Education in England in the Middle Ages / Thesis Approved for the Degree of Doctor of Science in the University of London

by Albert William Parry

It is also extremely probable that the Black Death contributed considerably to the almost total disappearance of the French language from the schools. One effect of the Norman Conquest had been the gradual growth of French as the spoken language; after the pestilence period, the use of the native tongue of the English nation again became common. This is directly evidenced by statements contained in John de Trevisa’s translation of Higden’s Polychronicon. After showing that French was at one time very prevalent in this country because it was the language in common use at schools and that the children of “gentil men” were taught that language from the time they were “i-rokked in here cradel,” Trevisa states that after the Black Death the knowledge of French had disappeared to so great an extent that “now children of gramer scole conneth na more Frensche than can hir lift heele.”[378]

The fifteenth century witnessed important changes in the economic condition of England. The most important of these changes was connected with the development of manufactures. At the close of the fourteenth century, we learn that wool was “la Sovereigne Marchandise and Jewel ... d’Angleterre”[379]; a century later, it is said that “the makeyng of cloth” was “the grettest occupacion and lyving of the poor people of the land.”[380]

Various enactments of the period testify to the growth of the woollen industry, and to the efforts which were made by the government to foster and develop it. But though the manufacture of cloth was the most important industry, yet it was not the only form of industrial occupation. Before the close of the fifteenth century, the manufacture of silk had been established in London, coal mining was carried on to a considerable extent, the manufacture of beer had been instituted, the making of bricks had been renewed, guns were being made, and ship-building was making progress.[381]

The development of manufactures naturally brought about changes in the organisation of industry. Owing to the operation of the principle of division of labour, new crafts came into existence, and these, in their turn, were also sub-divided into other new crafts. Gradually, all the various classes of the industrial world—the artisan, the manufacturer, the middleman, and the merchant—began to emerge. As a result, the “rude beginnings of a factory system” manifested themselves,[382] and there are even traces of a movement which resembles a modern strike.[383]

These changes in the industrial system necessarily exerted a powerful influence upon the agricultural industry, which previously had been the principal occupation of the people. The Black Death had been responsible for a great diminution in the number of agricultural labourers, and as a result, it was scarcely possible to find sufficient labour for the cultivation of the soil. This scarcity of labour was intensified by the fact that employment in the manufacturing industries proved to many a more attractive form of occupation than service on the land. The Central Government took steps with the object of compelling people to work on the land, and an attempt was even made, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, to prevent agricultural labourers from sending their children to school. Thus in the reign of Richard II., it was enacted that any person who was engaged on agricultural labour up to twelve years of age, was to be compelled to remain at that occupation during the remainder of his life.[384] Other Acts of Parliament, with a similar object, were passed in 1406 and 1444.[385] This repressive legislation failed to secure its purpose, as the steady flow of labour from agriculture to manufacture continued.

The increasing scarcity of labour led naturally to the gradual substitution of sheep farming for the cultivation of wheat, a development to which the growth of the cloth industry necessarily contributed. The demand for wool by the English manufacturers of cloth increased to so great an extent that sheep-farming gradually became more profitable than the cultivation of the soil and, as a result, the enclosure movement, which began to set in during the closing years of the fourteenth century, made such progress that, during the fifteenth century, there occurred “the greatest of those agricultural changes which have in successive ages swept over this country—the transition from arable to pasture farming.”[386]

Even more important than the industrial changes were the commercial changes, which occurred during the fifteenth century. These arose out of the development of English foreign trade with its natural effect upon the growth of a shipping industry. The records of the time show that English merchants visited all the civilised maritime countries of Europe, notably Holland, Zealand, Flanders, and the shores of the Baltic. Trade was also carried on with Iceland, Spain, Portugal, the countries of Southern Europe, and, in spite of the Hundred Years’ War, with France.

These developments in manufactures, in agriculture, and in commerce naturally necessitated changes in financial matters. In the earlier part of the Middle Ages a system of barter had been common. Such a system could not continue under the new order of things. Not only did the use of money for facilitating international exchange become common, but money began to be employed for capitalistic purposes instead of being hoarded or used for unproductive military purposes.

These various changes could not occur in the economic life without producing important effects in the social life of the community. One of the most important of these resulted from an appreciation of the power of wealth. Formerly, rank and birth had been the main mark of distinction between one man and another. Apart from high birth, the Church had previously been the only avenue by which a man of ability could attain to a position of importance. Under the new condition of things, the possession of wealth proved to be a passport to social recognition, and the old ideas of status and class began rapidly to disappear.

The social standing thus gained by men of wealth naturally hastened the decline of the Feudal System; the failure of the Feudal System involved the decay of chivalry, which was closely associated with it. Outwardly chivalry continued to flourish, but the tournaments which now took place were held for political purposes on occasions of pomp and show, and not with the object of effecting a training to war.