We have just referred to the custom that villeins were not allowed to send their children to school without the consent of their lords. This custom was abolished by a statute of 1406 which provided that “chascun homme ou femme de quele estate ou condicion qil soit, soit fraunc de mettre son fitz ou file dapprendre lettereure a quelconque escole que leur plest deinz le Roialme.”[761] The same statute provided that labourers could not apprentice their children to trades and manufactures in the towns unless they owned land worth £1 a year, probably about £40 a year now.
It is difficult to understand the reasons for this legislation. The Feudal System was already crumbling and its complete collapse was not far off. It cannot therefore be assumed that the Act was passed merely to remove a grievance, because the grievance itself was probably lightly felt. It is just possible that the Act might have been intended to facilitate the process by which it was sought to make good the deficiency of priests occasioned by the Black Death. The reference to “daughters,” however, makes this suggestion improbable. There is also the possibility that the phrase “dapprendre lettereure” meant an education which would provide for “godly and virtuous living,” which, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, was becoming recognised as a part of the educational ideal.
The years 1446-7 are important in the history of education in England. In 1446 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London petitioned the king for permission to erect two new grammar schools in London; the permission was granted and the Letters Patent duly issued.[762] In 1447, a petition was similarly sent to the Commons by four London Rectors for permission to set up four new grammar schools.[763] As we have already considered these petitions in the chapter dealing with the question of the monopoly of school keeping,[764] it will not be necessary for us to deal further with the topic here.
We have now brought to a close our exposition of the educational administration in England in the Middle Ages. Until comparatively recently it was generally believed that the educational provision available in this country could not be traced back further than to the efforts of the Reformers of the Church in the sixteenth century, and to the influence of the Renaissance. We are now able to realise that the two centuries preceding the Reformation, at least, were a period in which facilities for education in England were widespread and practically open freely to all. The educational effect of the Reformation—even though undesigned—was to remove from the great mass of the people the opportunities for attending school which had previously been available for them. It is also extremely probable that the significance of the Renaissance upon the educational development of this country has been considerably exaggerated; this, however, is a question which still awaits investigation.
APPENDIX.
WORKS CONSULTED.
A.—Sources.
Aelfric: Homilies (with translation by B. Thorpe), 2 vols., Lond., 1844-6.