Early English meals and manners : with some forewords on education in early England / edited by Frederick J. Furnivall.

Date:
1868. [Reprinted 1894, 1904]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Early English meals and manners : with some forewords on education in early England / edited by Frederick J. Furnivall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/524
    Englande, dougliter to our most gracious soverayn Lorde Kyng Henry the Eight.” 3. English University Education. In early days Cambridge and Oxford must he looked on, I suppose, as mainly the great schools for hoys, and the generality of scholars as poor men’s children,^ like Chaucer’s ‘ poore scolares tuo that dwelten in the soler-halle of Cante- hregge,’ his Clerk of Oxenford, and those students, gifts to whom are considered as one of the regular burdens on the husbandman, in “ God speed the Plough.” Mr Froude says, Hist, of England, I. 37 : “ The universities were well filled, by the sons of yeomen chiefly. The cost of supporting them at the colleges Avas little, and Avealthy men took a pride in helping forward any boys of promise^ {Latimer's Sermons, p. 64). It seems clear also, as the Reformation dreAv nearer, Avhile the clergy Avere sinking lower and loAver, a marked change for the better became perceptible in a portion at least of the laity.” But Grosseteste mentions a “ noble” scholar at Oxford (Egoist. 129), and EdAvard the Black Prince and Henry V. are said to have been students of Queen’s CoUege, Oxford. Wolsey himself Avas a College tutor at Oxford, and had among his pupils the sons of the Marquess of Dorset, Avho afterwards gave him his first preferment, the living of Lymington. (Chappell) ^ Later on, the proportions of poor and rich changed, as may he inferred from Ihe extract from Harrison heloAv. In the ‘ exact accoimt of the whole number (2920) of Scholars and Students in the University of Oxford taken anno 1612 in the Long Vacation, the Studmies of Christ Church are 100, the Fauperes Scholares et alii Servientes 41; at Magdalene the latter are 76; at New College 18, to 70 Socii; at hrasenose (jEneasense Coll.) the Communarii are 145, and the Pauperes Scholares 17 ; at Exeter, the latter are 37, to 134 Communarii; at St John’s, 20 to 43 ; at Lincoln the Communarii are 60, to 27 Batellatores et Pauperes Scholares.' Collectanea Curiosa, v. i. p. 196-203. 2 Was this in return for the raised rents that Ascham so bitterly complains of the new possessors of the monastic lands scrcAving out of their tenants, and thereby ruining the yeomen ? He says to the Duke of Somerset on Nov. 21, 1547 (ed. Giles, i. p. 140-1), Qui auctores sunt tantm miserise } . . Sunt illi qui hodie passim, in Anglia, ])rajdia monasteriorum gravissimis annuis reditibus auxerunt. Hinc omnium rerum exauctum pretium; hi homines expilant totam rempuhlicam. Villici et coloni uni- versi lahorant, parcunt, corradunt, ut istis satisfaciant. . . Hinc tot familiaj dissi- patae, tot domus collapsae . . Hinc, quod omnium miserrimum est, nohile illud decus ct robur Anglice, nomen, inquam, Yomanorum Anglorum, fractum et collisura est. . . Nam vita, quaj nunc vivitur a plurimis, non vita, sed miseria est. When Avill these words cease to be true of our land ? They should be burnt into all our hearts.
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