Early English Meals and Manners

by Unknown

“On the 15th of January, 1562, Thomas Williams, of the Inner Temple, esq. being chosen speaker to the lower house, was presented to the queen: and in his speech to her ... took notice of the want of schools; that at least an hundred were wanting in England which before this time had been, [being destroyed (I suppose he meant) by the dissolution of monasteries and religious houses, fraternities and colleges.] He would have had England continually flourishing with ten thousand scholars, which the schools in this nation formerly brought up. That from the want of these good schoolmasters sprang up ignorance: and covetousness got the livings by impropriations; which was a decay, he said, of learning, and by it the tree of knowledge

grew downward, not upward; which grew greatly to the dishonour, both of God and the commonwealth. He mentioned likewise the decay of the universities; and how that great market-towns were without schools or preachers: and that the poor vicar had but 20l. [or some such poor allowance,] and the rest, being no small sum, was impropriated. And so thereby, no preacher there; but the people, being trained up and led in blindness for want of instruction, became obstinate: and therefore advised that this should be seen to, and impropriations redressed, notwithstanding the laws already made [which favoured them].—Strype, Annals of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 437.

Of the Grammar Schools in his time (A.D. 1577) Harrison says:

Besides these universities, also there are a great number of Grammer Schooles throughout the realme, and those verie liberallie endued for the better relief of pore scholers, so that there are not manie corporate townes, now under the queene’s dominion that have not one Gramer Schole at the least, with a sufficient living for a master and usher appointed to the same.

There are in like manner divers collegiat churches, as Windsor, Wincester, Eaton, Westminster (in which I was sometime an unprofitable Grammarian under the reverend father, master Nowell, now dean of Paules) and in those a great number of pore scholers, dailie maintained by the liberality of the founders, with meat, bookes, and apparell; from whence after they have been well entered in the knowledge of the Latine and Greek tongs, and rules of versifying (the triall whereof is made by certain apposers, yearlie appointed to examine them), they are sent to certain especiall houses in each universitie[79], where they are received & trained up in the points of higher knowledge in their privat halls till they be adjudged meet to show their faces in the schooles, as I have said alreadie.

Greek was first taught at a public school in England by Lillye soon after the year 1500. This was at St Paul’s School in London, then newly established by Dean Colet, and to which Erasmus alluded as the best of its time in 1514, when he said that he had in three years taught a youth more Latin than he could have acquired in any school in England, ne Liliana quidem excepta, not even Lillye’s excepted. (Warton, iii. 1.) The first schoolmaster who stood up for the study of English was, I believe, Richard Mulcaster, of King’s College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1561 he was appointed the first head-master of Merchant-Taylors School in London, then just founded as a feeder or pro-seminary for St John’s

College, Oxford (Warton, iii. 282). In his Elementarie, 1582, he has a long passage on the study of English, the whole of which I print here, at Mr Quick’s desire, as it has slipt out of people’s minds, and Mulcaster deserves honour for it:—

STUDY OF ENGLISH RECOMMENDED IN 1582-1612.

“But bycause I take vpon me in this Elementarie, besides som frindship to secretaries for the pen, and to correctors for the print, to direct such peple as teach childern to read and write English, and the reading must nedes be such as the writing leads vnto, thererfor, (sic) befor I medle with anie particular precept, to direct the Reader, I will thoroughlie rip vp the hole certaintie of our English writing, so far furth and with such assurance, as probabilitie can make me, bycause it is a thing both proper to my argument, and profitable to my cuntrie. For our naturall tung being as beneficiall vnto vs for our nedefull deliuerie, as anie other is to the peple which vse it: & hauing as pretie, and as fair obseruations in it, as anie other hath: and being as readie to yield to anie rule of Art, as anie other is: why should I not take som pains to find out the right writing of ours, as other cuntrimen haue don to find the like in theirs? & so much the rather, bycause it is pretended, that the writing thereof is meruellous vncertain, and scant to be recouered from extreme confusion, without som change of as great extremitie? I mean therefor so to deall in it, as I maie wipe awaie that opinion of either vncertaintie for confusion, or impossibilitie for direction, that both the naturall English maie haue wherein to rest, & the desirous st[r]anger maie haue whereby to learn. For the performance whereof, and mine own better direction, I will first examin those means, whereby other tungs of most sacred antiquitie haue bene brought to Art and form of discipline for their right writing, to the end that by following their waie, I maie hit vpon their right, and at the least by their president deuise the like to theirs, where the vse of our tung, & the propertie of our dialect will not yeild flat to theirs. That don, I will set all the varietie of our now writing, & the vncertaine force of all our letters, in as much certaintie, as anie writing can be, by these senen precepts,— 1. Generall rule, which concerneth the propertie and vse of ech letter: 2. Proportion which reduceth all words of one sound to the same writing: 3. Composition, which teacheth how to write one word made of mo: 4. Deriuation, which examineth the ofspring of euerie originall: 5. Distinction which bewraieth the difference of sound and force in letters by som writen figure or accent: 6. Enfranchisment, which directeth the right writing of all incorporat foren words: 7. Prerogatiue, which declareth a reseruation, wherein common vse will continew hir precèdence in our En[g]lish writing, as she hath don euerie where else, both for the form of the letter, in som places, which likes the pen better: and for the difference in writing, where som particular caueat will chek a common rule. In all these seuen I will so examin the particularities of our tung, as either nothing shall

seme strange at all, or if anie thing do seme, yet it shall not seme so strange, but that either the self same, or the verie like vnto it, or the more strange then it is, shal appear to be in, those things, which ar more familiar vnto vs for extraordinarie learning, then required of vs for our ordinarie vse. And forasmuch as the eie will help manie to write right by a sene president, which either cannot vnderstand, or cannot entend to vnderstand the reason of a rule, therefor in the end of this treatis for right writing, I purpos to set down a generall table of most English words, by waie of president, to help such plane peple, as cannot entend the vnderstanding of a rule, which requireth both time and conceit in perceiuing, but can easilie run to a generall table, which is readier to their hand. By the which table I shall also confirm the right of my rules, that theie hold thoroughout, & by multitude of examples help som maim (so) in precepts. Thus much for the right writing of our English tung, which maie seme (so) for a preface to the principle of Reading, as the matter of the one is the maker of the other.—1582. Rich^d. Mulcaster. The First Part of the Elementarie, pp. 53-4.