The schools of medieval England / by A.F. Leach ; with forty-three illustrations.

  • Arthur Francis Leach
Date:
[1915]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The schools of medieval England / by A.F. Leach ; with forty-three illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Tad rrUl ,n ImP0ST °r the English the Roma» ritual and the Roman rehgious books in “ the veray Remain tongue ” as Dean Colet called it, as it was spoken, or supposed to be spoken in the days of St. Paul, of Jerome, and of Gregory lo do this, the missionaries had to come with the Latin service-book in one hand, and the Latin grammar in the other Not only had the native priests to be taught the tongue in which their services were performed, but the converts at least of the upper classes, had to be taught the elements of grammar before they could grasp the elements of religion. ey could not profitably go to church till they had first gone to school. _ So the Grammar School became in theory, as it often was in fact, the necessary ante-room, the vestibule of the church. But, as there were no schools any more than there were churches in England, Augustine had to create both. I here is every reason to believe that he established the first school in England at Canterbury at the same time with and as part and parcel of, the first church. Augustine landed in the spring of the year 597. On 2 June that year Ethel bert was baptized. Later, Augustine went over to Gaul and was consecrated bishop by the Bishop of Arles. When he returned probably in the spring of 598, “ Ethelbert,” says Bede, “did not delay giving his teachers a place befitting the dignity of their seat in Canterbury his metropolis, and at the same time conferring on them necessary possessions of various kinds ”. Ihat is to say, he endowed the archbishop and his see. Au&- ustme, “as soon as he had obtained his episcopal see in the royal city, with the King’s assistance, recovered possession of a church which had been formerly built by the work of Roman Christians, and dedicated it in the name of Jesus Christ,” and Christ Church the cathedral has been called ever since. It may be safely asserted then, that in this year, 598 as an adjunct to Christ Church Cathedral, or rather as part of it and under the tuition of himself and the clerks who came ,Wf aA Wh°m EtheIbert endowed, Augustine estab¬ lished the Grammar School which still flourishes under the “A fing’S Sch°01’ n0t fr°m itS founder, Ethelbert, but from its re-founder, Henry VIII. It cannot indeed be proved directly that the school was established in 593. But the inference that it was rests on the unimpeach-
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