Education in England in the Middle Ages Part 1

Education in England in the Middle Ages.

by Albert William Parry.

PREFACE.

The purpose of this book is to give an account of the provision which was made in this country for Education during the period from the Introduction of Christianity to the Eve of the Reformation. Preparatory to writing it, I tried to examine all the relevant, available evidence with the object of discovering the factors which contributed to the educational development of the nation during the period under consideration.

Whilst this work was in progress, the late A. F. Leach published his _Schools of Mediaeval England_. His book, however, differs essentially from mine, his aim is different, the conclusions he arrives at are different; further, as he does not quote the authorities for the statements he makes, I did not find his work of direct a.s.sistance. This criticism does not apply to his _Educational Charters_, a collection of doc.u.ments of inestimable value to all students of English Educational History.

I have tried to acknowledge in every case my obligations to other writers.

In addition, I give in an appendix a list of the authorities I have consulted, and of the other books I have studied for the purpose of this investigation. Still, as a great part of this book was written whilst I was on military service (1914-9) and I was consequently dependent on notes which I had compiled at various times and places, it is probable there may be some omissions and inaccuracies. My defence must be the special circ.u.mstances of recent years.

May I take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness to Professor Foster Watson, D.Litt. As one of his former students I owe to the stimulus and encouragement I received from him, my interest in matters relating to the History of Education. I wish also to refer in appreciative terms to Mr. J. E. G. de Montmorency's _State Intervention in English Education_.

Mr. de Montmorency was the first writer to give a connected account of the development of English Education, and it is only fitting that those who essay a similar task should realise their obligations to the one who first "blazed the trail."

I must also thank Mr. G. St. Quintin and Mr. S. E. Goggin for relieving me of the distasteful task of correcting the proofs, and the Rev. Dr. Hughes for kindly preparing the Index.

A. W. P.

CARMARTHEN, _January 1920._

INTRODUCTION.

The history of education during the Middle Ages is closely interwoven with the history of the Church. Professor Foster Watson quotes with approval Cardinal Newman's dictum, "Not a man in Europe who talks bravely against the Church but owes it to the Church that he can talk at all."[1]

It is possible to trace three stages in the development of the English educational system during the period with which we are concerned.

The first stage covers a period from the Introduction of Christianity to the Norman Conquest. The Introduction of Christianity was the means by which education became possible for this country, and so it naturally came about that the provision of facilities for education was generally conceived of as a part of the function of the Church. In this connection it is important to realise the relationship of the State to the Church in Anglo-Saxon times. As Professor Medley points out,[2] the Church and the State during this period were largely identical. The bishops were _ex-officio_ the advisers of the kings, and they sat in the local courts not only exercising jurisdiction in those cases in which the clergy were affected, but also concerning themselves with questions involving the morals of the laity. In a more real sense than at any subsequent time, the Church of England, during the Anglo-Saxon period, was the Church of the English nation. During this time the activities of the Church were essentially the activities of the State, and the work which was done for education might be conceived of, indifferently, as either the work of the Church or of the State.

The second stage dates from the Norman Conquest, which brought to a close this ident.i.ty of Church and State. William I., impelled by a desire to effect certain reforms in the Church on the model of those he had witnessed abroad, separated the ecclesiastical from the civil courts, and, by the ordinance he issued, authorised the ecclesiastical authorities to utilise the secular power for the enforcement of their sentences. From this time and right up to the Reformation, Church and State were distinct in this country.

This separation of Church and State resulted in a number of duties, other than those which were strictly spiritual, being tacitly regarded as a part of the function of the Church. The provision of Educational facilities is included among these duties, and it was left to the Church to make such arrangements for the organisation, maintenance, and control of education as she deemed fit.

A third stage evolved when the social consciousness of the community (or rather of a part of the community) first realised that education was not a matter for the ecclesiastical authorities alone. The first manifestation of this in England occurred when teachers began to recognise that they exercised a function distinct from the special functions of the priesthood and consequently proceeded to a.s.sociate themselves in an organisation for the protection of their common interests and thus initiated a movement which ultimately resulted in the establishment of universities. At a later date, various economic developments produced certain social changes which not only made education an object of greater desire but also brought it about that wealthy merchants, gilds, and civic communities, as well as churchmen, took part in the work of providing additional facilities for the education of the people.

For the sake of convenience we may distinguish these three stages as:--

I. The Anglo-Saxon Period.

II. Education under Church Control.

III. Education pa.s.sing out of Church Control.

BOOK I.

THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD.

CHAPTER I.

THE WORK OF THE MONASTERIES.

The introduction of Christianity to this country subsequent to the Saxon invasion was effected by means of two independent agencies--the Roman mission under the leadership of Augustine which arrived in Thanet in 597, and the Scottish missionaries who, in response to the invitation of Oswald, king of Northumbria, took up their residence in the island of Lindisfarne in 635.

The primary task of these missionaries was obviously that of converting a people who professed a heathen religion to an adherence to the Christian faith. The accomplishment of this main task, however, involved two additional tasks, the one moral, the other social. A dismal picture of the moral condition of the settlers in this country in the fifth century has been painted by Montalembert. Basing his account on Ozanam's "Germains avant la Christianisme" he asks, "What could be expected in point of morality from persons accustomed to invoke and to worship Woden, the G.o.d of ma.s.sacres, Freya, the Venus of the North, the G.o.ddess of sensuality, and all those b.l.o.o.d.y and obscene G.o.ds of whom the one had for his emblem a naked sword and another the hammer with which he broke the heads of his enemies?" He continues, "The immortality which was promised to them in their Valhalla but reserved for them new days of slaughter and nights of debauch spent in drinking deep from the skulls of their victims. And in this world, their life was but too often a prolonged orgy of carnage, rapine and lechery."[3] Herein lay the moral task which awaited the Christian missionaries. They had to replace the existing national ideals with the ideals of Christianity--ideals of the highest standard of personal morality. The social task undertaken by the missionaries was that of elevating this country from a condition of barbarism into a state of civilisation. Referring to the results of the introduction of Christianity, Green writes, "The new England was admitted into the older commonwealth of nations. The civilisation, art, letters, which had fled before the sword of the English conquest returned with the Christian faith."[4]

What means could be adopted by the missionaries to accomplish the ends they had in view? It is obvious that continual teaching and instruction would be imperative to meet the needs of the converts to the new faith, and it is equally clear that it would be necessary to provide for the creation of a native ministry in order that the labours of the early missionaries might be continued. Teaching, consequently, occupies a position of the greatest importance, and it is to the educational aspect of the labours of these missionaries rather than to the religious or the ecclesiastical aspect that our attention is now directed. It may be advisable for us to remind ourselves that these missionaries came to this country speaking the Latin tongue, that the services of the Church were carried on in that language, and that such books as existed were also written in Latin. It is necessary to make this point clear in order to show that schools for instruction in this language would be imperative from the very first.

It is also important to remember, as Montalembert points out, that the conversion of England was effected by means of monks, first of the Benedictine monks sent from Rome, and afterwards of Celtic monks.[5] We may here lay down a general hypothesis, which the course of this thesis will tend to demonstrate: the educational inst.i.tutions established in this country were due to an imitation of those which had been in operation elsewhere. The Christian missionaries to England, for example, did not originate a system of education. They adopted what they had seen in operation in the parent monasteries from which they came, and, in so doing, they would naturally adapt the system to the special needs of the country. Some exceptions to this general principle may be found; they will be noted in their proper place.

Accepting this hypothesis, before we can proceed to consider the special work for education of the monasteries in this country, it is necessary briefly to review the meaning of monachism and to consider the extent to which monasteries had previously a.s.sociated themselves with educational work.

The origin of Christian monasticism is due partly to the moral conditions prevalent in the early centuries of the Christian era and partly to the mystical and ascetic tendencies which manifest themselves in some individuals. Though the generally accepted view of the moral condition of Roman society in the days of the Early Church[6] may be exaggerated and the description given by Dill[7] represent more fairly the condition of things that actually prevailed, yet even this modified account portrays a social condition in which moral ideals--except in rare cases--barely existed. To yield to the l.u.s.ts of the body seemed to be almost inseparable from life in the world. Repeatedly did the Apostles and the Church Fathers find it necessary to warn the members of the Church against the grosser sins. The multiplicity of temptations, the low moral standard, the absence of any social condemnation of infractions of the moral code tended to the growth of a belief that bodily mortification and a vigorous asceticism should be practised by those who desired to be real and not merely nominal Christians. Effectively to achieve such an ideal tended to a withdrawal from a partic.i.p.ation in social life, from a life of fellowship with others, to a life of isolation, in order that by a severe discipline of the body and a life given up completely to prayer, contemplation, and meditation, the soul might enter into a closer communion with G.o.d.

This ideal of isolation was not altogether new. In the deserts of Egypt, during the early centuries, devout Jews had given themselves up to a solitary and austere life of chast.i.ty and prayer, combining a system of religious contemplation with a stern regime of physical discipline. Here then was an example ready to be imitated by the enthusiastic Christian.

Abandoning life in the world, which in so many cases meant profligacy and vice, the convert, to whom the Christian religion had become a reality, endeavoured to find in the isolated life of a hermit the opportunity for contemplation which he considered imperative for the salvation of his soul.

The reputation for sanct.i.ty and austerity gained by certain hermits caused others desirous of a similar life to build their cells in close proximity.

Gradually the custom arose of building an enclosure round a small group of cells and of recognising one man as the spiritual head of the group.

Certain rules were agreed to, and a common oratory was shared. The first rules for a community of this type were drawn up by Pachomius who founded a coen.o.bitic community at Tabenna in 320 A.D.

For our purpose, it is important to note that Pachomius considered that attention should be paid to the education of the inmates of the community.

Cla.s.ses were to be held for those whose early instruction had been neglected, whilst no one was to be allowed to remain who did not learn to read and was not familiar, at the very least, with the Book of Psalms and the New Testament.[8]

A third stage in the evolution of monasticism is a.s.sociated with the name of St. Basil of Caesarea. Instead of founding his monastery in some remote district, he built it near a town and received into it not only solitaries who had become convinced of the dangers of living alone, but also the poor, the oppressed, the homeless, and those who, for various reasons, had become weary of life in the outer world and sought an asylum for their remaining days. Not only men but also women and children were received by Basil: so great was his success that he ultimately established in different centres several industrial coen.o.bitic communities.

The reception of children by Basil naturally brought forward the question of their education. These children fell into one or other of two cla.s.ses; in the one cla.s.s were those who, like the infant Samuel, were offered by their parents for the cloistral life from a tender age; in the other cla.s.s were those who were subsequently to return to the world. St. Basil organised schools for the former of these cla.s.ses; children were to be admitted to them when they were five or six years of age; details with regard to the mode of their instruction were prescribed; general rules of discipline were laid down.[9] Under certain circ.u.mstances, children who were not destined for the monastic life could also be received in these schools.[10] In addition to teaching the elements of grammar and rhetoric and the facts of scripture history, Basil provided for a number of trades to be learned and practised as soon as the children were able to profit by the course. Among the trades recommended were weaving, tailoring, architecture, woodwork, bra.s.s work, and agriculture.[11]

Ca.s.sian was the first to transplant the rules of the Eastern monks into Europe. He founded two monasteries in the neighbourhood of Ma.r.s.eilles for men and women respectively. In 420 he wrote _De Inst.i.tutis Renuntiatium_, in which he records the rules to be observed in the inst.i.tutions he had founded. The code of rules here enunciated const.i.tuted the law of monasticism in Gaul till it gave place to the regulations of Benedict.

Ca.s.sian in his youth had studied the works of Greek learning, but in his later years he showed a great distrust of pagan literature and strongly opposed its study. He considered that the fascination of such literature distracted the soul, and desired that even the memory of the cla.s.sical writings should be eradicated from his mind. The underlying conception of the rule of Ca.s.sian was that the monastery was a school in which a future stage of existence was the dominating and controlling thought.

Reference must next be made to Ca.s.siodorus (479?-575)--the great Italian statesman turned monk--who did much to develop study among ecclesiastics and to make the cloister the centre of literary activity. He founded a monastery at Vivarium in Bruttium, which he endowed with his Roman library containing a magnificent collection of ma.n.u.scripts, and to which he himself retired at the age of sixty. During the remaining years of his life he devoted himself to literary work; of his numerous writings the most important is his _Inst.i.tutiones Divinarum et Saecularium Lectionum_.

A more important work accomplished by Ca.s.siodorus than the writings he produced was his organisation of the monastery scriptorium. This served as a model for the series of Benedictine monasteries which subsequently came into existence. Hence to Ca.s.siodorus must be a.s.signed the honour of realising that the multiplication of ma.n.u.scripts was a recognised employment of monastic life. Consequently, he conferred a boon of the greatest value upon the human race. As Hodgkin expresses it, there was in existence an acc.u.mulated store of two thousand years of literature, sacred and profane, the writings of Hebrew prophets, of Greek philosophers, of Latin rhetoricians, perishing for want of men with leisure and ability to transcribe them. Were it not for the labours of the monks it is highly conceivable that these treasures would have been irretrievably lost to the world.[12]

The number of the monastic inst.i.tutions rapidly increased. Gradually the evils arising from a lack of definite control and from the want of a code of rules to check individualising tendencies, began to manifest themselves. To St. Benedict of Nursia is due the more adequate organisation of monastic life. In addition to the laws of chast.i.ty, poverty, and obedience required from the professed monk, he recognised the importance of labour not only for self-support but also as a duty towards G.o.d. The code of rules, drawn up by him for the use of the monasteries under his care, was found to meet a great need of the religious communities of the time, with the result that the Benedictine rules became almost universally accepted by all monastic establishments.