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

CHAPTER I.

THE WORK OF THE MONASTERIES.

The introduction of Christianity to this country subsequent to the Saxon invasion was effected by means of two independent agencies—the Roman mission under the leadership of Augustine which arrived in Thanet in 597, and the Scottish missionaries who, in response to the invitation of Oswald, king of Northumbria, took up their residence in the island of Lindisfarne in 635.

The primary task of these missionaries was obviously that of converting a people who professed a heathen religion to an adherence to the Christian faith. The accomplishment of this main task, however, involved two additional tasks, the one moral, the other social. A dismal picture of the moral condition of the settlers in this country in the fifth century has been painted by Montalembert. Basing his account on Ozanam’s “Germains avant la Christianisme” he asks, “What could be expected in point of morality from persons accustomed to invoke and to worship Woden, the god of massacres, Freya, the Venus of the North, the goddess of sensuality, and all those bloody and obscene gods of whom the one had for his emblem a naked sword and another the hammer with which he broke the heads of his enemies?” He continues, “The immortality which was promised to them in their Valhalla but reserved for them new days of slaughter and nights of debauch spent in drinking deep from the skulls of their victims. And in this world, their life was but too often a prolonged orgy of carnage, rapine and lechery.”[3] Herein lay the moral task which awaited the Christian missionaries. They had to replace the existing national ideals with the ideals of Christianity—ideals of the highest standard of personal morality. The social task undertaken by the missionaries was that of elevating this country from a condition of barbarism into a state of civilisation. Referring to the results of the introduction of Christianity, Green writes, “The new England was admitted into the older commonwealth of nations. The civilisation, art, letters, which had fled before the sword of the English conquest returned with the Christian faith.”[4]

What means could be adopted by the missionaries to accomplish the ends they had in view? It is obvious that continual teaching and instruction would be imperative to meet the needs of the converts to the new faith, and it is equally clear that it would be necessary to provide for the creation of a native ministry in order that the labours of the early missionaries might be continued. Teaching, consequently, occupies a position of the greatest importance, and it is to the educational aspect of the labours of these missionaries rather than to the religious or the ecclesiastical aspect that our attention is now directed. It may be advisable for us to remind ourselves that these missionaries came to this country speaking the Latin tongue, that the services of the Church were carried on in that language, and that such books as existed were also written in Latin. It is necessary to make this point clear in order to show that schools for instruction in this language would be imperative from the very first.

It is also important to remember, as Montalembert points out, that the conversion of England was effected by means of monks, first of the Benedictine monks sent from Rome, and afterwards of Celtic monks.[5] We may here lay down a general hypothesis, which the course of this thesis will tend to demonstrate: the educational institutions established in this country were due to an imitation of those which had been in operation elsewhere. The Christian missionaries to England, for example, did not originate a system of education. They adopted what they had seen in operation in the parent monasteries from which they came, and, in so doing, they would naturally adapt the system to the special needs of the country. Some exceptions to this general principle may be found; they will be noted in their proper place.

Accepting this hypothesis, before we can proceed to consider the special work for education of the monasteries in this country, it is necessary briefly to review the meaning of monachism and to consider the extent to which monasteries had previously associated themselves with educational work.

The origin of Christian monasticism is due partly to the moral conditions prevalent in the early centuries of the Christian era and partly to the mystical and ascetic tendencies which manifest themselves in some individuals. Though the generally accepted view of the moral condition of Roman society in the days of the Early Church[6] may be exaggerated and the description given by Dill[7] represent more fairly the condition of things that actually prevailed, yet even this modified account portrays a social condition in which moral ideals—except in rare cases—barely existed. To yield to the lusts of the body seemed to be almost inseparable from life in the world. Repeatedly did the Apostles and the Church Fathers find it necessary to warn the members of the Church against the grosser sins. The multiplicity of temptations, the low moral standard, the absence of any social condemnation of infractions of the moral code tended to the growth of a belief that bodily mortification and a vigorous asceticism should be practised by those who desired to be real and not merely nominal Christians. Effectively to achieve such an ideal tended to a withdrawal from a participation in social life, from a life of fellowship with others, to a life of isolation, in order that by a severe discipline of the body and a life given up completely to prayer, contemplation, and meditation, the soul might enter into a closer communion with God.

This ideal of isolation was not altogether new. In the deserts of Egypt, during the early centuries, devout Jews had given themselves up to a solitary and austere life of chastity and prayer, combining a system of religious contemplation with a stern régime of physical discipline. Here then was an example ready to be imitated by the enthusiastic Christian. Abandoning life in the world, which in so many cases meant profligacy and vice, the convert, to whom the Christian religion had become a reality, endeavoured to find in the isolated life of a hermit the opportunity for contemplation which he considered imperative for the salvation of his soul.

The reputation for sanctity and austerity gained by certain hermits caused others desirous of a similar life to build their cells in close proximity. Gradually the custom arose of building an enclosure round a small group of cells and of recognising one man as the spiritual head of the group. Certain rules were agreed to, and a common oratory was shared. The first rules for a community of this type were drawn up by Pachomius who founded a coenobitic community at Tabenna in 320 A.D.