Early English Meals and Manners Part 10

[Footnote 22: _Richardi Pacei, invictissimi Regis Angliae primarii Secretarii, eiusque apud Elvetios Oratoris, De Fructu qui ex Doctrinae percipitur, Liber._

Colophon. _Basileae apud Io. Frobenium, mense VIII. bri.

an._ M.D.XVII.

Restat ut iam tibi explicem, quid me moueat ad libellum hoc t.i.tulo co{n}scribendum _et_ publicandu{m}. Quu{m} duobus annis plus minus iam praeteritis, ex Romana urbe in patriam redijssem, inter-fui cuida{m} conuiuio multis incognitus. Vbi quu{m} satis fuisset potatum, unus, nescio quis, ex conuiuis, non imprudens, ut ex uerbis uultuq{ue} conijcere licuit, cpit mentionem facere de liberis suis bene inst.i.tue{n}dis. Et primu{m} omniu{m}, bonum praeceptorem illis sibi quaerendu{m}, & scholam omnino frequentanda{m} censuit. Aderat forte unus ex his, quos nos generosos uocamus, & qui semper cornu aliquod a tergo pende{n}s gestant, acsi etiam inter prandendu{m} uenare{n}tur. Is audita literaru{m} laude, percitus repe{n}tina ira, furibundus p{ro}rupit in haec uerba. Quid nugaris, inquit, amice? abeant in mala{m} rem istae stultae literae, omnes docti sunt me{n}dici, etia{m} Erasmus ille doctissimus (ut audio) pauper est, & in quadam sua epistola vocat t?? ?a???at?? pe??a? uxore{m} suam, id est, execrandam paupertatem, & uehementer conqueritur se son posse illam humeris suis usq{ue} in a????tea p??t??, id est, p{ro}fundum mare excutere. (Corpus dei iuro) uolo filius meus pendeat potius, qua{m} literis studeat. Decet e{n}im generosoru{m} filios, apte inflare cornu, perite uenari, accipitre{m} pulchre gestare & educare. Studia uero literaru{m}, rusticorum filiis sunt relinquenda. Hic ego cohibere me no{n} potui, quin aliq{ui}d homini loquacissimo, in defensione{m} bonaru{m} literaru{m}, respo{n}dere{m}. No{n} uideris, inqua{m}, mihi bone uir recte sentire, na{m} si ueniret ad rege{m} aliq{ui}s uir exterus, quales sunt principu{m} oratores, & ei dandu{m} esset responsum, filius tuus sic ut tu uis, inst.i.tutus, inflaret du{n}taxat cornu, & rusticoru{m} filij docti, ad respondendu{m} nocarent{ur}, ac filio tuo uenatori uel aucupi longe anteponerent{ur}, & sua erudita (usi libertate, tibi in facie{m} dicere{n}t, Nos malumus docti esse, & p{er} doctrina{m} no{n} imprudentes, q{uam} stulta gloriari n.o.bilitate. Tu{m} ille hincinde circu{m}spiciens, Quis est iste, inquit, q{ui} haec loquit{ur}? homine{m} non cognosco. Et quu{m} diceret{ur} in aure{m} ei quisna{m} essem, nescio q{ui}d submissa uoce sibimet susurra{n}s, & stulto usus auditore, illico arripuit uini poculu{m}. Et quu{m} nihil haberet respo{n}dendu{m}, cpit bibere, & in alia sermone{m} transferre. Et sic me liberauit, non Apollo, ut Horatiu{m} a garrulo, sed Bacchus a uesani hominis disputatione, qua{m} diutius longe duraturam ueheme{n}ter timeba{m}.

Professor Brewer gives me the reference.)]

[Footnote 23: As to agricultural labourers and their children A.D.

1388-1406, see below, p. xlvi.]

[Footnote 24: Readers will find it advisable to verify for themselves some of the statements in this Editor's notes, &c.]

[[Footnote 24a: The regular Cathedral school would have existed at St David's.]]

[Footnote 25: The foregoing three extracts are sent me by a friend.]

[Footnote 26: From a fragment of the Computus Camerarii Abbat.

Hidens. in Archiv. Wulves. apud Winton. ut supr. (? Hist. Reg.

Angl. edit. Hearne, p. 74.)]

[Footnote 27: Hist. and Antiq. of Glas...o...b..ry. Oxon. 1722, 8vo, p. 98.]

[Footnote 28: Reyner, Apostolat. Benedict. Tract. 1, sect. ii.

p. 224. Sanders de Schism. page 176.]

[Footnote 29: _utriusque juris_, Canon and Civil.]

[Footnote 30: _Lit. humaniores._ Latin is still called so in Scotch, and French (I think), universities. J. W. Hales.]

[[Footnote 30a: "There are no French universities, though we find every now and then some humbug advertising himself in the _Times_ as possessing a degree of the Paris University. The old Universities belong to the time before the Deluge--that means before the Revolution of 1789. The University of France is the organized whole of the higher and middle inst.i.tutions of learning, in so far as they are directed by the State, not the clergy. It is an inst.i.tution more governmental, according to the genius of the country, than our London University, to which, however, its organization bears some resemblance. To speak of it in one breath with Oxford or Aberdeen is to commit the ... error of confounding two things, or placing them on the same line, because they have the same name." --E. Oswald, in _The English Leader_, Aug. 10, 1867.]]

[Footnote 31: (Pace _de Fructu_, p. 27.) Exigit iam suu{m} musica quoq{ue} doctrina locu{m}, a me praesertim, que{m} puer{um} inter pueros ill.u.s.travit. Na{m} Thomas Langton Vyntoniensis episcopus, decessor huius qui nunc [1517 A.D.] uiuit, cui eram a manu minister, quum nota.s.set me longex supra aetatem (ut ipse nimis forta.s.se amans mei iudicabat, & dict.i.tabat) in musicis proficere, Huius, inquit, pueri ingeniu{m} ad maiora natum est. & paucos post dies in Italia{m} ad Patauinu{m} gymnasium, quod tu{n}c flore{n}tissimu{m} erat, ad bonas literas discendas me misit, annuasq{ue} impensas benigne suppeditauit, ut omnibus literatis mirifice fauebat, & aetate sua alterum Mecenatem agebat, probe memor (ut freque{n}ter dict.i.tabat) sese doctrinae causa ad episcopalem dignitate{m} prouectum. Adeptus enim fuerat per summam laudem, utriusq{ue} iuris (ut nu{n}c loquu{n}tur) insignia. Item humaniores literas tanti aestimabat, ut domestica schola pueros & iuuenes illis erudiendos curarit. Et summopere oblectabat{ur} audire scholasticos dictata interdiu a praeceptore, sibi nocta reddere. In quo certamine qui praeclare se gesserat, is aliqua re personae suae acco{m}modata, donatus abibat, & humanissimis uerbis laudatus. Habebet e{n}im semper in ore ille optimus Praesul, uirtutem laudatam crescere.]

[Footnote 32: Ascham praises most the practice of double translation, from Latin into English, and then back from English into Latin.--_Scholemaster_, p. 90, 178, ed. Giles.]

[Footnote 33: Mr Wm. Chappell gives me the reference, and part of the extract.]

[Footnote 34: When did _breakfast_ get its name, and its first notice as a regular meal? I do not remember having seen the name in the early part of _Household Ordinances_, or any other work earlier than the _Northumberland Household Book_.]

[Footnote 35: On Musical Education, see the early pages of Mr Chappell's _Popular Music_, and the note in Archaeol., vol. xx, p.

60-1, with its references. 'Music const.i.tuted a part of the _quadrivium_, a branch of their system of education.']

[[Footnote 35a: "The first William de Valence married Joan de Monchensi, sister-in-law to one Dionysia, and aunt to another."

_The Chronicle_, Sept. 21, 1867.]]

[Footnote 36: Le treytyz ke moun sire Gauter de Bibelesworthe fist a MA DAME DYONISIE DE MOUNCHENSY, pur aprise de langwage.]

[Footnote 37: Later on, the proportions of poor and rich changed, as may be inferred from the extract from Harrison below. In the 'exact account of the whole number (2920) of Scholars and Students in the University of Oxford taken anno 1612 in the Long Vacation, the _Studentes_ of Christ Church are 100, the _Pauperes Scholares et alii Servientes_ 41; at Magdalene the latter are 76; at New College 18, to 70 _Socii_; at Brasenose (aeneasense 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.]

[Footnote 38: Was this in return for the raised rents that Ascham so bitterly complains of the new possessors of the monastic lands s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g 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 tantae miseriae?... Sunt illi qui hodie pa.s.sim, in Anglia, praedia monasteriorum gravissimis annuis reditibus auxerunt. Hinc omnium rerum exauctum pretium; hi homines expilant totam rempublicam. Villici et coloni universi laborant, parc.u.n.t, corradunt, ut istis satisfaciant.... Hinc tot familiae dissipatae, tot domus collapsae.... Hinc, quod omnium miserrimum est, n.o.bile illud decus et robur Angliae, nomen, inquam, _Yomanorum Anglorum_, fractum et collisum est ... NAM VITA, QUae NUNC VIVITUR A PLURIMIS, NON VITA, SED MISERIA EST.

When will these words cease to be true of our land? They should be burnt into all our hearts.]

[[Footnote 38a: One of the inquiries ordered by the Articles issued by Archbishop Cranmer, in A.D. 1548, is, "Whether Parsons, Vicars, Clerks, and other beneficed men, having yearly to dispend an hundred pound, do not find, competently, one scholar in the University of Cambridge or Oxford, or some grammar school; and for as many hundred pounds as every of them may dispend, so many scholars likewise to be found [supported] by them; and what be their names that they so find." Toulmin Smith, _The Parish_, p. 95. Compare also in Church-Wardens Accompts of St Margaret's, Westminster (ed. Jn. Nichols, p. 41).

1631.

Item, to Richard Busby, a king's scholler of Westminster, towards enabling him to proceed master of arts at Oxon, by consent of the vestrie 6. 13. 4.

1628.

Item, to Richard Busby, by consent of the vestry, towards enabling him to proceed bachelor of arts 5. 0. 0.

Nichols, p. 38. See too p. 37.]]

[Footnote 39: "He placed aethelweard, his youngest son, who was fond of learning, together with the sons of his n.o.bility, and of many persons of inferior rank, in schools which he had established with great wisdom and foresight, and provided with able masters.

In these schools the youth were instructed in reading and writing both the Saxon and Latin languages, and in other liberal arts, before they arrived at sufficient strength of body for hunting, and other manly exercises becoming their rank." Henry, _History of England_, vol. ii. pp. 354-5 (quoted from a.s.ser).]

[Footnote 40: None were so. T. Wright.]

[Footnote 41: Gervaise of Canterbury says, in his account of Theobald in the Acts of the Archbishops, "quorum primus erat magister Vacarius. Hic in Oxonefordia legem docuit."

[['The truth is that, in his account of Oxford and its early days, Mr Hallam quotes John of Salisbury, not as a.s.serting that Vacarius taught there, but as making "no mention of Oxford at all"; while he gives for the statement about the law school no authority whatever beyond his general reference throughout to Anthony Wood.

But the fact is as historical as a fact can well be, and the authority for it is a pa.s.sage in one of the best of the contemporary authors, Gervaise of Canterbury. "Tunc leges et causidici in Angliam primo vocati sunt," he says in his account of Theobald in the Acts of the Archbishops, "quorum primus era{t} magister Vacarius. Hic in Oxonefordia legem docuit."' E. A. F.]] ]

[[Footnote 41a: Roger Bacon died, perhaps, 11 June, 1292, or in 1294. _Book of Dates._]]

[Footnote 42: This College is said to have been founded in the year 872, by Alfred the Great. It was restored by William of Durham, said to have been Archdeacon of Durham; but respecting whom little authentic information has been preserved, except that he was Rector of Wearmouth in that county, and that he died in 1249, bequeathing a sum of money to provide a permanent endowment for the maintenance of a certain number of "Masters." The first purchase with this bequest was made in 1253, and the first Statutes are dated 1280.-- _Oxford Univ. Calendar_, 1865, p. 167.]

[Footnote 43: I refer to the modernized edition published by Charles Knight in two volumes.]

[Footnote 44: Other well-born men, in the _Ath. Cant._, then connected with the University, or supposed to be, were,

1504 Sir Roger Ormston, knight, died. Had been High Steward of the University.

1504 Sir John Mordaunt, High Steward.

1478 George Fitzhugh, 4th son of Henry lord Fitzhugh, admitted B.A.

1488 Robert Leyburn, born of a knightly family, Fellow of Pembroke-hall, and proctor.

1457 John Argentine, of an ancient and knightly family, was elected from Eton to King's.

1504 Robert Fairfax, of an ancient family in Yorks.h.i.+re, took the degree of Mus. Doc.

1496 Christopher Baynbrigg, of a good family at Hilton, near Appleby, educated at and Provost of Queen's, Oxford, incorporated of Cambridge.

1517 Sir Wm. Fyndern, knight, died, and was a benefactor to Clare Hall, in which it is supposed he had been educated.

1481 Robert Rede, of an ancient Northumbrian family, was sometime of Buckingham College, and the Fellow of King's-hall (?), and was autumn reader at Lincoln's Inn in 1481.

ab. 1460 Marmaduke Constable, son of Sir Robert Constable, knight, believed to have been educated at Cambridge.

So, Edward Stafford, heir of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, is also believed to have been educated at Cambridge, because his father was a munificent patron of the University, constantly maintaining, or a.s.sisting to maintain, scholars therein.