Chapter V Educational Provision in Wales Part
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CHAPTER V EDUCATIONAL PROVISION IN WALES PART (i) : SCHOOLS In medieval Wales it was the Church which assumed the greatest responsibility for schooling, bardic schools and possibly the households of the Welsh lords being also centres of learning. The English universities, and to a lesser extent, the continental universities and the inns of court, provided further or higher 1 education for the ablest talents of Wales. In England, by the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, lay involvement in educati4n increased, as the needs of the Crown, the aristocracy and the towns expanded, and this was also faintly apparent in as scattered and 2 rural a society as Wales. The revival of classical learning emphasised anew the educational qualities required of administrators and all useful members of the state and which were also to be expected of gentlemen. At a time of social change, in Wales as in England, education became a 3 means of asserting and of reinforcing social distinctions. Neither the schools nor the universities were particularly suited 4 to the task of preparing young gentlemen. The newer grammar schools tried tEadapt, and there were a few signs that the universities and the inns of court, though still largely institutions of professional instruction, made some concessions towards providing a more general and 5 popular education. The essential conservatism of these places meant 6 that they were not in the van of intellectual progress. Rather, they were places for disseminating received and accepted truths intermixed with north European humanism and religious ideology, giving force to 333. 7 the ideal of wise and moral service and leadership. This conservative body of knowledge proved to be suitable to the age, assisting as a matrix during social change, when there was a shift away from the aristocratically organised extended family and the semi-tribal idea of the interdependence of the social orders, towards the idea of the single, almost independent, family unit. The idea of serving or governing the community disinterestedly came to appeal to several social groups and proved a strong bond. Education, in addition to personal worth, standing and wealth, fulfilled such a rOle and to the nuclear family such a preparation for the adolescent assumed greater importance. No longer was training and education to be casual and spasmodic. Parents concerned themselves with their children's education by employing tutors, by seeking out end supporting good schools, by paying for university or legal training. All this asserted the greater privacy, self-sufficiency, individuality and social precedence of the family. In England„the individuation of families was found not only among the gentry but extended into the mercantile 8 groups and into the yeomanry. The most tangible result of all this was the great progress made during the sixteenth century in establishing new schools, especially in the major towns. A further consequence was the interest in parochial schools run by the better-educated clergy, where the ideal of individuation and progress could be grasped by the yeomanry and even the sons of husbandmen. Yet, although individual effort was often the main drive, patronage and dependence still had their place in education as in other activities, assisting scholars of all 9 backgrounds, including those of the lower orders. 334. In Wales,the trend towards the nuclear family was well— established by the late fifteenth century. The extended family came to be replaced by individual families linked by ties of kindred or areal affinities. Changes in landownership and in political organisation in Wales during the sixteenth century allowed for the further consolidation of individual families within the gentry and yeomanry. Welsh ideas of gentility and pedigree intermingled with new ideas assimilated from England embodying the prevailing ideals 10 of Western Europe. Anglicised acculturation was at a premium in enabling social advancement, on the one hand, of younger sons of the gentry and sons from the lower orders, and on the other, in fixing 11 already acquired status. The need for proper education was a function of this trend and seems to have accompanied, or more often in the case of Welsh gentry families, confirmed, economic and social advancement. Although the admission registers of the grammar schools, inns of court and universities are wanting for the early sixteenth century, it is clear that sons of the Welsh gentry at least were beginning to enter the universities in some numbers, and especially, and quite naturally, 12 younger-sons to train for the priesthood. A few attended the inns of court, though seldom in a professional capacity as was the case of 13 William Owen of Henllys„ Pembrokeshire. From the evidence of the registers, legal education as professional training and as general instruction seems to have become attractive to Welshmen only from the second quarter of the sixteenth century on- wards, and it was then, too, that university education as a matter of 335. general instruction seemed to make a clear mark among Welsh students for the first time. Members of both 'advenae' and of native Welsh 14 families in Glamorgan, for example, attended these places of learning. Signs are that such a trend was not confined to south—east Wales. Representatives of the Hanmers in the north—east were regularly 15 attending the inns of court after 1550, while from the north—west, too, where social change was reputedly slower, members of 'new' and native families were attracted by the secular education offered at the 16 inns and at Oxford by about 1550. The least response may have 17 occurred in west and south—west Wales, for economic reasons, but it can be said that generally, after about 1550-60, evidence is sufficient if not abundant to indicate a progressive interest in further education throughout most parts of Wales. This interest was a function of the progress of gentry families 18 socially, politically and economically in both North and South Wales, in some cases employing professional training at the inns of court, in particular, to complete the process of advancement; for example, the Prytherch family in Anglesey and the Vaughan family in Cardiganshire.19 The attraction of further education was not lost on the ranks of the lesser gentry, or indeed, the yeomanry in Wales. Several second and alM. third rank gentry families in Glamorgan soon and regularly sent their sons through the portals of the places of higher learning, for example, 20 Button, Says, Van and Lougher, and in Caernarvonshires too, the 21 leading gentry's discovery of the inns and universities was soon followed, or even preceded, as in the case of the Madryn family, by 22 their lesser neighbours. Dr. Gresham's recent work on landownership 336. in south Caernarvonshire further reveals how among the lesser gentry, after periods of estate consolidation and expansion, good education became a matter of interest and commitment, as with the Owens of Plas Du, associates of the Madryn family, and the family of Brynkir, who were attracted to Winchester, Shrewsbury, Oxford and the inns of 23 court. Most families, however, could ill—afford to give all their sons an equal standard of education. Where the patrimony was limited, and as inflation bit harder, some of the lesser gentry, like the Brynkir family, gave education to university or inns of court standard only to younger sons who had to make their way in the world by means 24 of a career. On the other hand, it is clear that provision of good pre—university education for most members of gentry families was desirable and evidence from some Welsh wills indicates that it was a matter for concern by the last quarter of the sixteenth century. This appears to be the case in Montgomeryshire and the borders where specific bequests and annuities were established towards the education of young boys, the most interesting, perhaps, being the long—lasting bequest made by David Lloyd Jenkin of Berthlwyd in 1588 on behalf of his third son, Oliver, who eventually attained a successful career at 25 Oxford University and in the law. In north—west Wales a similar development occurred, the most notable and consistent devotion to family education, perhaps, being that of the Hughes family of Porthaml and 26 Plas Coch, Anglesey. Similar developments were also under way, probably sooner, in south—east Wales, in Glamorgan, Monmouthshire and the borders, involving not only leading gentry such as the Herberts of 337. Wonastow and the Mansells of Margam, but also clergy, lesser gentry, 27 and by the early seventeenth century, small—scale merchants. The period was, in addition, one in which attention began to be paid to 28 the education and training of the daughters of the Welsh gentry. Only the better—off, and possibly, the more enlightened, could really afford to make a definite financial commitment towards the education of their children, and in early and mid—seventeenth century Caernarvonshire„ it was usually the gentry and the clergy who specified 29 educational provisions in their wills. The gentry did in.some instances concern themselves with the instruction of their poorer counterparts, witness the endowment of a poor scholar's place at Bangor Grammar School by Morus Wynn of Gwydir. His son, Sir John Wynn, was also prepared to extend some financial assistance to help the schooling of pupils of limited means, and under both men, of course, by the employment of tutors, Gwydir became a place of schooling not only for the Wynn family but also for the abler children of the 30 tenantry and neighbouring freeholders. The appointment of tutors was specifically referred to in some Welsh wills of the period, 31 and there were certainly some other important households, besides Gwydir, where en active educative Ale was carried out, for example, at Lleweni, Plas—y—ward and Mostyn in north—east Wales and Y Van in 32 Glamorgan.