Early English Meals and Manners Part 3

"I marvel sore that you sent me no word of the letter which I sent to you by Master William Brown at Easter. I sent you word that time that I should send you mine expenses particularly; but as at this time the bearer hereof had a letter suddenly that he should come home, & therefore I could have no leisure to send them to you on that wise, & therefore I shall write to you in this letter the whole sum of my expenses since I was with you till Easter last past, and also the receipts, reckoning the twenty s.h.i.+llings that I had of you to Oxon wards, with the bishop's finding:--

s. d.

The whole sum of receipts is 5 17 6 And the whole sum of expenses is 6 5 5 And that [= what] cometh over my receipts & my expenses I have borrowed of Master Edmund, & it draweth to 8 0

and yet I reckon none expenses since Easter; but as for them, they be not great."

On this account Fenn says,

"he (Wm. Paston) had expended 6 5s. 5d. from the time he left his mother to Easter last, which this year fell on the 22nd March, from which time it was now two months, & of the expenses 'since incurred' he says 'they be not great.' We may therefore conclude the former account was from the Michaelmas preceding, and a moderate one; if so, we may fairly estimate his university education at 100 a-year of our present money. I mean that 12 10s. 11d. would then procure as many necessaries and comforts as 100 will at this day."

What was the basis of Fenn's calculation he does not say. In 1468, the estimates for the Duke of Clarence's household expenses give these prices, among others:

s. d. s. d.

Wheat, a quarter 6 0 now, say 3 0 0 Ale, a gallon - 1 - 1 0 Beves, less hide and tallow, each 10 0 15 0 0[*]

Muttons 1 4 2 10 0[*]

Velys 2 6 4 0 0[*]

Porkes 2 0 5 0 0 Rice, a pound 3 5 Sugar 6 6 Holland, an ell (6d., 8d., 16d.) 10 1 3 Diapre 4 6 3 0 Towelles 1 8 1 6 Napkyns, a dozen, 12s., 1, 2, 17 4 2 0 0 ---------- ------------- 2 7 0 31 17 8

[*: Poor ones.]

This sum would make the things named nearly 14 times as dear now as in 1468, and raise Fenn's 100 to about 180; but no reliance can be placed on this estimate because we know nothing of the condition of the beves, muttons, veles, and porkys, then, as contrasted with ours. Possibly they were half the size and half the weight. Still, I have referred the question to Professor Thorold Rogers, author of the _History of Prices_ 1250-1400 A.D., and he says:

"In the year to which you refer (1478) bread was very dear, 50 per cent. above the average. But on the whole, wheat prices in the 15th century were lower than in the 14th. Fenn's calculation, a little below the mark for wheat, is still less below it in most of the second necessaries of life. The multiple of wheat is about 9, that of meat at least 24, those of b.u.t.ter and cheese nearly as much. But that of clothing is not more than 6, that of linen from 4 to 5. Taking however one thing with another, 12 is a safe general multiplier."

This would make the cost of young Paston's university education 150 11s. 6d. a year.

Mr Whiston would raise Fenn's estimate of 100 to 200. He says that the rent of land in Kent in 1540 was a s.h.i.+lling or eighteenpence an acre,--see _Valor Ecclesiasticus_,--and that the t.i.thes and glebes of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester, which were worth about 480 a-year in 1542, are now worth 19,000.

The remaining Oxford letter in the Paston volumes seems to allude to the students bearing part of the expenses of the degree, or the feast at it, of a person related to royal family.

"I supposed, when that I sent my letter to my brother John, that the Queen's brother should have proceeded at Midsummer, and therefore I beseeched her to send me some money, _for it will be some cost to me_, but not much."

The first school at Cambridge is said to have been founded by Edward the Elder, the son of Alfred, but on no good authority. In 1223 the term _University_ was applied to the place. The dates of the foundations of its Colleges, as given in its Calendar, are:

St Peter's 1257 (date of charter, 1264) Clare Hall 1326 Pembroke 1347 Caius 1349 Trinity Hall 1350 Corpus Christi 1351 King's 1441 Queen's 1446 (refounded 1465) St Catherine's Hall 1473 Jesus 1496 Christ's 1505 St John's 1511 Magdalene 1519 Trinity 1546 Emmanuel 1584 Sidney 1598 Downing 1800

[Headnote: FEW n.o.bLEMEN AT CAMBRIDGE.]

Lord Henry Brandon, son of the Duke of Suffolk, died of the sweating sickness then prevalent in the University, on the 16th July, 1551, while a student of Cambridge. His brother, Lord Charles Brandon, died on the same day. Their removal to Buckden was too late to save them (_Ath.

Cant._, i. 105, 541). Of them Ascham says, 'two n.o.ble Primeroses of n.o.bilitie, the yong Duke of Suffolke and Lord _H. Matrevers_ were soch two examples to the Courte for learnyng, as our tyme may rather wishe, than look for agayne.'--_Scholemaster_, ed. Mayor, p. 62. Besides these two young n.o.blemen, the first 104 pages of Cooper's _Athenae Cantabrigienses_ disclose only one other, Lord Derby's son, and the following names of sons of knights:[44]

CAMBRIDGE MEN.

1443 Thomas Rotherham, Fellow of King's, son of Sir Thomas Rotherham, knight, and Alice his wife.

1494 Reginald Bray, high-steward of the university of Oxford, son of Sir Richard Bray, knight, and the lady Joan his second wife.

1502 Humphrey Fitzwilliam, of Pembroke Hall, Vice-Chancellor, _appears_ to have been the son of Sir Richard Fitzwilliam of Ecclesfield, and Elizabeth his wife.

ab. 1468 Richard Redman, son of Sir Richard Redman and Elizabeth [Aldburgh]

his wife; made Bp. of St Asaph.

1492 Thomas Savage, son of Sir John Savage, knight, Bp. of Rochester.

Was LL.D. ? educated at Cambridge.

1485 James Stanley, younger son of Thomas Earl of Derby, educated at both universities, graduated at Cambridge, and became prebendary of Holywell in 1485, Bp. of Ely in 1506.

1497 William Coningsby, son of Sir Humphrey Coningsby, elected from Eton to King's.

1507 Thomas Elyot, son of Sir Richard Elyot, made M.A.

ab. 1520 George Blagge, son of Sir Robert Blagge.

Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Lord Ess.e.x, was at Trinity College, Cambridge. See his letter of May 13, from there, in Ellis, series II. v.

iii. p. 73; the furniture of his room, and his expenses, in the note p.

73-4; and his Tutor's letter asking for new clothes for 'my Lord,' or else 'he shall not onely be thrid bare, but ragged.'

Archbp. Whitgift[45], when B.D. at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, A.D. 1563, "bestowed some of his time and abilities in the instruction of ingenious youth, sent to the college for education, in good learning and Christian manners. And among such his pupils, were two n.o.blemen's sons, viz. the Lord Herbert, son and heir to the Earl of Pembroke; and John, son and heir to the Lord North." (_Life_, by Strype, ed. 1822, vol. i. p. 14.)

While Whitgift was Master of Trinity, Strype says he had bred up under him not only several Bishops, but also "the Earls of Worcester and c.u.mberland, the Lord Zouch, the Lord Dunboy of Ireland, Sir Nicolas and Sir Francis Bacon. To which I may add one more, namely, the son of Sir Nicolas White, Master of the Rolls in Ireland, who married a Devereux."

(_Life_, i. 157, ed. 1822.)

[Headnote: n.o.bLES AND GENTLEMEN AT OXFORD.]

A search through the whole of the first volume of Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_, comprising a period of nearly 100 years, has resulted in the following meagre list of men of n.o.ble or knightly birth who distinguished themselves. There are besides many men of "genteel parents," some of trader-ones, many friars, some Winchester men, but no Eton ones, educated at Oxford.

1478 Edmund Dudley, son of John Dudley, Esq., 2nd son of John Lord Dudley, of Dudley Castle in Staffords.h.i.+re.

ab. 1483 John Colet, the eldest son of Sir Henry Colet, twice lord mayor of London ... was educated in grammaticals, partly in London or Westminster.

Nicholas Vaux, son of Sir Will. Vaux of Harwedon in Northamptons.h.i.+re (not the Poet, Lord Vaux).

end of Edw. IV.

John Bourchier, Lord Berners, eldest son of Sir John Bourchier, knight, Lord Berners of Hertfords.h.i.+re ... was instructed in several sorts of learning in the university in the latter end of K. Edw. IV.; in whose reign, and before, were the sons of divers of the English n.o.bility educated in academical literature in Baliol Coll.,[46] wherein, as 'tis probable, this our author was instructed also.

1497 Thomas More, son of Sir John More, knight. (_The_ Sir Thomas More.)

? ab. 1510 George Bulleyn, son and heir of Sir Tho. Bullen, and brother of Anne Bulleyn.

Henry Parker, son of Sir William Parker, knight.

1515 Christopher Seintgerman, son of Sir Henry Seintgerman, knight.

? ab. 1520 Thomas Wyatt, son of Henry Wyatt of Alington Castle in Kent, knight and baronet, migrated from St John's, Cambridge.[47]