Education in England in the Middle Ages Part 15

Dr. Rashdall does not consider that the monastic colleges were of great importance, either in the history of learning or of education. He maintains that the aim of these colleges was simple and practical, viz.

the preparation of a few instructed theologians who were able to preach an occasional sermon, and to give an elementary theological education to the novices. In addition, a supply of men capable of transacting the legal business of the convent was also necessary.[569] The real services of the monks to literature lay in the realm of medieval history. "The Benedictine monks of this period were, above all things, men of the world: their point of honour was a devotion to the interests of the House; their intellectual interests lay in its history and traditions."[570]

VI. THE MENDICANT ORDERS AND EDUCATION.

Reference must also be made to the part played in education by the Mendicant Orders. St. Francis of a.s.sisi was a devout and earnest believer in Christianity. Impelled by a force working in him, he renounced all material and worldly possessions, and accepted for himself the task of building up the Church, through the conversion of the souls of men. In 1207 he received formal recognition from Pope Innocent III.; a band of enthusiastic converts soon gathered around him, with the single aim of preaching and ministering to the poor. "To the poor by the poor. Those ma.s.ses, those dreadful ma.s.ses, crawling, sweltering in the foul hovels, in many a southern town with never a roof to cover them, huddling in groups under a dry arch alive with vermin; gibbering cretins with the ghastly wens; lepers too shocking for mothers to gaze at and therefore driven to curse and howl in the lazar house outside the walls, there stretching out their bony hands to clutch the frightened almsgiver's dole, or, failing that, to pick up shreds of offal from the heaps of garbage--to those, St.

Francis came."[571]

The Franciscan movement was originally a movement of piety only, and did not contain within itself any intellectual elements. In fact, learning was distinctly discouraged. "Must I part with my books?" said the scholar with a sinking heart. "Carry nothing with you for your journey" was the inexorable answer. "Not a Breviary? Not even the Psalms of David?" "Get them in your heart of hearts, and provide yourself with a treasure in the heavens. Whoever heard of Christ reading books save when He opened the book in the synagogue and then _closed_ it and went forth to teach the world for ever."[572]

Almost simultaneously with the founding of the Franciscan movement, St.

Dominic realised the necessity of bringing about a moral reformation. His method, however, differed appreciably from that adopted by St. Francis. To St. Dominic, ignorance and vice were the great evils to be contended against: hence, he formed a community whose purpose it was to instruct the unlearned and to confute the heretic, through the agency of the pulpit.[573] To this community, Innocent III. gave his formal sanction in 1215.

Study was not regarded in the same way by the Friar as it was by the monk.

To the monk, study or labour was enjoined as a means for bringing about a subjugation of human pa.s.sions, or as an occupation for hours that would otherwise be spent in idleness; the extent to which they became teachers arose out of the exigencies of the times. "Officium monachi non docentis sed plangentis." The aim of the monk was simply the salvation of his own soul; for the outside world he disclaimed duty or responsibility.

Seclusion and separation from all but the members of his own community, were regarded as the great instruments by which his object was to be achieved. To the friar christianity appeared as a means by which the regeneration of society could be effected. Hence the cause of the difference in the att.i.tude towards education. It was not an occupation for idle hours, or a prophylactic against temptation, but a means by which a power to influence the minds of men could be acquired. Particularly was this true of the Dominicans. The immediate purpose of their Order was resistance to the Albigensian heresy. "Hence it was natural that Dominic should have looked to the universities as the most suitable recruiting ground for his Order; to secure for his preachers the highest theological training that the age afforded, was an essential element of the new monastic ideal."[574] It was not, however, long before the Franciscans also found it necessary to go to the universities for additions to their ranks. Within thirty-five years of the death of their founder, the Franciscans had become as conspicuous for intellectual activity as the Dominicans, and, for the next two hundred years, the intellectual history of Europe is bound up with the divergent views of these great Orders.

In 1224 the Franciscans opened a school at Oxford, which served as a centre from which teachers went all over England; in the following year, they also opened a school at Cambridge. It is stated that, prior to the Reformation, there were sixty-seven Franciscan professors at Oxford, and seventy-three at Cambridge.[575]

Mr. A. G. Little has investigated the educational organisation of the Mendicant Friars in this country.[576] He points out that the absence of authentic materials will probably make it for ever impossible accurately to give the history of the Mendicant Orders in England. The available sources consist only of "a few chronicles, a few letters, the general const.i.tution of the Orders, the Acts of the General Chapters, the registers of the general masters, and the Acts of the provincial chapters of other provinces."[577]

The general system of education in vogue among the Mendicant Orders was developed before 1305.[578] This was established in England in 1335, when the General Chapter held at London in that year decreed that provincial priors and chapters in their respective provinces should provide "de studiis theologie, philosophie, naturalium et artium."[579]

At the basis of the educational organisation of these Orders would be the grammar schools. Novices were not accepted unless they had attained to a certain standard of education. The Dominican statutes of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries required candidates to be examined "in moribus et scientia," and they were rejected if they were deficient in either.[580]

Consequently, the instruction to be given by the master of the novices was mainly moral.[581]

For the next grades of instruction, the convents were combined into groups. Common schools for special studies were established in one or more convents of each group.[582]

The first of these grades was the "studium artium." At one time the study of arts was discouraged. "Students shall not study in the books of the Gentiles and philosophers though they may look into them occasionally."[583] The statutes of 1259 and 1261 indicate a different att.i.tude. "Quot fratres juniores et docibiles in logicalibus instruantur."[584] No student was to be sent to a "studium artium" until he had been two years in the Order.[585] The next grade was the "studium naturalium." The period of study at this stage extended over two years at least.[586] The "studia naturalium" were less numerous than the "studia artium." There seem to be few traces of the existence of these in England, but Mr. Little has established that there was one at Lynn in 1397.[587]

The "studium theologie" was the third grade. In these schools a period of three years might be spent, but the usual stay was for two. Mr. Little raises the question where such "studia" were to be found in England and considers that they may possibly have existed at Thetford in 1395, at Lincoln in 1390, at Norwich in 1398, at Ipswich in 1397, at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1397, at Guildford in 1397, and at London in 1475.[588]

The convents of Oxford and Cambridge stood at the head of the educational system. The statute of 1305 enacted that "No one shall be sent to a 'studium generale,' either in his province or out of it, unless in the order mentioned he has made sufficient progress in logic and natural philosophy, and has attended lectures on the 'Sentences' for two years in some 'studium particulare' and unless the testimony of the lector, cursor, and master of the students gives good hope that he will be fit for the office of lector."[589]

Mr. Little also deals with the appointment and qualifications of students and lecturers, and shows that, generally speaking, their selection was in the hands of the provincial prior and the provincial chapter, who were bound to make diligent enquiry each year for promising friars.[590] In this way, the most capable and efficient members of the order attained to the positions of the greatest importance. Learning was always most highly esteemed among the Dominicans, and the prosecution of studies regarded as a religious occupation worthy of being ranked with the divine services properly so called.[591] Important privileges were allowed to students and lectors, and care was taken that every possible facility was available for those who were desirous of continuing their education.

Neither the history of the Mendicant Orders, nor the causes which contributed to their degeneracy, concern us here. It will be sufficient to mention two ways in which they influenced educational development. The first arises out of the connection of the friars with the universities.

For a time they captured the intellectual centres of the country, and dominated its literary activities. The leading men of learning of the time were friars. Among them may be mentioned Alexander of Hales, John Peckham, Richard of Middleton, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. The second arises from the relationship between the friars and the secular clergy.

This relationship was not a friendly one, as the seculars were jealous of the intrusion of the mendicants into their parishes. We suggest that the friar movement served to accustom the people of the country to the thought that the National Church was not the only spiritual agency, and thus incidentally contributed to the development of those forces which were causing the control of education to pa.s.s out of the power of the Church.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ORIGIN OF THE GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

The Chantries' Act of 1547, which we have previously described, expressly stipulated that its provisions should not apply either to the universities, or to the cathedral churches, or to "the Colledg called St.

Marye Colledg of Winchester of the foundation of Bishopp Wikeham: nor to the College of Eton."[592] It is these two latter schools with which we are now concerned, and more particularly with the questions relating to their origin and purpose.

A great deal of the current misconception of the origin and purpose of these schools may be removed if we reconstruct for ourselves the special ecclesiastical and educational features of the time. Our starting point in this connection must be the Black Death which, as we have shown,[593]

caused so great a scarcity of priests and of candidates for the priesthood. William of Wykeham, desiring to give thanks to Almighty G.o.d because He had "enriched us, though unworthy, with ample honours and beyond our deserts raised us to divers degrees and dignities,"[594]

founded "a perpetual college of seventy poor scholars, clerks, to study theology, canon and civil law and arts in the university of Oxford."[595]

In erecting this college, Wykeham was only following the example which was already well established at the universities, since several colleges had previously been established both at Oxford and at Cambridge. Experience soon convinced him that to found a college was one thing; to obtain a supply of students, who were qualified to profit by the proposed course was quite another; especially as, "through default of good teaching and sufficient learning in grammar, (they) often fall into the danger of failing, where they had set before themselves the desire of success."[596]

Nor was a lack of knowledge of Latin the only difficulty. A greater obstacle was the poverty of the prospective student of the period. Wykeham refers to this, "There are and will be, hereafter, many poor scholars suffering from want of money and poverty, whose means barely suffice or will suffice in the future to allow them to continue and profit in the aforesaid art of Grammar." Neither was this poverty a relative poverty, a mere "facon de parler," as some would maintain. The university itself was poor, and had scarcely any funds available for general purposes.[597] "The university students of the Middle Ages were drawn from every cla.s.s of society, excluding probably as a rule the very lowest, though not excluding the very poorest."[598] We also note that poor students received from the chancellor a licence to beg.[599]

The writer of _Piers Plowman_ ill.u.s.trates the contemporary opinion of the social standing of many of those who proceeded to the priesthood.

"Now might each sowter his son setten to schole, And each beggar's brat in the book learne, And worth to a writer and with a lorde dwell, Or falsely to a frere the fiend for to serven, So of that beggar's brat a Bishop that worthen, Among the peers of the land presse to sythen; And lordes sons lowly to the lorde's loute, Knyghtes crooked hem to, and coucheth ful lowe, And his sire a sowtor y-soiled with grees, His teeth with toyling of lether battered as a sawe."

The "Norwich Corporation Records" contain an account which, even if not typical, is certainly ill.u.s.trative of the way in which the sons of many poor men found their way to the priesthood. The account to which we refer is the story of his life which was given by "Sir William Green" when undergoing examination on the charge of being a spy. He stated that he was the son of a labouring man living at Boston, Lincolnshire, and that he "lerned gramer by the s.p.a.ce of 2 yeres." For about five or six years he was engaged in manual occupation with his father; next, he is at school again "by the s.p.a.ce of 2 yeres and in that time receyved benet and accolet in the freres Austen in Boston of one frere Gaunt, then beyng suffragan of the diocese of Lincoln." Subsequently he is found at Cambridge, where he enters upon his studies, and supports himself, partly by labour, partly by "going to the colleges, and gate his mete and drynke of almes." After an interval, he "obteyned a licence for one year of Mr. Capper, than being deputee to the Chancellor of the said univ'sitie, under his seal of office whereby ... (he) gathered toguether in Cambridgeshire releaff toward their exhibicion to scole."[600]

We need not follow the fortunes or misfortunes of this pretended priest any further. The record gives the names of three men who were of the lowest social grade, and who were evidently unscrupulous, as they not only forged begging licences, but also forged letters of ordination. Though we do not claim that the case is typical of the social cla.s.s from which students come, yet, on the other hand, it should not be regarded as entirely exceptional; in other words, the cla.s.s of person who received the licence to beg as an accredited student of the university must have been a commonly recognised one. We must remember, at the same time, as Dr.

Hastings Rashdall points out, that the example of the Friars had made mendicity comparatively respectable. "Many a man who would have been ashamed to dig was not ashamed to beg; and the begging scholar was invested with something like the sacredness of the begging Friar."[601]

Realising that it was necessary that prospective priests should study grammar before they proceeded to the universities, and a.s.suming that these embryo scholars were literally poor, and could not afford even to attend the local grammar schools, which, as we have seen, were common in medieval England, we ask what action would a man such as William of Wykeham, who was desirous of perpetuating a memorial to himself and of being of service to the Church generally, naturally take?

The answer to this question depends partly on the nature of the models available for imitation. We have previously shown that imitation has played a large part in English educational development. The first obvious model for imitation was the ordinary one of providing a master who should teach grammar freely to all boys who might care to come to him. This plan naturally commended itself at first to William of Wykeham, and was adopted by him. In 1373 he made an agreement with Master Richard Herton, Grammarian, that he "should instruct and teach faithfully and diligently in Grammar the poor scholars whom the said Father keeps and shall keep at his own expense; and shall receive no others without the licence of the said Father."[602]

This arrangement would scarcely meet the purpose which Wykeham had in mind. He wished to provide for suitable poor youths in all parts of the country, and not only for those whose homes were in the locality of Winchester.

Again we ask, what models were available? Provision for the feeding of poor scholars had been made, two centuries previously, in connection with the Hospital of St. Cross, about a mile distant from the city of Winchester, by Bishop Henry of Blois. At this hospital thirteen poor and infirm men were lodged and boarded, and, in addition, one hundred of the poor of the city were provided with a dinner each day. Among these one hundred poor were to be included, "thirteen poor scholars of the city school," who were to be sent there "by the Master of the High Grammar School of the city of Winchester."

A similar custom had prevailed "from time immemorial" at the Hospital of St. Nicholas where forty loaves were to be provided each week for the scholars who attended Pontefract School.[603]

Then too, the provision of a house for the lodging of scholars was a form of charity whose origin could be traced back to the twelfth century at least. About 1150, Walchelin, the moneyer of Derby, and G.o.da, his wife, bequeathed certain property to the abbey of Derby "on this trust that the hall shall be for a school of clerks and the chambers shall be for the house of a master and clerks for ever."[604]

A more immediate example for Wykeham in his desire to make provision for the maintenance and education of "pauperes et indigentes clericii" was Bishop Stapledon of Exeter. He wished to provide for the "maintenance of boys studying grammar and receiving instruction in morals and life" in connection with the Hospital of St. John at Exeter. The accomplishment of this purpose was prevented by his death, but Bishop Grandisson, his successor, arranged in 1332 that the master and brethren of the hospital were to provide accommodation and all other necessaries for a master of grammar and fourteen boys. Prior to admission, the boys were to know their psalter and to be familiar with plain song.[605]

Several similar instances may be quoted. Thus, about the close of the twelfth century, the Archdeacon of Durham, of the time, provided an endowment for the purpose of supplying three scholars of Durham School with food and lodging at the almonry.[606] In 1262 Bishop Giles of Salisbury founded a hostel in that city "for the perpetual reception and maintenance of a warden, two chaplains and twenty poor, needy, well-behaved and teachable scholars."[607] In 1364, Walter de Merton, Chancellor of England, gave certain manors "for the perpetual maintenance of twenty scholars living in the schools at Oxford or elsewhere."[608]

About 1387, Bishop Burghersh of Lincoln provided that the chantry founded by him should maintain six poor boys who were "professing the art of Grammar."

In addition to these models, there existed the models furnished by the collegiate churches and the monasteries. The collegiate churches were under the control of a dean or provost and a small number of officials; generally speaking, a master of grammar was also attached to the Church.

These colleges were non-resident. The priests attached to the church lived in their own homes. A monastery was presided over by an abbot or prior, the monks were resident, and a small number of choir boys were also attached.

It does not require any great stretch of the imagination to conceive of William of Wykeham pondering over all these possibilities. In the end, the monastic idea seems to have triumphed with this important distinction that, for the adult monks, were subst.i.tuted "scholares pauperes et indigentes."

A study of an ill.u.s.tration of Winchester School serves to support this conception. The most prominent feature of the college buildings was the church. Divine worship was to be effectively rendered daily. Grouped round the church were the cloisters and the chambers, the dwelling places for the poor scholar clerks. The more closely the building is examined, the more clearly is its relation to the monastic ideal realised.

The influence of the monastic ideal is even more evident in connection with the foundation of Eton College, the second of our great public schools in respect of date of origin. The foundation charter of this school was sealed on October 11th, 1440. In this charter, Henry VI., the founder of the college, who was then eighteen years of age, declared his intention to establish a college[609] "in the honour and for the support of our great and most holy mother in the parish church of Eton by Windsor, which is not far removed from the place of our birth."[610]

This college, as originally planned, was to consist of a "provost and ten priests, four clerks, and six chorister boys whose duty it shall be to serve divine worship there daily, and twenty-five poor and needy scholars whose duty it shall be to learn grammar and moreover twenty-five poor and weakly men whose duty it shall be always to pray in the same place for our good estate while we live and for our soul when we have pa.s.sed from this light ... also of a master or teacher in grammar, whose duty it shall be to teach the said needy scholars and all others whatsoever and whencesoever of our realm of England coming to the said college, the rudiments of grammar gratis without exacting money or anything else."[611]

The monastic conception is brought out prominently. At the head of the inst.i.tution were the provost and ten priests, corresponding to the abbot and the obedientaries of a convent, next we find the chorister boys who correspond to the boys of the almonry school who a.s.sisted in divine worship, next comes the support of poor and weakly men, a common feature of many monasteries, finally there are the "poor and needy scholars" to take the place ordinarily occupied by monks.

In 1441 Henry VI. founded a college in Cambridge University by the name of King's College of St. Nicholas. At first, there was no connection between Eton and King's College, but in 1443, new statutes were made which enlarged the number of students who could be admitted there and also arranged for the admission of "commensales" who were to pay for their board. The addition of "commensales" accentuates still further the influence of the monastic model. From early times, it had been customary for the heads of monasteries to receive a kind of "parlour boarder" and it would be particularly fitting that, in an inst.i.tution which was primarily educational and not merely devotional, arrangements should be made for the reception of those scholars who were able and willing to pay.