In the fifteenth century we find these foundations rapidly multiplying, and their scholastic character assuming a larger development. To the masters of grammar and singing is now frequently added a third for writing; the grammar-master is not unfrequently provided with an usher, which seems to argue that the scholars were becoming more numerous, and the salary of the masters is fixed higher than that of the other priests. In the College of Bradgate in Kent no chaplain was to be admitted who had not three qualifications—bene legere, bene construere, et bene cantare. The great English prelates had a special love for founding colleges of this description in the places of their birth. Thus Thomas Scott, Archbishop of York, founded the college and school of Rotherham; and Kempe, Archbishop of York, and cardinal, who was a poor husbandman’s son, converted the parish church of Wye, his native place, into a college for the education of youth, and for perpetual prayer to be made therein “for the sowles of them that set hym to schole.” And Chichele of Canterbury, as has been already said, founded the college of Higham Ferrars in Northamptonshire. This formerly occupied a grand quadrangle with two great wings. The schoolhouse, in the florid style of Gothic architecture, is, I believe, still standing; but the remainder of the stately and beautiful buildings were a few years since laid waste by the steward of a noble earl, and the site occupied by barns and hunting stables. Choral schools appear moreover to have been attached to the private chapels of great households. Thus there was a “Maister of the childer” among the officers of the Earl of Northumberland’s chapel, and the eight children belonging to King Edward IV.’s chapel had likewise their “Maister” who was to draw them not only to the study of prictsong, but also to that of their facet or grammar, “and suche other vertuous things.” Moreover his household accounts contain the pay and livery of the “Scholmaster’s teaching, given in the house.” Besides this choral school the same king maintained a sort of Palatine Academy at his court, formed of six or more young gentlemen, or henxmen, as they are called, whose master was to teach them “to read clenely and surely, to learn them their harness;” and moreover to teach them “sundry languages, and other vertuous learnings, such as to harp, to pipe, to sing and to dance, each to be trained to that kind of vertue that he is most apt to learn, with remembrance dayly of Goddes Service.”
Another proof of the increasing interest which was being felt in the work of education, is the occasional transformation of charitable, into educational, institutions. Reading school was originally one of those numerous hospitals which the lordly abbots had established in their town. It was designed for certain poor women serving God day and night, who prayed for the king’s estate and the soul of the founder, the good abbot, Hugh. They had a fair chapel for divine service, bread, meat, and drink from the abbey, and an annual sum of money and outfit of clothing. The sisters were widows of respectable persons in the town who had fallen into poverty; they had a quasi religious character, and the formulary of their admission included prayer, sprinkling of holy water, the blessing of the veil and mantle, and the giving of the kiss of peace. In 1446, Abbot Thorne suppressed this hospice, though as he applied its revenues to the use of the almoner, we will hope that they were expended in charity. “On a tyme, however,” says an anonymous and rather discontented writer, “Kyng Edward IV. cam through Redyng to Woodstock,” and expressed himself much displeased that “Saint Johny’s House,” as well as another house for lazars, had been diverted from its original purpose. He commanded Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, to institute a reform, but he was unable to do so, and departed “ful ylle content.” However, some years later, at the suggestion of Henry VII., the hospital was re-endowed as “a fre scole,” and although when the nameless author, above quoted, wrote, there was as yet “neither scole, nor man, nor woman, nor chyld, relieved there,” yet in due time the master and usher were appointed, and the school attained no inconsiderable renown as a place of learning. It is remarkable that among the privileges of the abbots of Reading was that of granting school licenses. No one was permitted to open a school of any description in the town without the approbation of the Abbot and Convent, who exercised within certain limits the same authority as a diocesan chancellor.
At Bury, again, the abbots had so early as 1193 founded in the town a free school for forty poor boys. The building was near the present shire house whence the street still retains the name of School Street. This school was still flourishing in the reign of Henry VI., for we find a letter addressed by Abbot Curteys, a great friend of that amiable and scholar-loving king, to Master William Farceaux, graduate in grammar and arts, and master of the School of Bury. And not to weary the reader with the enumeration of names and places, I will only add that all the large abbeys appear to have maintained not one, but several of these endowed free schools in various parts of their domains.
The greater variety of seminaries now existing was gradually introducing a greater separation of classes; hitherto students of all ranks had mingled under the same master, but now aristocratic distinctions began to be made. Eton soon became the favourite resort of the sons of the gentry, though not a few continued to be prepared for the universities at the monastic schools, especially at Glastonbury and Pollesworth. The latter was found in an admirable state of discipline at the time of the suppression, when the commissioners testified to the fact that the town which had sprung up round the monastery was almost entirely peopled, by “artifycers, laborers, and vitellers, that lyve by the said house, and the repayre and resorte that ys made to the gentylmennes children and studiounts that doo ther lif to the numbre of xxx. or xl. and moo, that ther be right vertuously brought upp.” At Hyde Abbey eight noble youths were received as students, who always ate at the abbot’s table. Winchcombe likewise retained its character for learning, and Abbot Kidderminster, by his wise government and encouragement of good letters, is said to have made his school flourish so much that it became equal to a little university.
If we put together the different classes of schools enumerated above, it will, I think, appear that in the fifteenth century England was quite as amply provided with the means of education for rich and poor as she is in the present day. There were, it seems, two large public schools for the gentry, other schools for the upper classes attached to monasteries and the larger colleges; monastic and collegiate schools for the middle classes, and other endowed free schools of a similar grade, and schools attached to smaller hospitals, evidently for a yet humbler class, such as the children of the neighbouring villages, or the tenantry of the founder; and lastly, there were the priests’ or parish schools, usually governed by a dame.
A more general interest was being felt in the work of education among all classes, and an attentive study of the household accounts of noble families of this period will discover among the items of expenditure a more frequent mention of “pennes,” “ynke,” and “bokes.” Hallam notices that the Paston letters, all written by members of a private family during the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III., are not only grammatical, but fluent and elegant in their style, and he remarks that it is a proof how unfairly we should measure the refinement and education of an age merely by its published literature. England in the fifteenth century was in too troublous a state for men to have much leisure for writing books; and hence though there was evidently an increased relish for literary pursuits under our Lancastrian princes, we are not surprised to find few additions to our national literature during this period. Yet some writers there were, such as the poets Occleve and Lydgate; the former a disciple of Chaucer, and author of a poem on the education of princes; whilst Lydgate, the monk of Bury, enjoyed an immense reputation in his own day, and in ours has been equally undervalued. He was educated at Oxford, and was a man of varied learning, familiar with the literature of France and Italy, both which countries he had visited, a mathematician and a classical scholar, and altogether well qualified to fill the post of professor in his own abbey. Here he taught the sons of the nobility “the art of versification, elegancies, poetry, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy, and theology.” He was equally esteemed by the pious king Henry VI., who visited him in his monastic cell, and by the London goldsmiths and citizens, who employed him in writing verses, and contriving quaint devices for their May games and city pageants. Of his two hundred and fifty poems none have been judged worthy to find a place in the various collections of the British poets, published during the last century. Halliwell has published a selection of his minor pieces, but his “Court of Sapience,” a noble poem extending to several hundred stanzas, remains still in MS., or in the early Caxton editions. The student of English literature is often perplexed to understand the principles which appear to have directed the choice of our modern editors. With the exception of Chaucer and Gower, whose claims were too great to be disallowed, no ante-reformation poets are admitted into the collections of Southey or Chalmers, with the exception of Hawes and Skelton, whose doggerel is tolerated, possibly on account of its scurrility. Even Occleve, though but a second-rate versifier, is better than these, but Lydgate’s “Court of Sapience” is incomparably superior to anything that appeared between the times of Chaucer and Spenser. Its tone, however, is essentially Catholic, and even theological, and this, together with the monkish titles of some of his works, such as the Lyf of our Ladye, and the Legende of St. Edmund, seem to have occasioned his exclusion by collectors, who have not been ashamed to rake together all the rubbish, and worse than rubbish, of our Restoration and Georgian periods. If the ancient religious poetry of this country should ever find an editor, readers who are accustomed to suppose that intelligible English dates from the time of Spenser, would be amazed at the power and pathos possessed by earlier writers. When we examine such poetical fragments as are still preserved, the wonder perhaps ceases, that they should have found small favour from modern editors. For the most part they are devoted to celebrate the glories of the Blessed Virgin, or the Mysteries of the Passion. The first subject has, of course, no chance of indulgence from a Protestant public, and the second is hardly more popular when treated precisely in the same spirit as it is presented to us in the prayers of St. Bridget, or the devout productions of antique Christian art. To Catholics, however, it is a joy and a solace to look back into past centuries, and remember that there were days when our poets drank of a purer fount than that of Castaly; and made it their pride to celebrate in their verse, not Dian, nor Proserpine, but the Immaculate Queen of Heaven. Of Chaucer’s devotion to this theme I have already spoken, but other poets before his time delighted in dedicating their verses to her who, as she has inspired the most exquisite designs of the artist’s pencil, has also claimed not the least beautiful productions of the poet’s pen. Thus, one sings of her as “Dame Lyfe,” and describes how
As she came by the bankes, the boughs eche one,
Lowked to the Ladye, and layd forth their branches,
Blossoms and burgens (new shoots) breathed ful swete,
Floures bloomed in the path where she forth stepped,