2. Lands in Oxfordshire were given by King Edward the Confessor to the Abbey of Westminster for the education and support of a novice.[107]
3. Aluuid, a young woman, held half a hide of the demesne lands at Oakley (Bucks) for teaching the daughter of Earl Godric.[108]
Taken alone, these instances do not amount to much, but when they are considered in relation to the decrees and custom of the Church and the canons promulgated in the reign of King Edgar, they tend to support the contention that provision for education was actually made in the various parishes of this country.
Turning next to the Collegiate Churches, whether of a cathedral dignity or not, we note that no evidence of their scholastic activities is available until after the Danish conquest. Then we learn that when Canute visited a famous monastery or borough, he sent there “at his own expense boys to be taught for the clerical or monastic order.”[109] This statement is made by a contemporary of the king and is consequently worthy of credence. It was repeated by Abbot Samson who wrote about a century later. Samson, however, exaggerates matters and states that Canute was “so great a lover of religion” that he established public schools[110] in the cities and boroughs “charging the expense on the public purse.”[111]
It is difficult to say what these statements mean. They may mean that Canute gave further endowments to particular churches on the understanding that an additional priest, who would be responsible for the teaching of the boys, would be maintained, or that endowments were given to monasteries with the implied understanding that they were given to meet the expenses incurred in the support of the boys intended for a monastic profession. Again, it is probable that by now the custom had grown up of requiring payments from the boys who attended the classes of the priests; in that case the statements would simply mean that Canute made certain grants to the particular church to free those whom he nominated from any further charges.
The account available of the foundation of Holy Cross Collegiate Church, Waltham, and its re-foundation by Earl Harold,[112] enables us to understand the organisation of the Collegiate Churches of the period and the nature of the provision made for education. Originally, there were only two clerks on this foundation; Earl Harold by additional endowments made it possible for eleven further clerks to be added. Just as the monasteries sent to Fleury and other monasteries of note for guidance in the conduct of their monasteries, so it appears that some of the Collegiate Churches sent abroad for guidance in the direction of their institutions. Thus we learn that, at Waltham a certain “Master Athelard” came from Utrecht that he might “establish at Waltham Church the laws, statutes, and customs both in ecclesiastical and in secular matters of the churches in which he had been educated.”[113] The church seems to have been organised on the model of a monastic community; a number of clerks lived together under specified rules; discipline was strictly enforced. A dean, described as “a religious man, illustrious for his character, well known for his literary learning,” was placed over the clerks. The schoolmaster was apparently a most important official; his authority seems to have equalled that of the dean; he taught reading, the composition of prose and verse, and singing.[114] A stringent discipline prevailed. We learn that the boys of the choir “walked, stood, read and chanted, like brethren in religion, and whatever had to be sung at the steps of the choir or in the choir itself they sang and chanted by heart, one or two or more together, without the help of a book. One boy never looked at another when they were in their places in choir, except sideways and that very seldom, and they never spoke a word to one another; they never walked about the choir.... And in walking in procession from school they go to choir, and on leaving the choir go to school.”[115]
Between thirty and forty churches of secular canons are registered in Domesday Book, the majority of which were founded during the reign of Edward the Confessor. Among these pre-Conquest Collegiate Churches were All Saints’ Church, Warwick, Beverley Minster, and St. Martins-le-Grand, London. At each of these churches one of the priests acted as schoolmaster, and so we assume that wherever a Collegiate Church was founded, there it was customary to delegate the task of giving instruction in Latin and Music respectively to definite persons. We know that at Warwick and Beverley there was a separate master for Song, and hence we may infer that, wherever possible, separate instructors were provided for these subjects.
It must, however, be admitted that the direct evidence of general education during the Anglo-Saxon period is slight and that we are consequently largely driven to conjecture. We are justified in definitely asserting that some of the monasteries were centres of intellectual activity, and that systematic education was given in connection with some of the collegiate churches. It is also extremely probable that it was a general custom for the parish priest to give instruction in Latin to those who wished for such instruction, but it is impossible, so far as our knowledge goes now, to assert anything more than probability in this connection.