tung, & the propertie of our dialect will not yeild flat to theirs. That don, I will set all the varietie of our now writing, & the vncertaine force of all our letters, in as much certaintie, as anie writing ca{n} be, by these sene{n} precepts,-- 1. _Generall rule_, which concerneth the propertie and vse of ech letter: 2. _Proportion_ which reduceth all words of one sou{n}d to the same writing: 3. _Composition_, which teacheth how to write one word made of mo: 4. _Deriuation_, which examineth the ofspring of euerie originall: 5. _Distinction_ which bewraieth the difference of sound and force in letters by som writen figure or accent: 6. _Enfranchisment_, which directeth the right writing of all incorporat foren words: 7. _Prerogatiue_, which declareth a reseruation, wherein common vse will continew hir precedence in our En[g]lish writing, as she hath don euerie where else, both for the form of the letter, in som places, which likes the pen better: and for the difference in writing, where som particular caueat will chek a common rule. In all these seuen I will so examin the particularities of our tung, as either nothing shall seme strange at all, or if anie thing do seme, yet it shall not seme so strange, but that either the self same, or the verie like vnto it, or the more strange then it is, shal appear to be in, those things, which ar more familiar vnto vs for extraordinarie learning, then required of vs for our ordinarie vse. And forasmuch as the eie will help manie to write right by a sene president, which either cannot vnderstand, or cannot entend to vnderstand the reason of a rule, therefor in the end of this treatis for right writing, I purpos to set down a generall table of most English words, by waie of president, to help such plane peple, as cannot entend the vnderstanding of a rule, which requireth both time and conceit in perceiuing, but can easilie run to a generall table, which is readier to their hand. By the which table I shall also confirm the right of my rules, that theie hold thoroughout, & by mult.i.tude of exa{m}ples help som maim (_so_) in precepts. Thus much for the right writing of our English tung, which maie seme (_so_) for a preface to the principle of _Reading_, as the matter of the one is the maker of the other.--1582. Rich^d. Mulcaster. The First Part of the Elementarie, pp. 53-4.

Brinsley follows Mulcaster in exhorting to the study of English:

"there seemes vnto mee, to bee a verie maine want in all our Grammar schooles generally, or in the most of them; whereof I haue heard som great learned men to complain; That there is no care had in respect, to traine vp schollars so as they may be able to expresse their minds purely and readily in our owne tongue, and to increase in the practice of it, as well as in the Latine or Greeke; whereas our chiefe indeuour should bee for it, and that for these reasons. 1. Because that language which all sorts and conditions of men amongst vs are to haue most vse of, both in speech & writing, is our owne natiue tongue. 2. The purity and elegancie of our owne language is to be esteemed a chiefe part of the honour of our nation: which we all ought to aduance as much as in vs lieth. As when Greece and Rome and other nations haue most florished, their languages also haue beene most pure: and from those times of Greece & Rome, wee fetch our chiefest patterns, for the learning of their tongues. 3. Because of those which are for a time trained vp in schooles, there are very fewe which proceede in learning, in comparison of them that follow other callings.

John Brinsley, _The Grammar Schoole_, p. 21, 22.

His "Meanes to obtaine this benefit of increasing in our English tong, as in the Latin," are

1. Daily vse of Lillies rules construed.

2. Continuall practice of English Grammaticall translations.

3. Translating and writing English, with some other Schoole exercises.

_Ibid._, side-notes, p. 22, 23.

On this question of English boys studying English, let it be remembered that in this year of grace 1867, in all England there is just one public school at which English is studied historically--the City of London School--and that in this school it was begun only last year by the new Head-Master, the Rev. Edwin A. Abbot, all honour to him. In every cla.s.s an English textbook is read, _Piers Plowman_ being that for the highest cla.s.s. This neglect of English as a subject of study is due no doubt to tutors' and parents' ignorance. None of them know the language historically; the former can't teach it, the latter don't care about it; why should their boys learn it? Oh tutors and parents, there are such things as a.s.ses in the world.

[Headnote: A GRAMMAR-SCHOOL BOY'S DAY IN A.D. 1612.]

Of the school-life of a Grammar-school boy in 1612 we may get a notion from Brinsley's p. 296, "chap. x.x.x. Of Schoole times, intermissions and recreations," which is full of interest. '1. The Schoole-time should beginne at sixe: all who write Latine to make their exercises which were giuen ouernight, in that houre before seuen'.--To make boys punctual, 'so many of them as are there at sixe, to haue their places as they had them by election[80] or the day before: all who come after six, euery one to sit as he commeth, and so to continue that day, and vntill he recouer his place againe by the election of the fourme or otherwise....

If any cannot be brought by this, them to be noted in the blacke Bill by a speciall marke, and feele the punishment thereof: and sometimes present correction to be vsed for terrour.... Thus they are to continue vntill nine [at work in cla.s.s], signified by Monitours, Subdoctour or otherwise. Then at nine ... to let them to haue a quarter of an houre at least, or more, for intermission, eyther for breakefast ... or else for the necessitie of euery one, or their honest recreation, or to prepare their exercises against the Masters comming in. [2.] After, each of them to be in his place in an instant, vpon the knocking of the dore or some other sign ... so to continue vntill eleuen of the clocke, or somwhat after, to counteruaile the time of the intermission at nine.

(3.) To be againe all ready, and in their places at one, in an instant; to continue vntill three, or halfe an houre after: then to haue another quarter of an houre or more, as at nine for drinking and necessities; so to continue till halfe an houre after fiue: thereby in that halfe houre to counteruaile the time at three; then to end so as was shewed, with reading a peece of a Chapter, and with singing two staues of a Psalme: lastly with prayer to be vsed by the Master.'

To the objectors to these intermissions at nine and three, who may reproach the schoole, thinking that they do nothing but play, Brinsley answers,-- '2. By this meanes also the Schollars may bee kept euer in their places, and hard to their labours, without that running out to the Campo (as the[y] tearme it) at school times, and the manifolde disorders thereof; as watching and striuing for the clubbe,[81] and loytering then in the fields; some hindred that they cannot go forth at all. (5.) it is very requisite also, that they should have weekly one part of an afternoone for recreation, as a reward of their diligence, obedience and profiting; and that to be appointed at the Masters discretion, eyther the Thursday, after the vsuall custom; or according to the best opportunity of the place.... All recreations and sports of schollars, would be meet for Gentlemen. Clownish sports, or perilous, or yet playing for money, are no way to be admitted.'

On the age at which boys went to school, Brinsley says, p. 9,

"For the time of their entrance with vs, in our countrey schooles, it is commonly about 7. or 8. yeares olde: six is very soone. If any begin so early, they are rather sent to the schoole to keepe them from troubling the house at home, and from danger, and shrewd turnes, then for any great hope and desire their friends haue that they should learne anything in effect."

[Headnote: THE GOOD OLD TIMES OF SMOKE AND FILTH.]

To return from this digression on Education. Enough has been said to show that the progress of Education, in our sense of the word, was rather from below upwards, than from above downwards; and I conclude that the young people to whom the _Babees Boke_, &c., were addressed, were the children of our n.o.bility, knights, and squires, and that the state of their manners, as left by their home training, was such as to need the inculcation on them of the precepts contained in the Poems. If so, dirty, ill-mannered, awkward young gawks, must most of these hopes-of-England have been, to modern notions. The directions for personal cleanliness must have been much needed when one considers the small stock of linen and clothes that men not rich must have had; and if we may judge from a pa.s.sage in Edward the Fourth's _Liber Niger_, even the King himself did not use his footpan every Sat.u.r.day night, and would not have been the worse for an occasional tubbing:--

"This barbour shall have, every satyrday at nyght, _if_ it please the Kinge to cleanse his head, legges, or feet, and for his shaving, two loves, one picher wyne. And the ussher of chambre ought to testyfye if this is necessaryly dispended or not."

So far as appears from Edward the Fourth's _Liber Niger Domus_, soap was used only for washing clothes. The yeoman lavender, or washerman, was to take from the Great Spicery 'as muche whyte soape, greye, and blacke, as can be thought resonable by proufe of the Countrollers,' and therewith 'tenderly to waysshe ... the stuffe for the Kinges propyr persone' (_H.

Ord._ p. 85); but whether that cleansing material ever touched His Majesty's sacred person (except doubtless when and if the barber shaved him), does not appear. The Ordinances are considerate as to s.e.x, and provide for "weomen lavendryes" for a Queen, and further that "these officers oughte to bee sworne to keepe the chambre counsaylle." But it is not for one of a nation that has not yet taken generally to tubbing and baths, or left off shaving, to reproach his forefathers with want of cleanliness, or adherence to customs that involve contradiction of the teachings of physiologists, and the evident intent of Nature or the Creator. Moreover, reflections on the good deeds done, and the high thoughts thought, by men of old dirtier than some now, may prevent us concluding that because other people now talk through their noses, and have manners different from our own, they and their inst.i.tutions must be wholly abominable; that because others smell when heated, they ought to be slaves; or that eating peas with a knife renders men unworthy of the franchise. The temptation to value manners above morals, and pleasantness above honesty, is one that all of us have to guard against.

And when we have held to a custom merely because it is old, have refused to consider fairly the reasons for its change, and are inclined to grumble when the change is carried out, we shall be none the worse for thinking of the people, young and old, who, in the time of Harrison and Shakspere, the "Forgotten Worthies"[82] and Raleigh, no doubt 'hated those nasty new oak houses and chimnies,' and sighed for the good old times:

"And yet see the change, for when our houses were builded of willow, then had we oken men; but now that our houses are come to be made of oke, our men are not onlie become willow, but a great manie through Persian delicacie crept in among vs, altogither of straw, which is a sore alteration.... Now haue we manie chimnies, and yet our tenderlings complaine of rheumes, catarhs and poses.

Then had we none but reredosses, and our heads did neuer ake.[83]

For as the smoke in those daies was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the house; so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman and his familie from the quack or pose, wherewith as then verie few were oft acquainted."

_Harrison_, i. 212, col. 1, quoted by Ellis.

If rich men and masters were dirty, poor men and servants must have been dirtier still. William Langlande's description of Hawkyn's one metaphorical dress in which he slept o' nightes as well as worked by day, bes...o...b..red (or by-_moled_, bemauled) by children, was true of the real smock; flesh-moths must have been plentiful, and the sketch of Coveitise, as regards many men, hardly an exaggeration:

... as a bonde-man of his bacon his berd was bi-draveled, With his hood on his heed a lousy hat above, And in a tawny tabard of twelf wynter age Al so torn and baudy and ful of lys crepyng, But if that a lous[84] couthe han lopen the bettre, She sholde noght han walked on that welthe so was it thred-bare.

(_Vision_, Pa.s.sus V. vol. 1, l. 2859-70, ed. Wright.)

In the _Kinge and Miller_, Percy Folio MS., p. 236 (in vol. ii. of the print), when the Miller proposes that the stranger should sleep with their son, Richard the son says to the King,

"Nay, first," q{uo}th Richard, "good fellowe, tell me true, hast thou noe creep{er}s in thy gay hose?

art thou not troabled w{i}th the Scabbado?"

The colour of washerwomen's legs was due partly to dirt, I suppose. The princess or queen Clarionas, when escaping with the laundress as her a.s.sistant, is obliged to have her white legs reduced to the customary shade of grey:

Right as she should stoupe a-doun, The quene was tukked wel on high; The lauender p{er}ceiued wel therbigh Hir white legges, and seid "ma dame, Youre shin boones might doo vs blame; Abide," she seid, "so mot I thee, More slotered thei most be."

a.s.shes with the water she menged, And her white legges al be-sprenged.

ab. 1440 A.D., _Syr Generides_, p. 218, ll. 7060-8.

[Headnote: NAKED SCULLIONS AND DIRTY STREETS.]

If in Henry the Eighth's kitchen, scullions lay about naked, or tattered and filthy, what would they do elsewhere? Here is the King's Ordinance against them in 1526:

"And for the better avoydyng of corruption and all uncleannesse out of the Kings house, which doth ingender danger of infection, and is very noisome and displeasant unto all the n.o.blemen and others repaireing unto the same; it is ordeyned by the Kings Highnesse, that the three master cookes of the kitchen shall have everie of them by way of reward yearly twenty marks, to the intent they shall prouide and sufficiently furnish the said kitchens of such scolyons as shall not goe _naked or in garments of such vilenesse as they now doe, and have been acustomed to doe, nor lie in the nights and dayes in the kitchens or ground by the fireside;_ but that they of the said money may be found with honest and whole course garments, without such uncleannesse as may be the annoyance of those by whom they shall pa.s.se"...

That our commonalty, at least, in Henry VIII.'s time did stink (as is the nature of man to do) may be concluded from Wolsey's custom, when going to Westminster Hall, of

"holding in his hand a very fair orange, whereof the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of a sponge, wherein was vinegar, and other confections against the pestilent airs; the which he most commonly smelt unto, pa.s.sing among the press, or else when he was pestered with many suitors."

(_Cavendish_, p. 43.)

On the dirt in English houses and streets we may take the testimony of a witness who liked England, and lived in it, and who was not likely to misrepresent its condition,--Erasmus. In a letter to Francis, the physician of Cardinal Wolsey, says Jortin,

"Erasmus ascribes the plague (from which England was hardly ever free) and the sweating-sickness, partly to the incommodious form and bad exposition of the houses, to the filthiness of the streets, and to the s.l.u.ttishness within doors. The floors, says he, are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease (?), fragments, bones, spittle, excrements [t.i. urine] of dogs and cats [t.i.

men,] and every thing that is nasty, &c." (_Life of Erasmus_, i.

69, ed. 1808, referred to in Ellis, i. 328, note.)

The great scholar's own words are,

Tum sola fere sunt argilla, tum scirpis pal.u.s.tribus, qui subinde sic renovantur, ut fundamentum maneat aliquoties annos viginti, sub se fovens sputa, vomitus, mictum canum et hominum, projectam cervisiam, et piscium reliquias, aliasque sordes non nominandas.

Hinc mutato clo vapor quidam exhalatur, mea sententia minime salubris humano corpori.

After speaking also _De salsamentis_ (rendered '_salt meat_, beef, pork, &c.,' by Jortin, but which _Liber Cure Cocorum_ authorises us in translating 'Sauces'[85]), _quibus vulgus mirum in modum delectatur_, he says the English would be more healthy if their windows were made so as to shut out noxious winds, and then continues,

"Conferret huc, si vulgo parcior victus persuaderi posset, ac salsamentorum moderatior usus. Tum si publica cura demandaretur aedilibus, ut viae mundiores essent a cno, mictuque: Curarentur et ea quae civitati vicina sint. _Jortin's Life of Erasmus_, ed. 1808, iii. 44 (Ep. 432, C. 1815), No. VIII. Erasmus Rot. Francisco.

Cardinalis Eboracencis Medico, S.