Although the French wars were hardly less injurious to the cause of polite learning in England than in France, the reigns of Edward III. and his successors are not without a peculiar interest in the history of our popular education. One after another those magnificent foundations were rising at the universities, the commencement of which has been noticed in a previous chapter; and the English collegiate system was taking root and attaining maturity. The threefold pestilence of Lollardism, the Black Death, and a rage for military glory, offered, it is true, some serious checks to the progress of letters; yet in spite of every such disadvantage, this epoch, so brilliant in the annals of chivalry, was hardly less important in those of English literature, which in Chaucer and Mandeville produced its first writers in prose and verse. And, indeed, if the reign of Edward III. was not a splendid literary era the fault is not to be charged to the deficient education of the sovereign. His great natural powers had been cultivated with extraordinary care under the direction of Richard Angervyle, or, as he is commonly called, Richard of Bury. The most learned scholar of his age, Richard was also a very great man as far as dignities could make him so: Archdeacon of Northampton, Prebendary of Lincoln, Salisbury, and Lichfield, Dean of Wells, and finally Bishop of Durham; Lord High Chancellor and Treasurer of the Kingdom, and Envoy Plenipotentiary for concluding the peace with France. Posterity, however, has forgotten his honours, and remembers him rather as the patron of learning, the correspondent of Petrarch, the founder of the Angervyle library at Oxford, and the author of the Philobiblion, a book in the compilation of which he was largely assisted by the learned Dominican Robert Holkot, and in which he gives full expression to that devouring passion for books, wherewith, says Harpsfield, “he was mightily carried away.” His library was the first public one ever founded in England. He bestowed it on Durham college, which he completed and partly endowed, and made the inheritor of his books, of which, says Wood, he had more than all the other bishops of England put together. All his palaces were crammed with them, and the floor of the room where he sat was so strewn with them that it was no easy thing to approach him. He kept three collectors constantly employed for him in France, Germany, and Italy. In his palace a staff of writers, illuminators, and binders were constantly at work under his own eye, and he gives ample details in his work of the incredible pains and expense he was at to complete his collection. It was undertaken in no light or capricious mood, but as a serious and solemn duty. “Moved,” he says, “by Him who alone granteth and perfecteth a good will to man, I diligently inquired what, among all the offices of piety, would most please the Almighty, and most profit the Church militant. Then before the eyes of our mind there came a flock of chosen scholars in whom God, the artificer, and His handmaid Nature, had indeed planted the roots of the best manners and sciences, but whom penury so oppressed that they were dried up and watered by no dew; and so they who might have grown up strong columns of the Church were obliged to renounce their studies. Deprived of the writings and helps of contemplation they return, for the sake of bread, to base mechanical arts. And the result of our meditation was pity for this humble race of men, and the resolution to help them, not only with the means of sustenance, but also with books for the prosecution of their studies; and to this end our intention ever watched before the Lord. And this ecstatic love so moved us that, renouncing all other earthly things, we applied ourselves to collect books.”
In his bibliographical researches the still unplundered monasteries afforded him an inexhaustible mine of literary treasures. Whenever he visited towns where there existed religious houses, his first visit was paid to their libraries; and he was not slow in examining their chests and other repositories where books might lie concealed. Often amid the greatest poverty he found the rarest stores; and the richest in this kind of wealth, as well as the most liberal in dispensing the use of it, were the Friars Preachers. Sometimes, however, he had complaints to make of the carelessness and indifference of those possessed of books, which he often found “turned out of their interior chambers and secure depositories, and given over to destruction for the sake of dogs, birds, and those two-legged beasts called women.”
No catalogue of the Angervyle collection now exists, and at the Reformation it was dispersed, and in great measure destroyed by the Protestant plunderers, who saw a vision of Popery in every illuminated manuscript. But there can be little doubt that it was rich in works of high literary value. For the good bishop was one of those who esteemed the liberal arts above the study of law, and he expressly tells us that he provided his students with Greek and Hebrew grammars. He gave them also very quaint and pithy directions how to use his books. They were to take care how they opened and shut them, not to mark them with their nails, or write alphabets on the margin of the leaves. He criticises the bad habits of indolent and careless youths, who lean both their elbows on their books, put straws and flowers to keep their places, and eat fruit and cheese over the open pages; and he exhorts those into whose hands his treasures may fall, to wash their hands before reading, and to take a little more care of their books than they would of an old shoe.
Several other prelates imitated the laudable example of Richard of Bury, and endeavoured to make provision for the wants of poor scholars by the foundation of public libraries. It is probable, however, that most of these collections were extremely limited in their range. The English universities were at this time almost exclusively resorted to by lawyers and ecclesiastics, or, in other words, by those who had chosen the calling of clerks. They were not, as they afterwards became, and as they continue to be in our day, places of liberal education for the sons of the gentry; and hence the education given in them had a certain professional narrowness; a defect which was further increased at this particular period, by the presence among the students of a very large proportion of beneficed clergymen, who having been appointed from an inferior class to fill up the vacancies caused by the ravages of the Black Death, were often found so ignorant as to render it necessary for their diocesans to require their spending a certain time at the universities, in order to acquire just so much learning as was actually indispensable for their office. Men of this sort, of course, spent little time on polite literature, and the influence of such a class of students was, naturally enough, to pull down the academical studies to a very low standard.
It will occur to every reader to inquire where the sons of the gentry received their education, if they were not as yet in the habit of frequenting the universities and public schools. And to furnish a reply, we must call to mind the habits which prevailed in feudal society, according to which every great baron or prelate presided over a huge household, including, besides his domestic servants and chaplains, a crowd of knights, esquires, and pages, among the last of whom a certain number of noble youths were always admitted, in order to receive the training suited to their rank. Chivalry, it will be remembered, was not an accident, but an institution, and one which was furnished with a rigorous system of graduation. A man who aspired to the profession of arms, had to be trained for it according to fixed rules, and to go through each successive degree with as much precision as the bachelors and masters in the schools. Indeed, the feudal castles may not unfitly be called schools of chivalry, and in them alone could the future knight be instructed in the duties of his state. As page in a baronial household, a youth was able to acquire an education far more suited to his future position in the world, than he could possibly have received at the universities. There he would have been chiefly called on to attend lectures on the Sentences, or on civil and canon law; but as page to a great lord, spiritual or temporal, he learnt how to serve and carve at table, to fly a hawk, manage and dress a horse, bear himself in the tilt-yard, and handle his arms. Noble youths generally began their education at the age of seven, when they were admitted to the service of the ladies of the family, and were styled Damoiseaux. They were under the immediate control of the lady of the house, and learnt from her at once their Christian doctrine and the laws of courtesy.[280] I say, the laws, for the teaching of this virtue was reduced to a science, and had a literature of its own. By the fair virtue of courtesy our forefathers understood something more than the mere outside polish of worldly refinement. The author of the “Lytylle childrene’s lytylle boke” informs us that according to cunning clerks—
“Alle vertues are closide yn curteseye,” he says, “and alle vices in vyllonie;” and he goes on to teach his pupils that they must love God and their neighbours, speak the truth, keep their word, and neither swear, quarrel, nor be idle. They are not to be proud or to scorn the poor, and are to speak honestly whether it be to the lord or to his servants. If his directions how to behave at table are somewhat homely, it cannot be denied that they are much to the point, and Dame Curtesye forgets not to remind her scholars that before eating they should think of the poor, because a full stomach wots little what the hungry ails.
As the boy grew older he came under the training of the seneschal and the chaplain. The first, who was generally some old veteran knight, taught him his martial duties, while the other imbued him with a reasonable amount of book-learning in Latin and Norman-French. The ignorance of French knights in Du Guesclin’s time must not be held to disprove this latter statement, for it is plain that ignorance was opposed to the older traditions of chivalry, and was commented upon as a sign of decay by writers of the time. Knights were certainly expected to know how to read and write, for the youthful aspirant to chivalric honours, who, in the twelfth century, wandered from land to land seeking goodly adventures, was always required to carry tablets, and note down the deeds which he witnessed most worthy of remembrance and imitation. He was required to know something of the tuneful art, whether the plain song of the Church, or the lays of the troubadours, and, as a matter of course, every well bred man was well instructed in the abstruse science of heraldry. Chaucer, in describing his squire, takes care to let us know that besides sitting his horse, carving at table, and jousting in the lists, he could sing, write songs, dance, “and wel pourtraie and write.” The education of his mind, then, was not entirely neglected, and still less was that of his manners. He was “courteous, lowlie, and serviceable;” and elsewhere the same authority informs us, that the young squire was often charged to be wise and equitable, godly in word, and reasonable, to be courteous in salute, and to abstain from all words of ribaldry, “and fro all pride to keep him well.” The last words are worthy of notice, for this eschewing of pride is greatly insisted on by all chivalric writers as one of the special characteristics of a gentleman. It is a point on which Chaucer constantly loves to dwell:—
Exactly in the same spirit does the good king Perceforest in the old romance instruct his knights: “Si me souvient d’une parolle que ung hermite me dist une fois pour moy chastier. Car il me dist que si j’avois autant de possessions comme avoit le roy Alexandre, de sens comme le sage Salomon, et de bravoure comme le preux Hector de Troy, seul orgueil, s’il regnoit en moy, destruieroit tout.” And in a book of instructions on the duties of Chivalry, we find the following: “Louange est reputée blâme en la bouche de celluy qui se loe, mais elle exaulce celluy qui ne se attribue point de louange, mais à Dieu. Si l’ecuyer a vaine gloire de ce qu’il a fait, il n’est pas digne d’étre chevalier, car vaine gloire est un vice qui destruit les merites de chevalerie.”[282] In the same Treatise the virtues of chivalry are declared to be the three theological and the four cardinal virtues, and a good knight will hold the opposite vices in horror; he must keep himself from villanous thoughts, and be unstained within and without, and must withal be modest, “the first to strike on the battle-field, but the last to speak in the hall.”
Schools in which maxims such as these prevailed, and in which the duties of religion were strictly enforced, must be admitted to fill an important place in the system of Christian education. It may be doubted, too, whether Eton or Rugby could bestow a more careful polish than was inculcated by that minute etiquette which chivalric usage demanded. The grace and manliness, the “pluck” and spirit which Englishmen prize so highly, and purchase at so dear a rate, were certainly not disregarded; but they were tempered with a certain admixture of lowliness which has not retained an equal place in our esteem. Despite all the extravagances of Chivalry, and the exaggerated and injurious effect of some of its maxims, such as those which inculcated a heathenish sensitiveness on the point of honour, it enforced a law of self-restraint, a polite diction and etiquette, and a government of the exterior man, in all which the education of our own day is fatally defective. “One of the essential principles of chivalry,” says Godwin, speaking of the education bestowed on noble youths in these baronial households, “was, that no office was sordid that was performed in aid of a proper object. It was the pride of the candidate for knighthood to attend upon his superiors, and perform for them the most menial services. The dignity of the person assisted raised the employment, and the generous spirit in which it was performed gave it lustre and grace. It was the office of a page or an esquire to spread the table, to carve the meat, to wait upon the guests, to bring them water to wash, and conduct them to their bed-chamber. They cleaned and kept in order the arms of their lord, and assisted him in equipping himself for the field. There is an exquisite beauty in offices like these, not the growth of servitude, not rendered with unwillingness and constraint, but the spontaneous acts of reverence and affection performed by a servant of mind not less free and noble than the honoured master whom he serves.”[283] The truth and justice of this observation will be readily admitted, and we stop and ask ourselves what substitute has our increased civilisation furnished for this beautiful element in the education of the Middle Ages? Where, except among the fags below the fifth form, does a noble youth of our day learn anything of these “lowly and serviceable” courtesies; and are they there performed in that spirit of “spontaneous reverence and affection,” which renders them not sordid, but illustrious? We must leave it to our public schoolmen to reply.
Such an education as has been described above, taught exactly what a secular youth of good birth now goes to the universities to acquire—it taught him to be a gentleman. And it is probable that in these chivalric households he received the culture suited to his position with more safeguards to faith and morals than would have been found in the schools of Paris or Oxford. In those days the government of the family was the active, earnest business of the lord and lady; noble rank was not held to dispense a baron and a baron’s wife from seeing to very homely details with their own eyes; and the everyday habits of their retainers were regulated by them in a way which put into their hands a vast parental power. Doubtless this “wondrous middle age” had plenty of barbarous violence, and was disgraced by much gross immorality; nor do we aim at painting it other than it was. But, whatever were its failings, it had one merit,—the Family Life was then a reality and not a name.[284] Most readers are familiar with the beautiful picture of the household of Sir Thomas More, which all his biographers agree in holding up as a model and pattern, though possibly an exceptional form of excellence. It was exceptional, however, only in its extraordinary cultivation of letters; in every other respect it did but present the old Catholic type, of which we might adduce innumerable specimens both in earlier and later times. Let us see what sort of rules were drawn up by a French earl of the fourteenth century for the regulation of his household, just premising that this is not an exceptional case, but that any acquaintance with mediæval literature will convince the reader that Elzear de Sabran ruled his family as many a good knight of France and England besides him were doing at the same period. Elzear had the greatest of all blessings, a good mother, whose piety and charity had earned her the golden title of “The Good Countess.” When he was born she took him in her arms and offered him to God, and had him educated by his uncle in the abbey of St. Victor’s at Marseilles. But he did not become a monk or a clerk: on the contrary, he lived as a great baron, fought as a brave soldier, administered justice to his feudal retainers, and was employed as ambassador from the King of Naples to the court of France. He was at the head of the State Council of Naples, and fought two pitched battles against the Emperor Henry VII., so that I think we need have no mistaken notion as to his being a mere pious recluse. Like other nobles of the time, he received a number of youths into his house, among whom was the eldest son of King Robert himself: Duke Charles of Calabria, a circumstance which induces us to think that a certain instruction in letters must have been given to the pages, for this King Robert was the same who acted as examiner to Petrarch, and was used to say that if he must choose between his crown and his studies, the latter should have the preference. Surius tells us that Elzear took great pains with the duke’s education, explaining to him the principles of piety, justice, and clemency, making him frequent the Sacraments, and advising him to keep flatterers at a distance. His wife, Delphina of Glandeves, was worthy of directing a Christian household; she looked to all things with her own eye, banished brawls and tale-bearing, and was honoured by her servants as a mother and a saint. When first they began to keep house at Puy-Michel, in Provençe, Elzear drew up rules for the regulation of his family, of which the following is a short abridgment:—
“Every one in my family shall daily hear Mass. Let no one curse, swear, or blaspheme, under pain of chastisement. Let all persons honour chastity, for no impure word or deed shall go unpunished in the house of Elzear. The men and women shall confess their sins every week, and communicate every month, or at the least at the chief festivals, namely, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and on the feasts of our Lady. No one shall be idle, but in the morning, after prayers, let all go to their work, the men abroad, the women at home. The life of the pious woman is not merely to pray, but to ply her work, and take care of her household. Therefore, the ladies shall read and pray in the mornings, and afterwards spend their time in useful work of some kind. Every evening all my family shall assemble for a pious conference, in which they shall hear something said for the salvation of their souls. And let none be absent on pretence of attending to my affairs. I have no affairs so near my heart as the salvation of those who serve me. I will have no playing at dice or games of hazard; there are plenty of innocent diversions, and time passes soon enough without being thrown away: yet I do not wish my castle to be a cloister, nor my people hermits. Therefore, let them be merry, but without offending God. If any quarrel fall out, let not the sun set before it be appeased. And I strictly command all under my jurisdiction to hurt no man in goods, honour, or reputation. I will not have my coffers filled by the emptying of others; we shall be wealthy enough if we fear God.”
The nobles educated in such households are often spoken of in after-life as evincing a certain love of polite letters, such as Count Capranica, whom Petrarch describes as living in his feudal castle, “governing his vassals with justice and love, cultivating the Muses, and seeking the society of the learned.” Ordinarily speaking, however, the merits of the mediæval system of education for the upper ranks lay less in its intellectual than in its moral training. It is true indeed that all great barons and their wives were not Elzears and Delphinas, but it is probable that the families usually chosen as homes for the young were those which were held in highest repute as virtuous and well-ordered. And in such families we are justified in saying that, as a general rule, the grand Christian traditions were certainly upheld; that children were taught to be subject to parents and governors, and parents were held bound personally to superintend the education of their children; that there was a real parental rule, that priests were had in worshipful honour, the poor regarded as the members of Christ, women treated with respect and courtesy, and elders had in reverence. The domestic virtues were taught after another fashion than among ourselves, and whilst the education of a gentleman aimed at making him brave, clement, courteous, and devout, a high-born lady was trained to a life of vigorous practical utility. She learnt to fill the responsible office of head of the family, which demanded in those days no small capacity of government. She was instructed in a hundred details of domestic life, which ladies are now-a-days content to entrust to their servants. No great variety of accomplishments was of course expected of her; and the author of the “Advice to Ladies,” written in 1371, enumerates reading, church music, embroidery, confectionery, and surgery as among the most useful branches of female education. As to writing, he considers it superfluous, and thinks it better if women “can nought of it.”
In the same spirit the good housewife is addressed in the “Menagier de Paris,” and exhorted to take both pains and pleasure in her household duties. She is expected to know something about gardening and tillage, to be able to choose grooms, porters, and other servants, and look after labourers, pastrycooks, bakers, shoemakers, and chambermaids; to see that the sheep and horses are taken care of, and the wines kept clear. Moreover, she must know what to order for dinner and supper, and must understand how to make all manner of ragôuts, and pottages for the sick. Much account was made of early rising in all the books of instruction addressed to ladies. The “Menagier” humorously complains of those sluggards whose Matins are, “I must sleep a little longer,” and their Lauds, “Is breakfast ready yet?” But in general it was the habit to rise with the lark, and give the early hours, as in Elzear’s household, to prayer and reading. Thus an old French poet describes it—
Such homely duties as those enumerated above might seem to leave but little room for cultivation of letters. Probably the writers of these treatises made the most of their subject, but it is quite clear that the “Valiant women” of olden time were not mere homely housewives, innocent of intellectual culture, and with no ideas beyond their distaffs and their confectioneries; on the contrary, many of them were learned in their way, like the saintly Isabel of France, sister to St. Louis, who was an excellent spinster, but was also well read in St. Augustine. Froissart incidentally lets us know that many of the noble ladies he names in his Chronicle were lovers of learning; such as Mary de Bohun, the first wife of Henry Bolingbroke, who, as he tells us, was well skilled in Latin and Church Divinity. And the character of not a few of those grand heroic women, whose names so beautify the page of history, might be summed up in the words with which Gabrielle de Bourbon is described by the biographer of Bayard. “She was,” he says, “devout, religious, chaste, and charitable; grave without haughtiness, magnanimous without pride, and not ignorant of letters, specially delighting in reading and hearing read the Sacred Scriptures.” The considerable part taken in the foundation of the English Colleges by noble ladies of the fourteenth century shows that they were, at any rate, not indifferent to learning. I have already spoken of Ella Longspée and the Lady Devorgilla, and in the following century their noble example was followed by Philippa of Hainault, the foundress of Queen’s College, Oxford, and Mary de St. Pol, the widowed countess of Pembroke, who founded Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was chosen on account of her virtue and learning to direct the education of Queen Philippa’s daughters. No one can study the histories of those times without being frequently struck by the superiority which appears in the characters of their illustrious women. Their education, however slender it may have been in a merely literary sense (and, if less showy, it was perhaps quite as solid as what finds favour among ourselves), evidently fitted them to take an active and intelligent part in domestic and social life. The old chroniclers often allude to the happy influence exerted over their lords by such queens as Eleanor of Castile, and the Good Queen Maud. Not a few English countesses merited the praises bestowed on Ildegard by the historian Donizzo, who calls her docta, gubernatrix, prudens, proba, consiliatrix. The practical mind of Philippa of Hainault was employed in introducing useful arts into England, just as, a few years later, the intelligence and commanding powers of Margaret, “the Great Countess” of Ormonde, were similarly exercised in Ireland, where she planted weavers and other artisans, built schoolhouses, and “was ever showing herself liberal, bountiful, and devout.” They who would understand the character of a true Catholic household, presided over by a wise and intelligent mistress, may find it depicted in countless beautiful pictures, both of history and romance. Thus, in one of the works translated by Caxton, the Knight of the Tower holds up for the imitation of his daughters the example of the Lady Cecily of Balleville, whose daily ordinance was to rise early and say matins with her chaplains, and then to hear High Mass and two low Masses, “saying her service full devoutly.” Then she walked in her garden, and finished her other morning devotions, and betimes she dined. After dinner she visited sick folk, and caused her best meat to be brought to them, and spent her day in other charitable and useful works. After hearing vespers she went to supper, and betimes to bed, making great abstinence, and wearing haircloth on all Wednesdays and Fridays. In the same volume we find that the maxims of courtesy and humility which found place in the training of a gentleman were equally inculcated on noble ladies. The Knight of the Tower reminds his daughters that courtesy is to be shown to persons of low degree as well as those of gentle blood, and even more scrupulously, and he gives his reasons. “Courtesy shewn to those of low estate,” he says, “is more honourable than that shewn to the great, because it the more evidently proceedeth from a frank and gentle heart.” He cites the example of a certain great lady whom he once saw in company with some fine knights and ladies, and who humbled herself to curtsey, as she passed, to a poor tinker; and when her gay companions asked her why she did so, she replied, “I would rather miss shewing such courtesy to a gentleman than to him.” And this, he says, is what all understand and practise who know the laws of true courtesy.
What has been said of the character of domestic life in the Middle Ages will doubtless seem a partial view to those who consider that we ought to gather our notions of the state of society then prevailing from the debased literature of the jongleurs and troubadours, which is universally acknowledged to have been exceedingly bad. It will be remembered, however, that the “goliardi,” as they were called, were a distinct class in society, the dead branches of the universities, men who followed no profession save that of buffoonery, and had gathered just so much education in school as enabled them to give point to a licentious song or story. They wandered about from city to city and from castle to castle; and in days when no places of public amusement existed, there were plenty of knights and nobles ready to receive such guests, and to while away the dulness of a winter’s evening by listening to their narratives. The appetite for recreation in an unregenerate world is hardly less clamorous in its demands than the appetite for food, and the goods which are produced to supply such a demand, are seldom, even in our own more refined age, of the choicest description. But to take the offensive literature produced by a corrupt and excommunicated class, for such the “goliardi” really were,[285] and draw thence any conclusions respecting the manners of the higher classes in ancient times, is about as fair as it would be to judge of the state of society among ourselves by the plot of a “sensation” novel or a French vaudeville. Even allowing the character of their fictions to be taken as evidence of the existence of widespread scandals, at least equal weight must be attached to the bonâ fide historical descriptions of households such as those of Elzear or Charles the Wise, of whom Christine de Pisa says that he suffered no pernicious book to remain in his palace for a single day; nor any person whose language was not pure and innocent. Mr. Wright expresses his surprise at the inconceivable corruption of a society which could endure the goliardic tales to be recited in its presence. But it would be easy to match the instances which he brings forward with others which show us the domestic circle amusing itself in a very different manner, like that in the castle of Count Charles of Flanders, who entertained three monks, doctors of theology, that they might daily, after supper, read and explain the Scriptures to his family; or like that again, of the good king named above, who always kept readers in his palace to relieve the winter evenings by reading aloud “les belles ystoires de la sainct Escripture, ou des fais des Romains, ou moralitées de philosophes, et d’autres sciences;” and examples of this sort are by no means exceptional.
What, however, we are chiefly concerned with, is not so much the practice of this or that individual, as the character of the education by which they were trained. Our inquiry is what were the principles and the standard of morals enforced in the chivalric system of education. And the fact that this standard was far higher than what exists among ourselves, has been acknowledged by writers whose sympathies are all in another direction. Thus, M. Guizot, whose study of European civilisation has certainly not been superficial, expresses his admiration at “the moral notions, so delicate, so elevated, and above all so humane, and so invariably stamped with a religious character,” which are to be found in the oaths and obligations imposed by the laws of chivalry. “Crimes and disorders abounded in the Middle Ages,” he says, “yet men evidently had in their minds lofty desires and pure ideas. Their principles were better than their acts. A certain high moral ideal always soars above the stormy element.” He goes on to remark that this pure tone of morality which prevails in the laws of chivalry must be traced to the influence of the clergy, who, though they did not invent that institution, made it an instrument for civilising society and introducing “a more enlarged and vigorous system of morality in domestic life.” Expressions like these, which are abundantly confirmed by a study of the ancient monuments, justify us in claiming for the mediæval system of education the merit of at least presenting to the world a lofty standard of right and wrong. That the acts of the pupils often fell far below their principles, is saying no more than that they were men. But it cannot be supposed that society could be permeated with a high moral ideal, and that the strict obligations of that class to which every man of gentle blood belonged, should be redolent of a spirit at once “delicate, scrupulous, and humane,” without effecting some practical results. The young were trained to reverence a whole class of virtues which popular writers declare must be regarded in our own day as “dead.” The system of education which prevailed, presented them with a high ideal of moral excellence, a lofty standard of thoughts and desires, precisely that, the loss of which among ourselves is so bitterly deplored. And what is all education but the formation of such an interior standard? A teacher can do little more than grave on the soul principles which may survive many practical shortcomings, and may eventually recall a wanderer to better things. This is a point which non-Catholic writers can hardly be expected to appreciate as it deserves, bound up as it is with a class of ideas, and even of dogmas, to which they are necessarily strangers. But whilst acknowledging the contrast too frequently observable between the profession and the practice of Christians in the Middle Ages, another remarkable feature in those extraordinary times ought not to be overlooked,—I mean those numerous episodes in history which exhibit its great criminals in the light of great penitents. There had been early impressed on those fierce hearts a fear of God, a sense of sin, and a living faith in the possibility of obtaining pardon; nay, we will add, a certain capacity of self-humiliation, which evoked grand heroic acts of contrition from many whose previous lives had been a tissue of enormities; and thus a man like William Longspée needed but the look and the word of a saint to feel all the old teaching reawaken in his soul, and with a rope about his neck “to abhor himself in dust and ashes.”
To return from this digression, which is yet intimately connected with our subject, let us proceed to examine a little more closely the actual schools for rich and poor existing in England in the fourteenth century. Besides the universities and monastic schools, there were, as we have already seen, others presided over by independent masters. Schools of greater or less pretension were attached to most parish churches, and the scholars assembled either in the church, or the porch, or “parvis.” Thus in 1300 we read of children being taught to sing and read in the “parvis” of St. Martin’s, Norwich. Endowed schools in connection with hospitals and colleges were also springing up, of which we shall speak more fully in another chapter, and in all these schools, as well as in the universities, the studies, up to the latter part of the reign of Edward III., were carried on in Latin and French. Ralph Higden, a monk of Chester, who wrote his Polychronicon somewhere about the year 1357, informs us that in his day French was the only language which schoolboys were allowed to use, except Latin. The passage as translated by John de Trevisa in 1387 is as follows: “Children in scoles agenst the usage and maner of all other nations beeth compelled for to leve thir own language, and for to construe thir lessons and thinges in Frenche. Also gentylmen children beeth taught to speke Frenche, from the time that they beeth rokked in thir cradel. And uplondish men (i.e. country people) will lyken hymself to gentylmen and soundeth with gret besynesse for to speke Frenche to be told of.” When Ralph was protesting against this custom its knell was about to sound. In 1362 the celebrated statute was passed which ordained that all pleadings in the Royal courts should now be made in English instead of French, a change for which we stand indebted to the spirit of nationality called forth by the continental wars. By the time therefore that John of Trevisa wrote his translation of the Polychronicon, a great revolution had taken place, so that he thought it necessary to introduce this correction into the body of his work: “This maner (the use of the French language) is now som dele ychaungide: for John Cornwaile, a maister of gramer, chaungide the lore in gramer scole and construction of Frensch, into Englisch, and Richard Pencriche lerned that maner of teching of him, and other men of Pencriche; so that now the yere of oure Lord a thousand thre hundred foure score and fyve, of the secunde king Rychard after the conquest, in alle the gramer scoles of England, children leveth Frensch, and construeth and lerneth in Englisch, and haveth therby avauntage in one side and desavauntage in another. Ther avauntage is, that thei lerneth ther gramer in lasse tyme than children were wont to do; desavauntage is, that now children of gramer scole knoweth no more Frensch than knows thir left heele; and that is harm to them, if thei schul passe the see and travaile in strange londes, and in many other places also: also gentylmen haveth now myche ylefte for to teche thir children Frensch.” It is evident that John of Cornwaile and Richard Pencriche, were, like the author himself, Cornish men. John of Trevisa was a Cornish priest, one of the earliest students at Exeter College, or, as it was called at that time, Stapleton Hall, Canon of Westbury in Wiltshire, and Vicar of Berkeley. His translation of the Polychronicon was undertaken at the request of his Patron, Thomas Lord Berkeley, and was afterwards modernised and continued by Caxton. At the request of the same noble friend he is said to have undertaken an English translation of the Old and New Testaments. Warton, and after him Craik, have stated that no account of this work is known to exist, and doubts have even been raised whether it were ever really written. One antiquarian, quoted by Lewis in his History of the Translations of the Bible, assures a “learned friend” that Trevisa translated no more of the Scriptures than certain sentences painted on the walls of Berkeley Castle, which sentences turn out to have been painted in Latin and French. But the existence of the translation is uniformly alluded to by early writers as a well-known fact, and Dr. Ingram informs us in a note appended to his Memorials of Oxford that in 1808 he was actually presented with a copy of the work.[286]
There was the less excuse for the English gentry having eschewed the use of the national tongue, from the fact that the language had long since been redeemed from the character of a barbarous idiom by the labours of the monks. Their rhyming chronicles and a vast quantity of beautiful and pathetic poetry, attributed by critics to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, must be regarded as the real first-fruits of English literature; and the adherence to what Chaucer lets us know was exceedingly bad French, in preference to good English, was simply a remnant of Anglo-Norman pride. Chaucer himself had to apologise for his use of the vulgar idiom, and in the prologue to one of his prose treatises, he protests against the speaking of “poesy matter” in French which, in the ears of Frenchmen, is about as agreeable as a Frenchman’s English. “Let Frenchmen endite their quaint terms in French,” he says, “for it is kindly to their mouths; but let us show our fantasies in such words as we learned of our dames’ tongues.” His example, of course, had great influence; yet such was the force of this sentiment of gentility, that at the universities the Oxonian and Cantabrian French (which was not much better than that spoken at “Stratford-atte-Bowe”) held its ground for some years; but in the primary schools the English tongue asserted its supremacy, and primers and grammars began to be divested of their foreign clothing. A great many fragments of English school literature exist belonging to the fourteenth century, some of which may furnish amusement to the reader. All perhaps may not have a very clear idea of what an ancient Primer really was. It was something very different from the school books to which we ordinarily give the name. For in the dames schools, of which Chaucer speaks, children were provided with few literary luxuries and had to learn their letters off a scrap of parchment nailed on a board, and in most cases covered with a thin transparent sheet of horn to protect the precious manuscript. Hence the term “horn-book” applied to the elementary books in use by children. Prefixed to the alphabet, of course, was the holy sign of the Cross; and so firm a hold does an old custom get on the popular mind that down to the commencement of the present century alphabets continued to preserve their ancient heading, and derived from this circumstance their customary appellation of “the Christ-cross row,” a term so thoroughly established as still to find its place in our dictionaries. The mediæval primer is, however, best described in the language of the fourteenth century itself. The following passage occurs in the introduction to a MS. poem of 300 lines, still preserved in the British Museum, each portion of which begins with a separate letter of the alphabet:—
After the difficulties of the primer had been overcome, a great deal of elementary knowledge was taught to the children, as in Saxon times, through the vehicle of verse. For instance, we find a versified geography of the fourteenth century, of which the two following verses may serve as a specimen, though it must be owned the second is not very creditable to our mediæval geographers:—
The following grammar rules are of rather later date, and belong to the fifteenth century:—
There is something in this last fragment very suggestive of the rod. What would have been the fate of the unhappy grammarian, if in spite of this solemn counsel he had failed to have his ablative case in his mind, we dare not conjecture. Our forefathers had strict views on the subject of sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Thus one old writer observes of children in general:—