Chapter XII: Preface: TO RUSSELL’S BOKE OF NURTURE, and the Poems and (1)

Treatises following it (except those in the Postscript) lxix

COLLATIONS AND CORRECTIONS xcii

JOHN RUSSELL’S BOKE OF NURTURE 1
(Contents thereof, inserted after title;
Notes thereon, p. 84. Lawrens Andrewe on Fish, p. 113.)
Wilyam Bulleyn on Boxyng and Neckeweede 124
Andrew Borde on Sleep, Rising, and Dress 128
William Vaughan’s Fifteen Directions to preserve Health 133
The Dyet for every Day
(from Sir John Harington’s Schoole of Salerne) 138
On Rising, Diet, and Going to Bed (from the same) 140
Recipes (for Fritters, Jussell, and Mawmeny) 145
Recipes (for Hares and Conies in Civeye, and for Doucettes) 146

WYNKYN DE WORDE’S BOKE OF KERUYNGE (ed. 1513) 147
(Contents thereof, p. 150; Notes thereon, p. 173.
Note on the first edition of 1508, p. lxxxvii.)

THE BOKE OF CURTASYE (from the Sloane MS. 1986, ab. 1460 A.D.) 175
Contents thereof, p. 176. Notes thereto, p. 283

THE BOOKE OF DEMEANOR
(from The Schoole of Vertue by Richard Weste) 207
Bp. Grossetest’s Household Statutes (from the Sloane MS. 1986) 215
Stanzas and Couplets of Counsel (from the Rawlinson MS. C. 86) 219

THE SCHOOLE OF VERTUE by F. Seager (A.D. 1557) 221
Whate-ever thow sey, avyse thee welle! 244
A Dogg Lardyner, & a Sowe Gardyner 246
Maxims in -ly 247
Roger Ascham’s Advice to Lord Warwick’s Servant 248

THE BABEES BOOK,
(or a ‘lytyl Reporte’ of how Young People should behave) 250
Lerne or be Lewde 258
The A B C of Aristotle 260
_Vrbanitatis_ 262
The Boris Hede furst 264*
The Lytylle Childrenes Lytil Boke, or Edyllys be
(on left-hand pages to p. 273) 265
The Young Children’s Book
(on right-hand pages to p. 274) 266
Stans Puer ad Mensam (in English, from MS. Harl. 2251;
on left-hand pages to p. 281) 275
The Book of Curteisie that is clepid _Stans Puer ad Mensam_
(from Lambeth MS. 853; on right-hand pages to p. 282) 276

Notes to the Boke of Curtasye, &c. 283
Index to the Poems, &c. (before the Postscript) 286

[***] POSTSCRIPT (added after the Index was printed).

FFOR TO SERVE A LORD (see Preface to Russell, p. lxxii.),
with _A Feste for a Bryde_, p. 358 349
Suffer, and hold your tongue 361
The Houshold Stuff occupied at the
Lord Mayor’s Feast, A.D. 1505 362
The Ordre of goyng or sittyng 365
Latin Graces 366
SYMON’S Lesson of Wysedome for all maner Chyldryn 381
The Birched School-Boy of about 1500 A.D. 385
The Song of the School-Boy at Christmas 387
The Boar’s Head 388

* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *

[Transcriber’s Note:

The Headnotes from the General Preface are collected here to act as a table of contents. Each note will also appear in the text at approximately its original location.]

EDWARD THE FOURTH’S HENCHMEN
RICH MEN’S EDUCATION IN EARLY ENGLAND.
HOUSES OF NOBLES AND CHANCELLORS WERE SCHOOLS.
BP. GROSSETETE TAUGHT NOBLES’ SONS.
YOUNG NOBLES IN WOLSEY’S HOUSEHOLD.
KNOWLEDGE OF FRENCH.
APPRENTICESHIP IN HENRY VII.’S TIME.
GIRLS SENT OUT TO LADIES’ HOUSES.
PRIVATE TUITION IN EARLY ENGLAND.
EDUCATION AT HOME AND AT TUTORS’.
STUDIES OF YOUTHS, TEMP. HEN. VIII. AND ELIZABETH.
NEGLECT OF EDUCATION BY MOTHERS.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN EARLY ENGLAND.
POVERTY OF UNIVERSITY SCHOLARS.
UNDERGRADUATE’S EXPENSES AT OXFORD, 1478.
FEW NOBLEMEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
NOBLES AND GENTLEMEN AT OXFORD.
FAVOURITISM OF THE RICH IN THE UNIVERSITIES.
BAD EXAMPLE OF RICH MEN AT COLLEGE.
FOREIGN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.
MONASTIC AND CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS.
LYDGATE’S TRICKS AT SCHOOL.
EDUCATION OF FIELD LABOURERS.
NO BONDSMAN’S SON TO BE AN APPRENTICE.
POST-REFORMATION CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS.
POOR MEN’S SONS HAVE HEADS AS WELL AS RICH ONES’.
AN ETON BOY IN A.D. 1478.
POST-REFORMATION GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.
STUDY OF ENGLISH RECOMMENDED IN 1582-1612.
A GRAMMAR-SCHOOL BOY’S DAY IN A.D. 1612.
THE GOOD OLD TIMES OF SMOKE AND FILTH.
NAKED SCULLIONS AND DIRTY STREETS.

FOREWORDS.

“The naturall maister Aristotell saith that euery body be the course of nature is enclyned to here & se all that refressheth & quickeneth the spretys of man[1] / wherfor I haue thus in this boke folowinge[2]” gathered together divers treatises touching the Manners & Meals of Englishmen in former days, & have added therto divers figures of men of old, at meat & in bed,[3] to the end that, to my fellows here & to come, the home life of their forefathers may be somewhat more plain, & their own minds somewhat rejoiced.

The treatises here collected consist of a main one--John Russell’s _Boke of Nurture_, to which I have written a separate preface[4]--extracts and short books illustrating Russell, like the _Booke of Demeanor_ and _Boke of Curtasy_, and certain shorter poems addressed partly to those whom Cotgrave calls “_Enfans de famille_, Yonkers of account, youthes of good houses, children of rich parents (yet aliue),” partly to carvers and servants, partly to schoolboys, partly to people in general, or at least those of them who were willing to take advice as to how they should mend their manners and live a healthy life.

[Headnote: EDWARD THE FOURTH’S HENCHMEN]

The persons to whom the last poems of the present collection are addressed, the

yonge Babees, whom{e} bloode Royall{e}
With{e} grace, feture, and hyhe habylite
Hath{e} en{ou}rmyd,

the “Bele Babees” and “swete Children,” may be likened to the “young gentylmen, Henxmen,--VI Enfauntes, or more, as it shall please the Kinge,”--at Edward the Fourth’s Court; and the authors or translators of the Bokes in this volume, somewhat to that sovereign’s Maistyr of Henxmen, whose duty it was

“to shew the schooles[5] of urbanitie and nourture of Englond, to
lerne them to ryde clenely and surely; to drawe them also to
justes; to lerne them were theyre barneys; to haue all curtesy in
wordes, dedes, and degrees; dilygently to kepe them in rules of
goynges and sittinges, after they be of honour. Moreover to teche
them sondry languages, and othyr lerninges vertuous, to harping,
to pype, sing, daunce, and with other honest and temperate
behaviour and patience; and to kepe dayly and wekely with these
children dew convenity, with corrections in theyre chambres,
according to suche gentylmen; and eche of them to be used to that
thinge of vertue that he shall be moste apt to lerne, with
remembraunce dayly of Goddes servyce accustumed. This maistyr
sittith in the halle, next unto these Henxmen, at the same boarde,
to have his respecte unto theyre demeanynges, howe manerly they
ete and drinke, and to theyre communication and other formes
curiall, after _the booke of urbanitie_.” (Liber Niger in
_Household Ordinances_, p. 45.)

That these young Henxmen were gentlemen, is expressly stated,[6] and they had “everyche of them an honest servaunt to keepe theyre chambre and harneys, and to aray hym in this courte whyles theyre maisters he present in courte.” I suppose that when they grew up, some became Esquires, and then their teaching would prove of use, for

“These Esquiers of houshold of old [were] accustumed, wynter and
sumer, in aftyrnoones and in eveninges, to drawe to lordes
chambres within courte, there to kepe honest company aftyr theyre
cunnynge, in talkyng of cronycles of Kings and of other polycyes,
or in pypeyng or harpyng, synging, or other actes martialles, to
help occupy the courte, and accompany straungers, tyll the tyme
require of departing.”

But that a higher station than an Esquier’s was in store for some of these henchmen, may be known from the history of one of them. Thomas Howard, eldest son of Sir John Howard, knight (who was afterwards Duke of Norfolk, and killed at Bosworth Field), was among these henchmen or pages, ‘enfauntes’ six or more, of Edward IV.’s. He was made Duke of Norfolk for his splendid victory over the Scots at Flodden, and Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were his granddaughters. Among the ‘othyr lerninges vertuous’ taught him at Edward’s court was no doubt that of drawing, for we find that ‘He was buried with much pomp at Thetford Abbey under a tomb designed by himself and master Clarke, master of the works at King’s College, Cambridge, & Wassel a freemason of Bury S. Edmund’s.’ Cooper’s _Ath. Cant._, i. p. 29, col. 2.

[Headnote: RICH MEN’S EDUCATION IN EARLY ENGLAND.]

The question of the social rank of these Bele Babees,[[6a]] children, and _Pueri_ who stood at tables, opens up the whole subject of upper-class education in early times in England. It is a subject that, so far as I can find, has never yet been separately treated[7], and I therefore throw together such few notices as the kindness of friends[8] and my own chance grubbings have collected; these as a sort of stopgap till the appearance of Mr Anstey’s volume on early Oxford Studies in the _Chronicles and Memorials_, a volume which will, I trust, give us a complete account of early education in our land. If it should not, I hope that Mr Quick will carry his pedagogic researches past Henry VIII.’s time, or that one of our own members will take the subject up. It is worthy of being thoroughly worked out. For convenience’ sake, the notices I have mentioned are arranged under six heads:

1. Education in Nobles’ houses.
2. At Home and at Private Tutors’, p. xvii. (Girls, p. xxv.)
3. At English Universities, p. xxvi.
4. At Foreign Universities, p. xl.
5. At Monastic and Cathedral Schools, p. xli.
6. At Grammar Schools, p. lii.

One consideration should be premised, that manly exercises, manners and courtesy, music and singing, knowledge of the order of precedency of ranks, and ability to carve, were in early times more important than Latin and Philosophy. ‘Aylmar þe kyng’ gives these directions to Athelbrus, his steward, as to Horn’s education:

Stiwarde, tak nu here
Mi fundlyng for to lere 228
Of þine meste{re},
Of wude {and} of riuere;
{And} tech him to harpe
Wiþ his nayles scharpe; 232
Biuore me to kerue,
And of þe cupe serue;
Þu tech him of alle þe liste (craft, AS. _list_)
Þat þu eure of wiste; 236
[And] his feiren þou wise (mates thou teach)
Into oþere s{er}uise.
Horn þu underuonge,
{And} tech him of harpe {and} songe. 240

_King Horn_, E. E. T. Soc., 1866, ed. Lumby, p. 7.[9]

So in Romances and Ballads of later date, we find

The child was taught great nurterye;
a Master had him vnder his care,
& taught him _curtesie_.

_Tryamore_, in Bp. Percy’s Folio MS. vol. ii. ed. 1867.

It was the worthy Lord of learen,
he was a lord of hie degree;
he had noe more children but one sonne,
he sett him to schoole to learne _curtesie_.

_Lord of Learne_, Bp. Percy’s Folio MS. vol. i. p. 182, ed. 1867.

Chaucer’s Squire, as we know, at twenty years of age

hadde ben somtyme in chivachie,
In Flaundres, in Artoys, and in Picardie,
And born him wel, as in so litel space,
In hope to stonden in his lady grace ...
Syngynge he was, or flowtynge, al the day ...
Wel cowde he sitte on hors, and wel cowde ryde.
He cowde songes wel make and endite,
Justne and eek daunce, and wel purtray and write ...
Curteys he was, lowly, and servysable,
And carf beforn his fadur at the table.[10]

Which of these accomplishments would Cambridge or Oxford teach? Music alone.[[10a]] That, as Harrison says, was one of the Quadrivials, ‘arithmetike, musike, geometrie, and astronomie.’ The Trivium was grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

[Headnote: HOUSES OF NOBLES AND CHANCELLORS WERE SCHOOLS.]

1. The chief places of education for the sons of our nobility and gentry were the houses of other nobles, and specially those of the Chancellors of our Kings, men not only able to read and write, talk Latin and French themselves, but in whose hands the Court patronage lay. As early as Henry the Second’s time (A.D. 1154-62), if not before[11], this system prevailed. A friend notes that Fitz-Stephen says of Becket:

“The nobles of the realm of England and of neighbouring kingdoms
used to send their sons to serve the Chancellor, whom he trained
with honourable bringing-up and learning; and when they had
received the knight’s belt, sent them back with honour to their
fathers and kindred: some he used to keep. The king himself, his
master, entrusted to him his son, the heir of the realm, to be
brought up; whom he had with him, with many sons of nobles of the
same age, and their proper retinue and masters and proper servants
in the honour due.” --_Vita S. Thomæ_, pp. 189, 190, ed. Giles.

Roger de Hoveden, a Yorkshireman, who was a clerk or secretary to Henry the Second, says of Richard the Lionheart’s unpopular chancellor, Longchamps the Bishop of Ely:

“All the sons of the nobles acted as his servants, with downcast
looks, nor dared they to look upward towards the heavens unless it
so happened that they were addressing him; and if they attended to
anything else they were pricked with a goad, which their lord held
in his hand, fully mindful of his grandfather of pious memory,
who, being of servile condition in the district of Beauvais, had,
for his occupation, to guide the plough and whip up the oxen; and
who at length, to gain his liberty, fled to the Norman territory.”
(Riley’s _Hoveden_, ii. 232, quoted in _The Cornhill Magazine_,
vol. xv. p. 165.)[12]

All Chancellors were not brutes of this kind, but we must remember that young people were subjected to rough treatment in early days. Even so late as Henry VI.’s time, Agnes Paston sends to London on the 28th of January, 1457, to pray the master of her son of 15, that if the boy “hath not done well, nor will not amend,” his master Greenfield “will truly belash him till he will amend.” And of the same lady’s treatment of her marriageable daughter, Elizabeth, Clere writes on the 29th of June, 1454,

“She (the daughter) was never in so great sorrow as she is
now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, ne
not may see nor speak with my man, nor with servants of her
mother’s, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than she
meaneth; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once
in the week or twice, and sometimes twice on a day, and her head
broken in two or three places.” (v. i. p. 50, col. 1, ed. 1840.)

The treatment of Lady Jane Grey by her parents was also very severe, as she told Ascham, though she took it meekly, as her sweet nature was:

“One of the greatest benefites that God ever gave me, is, that he
sent me so sharpe and severe Parentes, and so jentle a
scholemaster. For when I am in presence either of father or
mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate,
drinke, be merie or sad, be sewyng, plaiyng, dauncing, or doing
anie thing els, I must do it, as it were, in soch weight, mesure,
and number, even so perfitelie as God made the world, or els I am
so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened; yea presentlie some
tymes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other waies which I
will not name for the honor I beare them, so without measure
misordered, that I thinke my self in hell till tyme cum that I
must go to _M. Elmer_, who teacheth me so jentlie, so pleasantlie,
with soch faire allurementes to learning, that I thinke all the
tyme nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him,
I fall on weeping.” --_The Scholemaster_, ed. Mayor.

The inordinate beating[13] of boys by schoolmasters--whom he calls in different places ‘sharp, fond, & lewd’[14]--Ascham denounces strongly in the first book of his _Scholemaster_, and he contrasts their folly in beating into their scholars the hatred of learning with the practice of the wise riders who by gentle allurements breed them up in the love of riding. Indeed, the origin of his book was Sir Wm. Cecil’s saying to him “I have strange news brought me this morning, that divers scholars of Eton be run away from the school for fear of beating.”

Sir Peter Carew, says Mr Froude, being rather a troublesome boy, was chained in the Haccombe dog-kennel till he ran away from it.

[Headnote: BP. GROSSETETE TAUGHT NOBLES’ SONS.]

But to return to the training of young men in nobles’ houses. I take the following from Fiddes’s Appendix to his Life of Wolsey:

_John de Athon_, upon the Constitutions of _Othobon, tit._ 23, in
respect to the Goods of such who dyed intestate, and upon the Word
_Barones_, has the following Passage concerning _Grodsted_ Bishop
of _Lincoln_[15] (who died 9th Oct., 1253),--

“Robert surnamed Grodsted of holy memory, late Bishop of Lincoln,
when King Henry asked him, as if in wonder, where he learnt the
Nurture in which he had instructed the sons of nobles (&) peers of
the Realm, whom he kept about him as pages
(_domisellos_[16]),--since he was not descended from a noble
lineage, but from humble (parents)--is said to have answered
fearlessly, ‘In the house or guest-chambers of greater kings than
the King of England’; because he had learnt from understanding the
scriptures the manner of life of David, Solomon, & other
Kings[15].”

_Reyner,_ in his _Apostol. Bened._ from _Saunders_ acquaints us,
that the Sons of the Nobility were placed with _Whiting_ Abbot of
_Glastenbury_ for their Education, who was contemporary with the
Cardinal, and which Method of Education was continued for some
Time afterward.

There is in the Custody of the present Earl of _Stafford_,
a Nobleman of the greatest Humanity and Goodness, an Original of
Instructions, by the Earl of _Arundell_, written in the Year 1620,
for the Benefit of his younger Son, the Earl of _Stafford’s_
Grandfather, under this Title;

_Instructions for you my Son _William_, how to behave
your self at _Norwich_._

In these Instructions is the following paragraph, “You shall in
all Things reverence honour and obey my Lord Bishop of _Norwich_,
as you would do any of your Parents, esteeminge whatsoever He
shall tell or Command you, as if your Grandmother of _Arundell_,
your Mother, or my self, should say it; and in all things esteem
your self as my Lord’s Page; a breeding which youths of my house
far superior to you were accustomed unto, as my Grandfather of
_Norfolk_, and his Brother my good Uncle of _Northampton_ were
both bred as Pages with Bishopps, _&c_.”

Sir Thomas More, who was born in 1480, was brought up in the house of Cardinal Morton. Roper says that he was

“received into the house of the right reverend, wise, and learned
prelate Cardinal Morton, where, though he was young of years, yet
would he at Christmas-tide suddenly sometimes step in among the
players, and never studying for the matter make a part of his own
there presently among them, which made the lookers on more sport
than all the players beside. In whose wit and towardness the
Cardinal much delighting would say of him unto the nobles that
divers times dined with him, _This child here waiting at the
table, Whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous
man._ Whereupon for his better furtherance in learning he placed
him at Oxford, &c.” (Roper’s _Life of More_, ed. Singer, 1822,
p. 3.)

Cresacre More in his _Life of More_ (ed. 1828, p. 17) states the same thing more fully, and gives the remark of the Cardinal more accurately, thus:-- “that that boy there waiting _on him_, whoever should live to see it, would prove a marvellous rare man.”[17]

[Headnote: YOUNG NOBLES IN WOLSEY’S HOUSEHOLD.]

Through Wolsey’s household, says Professor Brewer, almost all the Officials of Henry the Eighth’s time passed. Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey (vol. i. p. 38, ed. Singer, 1825) says of the Cardinal, “And at meals, there was continually in his chamber a board kept for his Chamberlains, and Gentlemen Ushers, having with them _a mess of the young Lords_, and another for gentlemen.” Among these young Lords, we learn at p. 57, was

“my Lord Percy, the son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland,
[who] then attended upon the Lord Cardinal, and was also his
servitor; and when it chanced the Lord Cardinal at any time to
repair to the court, the Lord Percy would then resort for his
pastime unto the queen’s chamber, and there would fall in
dalliance among the queen’s maidens, being at the last more
conversant with Mistress Anne Boleyn than with any other; so that
there grew such a secret love between them that, at length they
were insured together, intending to marry[18].”

Among the persons daily attendant upon Wolsey in his house, down-lying and up-rising, Cavendish enumerates “of Lords nine or ten, who had each of them allowed two servants; and the Earl of Derby had allowed five men” (p. 36-7). On this Singer prints a note, which looks like a guess, signed _Growe_, “Those Lords that were placed in the great and privy chambers were _Wards_, and as such paid for their board and education.” It will be seen below that he had a particular officer called “Instructor of his Wards” (_Cavendish_, p. 38, l. 2). Why I suppose the note to be a guess is, because at p. 33 Cavendish has stated that Wolsey “had also a great number daily attending upon him, both of noblemen and worthy gentlemen, of great estimation and possessions,--with no small number of the tallest yeomen that he could get in all his realm; in so much that well was that nobleman and gentleman that might prefer any tall and comely yeoman unto his service.”

In the household of the Earl of Northumberland in 1511 were “..yong gentlemen at their fryndes fynding,[19] in my lords house for the hoole yere” and “Haunsmen ande Yong Gentlemen at thir Fryndes fynding v[j] (As to say, Hanshmen iij. And Yong Gentlemen iij” p. 254,) no doubt for the purpose of learning manners, &c. And that such youths would be found in the house of every noble of importance I believe, for as Walter Mapes (? ab. 1160-90 A.D.) says of the great nobles, in his poem _De diversis ordinibus hominum_, the example of manners goes out from their houses, _Exemplar morum domibus procedit eorum_. That these houses were in some instances only the finishing schools for our well-born young men after previous teaching at home and at College is possible (though the cases of Sir Thomas More and Ascham are exactly the other way), but the Lord Percy last named had a schoolmaster in his house, “The Maister of Graimer j”, p. 254; “Lyverays for the Maister of Gramer[20] in Housholde: Item Half a Loof of Houshold Breide, a Pottell of Beere, and two White Lyghts,” p. 97. “Every Scolemaister techyng Grammer in the Hous C _s_.” (p. 47, 51). Edward IV.’s henxmen were taught grammar; and if the Pastons are to be taken as a type of their class, our nobles and gentry at the end of the 15th century must have been able to read and write freely. Chaucer’s Squire could write, and though the custom of sealing deeds and not signing them prevailed, more or less, till Henry VIII.’s time, it is doubtful whether this implied inability of the sealers to write. Mr Chappell says that in Henry VIII.’s time half our nobility were then writing ballads. Still, the bad spelling and grammar of most of the letters up to that period, and the general ignorance of our upper classes were, says Professor Brewer, the reason why the whole government of the country was in the hands of ecclesiastics. Even in Henry the Eighth’s time, Sir Thomas Boleyn is said to have been the only noble at Court who could speak French with any degree of fluency, and so was learned enough to be sent on an embassy abroad. But this may be questioned. Yet Wolsey, speaking to his Lord Chamberlain and Comptroller when they

[Headnote: KNOWLEDGE OF FRENCH.]

“showed him that it seemed to them there should be some noblemen
and strangers [Henry VIII. and his courtiers masked] arrived at
his bridge, as ambassadors from some foreign prince. With that,
quoth the Cardinal, ‘I shall desire you, _because ye can speak
French_, to take the pains to go down into the hall to encounter
and to receive them, according to their estates, and to conduct
them into this chamber’ (_Cavendish_, p. 51). Then spake my Lord
Chamberlain unto them _in French_, declaring my Lord Cardinal’s
mind (p. 53).”

The general[21] opinion of our gentry as to the study of Letters, before and about 1500 A.D., is probably well represented by the opinion of one of them stated by Pace, in his Prefatory Letter to Colet, prefixed to the former’s _De Fructu_[22].

It remains that I now explain to you what moves me to compile and
publish a treatise with this title. When, two years ago, more or
less, I had returned to my native land from the city of Rome,
I was present at a certain feast, a stranger to many; where, when
enough had been drunk, one or other of the guests--no fool, as one
might infer from his words and countenance--began to talk of
educating his children well. And, first of all, he thought that he
must search out a good teacher for them, and that they should at
any rate attend school. There happened to be present one of those
whom we call gentle-men (_generosos_), and 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. “Why do you talk nonsense,
friend?” he said; “A curse on those stupid letters! all learned
men are beggars: even Erasmus, the most learned of all, is a
beggar (as I hear), and in a certain letter of his calls τήν
κατάρατον πενίαν (that is, execrable poverty) his wife, and
vehemently complains that he cannot shake her off his shoulders
right into βαθυκήτεα πόντον, that is, into the deep sea. I swear
by God’s body I’d rather that my son should hang than study
letters. For it becomes the sons of gentlemen to blow the horn
nicely (_apte_), to hunt skilfully, and elegantly carry and train
a hawk. But the study of letters should be left to the sons of
rustics.” At this point I could not restrain myself from answering
something to this most talkative man, in defence of good letters.
“You do not seem to me, good man,” I said, “to think rightly. For
if any foreigner were to come to the king, such as the ambassadors
(_oratores_) of princes are, and an answer had to be given to him,
your son, if he were educated as you wish, could only blow his
horn, and the learned sons of rustics would be called to answer,
and would be far preferred to your hunter or fowler son; and they,
enjoying their learned liberty, would say to your face, ‘We prefer
to be learned, and, thanks to our learning, no fools, than boast
of our fool-like nobility.’ “Then he upon this, looking round,
said, “Who is this person that is talking like this? I don’t know
the fellow.” And when some one whispered in his ear who I was, he
muttered something or other in a low voice to himself; and finding
a fool to listen to him, he then caught hold of a cup of wine. And
when he could get nothing to answer, he began to drink, and change
the conversation to other things. And thus I was freed from the
disputing of this mad fellow,--which I was dreadfully afraid would
have lasted a long time,--not by Apollo, like Horace was from his
babbler, but by Bacchus.

[Headnote: APPRENTICESHIP IN HENRY VII.’S TIME.]

On the general subject it should be noted that Fleta mentions nothing about boarders or apprentices in his account of household economy; nor does the _Liber Contrarotulatoris Garderobæ Edw. I^mi_ mention any young noblemen as part of the King’s household. That among tradesmen in later times, putting out their children in other houses, and apprenticeships, were the rule, we know from many statements and allusions in our literature, and “The Italian Relation of England” (temp. Hen. VII.) mentions that the Duke of Suffolk was boarded out to a rich old widow, who persuaded him to marry her (p. 27). It also says

The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested
towards their children; for after having kept them at home till
they arrive at the age of 7 or 9 years at the utmost, they put
them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of
other people, binding them generally for another 7 or 9 years. And
these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform
all the most menial offices; and few are born who are exempted
from this fate, for every one, however rich he may be, sends away
his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return,
receives those of strangers into his own. And on inquiring their
reason for this severity, they answered that they did it in order
that their children might learn better manners. But I, for my
part, believe that they do it because they like to enjoy all their
comforts themselves, and that they are better served by strangers
than they would be by their own children. Besides which, the
English being great epicures, and very avaricious by nature,
indulge in the most delicate fare themselves and give their
household the coarsest bread, and beer, and cold meat baked on
Sunday for the week, which, however, they allow them in great
abundance. That if they had their own children at home, they would
be obliged to give them the same food they made use of for
themselves. That if the English sent their children away from home
to learn virtue and good manners, and took them back again when
their apprenticeship was over, they might, perhaps, be excused;
but they never return, for the girls are settled by their patrons,
and the boys make the best marriages they can, and, assisted by
their patrons, not by their fathers, they also open a house and
strive diligently by this means to make some fortune for
themselves; whence it proceeds that, having no hope of their
paternal inheritance, that all become so greedy of gain that they
feel no shame in asking, almost “for the love of God,” for the
smallest sums of money; and to this it may be attributed, that
there is no injury that can be committed against the lower orders
of the English, that may not be atoned for by money. --_A Relation
of the Island of England_ (Camden Society, 1847), pp. 24-6.

“This evidently refers to tradesmen.[23] The note by the Editor[24] however says it was the case with the children of the first nobility, and gives the terms for the Duke of Buckingham’s children with Mrs Hexstall. The document only shows that Mrs Hexstall boarded them by contract ‘during the time of absence of my Lord and my Ladie.’”

The Earl of Essex says in a letter to Lord Burleigh, 1576, printed in Murdin’s _State Papers_, p. 301-2.

“Neverthelesse, uppon the assured Confidence, that your love to me
shall dissend to my Childrenne, and that your Lordship will
declare yourself a Frend to me, both alive and dead, I have willed
Mr _Waterhouse_ to shew unto you how you may with Honor and Equity
do good to my Sonne _Hereford_, and how to bind him with perpetual
Frendship to you and your House. And to the Ende I wold have his
Love towardes those which are dissended from you spring up and
increase with his Yeares, I have wished his Education to be in
your Household, though the same had not bene allotted to your
Lordship as Master of the Wardes; and that the whole Tyme, which
he shold spend in _England_ in his Minority, might be devided in
Attendance uppon my Lord _Chamberlayne_ and you, to the End, that
as he might frame himself to the Example of my Lord of _Sussex_ in
all the Actions of his Life, tending either to the Warres, or to
the Institution of a Nobleman, so that he might also reverence
your Lordship for your Wisdome and Gravyty, and lay up your
Counsells and Advises in the Treasory of his Hart.”

[Headnote: GIRLS SENT OUT TO LADIES’ HOUSES.]

That girls, as well as boys, were sent out to noblemen’s houses for their education, is evident from Margaret Paston’s letter of the 3rd of April, 1469, to Sir John Paston, “Also I would ye should purvey for your sister [? Margery] to be with my Lady of Oxford, or with my Lady of Bedford, or in some other worshipful place whereas ye think best, and I will help to her finding, for we be either of us weary of other.” Alice Crane’s Letter, in the Paston Letters, v. i. p. 35, ed. 1840, also supports this view, as does Sir John Heveningham’s to Margaret Paston, asking her to take his cousin Anneys Loveday for some time as a boarder till a mistress could be found for her. “If that it please you to have her with you to into the time that a mistress may be purveyed for her, I pray you thereof, and I shall content you for her board that ye shall be well pleased.” Similarly Anne Boleyn and her sister were sent to Margaret of Savoy, aunt of Charles V., who lived at Brussels, to learn courtesy, &c., says Prof. Brewer. Sir Roger Twysden says that Anne was “Not above seven yeares of age, Anno 1514,” when she went abroad. He adds:

“It should seeme by some that she served three in France
successively; Mary of England maryed to Lewis the twelfth, an.
1514, with whome she went out of England, but Lewis dying the
first of January following, and that Queene (being) to returne
home, sooner than either Sir Thomas Bullen or some other of her
frendes liked she should, she was preferred to Clauda, daughter to
Lewis XII. and wife to Francis I. then Queene (it is likely upon
the commendation of Mary the Dowager), who not long after dying,
an. 1524, not yet weary of France she went to live with
Marguerite, Dutchess of Alançon and Berry, a Lady much commended
for her favor towards good letters, but never enough for the
Protestant religion then in the infancy--from her, if I am not
deceived, she first learnt the grounds of the Protestant religion;
so that England may seem to owe some part of her happyness derived
from that Lady.” (Twysden’s Notes quoted by Singer in his ed. of
Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, 1825, p. 57.)

As Henry VIII. fell in love with his wife’s maid of honour,--“began to kindle the brand of amours” at the light of Anne Boleyn’s beauty, “her excellent gesture and behaviour,”--so we find in later times rich young men became enamoured of poor young women staying in the same house with them. Mr Bruce sends me an instance:

“the young lady was niece, you will perceive, to a well-beneficed
clergyman, and a thriving gentleman well-advanced in the public
service. She had lost her mother, and her father was in debt and
difficulties. She was therefore placed by the influence of her
uncles in a well-known family in Wiltshire.”

_State Papers. Dom. Car._ I. Vol. ccclii. No. 29. Dr Matthew
Nicholas, afterwards Dean of St Paul’s, to Edward Nicholas, Clerk
of the Council, and afterwards Secretary of State. Dated, West
Dean, April 4, 1637.

“I have spoken with Miss Evelyn since I wrote last unto you, and
enquired of her the cause w{hi}ch moued her to displace my coson
Hunton. She told me much accordinge to what she had sayd unto my
coson Hunton, w{i}th this addition, that she had respect in it as
well unto her good as her owne convenience, for hauinge nowe noe
employment for her but her needle, she founde that sittinge still
at her worke made her sickly, and therefore thought she might doe
better in another seruice where she might haue the orderinge of an
huswifely charge, for w{hi}ch (she told me) she had made her very
able. I expressed myselfe tender of the disgrace w{hi}ch would lay
uppon my coson in beinge displaced in such a manner by warninge
giuen, wherof whatsoeuer were the cause, it would be imagined by
all that knowe it not, to be in her ill carriage, and wished she
had done me that fauour as to haue acquainted me with her intents
in such time as I might haue taken some course to haue disposed of
her before it had bin knowne that she was to leaue her: she
slubbered it ouer w{i}th a slight excuse that she had acquainted
my wife ... but for my satisfaction she told me that she would be
as mindfull of her when God should call her as if she were w{i}th
her, and in testimony of her good likinge of her seruice she would
allowe her forty shillings yearly towarde her maintainance as
longe as herself should liue. I am soe well acquainted w{i}th what
she hath as yet disposed to her by will, and soe little value
forty shillings to my coson Hunton’s credit, as I gaue her noe
thankes. Mr Downes (I heare) is sent for home by his father w{i}th
an intent to keepe him w{i}th him, but I doe imagine that when my
coson Hunton shall be other where disposed off, he shall returne;
for my conceit is stronge that the feare of his beinge match’d to
his disadvantage, who was placed w{i}th Mr Evelyn a youth to be
bred for his p{re}ferment, hath caused this alteration; howsoever
there be noe wordes made of it. I confess that when I have bin
told of the good will that was obserued betweene my coson Hunton
and Mr Downes, I did put it by w{i}th my coson Huntons
protestation to the contrary, and was willinge by that neglect to
have suffered it to have come to pass (if it mought have bin)
because I thought it would haue bin to her aduantage, but nowe
that the busines is come to this issue (as whatsoeuer be
p{re}tended I am confident this is the cause of my cosons
partinge) I begin to quæstion my discretion.... Good brother, let
me haue your aduise what to do.”

[Headnote: PRIVATE TUITION IN EARLY ENGLAND.]

2. _Home and Private Education._ Of these, more or less must have been going on all over England, by private tutors at home, or in the houses of the latter. “In five years (after my baptism) I was handed over by my father to Siward, a noble priest, to be trained in letters, to whose mastery I was subdued during five years learning the first rudiments. But in the eleventh year of my age I was given up by my own father for the love of God, and destined to enter the service of the eternal King.” --_Orderic_, vol. ii. p. 301, ed. Prevost.

From Adam de Marisco’s Letters, 53, we find that Henry and Almeric, the eldest and youngest sons of the Earl of Montfort, were put under Grosseteste for tuition, he being then a Bishop. At Paris, John of Salisbury (who died in 1180) gained a living by teaching the sons of noblemen,--(_instruendos susceperam_, ? took them in to board). --_Metalogicus_, lib. 11, c. 10.

Henry of Huntingdon says, “Richard, the king’s (Henry I.’s) bastard son, was honourably brought up (_festive nutritus_) by our Bishop Robert (Blote of Lincoln), and duly reverenced by me and others in the same household I lived in.” --_Anglia Sacra_, vol. ii. p. 696. Giraldus Cambrensis speaks of beating his _coætanei et conscolares terræ suæ_, of being reproved for idleness by his uncle, the Bishop of St David’s, and of being constantly chaffed by two of his uncle’s chaplains, who used to decline _durus_ and _stultus_ to him. Also he alludes to the rod. Probably there was some sort of school at either Pembroke or St David’s[[24a]].--_De Rebus a se Gestis_, lib. 1, c. 2.[25]

The Statutes of a Gild of young Scholars formed to burn lights in honour of some saint or other, and to help one another in sickness, old age, and to burial, will be printed for us by Mr Toulmin Smith in the Early English Text Society’s books this year.

Under this head of Private Tuition we may class the houses of Abbots, where boys of good birth were educated. In his History of English Poetry, section 36, vol. iii. p. 9, ed. 1840, Warton says:

“It appears to have been customary for the governors of the most
considerable convents, especially those that were honoured with
the mitre, to receive into their own private lodgings the sons of
the principal families of the neighbourhood for education. About
the year 1450, Thomas Bromele, abbot of the mitred monastery of
Hyde near Winchester, entertained in his own abbatial house within
that monastery eight young gentlemen, or _gentiles pueri_, who
were placed there for the purpose of literary instruction, and
constantly dined at the abbot’s table. I will not scruple to give
the original words, which are more particular and expressive, of
the obscure record which preserves this curious anecdote of
monastic life. ‘_Pro octo gentilibus pueris apud dominum abbatem
studii causa perhendinantibus, et ad mensam domini victitantibus,
cum garcionibus suis ipsos comitantibus, hoc anno_, xvii_l._ ixs.
_Capiendo pro_[26]...’” This, by the way, was more extraordinary,
as William of Wykeham’s celebrated seminary was so near. And this
seems to have been an established practice of the abbot of
Glastonbury, “whose apartment in the abbey was a kind of
well-disciplined court, where the sons of noblemen and young
gentlemen were wont to be sent for virtuous education, who
returned thence home excellently accomplished.[27]” Richard
Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury, who was cruelly executed
by the king, during the course of his government educated near
three hundred ingenuous youths, who constituted a part of his
family; beside many others whom he liberally supported at the
universities.[28] Whitgift, the most excellent and learned
archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was
educated under Robert Whitgift his uncle, abbot of the Augustine
monastery of black canons at Wellhow in Lincolnshire, “who,” says
Strype, “had several other young gentlemen under his care for
education.” (Strype’s Whitgift, v. i. ch. i. p. 3.)

Of Lydgate--about 1420-30 A.D. I suppose--Prof. Morley says in his _English Writers_, vol. ii. Pt. I. p. 423:

“After studying at Oxford, Paris, and Padua, and after mastering
with special delight the writings of such poets as Dante,
Boccaccio, and Alain Chartier, Lydgate opened at his monastery of
Bury St Edmund’s a school of rhetoric in which he taught young
nobles literature and the art of versifying!”

Richard Pace says in his _De Fructu_, 1517:

“Now the learning of music too demands its place, especially from
me whom it distinguished when a boy amongst boys. For Thomas
Langton, bishop of Winchester (the predecessor of him who is now
living), whose secretary I was, when he had marked that I was
making a proficiency in music far beyond my age (as
himself--perchance from his too great affection for me--would
point out and repeatedly say), ‘The talent of this lad,’ he said,
‘is born for greater things,’ and a few days afterwards he sent
me, to pursue the study of literature, into Italy, to the school
at Padua, which then was at its greatest prime, and benevolently
supplied the annual expenses, as he showed wonderful favour to all
men of letters, and in his day played the part of a second
Mecænas, well remembering (as he ofttimes said) that he had been
advanced to the episcopal dignity on account of his learning. For
he had gained, with the highest commendation, the distinctions of
each law[29] (as they say now-a-days). Also he so highly prized
the study of Humanity[30] that he had boys and youths instructed
in it at a school in his house; And he was vastly delighted to
hear the scholars repeat to him at night the lessons given them by
the teacher during the day. In this competition he who had borne
himself notably went away with a present of something suitable to
his character, and with commendation expressed in the most refined
language; for that excellent governor had ever in his mouth the
maxim that merit grows with praise.”[31]

[Headnote: EDUCATION AT HOME AND AT TUTORS’.]

Palsgrave in 1530 speaks of “maister Petrus Vallensys, scole maister to his [Charles, Duke of Suffolk’s] excellent yong sonne the Erle of Lyncolne.”

Roger Ascham, author of the _Scholemaster_, &c., born in 1515,

“was received at a very youthful age into the family of Sir Antony
Wingfield, who furnished money for his education, and placed
Roger, together with his own sons, under a tutor whose name was
Bond. The boy had by nature a taste for books, and showed his good
taste by reading English in preference to Latin, with wonderful
eagerness. This was the more remarkable from the fact that Latin
was still the language of literature, and it is not likely that
the few English books written at that time were at all largely
spread abroad in places far away from the Universities and
Cathedral towns. In or about the year 1530, Mr Bond the domestic
tutor resigned the charge of young Roger, who was now about
fifteen years old, and by the advice and pecuniary aid of his kind
patron Sir Antony, he was enabled to enter St John’s College,
Cambridge, at that time the most famous seminary of learning in
all England ... he took his bachelor’s degree in 1531, Feb. 18, in
the 18th year of his age [“being a boy, new bachelor of art,” he
says himself,] a time of life at which it is now more common to
enter the University than to take a degree, but which, according
to the modes of education then in use, was not thought premature.
On the 23rd of March following, he was elected fellow of the
College.” Giles’s Life of Ascham, Works, vol. i. p. xi-xiv.

Dr Clement and his wife were brought up in Sir T. More’s house. Clement was taken from St Paul’s school, London, appointed tutor to More’s children, and afterwards to his daughter Margaret, p. 402, col. 1.

What a young nobleman learnt in Henry the Eighth’s time may be gathered from the following extracts (partly given by Mr Froude, Hist., v. i. p. 39-40) from the letters of young Gregory Cromwell’s tutor, to his father, the Earl of Essex, the King’s Chief Secretary.

“The order of his studie, as the houres lymyted for the Frenche
tongue, writinge, plaienge att weapons, castinge of accomptes,
pastimes of instruments, and suche others, hath bene devised and
directed by the prudent wisdome of Mr Southwell; who with a
ffatherly zeale and amitie muche desiringe to have hime a sonne
worthy suche parents, ceasseth not aswell concerninge all other
things for hime mete and necessary, as also in lerninge,
t’expresse his tendre love and affection towardes hime, serchinge
by all meanes possible howe he may moste proffitte, dailie heringe
hime to rede sumwhatt in thenglishe tongue, and advertisenge hime
of the naturell and true kynde of pronuntiacõn therof, expoundinge
also and declaringe the etimologie and native signification of
suche wordes as we have borowed of the Latines or Frenche menue,
not evyn so comonly used in our quotidiene speche. Mr Cheney and
Mr Charles in lyke wise endevoireth and emploieth themselves,
accompanienge Mr Gregory in lerninge, amonge whome ther is a
perpetuall contention, strife, and conflicte, and in maner of an
honest envie who shall do beste, not oonlie in the ffrenche tongue
(wherin Mr Vallence after a wonderesly compendious, facile,
prompte, and redy waye, nott withoute painfull delegence and
laborious industrie doth enstructe them) but also in writynge,
playenge at weapons, and all other theire exercises, so that if
continuance in this bihalf may take place, whereas the laste
Diana, this shall (I truste) be consecrated to Apollo and the
Muses, to theire no small profecte and your good contentation and
pleasure. And thus I beseche the Lord to have you in his moste
gratious tuition.

At Reisinge in Norff[olk] the last daie of Aprill.
Your faithfull and most bounden servaunte
HENRY DOWES.

To his right honorable maister Mr Thomas Crumwell
chief Secretary vnto the King’s Maiestie.”
Ellis, _Original Letters_. Series I. vol. i. p. 341-3.

The next Letter gives further details of Gregory’s studies--

“But forcause somer was spente in the servyce of the wylde goddes,
it is so moche to be regarded after what fashion yeouth is educate
and browght upp, in whiche tyme that that is lerned (for the moste
parte) will nott all holelie be forgotten in the older yeres,
I thinke it my dutie to asserteyne yo^r Maistershippe how he
spendith his tyme.... And firste, after he hath herde Masse he
taketh a lecture of a Diologe of Erasmus Colloquium, called Pietas
Puerilis, whereinne is described a veray picture of oone that
sholde be vertuouselie brought upp; and forcause it is so
necessary for hime, I do not onelie cause him to rede it over, but
also to practise the preceptes of the same, and I have also
translated it into Englishe, so that he may conferre theime both
to-githers, whereof (as lerned men affirme) cometh no smalle
profecte[32] ... after that, he exerciseth his hande in writing
one or two houres, and redith uppon Fabian’s Chronicle as longe;
the residue of the day he doth spende uppon the lute and
virginalls. When he rideth (as he doth very ofte) I tell hime by
the way some historie of the Romanes or the Greekes, whiche I
cause him to reherse agayn in a tale. For his recreation he useth
to hawke and hunte, and shote in his long bowe, which frameth and
succedeth so well with hime that he semeth to be therunto given by
nature.”

Ellis, i. 343-4.

[Headnote: STUDIES OF YOUTHS, TEMP. HEN. VIII. AND ELIZABETH.]