No. 226. The Ale-Wife’s End.
CHAPTER XV.
EDUCATION.—LITERARY MEN AND SCRIBES.—PUNISHMENTS; THE STOCKS; THE GALLOWS.
I put together in a short chapter two parts of my subject which may at the first glance seem somewhat discordant, but which, I think, on further consideration, will be found to be rather closely related—they are, education and punishment for offences against the law. It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that, as education becomes more general and better regulated, if the necessity of punishment is not entirely taken away, its cruelty is greatly diminished.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there was certainly a general feeling of the necessity of extending and improving education. It was during this period that our great universities rose into existence, and flourished, and these schools, which provided for the higher development of the mind, had their thousands of students, instead of the hundreds who frequent them at the present day. But the need of some provision for education was felt most in regard to that less elevated degree of instruction which was required for the more youthful mind,—in fact, it was long before the people of the middle ages could be persuaded that literary education was of any use at all, except for those who were to be made great scholars; the clergy itself, unfortunately, did not see the necessity of popular education, and although the schools in parish churches were long continued, they appear to have been conducted more and more with negligence. It was the mercantile class in the towns which made the first step in advance, by the establishment of those foundations which have continued to the present time under the name of grammar schools. These schools are traced back to the thirteenth century, when the merchant guilds, by whom they were founded, began to assume a greater degree of importance, and they were usually intended for the general benefit of the town, but were combined with an ecclesiastical establishment for performing services for the souls of the members of the guilds, in consequence of which, at the Reformation, they became involved in the superstitious uses, and were dissolved and refounded in the reign of Edward VI., so that they are now generally known as king Edward’s foundations. The great object of these schools was to give the instruction necessary for admission into the universities; and they were in some degree the answer to an appeal which came deeply from the mass of the people,—for there was at this time a great spontaneous eagerness for learning, both for the sake of the learning itself, and because it was a road to high distinction, which was not open to the masses in any other direction. It was a very common practice for poor youths to go about the country during vacation time, to beg money to keep them at school during term. In Piers Ploughman, among the objects of legitimate charity, the writer enumerates money given to— Sette scolers to scole,
Or to som othere craftes.
—Piers Ploughman, Vis., l. 4,525.
And in the popular complaints of the burden of taxation, involuntary and voluntary, the alms given to poor scholars are often enumerated.
No. 227. A Monk at his Studies.
Independent, however, of what may be considered more especially as scholarship, a considerable amount of instruction began now to be spread abroad. Reading and writing were becoming much more general accomplishments, especially among ladies. Among the amusements of leisure hours, indeed, reading began now to occupy a much larger place than had been given to it in former ages. Even still, popular literature—in the shape of tales, and ballads and songs—was, in a great measure, communicated orally. But much had been done during the fourteenth century towards spreading a taste for literature and knowledge; books were multiplied, and were extensively read; and wants were already arising which soon led the way to that most important of modern discoveries, the art of printing. Most gentlemen had now a few books, and men of wealth had considerable libraries. The wills of this period, still preserved, often enumerate the books possessed by the testator, and show the high value which was set upon them. Many of the illuminations of the fourteenth century present us with ingenious, and sometimes fantastic, forms of book-cases and book-stands. In our cut [No. 227], from a manuscript of metrical relations of miracles of the Virgin Mary, now preserved in the library of the city of Soissons in France, we have a monk reading, seated before a book-stand, the table of which moves up and down on a screw. Upon this table is the inkstand, and below it apparently the inkbottle; and the table has in itself receptacles for books and paper or parchment. In the wall of the room are cupboards, also for the reception of books, as we see by one lying loose in them. The man is here seated on a stool; but in our cut [No. 228], taken from a manuscript in the National Library in Paris (No. 6985), he is seated in a chair, with a writing-desk attached to it. The scribe holds in his hand a pen, with which he is writing, and a knife to scratch the parchment where anything may need erasion. The table here is also of a curious construction, and it is covered with books. Other examples are found, which show that considerable ingenuity was employed in varying the forms of such library tables.
No. 228. A Mediæval Writer.
The next cut ([No. 229]) is taken from one of the illuminations to a manuscript of the “Moralization of Chess,” by Jacques de Cessoles (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), and is intended as a sort of figurative representation of the industrial class of society. It is curious because the figure is made to carry some of the principal implements of the chief trades or manufactures, and thus gives us their ordinary forms. We need only repeat the enumeration of these from the text. It is, we are told, a man who holds in his right hand a pair of shears (unes forces); in his left hand he has a great knife (un grant coustel); “and he must have at his girdle an inkstand (une escriptoire), and on his ear a pen for writing (et sur l’oreille une penne à escripre).” Accordingly we see the ink-pot and the case for writing implements suspended at the girdle, but by accident the pen does not appear on the ear in our engraving. It is curious through how great a length of time the practice of placing the pen behind the ear has continued in use.