Also, almonry schools gave free education, usually for the sons of those connected with the religious house to which they were attached or for relatives of the monks. At Durham almonry school ‘there were certain poor children called the children of the almonry, who only were maintained with learning and relieved with the alms and benefactions of the whole house, having their meat and drink in a loft on the north side of the Abbey gates.’21 At several other schools the pupils received alms from outside patrons. The scholars at Pontefract School in 1267 were being sent forty loaves a week from Pontefract Hospital; and in 1310 those in St Albans were receiving twenty-eight loaves a week from the abbot. Sometimes an appeal for help to a rich patron might bring variety to the scholars’ diet. In 1222 Thomas of Holland begged an acquaintance, the Chancellor of England, for a little venison on behalf of the scholars of Lincoln. ‘You being established in power and enjoying your lord’s favour,’ he wrote, ‘could easily satisfy a friend in such a thing. And it would be glorious to me if, through your bounty, I could get something so rare on the table for my companions.’22
By the early years of the sixteenth century free places were additionally to be had at the endowed grammar schools which by then most counties possessed. These were usually founded, like the grammar school at Sevenoaks, by some local man who had made good; and they tended to be in the smaller towns. There were six in Gloucestershire, not in such relatively large towns as Gloucester itself but in places like Chipping Campden where education was otherwise hard to obtain. There were three in Norfolk, two in Somerset and as many as twelve in Lancashire.
Yet most pupils at grammar schools in England were charged for attending them. In 1395 at Nottingham parents had to find 8d a quarter for each child and at Maldon in 1420 12d a quarter, while grammar pupils at Merton College, Oxford, were charged 4d a term in 1277, a fee which had doubled by the 1380s. At Ipswich in 1477 the grammar schoolmaster was entrusted with ‘the jurisdiction of all scholars in the liberty and precinct of this town, except the petties called ABCs and song’, and he was authorized to take from them, ‘according to a scale fixed by the Lord Bishop of Norwich, viz for a grammarian 10d, psalterian 8d, and primerian 6d’.23 These were fees for day boys. Boarders had to pay considerably more, 7d a week at Beccles in 1403, 10d a week at Stevenage in 1312 and as much as is a week at Croydon in 1394. School fees were, therefore, beyond the pockets of most parents; and the twelfth-century Abbot Sampson of Bury St Edmunds was, no doubt, far from being alone in confessing that he would never have become a monk if he could have afforded to continue at school. When he could afford to do so, he arranged for others to enjoy the advantages which had been denied him, and bought ‘some stone houses in the town of St Edmund and assigned them to the master of the schools’ so that every poor scholar might be relieved of the burden of paying ‘a penny or a halfpenny twice a year … whether he could or could not’.24
Nor were boarding and masters’ fees the only expenses. There were clothes to pay for, in some schools uniforms, in most, pens, penknives and ink-horns, writing tablets and, in winter, candles. In 1500 one contented schoolboy wrote, ‘the last feir my unkle on my fathers syde gave me a pennare [a sheath in which pens were carried] and an ynkehorne and my unkle on my mothers syde gave me a penn knyff. Now [if I had] a payre of tabullys [writing tablets] I [would lack] nothynge.’25 There were also books to buy, but these were so expensive that few pupils could afford them, even those tattered copies that went through the hands of one generation of boys after the next. Schools which had libraries bequeathed to them were rare; and most pupils had to do without books altogether, relying upon the lessons of the master.
Much, therefore, depended upon the qualities of the master, usually a clergyman. As in all professions, there were those who were conscientious and worthy and those who were not. The names of unruly or disreputable schoolmasters are certainly not absent from the records of the courts. In 1225 a Huntingdonshire schoolmaster and his under-master were arrested for poaching; in 1381 a master was among those found guilty of riotous behaviour in Suffolk; in 1450 an Oxford teacher packed the church of St Michael with his own pupils so that they could seize the priest if he attempted to read a threatened sentence of excommunication upon him; and this same man was in trouble again three years later for helping two chaplains beat up an Oxford citizen.26 Certainly, many schoolmasters were ill-qualified. In the fifteenth century it was easy enough to obtain a teaching licence which was often claimed as a degree. The applicant seems merely to have had to assure the authorities that he had taught or studied grammar for a particular period and to take a fairly simple test such as writing a poem in praise of the university.27 In the opinion of Sir Thomas Elyot ‘the name of schole maister [was] moche had in contempte’, while the tutors employed in private houses were chosen with ‘lasse diligence’ than was employed ‘in takynge servantes’: parents ‘chiefely enquire with howe small a salary he will be contented, and never to inserche howe moche good Lernynge he hath, and how amonge well lerned men he is esteemed’.28
The salary with which private tutors had to be content was never high. The grammar master in Edward IV’s household received 4d a day together with his food, fuel, light and clothing; and in 1511 a tutor in a Northumberland household was in receipt of £5 a year with food, beer and fuel.
In schools a master’s salary would not be much more than this. At Winchester in 1400 the headmaster, known as the warden, received £10 a year, plus 17s worth of cloth and a room which he shared with the usher. In lesser schools, with seventy to eighty pupils, the master might receive about £10 a year but out of this he had to keep himself and sometimes to pay the rent of the schoolroom and the wages of an assistant. At the school founded by the Archbishop of York at Rotherham in 1483 the grammar master had £10 a year, but the song master only £6 13s 4d and the writing master £5 6s 8d.29
To make ends meet it was often necessary for the master’s wife to take in boarders. The masters at cathedral schools were usually unmarried clerics; but in endowed grammar schools by the fifteenth century they were often not, and the statutes of these schools frequently made a point of specifying that they need not be. At Sevenoaks in 1342 the master had to be ‘… an honest man, sufficiently advanced and expert in the science of grammar, Bachelor of Arts [but] by no means in holy orders’.30
Many honest and expert men did become schoolmasters, occupying a position in the social hierarchy similar in status to the middle ranks of the clergy, above a chantry priest but below a rector;31 and it is clear that, despite Sir Thomas Elyot’s strictures, they may even have been in the majority. Certainly Edmund de Stonor appears to have been perfectly content with the schoolmaster to whom his son, also named Edmund, was sent in 1380. The Stonors’ chaplain, who was told to see the boy when he was ill, reported:
I have observed your son Edmund and observed his condition for two nights and a day. His illness grows less from day to day and he is not in bed … He is beginning to learn Donatus slowly and does well … Truly, I have never seen such care given a boy as he had during his illness. The master and his wife prefer that some of his clothes be left at home for he has too many and fewer would suffice and it is possible, though they would not wish it, that some clothes might easily be torn and spoilt.32
For those who were to have any schooling at all, formal education in reading and song schools began at about the age of seven and lasted normally for two or three years. Boys sometimes went to grammar schools when they were eight, but a more usual age was ten or eleven. At Wotton-under-Edge ten was the minimum age; and this was also the age at which most boys entered Eton and Winchester, though both these schools did accept boys as young as eight. A pupil was expected to stay at grammar school for five or six years; but some boys were still at school at eighteen, which was the upper limit at Eton; and when Robert Buck of Skipton ran away from school, because he was savagely beaten, he was twenty.33
Very few children, even of those who went to school, achieved a high stand
ard of literacy; and many had no more knowledge of Latin than Langland’s cleric who, although he was supposed to be able to read the language accurately and had been ‘priest and parson passing thirty winters’, could ‘neither solfa, nor sing nor read saints’ lives’. Among the upper classes there was a common feeling that learning was for clerks and not for noblemen, that, as it was expressed in the Jestes of Sloggin, ‘a Mayster of Arte is not worth a Farte’. This was an opinion violently expressed at a dinner party at which
there happened to be present one of those whom we call gentlemen, who always carry some horn hanging at their backs, as though they would hunt during dinner. He, hearing letters praised, roused with sudden anger, burst out furiously with these words, ‘A curse on these stupid letters! All learned men are beggars! … I swear by God’s body I’d rather my sons should hang than study letters. For it becomes the sons of gentlemen to blow the horn nicely, to hunt skilfully and elegantly carry and train a hawk. But the study of letters should be left to the sons of rustics.’34
In fact, it was not easy for the sons of rustics to study letters, since the lords of manors were aware that education might lead to the taking of holy orders and the escape from servile status of a potential labourer. Until the fifteenth century villeins had to obtain a licence from the lord of the manor to send one of their children to school; and these licences were not cheap: in the fourteenth century the Abbot of St Albans charged no more than a week’s wages, but the payments demanded on a Warwickshire manor, where they could be as high as 13s 4d, seem to have been more usual.35
The court was not much affected by upper-class prejudices against well-educated men and women. It was true that few Norman or Plantagenet kings had a very firm grasp of Latin; that, with the possible exception of Henry I, Edward III was probably the first English king to have more than a few words of the English language; and that until his reign there is no evidence of a king writing. But from Edward III’s time onwards, the court took due notice of the twelfth-century proverb, ‘Rex illiteratus, asinus coronatus’; and the education of the heir to the throne in subjects other than military skills and courtly accomplishments became a matter of serious concern. From the age of seven he was placed in charge of a respected knight together with various companions of his own age, usually the king’s wards. They were instructed in polite behaviour, and given lessons by a well-trained master. At an early age Henry VI learned to read and write Latin as well as French and English; and Edward V began his education at the age of three, his daily timetable including lessons in both morning and afternoon as well as sports and exercise, Matins, Mass and Evensong and readings during dinner from ‘such noble stories as it behoveth a prince to understand’.36
In most early medieval noble households less emphasis was placed upon book learning than upon manners, etiquette and social graces, the daughters in particular receiving little other education unless they were sent to nunneries where the standard of education was not impressive. Letters to nuns seem invariably to have been written in English or French, rather than Latin which they could not be expected to understand; and even their French was likely to resemble that of Chaucer’s Prioress who spoke
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe
For French of Paris were to her unknowe.
When not sent to nunneries aristocratic ladies of an intellectual bent might absorb some learning from the family chaplain, provided that they did not live in one of those households, described by the Knight of La Tour-Landry, in which it was considered that women should ‘knowe no things’ about reading, even of the scriptures. But if they received no encouragement at home, there was little likelihood of their being taught outside it: in London in the fifteenth century there were only three licensed schoolmistresses as opposed to twenty-one in Paris in 1380. It was not in the least unusual for ladies to be unable to write more than their own name, and some could not even do that. Nor, for that matter, could some gentlemen do much better. It has been emphasized that the accounts of medieval bailiffs and the bills of artisans show that such people had learned to write quite adequately; and both the Paston Letters and the Stonor Letters indicate that many of the friends, business acquaintances, stewards and upper servants of both these families were capable of putting pen to paper.
Sir William Stonor, his father and brothers wrote their own letters, and spelt passably well [wrote C. L. Kingsford, editor of the Stonor Letters]. Jane Stonor wrote tolerably well but spelt atrociously. Her daughter-in-law Elizabeth generally employed an amanuensis but could write well enough if she pleased. Generally the country squires of Oxfordshire and their women-folk, and the better class merchants could write with ease. The worst writers and spellers are the inferior … clergy … or humble mercantile people.37
Nevertheless, there were still in the fifteenth century many women and some men of good families who were either barely literate or wrote with extreme difficulty. Those who could do so usually relied on scribes; and as rich and influential a landowner as Sir John Fastolf could apparently do little more than sign his name, and towards the end of his life he left his secretary to do this for him. He evidently found his inability as little hindrance to him in his business affairs, as had St Godric the highly successful merchant, international trader and shipowner who taught himself to write only in his old age.38
As the Middle Ages drew to a close, however, and the upper classes were expected to play a fuller part in assisting the king in formulating policies and in bearing office as justices of the peace, sheriffs and members of Parliament, literacy became increasingly important. Even so there are not many instances of the sons of the nobility attending university unless they were intended for the Church.39
11 Scholars and Students
Oxford had become a celebrated place of scholarship, with about 1500 students, by the end of the twelfth century and was unrivalled by Cambridge until the fifteenth century.1 But at first it was not clear that either would become acknowledged as one of the two leading seats of learning in England. In the 1170s Lincoln cathedral school had a reputation for teaching law which was equal to that of Paris or Bologna; while Hereford, Exeter and Northampton all had claims to be considered on a par with Oxford. Why Oxford should have risen to preeminence was not clear. A Saxon settlement by the river ford had been overshadowed by a Norman castle around which a moderately prosperous market town had developed. But its central position in the country no doubt helped its growth as a university town as did the proximity of two monastic establishments and the royal manor of Woodstock as well as ‘an influx of English scholars from Paris’.2
The university’s days, however, were so beset by violent disruptions that it seemed at first unlikely to survive. Some of these outbreaks throw such an illuminating light upon the riotousness of the times, upon the rivalries between the townspeople and the scholars, and upon thedissensions between the different ‘nations’ of students, the southern and northern English (the dividing line being taken to be the river Nene), the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots, that they are worth describing in some detail.
The first serious outbreak, which took place in 1209, is thus reported by Roger of Wendover:
About this time a certain clerk who was studying in Arts at Oxford slew by chance a certain woman and finding that she was dead sought safety in flight. But the mayor and many others, coming to the place and finding the dead woman, began to seek the slayer in his lodging where he had lived with three other fellow-clerks. And not finding the guilty man they took his three fellow-clerks, who knew nothing whatsoever of the killing and cast them into prison. After a few days … these clerks were led out from the city and hanged. Whereupon some 3000 clerks, both masters and scholars departed Oxford, so that not one of the whole University was left. Some pursued their studies … at Cambridge, and others at Reading, leaving Oxford utterly empty.3
A few years later there was further uproar after the mayor and bailiffs, ‘at the Instance and Complaint of the Chancellor and Masters’, ordered
that all ‘Lewd Women then in Gaol’ should be released on condition they undertook to leave the town and no more resort to the scholars’ chambers.
On the Publication of the Writ many loose women were expelled from hence [despite] the Tumults then made by some of the French students whose infamous Lust had engag’d them in their Quarrels, and by haunting Stews and Brothels, had contracted the foul Disease almost in an Epidemical Manner. [This] deprav’d Course of Life … brought over the Pope’s Legate into England, sent hither to reform the Corruptions of the Place, and residing at Osney [Abbey].
One day a party of students went to see the legate; but being rudely repelled by the porter ‘in his loud Italian voice’, they forced open the door and burst into the building. A fight ensued with the legate’s retinue; and a cook, who threw a cauldron of boiling water over an Irish scholar, was shot dead, ‘which caused an uproar throughout the House’. The legate took shelter in the belfry from which he fled in the middle of the night to seek the king’s protection at Wallingford. On this occasion the university was suspended altogether and the students once again departed, this time to Northampton and Salisbury.4
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