The Growth of English Schooling, 1340-1548: Learning, Literacy
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THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH SCHOOLING 1340-1548 THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH SCHOOLING 1340-1548 Learning, Literacy, and Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese Jo ANN HOEPPNER MORAN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Copyright © 1985 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 "William Street, Princeton, NewJersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book ISBN 0-691-05430-4 Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation This book has been composed in Linotron Caslon Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey TO MY FAMILY ESPECIALLY MY HUSBAND TED AND TO THE MEMORY OF DAVID S. BERKOWITZ CONTENTS CHARTS AND MAP ix TABLES Xl PREFACE Xlii ABBREVIATIONS XlX CHAPTER 1 Medieval and Early Tudor Education and Literacy: The Debates 3 CHAPTER 2 Elementary and Grammar Education in Late Medieval England 21 CHAPTER 3 Scholars, Schoolmasters, and Schools 63 CHAPTER 4 The Schools of York Diocese 92 CHAPTER j Church and Educational Change 123 CHAPTER 6 Literacy and the Laicization of Education 150 CHAPTER 7 Literary Interests and Educational Motivations in York Diocese 185 Conclusion 221 APPENDIX A The Testamentary Sources Used in this Study 227 APPENDIX B SchoolswithintheDioceseofYork 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY 281 INDEX 313 CHARTS AND MAP CHART 1 The Growth in Elementary and Secondary (Grammar) Education in York Diocese, pre-1300 to 1548 118 CHARTS 2-6 Clerical Ordinations in York Diocese, 1345-1525 124-130 CHART 7 Reading and Song Schools in York Diocese, 1300-1548 230 CHART 8 Registered Wills Proved in the Archbishop's Courts and the Peculiar Court of the York Dean and Chapter 231 MAP Schools in York Diocese, 1500-1548 120 TABLES TABLE 1 First Documented Date for Grammar Schools in York Diocese, pre-1300 to 1548 96 TABLE 2 Number of Grammar Schools in York Diocese during Each Fifty-Year Period, pre-1300 to 1548 96 TABLE 3 First Documented Date for Reading Schools in York Diocese, pre-1300 to 1548 101 TABLE 4 Number of Reading Schools in York Diocese during Each Twenty-five-Year Period, pre-1300 to 1548 102 TABLE 5 Song Schools in York Diocese, pre-1300 to 1548 104 TABLE 6 Scholars Listed in Letters Dimissory, 145 2-1530 142 TABLE 7 Level of Learning among the Chantry Chaplains in the County of York, 1548 148 TABLE 8 Lay and Clerical Educational Bequests in the Wills of the Prerogative and Exchequer Court of York Diocese, 1400-1530 170 TABLE 9 Chronological Distribution of Bibles and Books of Bibles Bequeathed in the Wills of Individuals from York Diocese, 1370-1529 193 TABLE 10 Bibles and Service Books Bequeathed in York Diocesan Wills, 1370-1509 196 PREFACE This study investigates the causes, course, and consequences of educational growth in pre-Reformation northern England. It goes beyond prior re search on the subject in the development of quantitative data, the use of wills as a source for educational history, and the investigation of the impact that educational change had. The results, in numbers of grammar and especially of elementary schools, have led me to argue that opportunities in elementary and secondary education before 1548 were much greater and expanding more rapidly than previous historians have supposed. By concentrating on a specific but fairly comprehensive data base, the records of York diocese, not only does this study present a detailed picture of the educational resources of the time, but it also offers a more extensive analysis of their impact upon both the clergy and the laity than has hitherto been available. The choice of York diocese for such an investigation was originally inspired by A. F. Leach's two-volume collection on Early Yorkshire Schools. Although Leach chose to print documents for only a select number of schools, the wealth of information he uncovered suggested, at an early stage in my research, that this was a rich field of inquiry. York diocese was also attractive because, geographically, it was the largest of seventeen medieval dioceses, composed of some seven hundred parishes, twenty- four deaneries, and five large archdeaconries. It included all of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, the northern half of Lancashire, and small parts of Westmorland and Cumberland. Although York was not the most populous of the dioceses, it nonetheless contained approximately 10 percent of the nation's people. Topographically they were distributed over a tremendous variety of terrain, from the isolated mountain valleys of the Pennines to the wild moorlands of the North Riding and the "champion" country of the vales of York, Cleveland, and Trent. With its southernmost boundary located barely 100 miles north of London and its northernmost boundary only 20 miles from the Scottish border, York diocese served as the link between southern England and the wilder northern border regions. Thus the results of a study of this diocese, large and diverse as it was, cannot be explained away as idiosyncratic or isolated from the rest of England. The question that initiated my research over ten years ago was: What was the relationship between education, literacy, and the English Refor mation? In pursuit of an answer to this question I had to address a wide PREFACE range of issues. In order to document the educational changes and especially in order to investigate levels of literacy, it was first necessary to consider whether one could differentiate elementary from secondary education in the documents. While it is indeed possible, as well as methodologically desirable, to do so, medieval educational categories were relatively fluid, and separating levels of learning, which is both useful and justifiable, is also tentative. Once this task was completed, a number of other questions remained: How much evidence for schooling is there in the late medieval and early Tudor period? How does this evidence relate to the available sources, and what does it tell us about educational developments in the period between 1340 and 1548? Is there corroborative documentation for the growth in educational opportunities? What was the relationship between the Church and pre-university, pre-Reformation education? Or between the laity and education? How did an increase in available schooling affect clerical recruitment? lay literacy? or the relations between clergy and laity? In the end the answers to all these questions reinforce one another, and the picture that emerges—one of dramatic educational development in the two centuries before the Reformation—is consequently all the more con vincing. In the final analysis, the results suggest a need to revise current interpretations of the English Reformation as catalyst for an educational revolution in the sixteenth century. The book opens with a survey of the debate over medieval English elementary and secondary education. Chapter one begins by evaluating the contributions of A. F. Leach and, more recently, Nicholas Orme, both of whom argue that medieval education was expanding from at least the twelfth century on to the eve of the Reformation. It then attends to the counterarguments of Joan Simon and W. K. Jordan, who share a more negative view of pre-Reformation education, and to the picture presented by Lawrence Stone of an educational revolution not beginning in force until the second half of the sixteenth century. Recent studies in literacy contribute to the debate. Although the evaluation of medieval literacy is a complicated endeavor, current research suggests a growth in the numbers of literate laity from the twelfth century on. Thus far, however, sixteenth- century historians have not yet begun to integrate these more recent findings into their work. This study is rooted in the tradition of Leach and Orme. Based upon new findings from York diocese, it details the increase in elementary and secondary education in the two centuries before the Reformation and stresses the significance of rising medieval literacy. Chapter two begins to introduce the evidence from York with a survey of the curricula of late medieval English schools drawn largely but not exclusively from York diocesan PREFACE documents. While this chapter points out the flexibility of medieval schools in terms of curriculum, it also argues that contemporaries did differentiate between song, reading, writing, and grammar educations, and modern historians should try to do likewise. Chapter three develops a methodology for determining the types of schools mentioned, often fleetingly, in the documents. At the same time, the reader is cautioned not to interpret the institutional nature of these schools in an overly rigid sense. The flexible, transitory, and often indeterminate nature of medieval schools, especially at the elementary level, is at odds with the historian's need to analyze and therefore to categorize. The evidence is widely scattered and sometimes frustrating in its brevity. Only very infrequently is one fortunate enough to learn just which texts were being studied in a particular school or to discover the statutes that describe precisely its purpose. In order to try to overcome these limitations, it is helpful to develop further criteria based on the evidence with regard to age, gender, and number of scholars; level of learning displayed; subsequent careers of scholars; status and learning of the schoolmaster; and the physical circumstances of the school itself. The ensuing analysis reflects the difficulties inherent in research that de pends on local sources which are neither comprehensive nor produced for the purpose of making educational data available. To a certain degree, therefore, our present understanding must remain problematic.