(4) Mr. Leach himself, undesignedly, applies examples to show that the sons of serfs attended schools. He instances that in 1295, Walter, the son of Reginald the carpenter, “was licensed to attend school” subject to the payment of a fine.[622] Similarly, in 1344, a villein at Coggeshall in Essex was fined for sending his son to school without license. At Harrow in 1384, a villein was deprived of his horse for sending his son to school without license. Mr. Leach continues “the fourteenth century manor rolls all over the country are dotted with fines for sending boys, ‘ad scolas clericales,’ to schools to become clerks.”[623] Now, it would appear to us obvious, that if some serfs sent their sons to schools after paying a license, others would attempt to do so without payment and would probably succeed in doing so. But the point which is established, without doubt, is that it was customary for children of parents of the lowest social grade to attend school.
When these arguments are fairly considered, it is claimed that the institutions of Eton and Winchester were originally intended for boys whose parents were “poor and needy”—and not simply for scions of the nobility or the sons of prosperous merchants. The only condition of admission, practically, was that these boys would subsequently proceed to the universities, in order that their course of preparation for the priesthood might be completed.
CHAPTER VII.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGES, COLLEGES AND COLLEGIATE CHURCHES IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES.
In the early chapters of this work, we have shown that the work of evangelising England was simultaneously the work of the regular and of the secular clergy. The regular clergy were those who had taken certain vows and who shared a common institutional life. The secular clergy fall into one or other of two classes. In the one class, we place those who worked in the various parishes of which they were placed in charge; in the other class, were certain bodies of clergy who were organised into communities, termed colleges, and who served a church in common.
About the beginning of the twelfth century, there was in this country a general movement towards monasticism. Some of the existing secular cathedrals and collegiate churches were made monastic, and, in addition, there was a great increase in the number of monasteries. This practice continued until about the middle of the thirteenth century, when the beginning of the collegiate system at the universities manifested itself. The tendency to build new monasteries gradually ceased. Henceforth, we read of the establishment of colleges and collegiate churches.
One of the earliest instances of the building of a university college is that of the “College de Dix-huit” which was established at Paris, in 1180, by Joisey of London on his way home from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His sole object was that of making some provision for the scholar clerks who were studying at Paris.[624]
In England, the earliest instance of a university college was the one established at Salisbury by Bishop Giles of Bridport. Ever since 1209, there had been a university at Salisbury, which was augmented by a migration from Oxford in 1238.[625] In connection with this university, Bishop Giles, in 1262, set up a hostel for “the perpetual reception and maintenance of a warden, for the time being, two chaplains and twenty poor, needy, well behaved and teachable scholars serving God and the Blessed Nicholas there, and there living, studying and becoming proficient in the Holy Scriptures and the liberal arts.”[626]