CURRICULUM AND METHOD.

The conventional view of the curriculum of the schools of the Middle Ages regards it as consisting of the trivium[693] and the quadrivium;[694] under these two terms was substantially included all the learning of the time. To investigate here the contents of the “Seven Liberal Arts” would involve us in an unnecessary digression, especially as the extent to which these subjects actually formed part of the school curriculum is still a matter of considerable doubt.[695]

Having now paid our homage to the generally accepted view, we note, however, when we turn to examine the actual sources now available for the study of medieval education, that the terms which occur most frequently in the records, as indicative of what was taught in the schools, are “grammar” and “song.” They are reiterated time after time; a master is appointed “ad informandum pueros in grammatica” or “in cantu”; or, in the chantry returns, “to teche frely almanner of childern Gramer;”[696] to “teache gramer and plane songe.”[697] Any student who enters upon an investigation of the subjects of the curriculum of the schools of the Middle Ages, without any preconception of what was taught in the schools, and who diligently reads through the documents of the period now available, would unhesitatingly state that the curriculum consisted of grammar and song.

We have previously considered[698] what these terms denoted in a general sense. Our next task is to consider whether any details are available of the school curricula during the period with which we are concerned. As these are comparatively meagre, it will be possible for us to gather together an account of most of the sources which enable us to reconstruct the curriculum of the schools of medieval England.

The most systematic account we possess of medieval education is derived from the writings of John of Salisbury. The main facts of his life are readily given. After spending about fifteen years on the continent undergoing a course of study, he returned to this country and became secretary to Archbishop Theobald, by whom he was entrusted with important diplomatic missions both at home and abroad. Subsequently he became the friend and adviser of Thomas À Beckett, at whose death he was present. For the last four years of his life John was Bishop of Chartres. We may here anticipate an objection which will probably be forthcoming. The education of John of Salisbury took place mainly in France, and as this thesis professes to deal with English education, the question arises: is not the section irrelevant? The answer is that John of Salisbury was an Englishman, and one of the greatest scholars of the Middle Ages. The education he obtained was the education possible to an Englishman of his period. Further, the account of John of Salisbury’s education is the best account available for a study of the curriculum of medieval times.

John tells us that whilst he was a boy he was placed under the charge of a priest, along with some other boys “ut psalmos addiscerem.”[699] Incidentally, it may be mentioned that this priest seems to have been interested in magic, and to have employed his pupils to assist him. However, as John proved a disturbing influence, his services were not made use of after the first occasion.

In his Metalogicus,[700] John gives an account of his further education. He crossed over to France to study when he was quite a young man.[701] There he studied under Abelard, from whom he received his first lessons in logic. Subsequently he was instructed by Alberic, the successor of Abelard, whom he describes as “a greatly esteemed dialectician and the bitterest assailant of the nominal sect.” He also was taught by Robert of Melun, an Englishman, who later became Bishop of Hereford. John remained under these masters for about two years. Both of them, he says, possessed considerable ability as logicians and in disputations, though their methods differed. One of them was scrupulous to the least detail, and discussed fully the slightest difficulty in connection with the problem under consideration; the other was prompt in reply, and never avoided a question that was proposed, “but by multiplicity of words would show that a simple answer could not be given.”

By these teachers only logic was taught, and the cultivation of “a sharp and nimble wit with an acute intellect” seems to have been the only goal aimed at. At this subject John became so expert that “in the commonplace rules and other rudimentary principles which boys study, and in which the aforesaid masters were most weighty, I seemed to myself to know them as well as my nail and fingers. One thing certainly I had attained to, namely, to estimate my knowledge much higher than it deserved. I fancied myself a young scholar, because I was quick in what I had been taught.”

John, however, became conscious of an intellectual appetite which the formal routine of logic did not satisfy; consequently, he determined to enter upon the study of grammar, and for this purpose he left Paris for Chartres, to study under the Grammarian, William of Conches. The cathedral school at Chartres had long been famous as a centre of learning. One of the most famous masters of the school was Bernard Sylvester, described by John of Salisbury as “in modern times the most abounding spring of letters in France.”[702] Poole gives an account of this school under Bernard:—

“The pupil went through all the routine of metaplasm, schematism, and figures of speech; but this was only the groundwork. As soon as possible he was introduced to the classical texts themselves and in order to create a living interest in the study, Bernard used not merely to treat these grammatically, but also to comment freely upon them.... Nor did he confine himself to the form of what was being read; he was still more anxious to impress upon his pupils its meaning. It was a principle with him that the wider and more copious the master’s knowledge, the more fully will he perceive the elegancy of his authors and the more clearly will he teach them.”[703]

Among the teaching methods adopted by Bernard, and by his successors in the school, Richard the Bishop, and William of Conches, were those of requiring exercises daily in prose and verse composition. By way of preparation for these exercises, the pupils were shown the qualities in the classical writers which were deemed worthy of adoption. The pupils passed round their exercises to one another for comment and criticism, and in this way emulation was stimulated. In addition to composition, the pupils had a good deal to commit to memory; they were every day required to keep a record of the lessons they had received. John of Salisbury writes of Richard the Bishop that he was a man “who was master of every kind of learning and who had more heart even than speech, more learning than eloquence, more truth than vanity, more virtue than ostentation; the things I had learnt from others, I reviewed from him, besides certain things which I now learnt for the first time relating to the Quadrivium.... I also again studied Rhetoric, which previously I had scarcely understood when it was first treated of superficially by Master Theodoric.”[704] John also studied rhetoric from Peter Helias, “a grammarian of high repute.”

Apparently John was obliged to maintain himself during this period, as he had no parents or relatives who could support him. Consequently, we find that he taught the “children of noble persons.” He did not consider the time he spent in teaching the young as wasted, because it forced him to revise that which he had previously learnt himself. Whilst engaged in the task of teaching, John became acquainted with Adam du Petit Pont, an Englishman who subsequently became Bishop of St. Asaph. John describes Adam as a man “of much learning who had given special study to Aristotle.” John is careful to point out that he was never a pupil of Adam, yet Adam seems to have been well disposed to John, and to have assisted him in various ways.

In order to apply himself to the study of theology, John returned to Paris. His course was interrupted by his poverty; during the necessary interval he again acted as tutor. At the end of three years, he was once again in Paris, where his studies were continued, first under Robert Pullus and afterwards under Simon of Poissy—“a trusty lecturer but dull in disputations.”

In the conclusion of the record of his school studies, John gives an account of a visit he paid to the school of logic at Paris attended by him whilst a youth. He states that his purpose in doing so was to endeavour to estimate the relative progress made by the schools of logic, and by himself. He writes:—

“I found them as before and where they were before; nor did they appear to have reached the goal in unravelling the old questions, nor had they added one jot of a proposition. The aims that once inspired them, inspired them still; they only had progressed in one point, they had unlearned moderation, they knew not modesty. And thus experience taught me a manifest conclusion that, whereas dialectic furthers other studies, so if it remain by itself it lies bloodless and barren, nor does it quicken the soul to yield fruit of philosophy, except the same conceive from elsewhere.”[705]We also obtain a certain amount of educational biography from the writings of Alexander Neckham, who was at one time the master of the school at Dunstable.[706] Neckham tells us that, when he was a boy, he attended the school at St. Albans; then he passed over to Paris, where he studied theology, medicine, canon and civil law.[707]

A third account needs to be referred to before we can consider what conclusions we can draw with regard to the curriculum of the twelfth century.

William Fitzstephen, (d. 1190), was employed by Thomas À Beckett. He witnessed the murder of his master and wrote his biography. This work contains an interesting account of London in the twelfth century and, incidentally, describes an important occasion in schoolboy life. He states:—

“On feast days, the masters celebrate assemblies at the churches, en fÊte. The scholars hold disputations, some declaiming, others by way of question and answer. These roll out euthymemes, these use the better form of perfect syllogisms. Some dispute merely for show as they do at collections; others for truth, which is the grace of perfection. The sophists using the Socratic irony are pronounced happy because of the mass and volume of their words; others play upon words. Those learning rhetoric, with rhetorical speeches, speak to the point with a view to persuasion, being careful to observe the precepts of their art, and to leave out nothing that belongs to it. The boys of the different schools vie with each other in verses; or dispute; or dispute on the principles of grammar, or the rules of preterites and supines.”

Fitzstephen concludes with a quotation from Persius:—

“multum ridere parati
Ingeminant tremulos naso crispante cachinnos.”[708]

We may also note, from the same work, the reference which Fitzstephen gives to the education of Beckett. He tells us that the future archbishop was first brought up “in religiosa domo canonicorum Meritoniae,” then he passed the years of “infantiae, pueritiae, et pubertatis” in the home of his father and “in scholis urbis.” When he became a young man, Thomas proceeded to Paris to study.[709]These accounts we have given of the education of John of Salisbury, Alexander Neckham, and Thomas À Beckett are noteworthy. They show that education in the twelfth century was much more general, and much more advanced, than we usually think. The audiences, assembled at the school festivities, were able to understand, and thoroughly to appreciate dialectical disputations carried on in Latin. So too, we learn elsewhere, that when Giraldus Cambrensis was giving addresses, he was everywhere understood when he spoke in Latin.

Taking these three accounts together, we are justified in distinguishing four stages of education during the twelfth century.

In the thirteenth century the only educational reference which throws light on the school curriculum, outside the university of Oxford, which we have been able to trace, is an extract from the Chapter Act Book of Southwell Minster, which states that, in 1248, “non teneantur Scole de Grammatica vel Logica infra prebendas Canonicorum, nisi secundum consuetudinem Ebor.”[711] This passage serves to illustrate the continued existence of the three grades of educational instruction we have enumerated.

The statutes of Merton College, Oxford, which date from the thirteenth century, refer to the study of grammar, which is to be undertaken both by the scholars and the boys. The grammarian is to talk Latin with the boys whenever it shall be to their benefit, or he may talk to them in “idiomate vulgari” (i.e. French). The same chapter gives the studies of the scholars as consisting of “arts, philosophy, canon law, or theology.”

Further insight into the conditions of medieval education can be obtained from a study of some of the writings of Roger Bacon. Of his life scarcely anything is known: “Born, studied at Oxford, went to Paris, studied, experimented; is at Oxford again, and a Franciscan; studies, teaches, becomes suspect to his Order, is sent back to Paris, kept under surveillance, receives a letter from the Pope, writes, writes, writes—his three best-known works; is again in trouble, confined for many years, released and dead, so very dead, body and fame alike, until partly unearthed after five centuries.”[712]

Whilst at Oxford, Bacon studied under two teachers whose names he gives—Robert Grosseteste, who “knew the sciences better than any other man,”[713] and Adam Marsh, whom he links with Grosseteste as “perfect in divine and human wisdom.” From Oxford Bacon went to Paris, where he not only continued his studies but also engaged in teaching. He writes, “I caused youth to be instructed in languages and geometric figures, in numbers and tables and instruments, and many needful matters.”[714]

Interest in education was apparently spreading about this time. “Never,” writes Bacon, “has there been such a show of wisdom, nor such prosecution of study through so many regions as in the last forty years. Doctors are spread everywhere, especially in theology, in every city, castle, and burgh, chiefly through the two student orders.”[715] In spite of this general interest Bacon complains that “never was there so much ignorance and so much error.” Four causes are enumerated by him to account for this ignorance—“the example of frail and unworthy authority, long established custom, the sense of the ignorant crowd and the hiding of one’s own ignorance under the show of Wisdom.”[716] The fourth cause, especially, is arraigned by Bacon: “This is a lone and savage beast, which devours and destroys all reason—this desire of seeming wise, with which every man is born.”

In addition to this general attack upon the causes of the prevalent ignorance, Bacon specifies seven distinct charges against the teachers of his day.[717]

(1) Though theology is the queen of the sciences, yet philosophy is allowed to dominate.

(2) Theologians do not study sufficiently the “best sciences.” By the “best sciences,” Bacon meant “the grammar of the foreign tongues, from which all theology comes. Of even more value are mathematics, optics, moral sciences, experimental science, and alchemy.” The “common sciences” (scientiae viles) include “grammar, logic, natural philosophy in its baser part, and a certain side of metaphysic.”

(3) Scholars are ignorant of Greek and Hebrew and Arabic, and consequently they are ignorant of what is contained in the books written in these languages.

(4) They lecture on the “Sentences” of Peter Lombard, instead of on the text of Scripture.

(5) The copy of the Vulgate Scripture at Paris is very corrupt.(6) Through the corrupt condition of the text, both the literal interpretation and the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture is full of error.

The text of the Opus Minus is broken off at this point, so that no information is forthcoming as to the seventh criticism that Bacon desired to offer.[718]

In order to remedy the educational shortcomings, Bacon suggests additions to the usual subjects of study. Special attention, he thinks, should be paid to languages, particularly to Latin and Greek; in addition, Bacon was anxious that Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic should be studied. It is noteworthy that Bacon desired these languages to be studied for the sake of their knowledge-matter, and not for the literature they embodied. Next to languages, Bacon placed the study of mathematics. “I hold mathematics necessary in the second place, to the end that we may know what may be known. It is not planted in us by nature, yet is closest to inborn knowledge, of all the sciences which we know through discovery and learning. For its study is easier than all other sciences, and boys learn its branches easily. Besides, the laity can make diagrams, and calculate and sing, and use musical instruments. These are the ‘opera’ of mathematics.”[719]

From Bacon we learn something of the difficulties with which the medieval scholar had to contend. Among other things, he complains of the indifferent value of the translations, through whose aid alone knowledge was possible. “Though we have numerous translations of all the sciences ... there is such an utter falsity in all their writings that none can sufficiently wonder at it.”[720] The scarcity of books placed a great obstacle in the way of those who wished to profit by them. “The scientific books of Aristotle, of Avicenna, of Seneca, of Cicero, and other ancients, cannot be had except at great cost; their principal works have not been translated into Latin, and copies of others are not to be found in ordinary libraries or elsewhere.”[721] The scarcity of competent teachers, especially in mathematics, still further intensified the difficulties. “Without mathematics, nothing worth knowing in philosophy can be attained. And, therefore, it is indispensable that good mathematicians be had, who are very scarce. Nor can any obtain their services, especially the best of them, except it be the pope or some great prince.”[722] Moreover, there was the scarcity and the expense of obtaining the necessary scientific apparatus: “without mathematical instruments no science can be mastered; and these instruments are not to be found among the Latins, and could not be made for £200 or £300. And besides, better tables are indispensable requisites, for although the certifying of the tables is done by instruments, yet this cannot be accomplished unless there be an immense number of instruments.”[723] The question of expense is a matter that Bacon frequently refers to, as he found that inability to meet the expenditure necessary for the work he desired to carry out effectually checked the projects he had in his mind. “I know how to proceed,” he writes, “and with what means, and what are the impediments; but I cannot go on for lack of the necessary funds. Through the twenty years in which I laboured specially in the study of wisdom, careless of the crowd’s opinion, I spent more than two thousand pounds on occult books and various experiments and languages and instruments and tables and other things.”[724]

Details are also available of the curriculum for the bachelors who were to determine at Oxford in 1267. This included:—

Logic. The bachelors “shall swear on the gospels that they have gone through all the books of the old Logic in lectures at least twice, except Boethius, for which one hearing is enough, and the Fourth Book of Boethius’ Topics, which they are not bound to hear at all; in the new Logic, the book of Prior Analytics, Topics and Fallacies twice; but the book of Posterior Analytics, they shall swear that they have heard at least once.”

Grammar. Priscian and Donatus.

Natural Philosophy. “De Anima, De Generatione et Corruptione.”[725]

For the fourteenth century we have the writings of Chaucer, which serve to throw some light upon what was taught in the schools. He tells us of:—

“A litel scole of Cristen folk ther stood
Doun at the ferther ende, in which ther were
Children an heep, y comen of Christen blood
That lerned in that scole yeer by yeer,
Swich maner doctrine as men used there,
That is to seyn, to singen and to rede,
As smale children doon in hir childhede.”[726]

Among these children, he describes a “widwes sone, a lytel clergeon, seven yeer of age” who had been taught by a pious mother to kneel down and say an “Ave Marie” whenever he saw “th’ image of Cristes moder.” The little boy heard his elders singing the “Alma redemptoris,” and asked one of them to “expounden this song in his langage, or telle him why this song was in usage.” The older boy explains that it was sung in honour of the Mother of Christ, “Hir to salue and eek hir for to preye.” However, he could tell his questioner little more.

“I can no more expounde in this matere;
I lerne song, I can but smal grammere,”

i.e. he was learning how to read and sing, but his knowledge of Latin was slight.

These extracts from Chaucer enable us to see that schools were common at this time, and that the curriculum of the schools consisted of Latin reading, of song, and, for those who showed aptitude, a further study of Latin grammar.

Chaucer also describes for us:—

“A clerk ther was of Oxenford also,
That unto logik hadde longe y go,”but the only information we glean of the academic studies of this clerk was, that he had,

“at his beddes heed,
Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed,
Of Aristotle and his philosophye.”[727]

At the close of the fourteenth century, the statutes of New College, Oxford, which were also partly those of Winchester College, give us the curriculum of the time. The university scholars were to study Theology, Canon and Civil Law, Arts, and Philosophy; the choristers were to be taught to read and sing; this is subsequently explained to mean “reading, plain song and old Donatus.” The “pauperes scholares” of Winchester were expected to be proficient in grammar.[728]

From this time onwards we begin to get fuller particulars of the school curriculum. Hence it is only necessary for us to quote representative examples.

I. Ipswich.

Some particulars of the curriculum of a grammar school may be gleaned from an extract from an entry in the Ipswich Court Book of 1476-7. It runs:—

“The grammar master shall henceforth have the jurisdiction and governaunce of all scholars within the liberty and precinct of this town, except only petties called “Apeseyes” and song, taking for his salary from each grammar scholar, psalter scholar, and primer scholar, according to the tariff fixed by the Bishop of Norwich, viz. for each grammarian 10d., psalterian 8d., and primerian 6d. a quarter.”[729]

This extract brings out four grades of instruction.

1. The petties or infants, consisting of those who learnt the A B C.[730]

2. Those who were studying a primer.[731]

3. Those learning the Psalms.

4. Those studying Donatus and Priscian.

II. Childrey.

The first full curriculum of a school which we have been able to trace, is that which was drawn up for the use of the school which was founded in 1526 at Childrey, in Berkshire, by Sir William Fettiplace. The priest to be appointed to the school was required to be well instructed in grammar. The children in the school were to be taught, first, the alphabet, and then in Latin, the Lord’s Prayer, the “Hail Mary,” the Apostles’ Creed, all things necessary for serving at Mass, the De Profoundis, collects for the departed, and grace for dinner and supper; and in English, the Fourteen Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven works of mercy, the manner of confession, good manners and good conduct. In addition, if any of those who attended the school were capable of profiting by further instruction, the master was required to instruct them in grammar.[732]

III. Eton.

We also possess a full account of the curriculum adopted at the school founded by the will of Edmund Flower, a “citizein and marchaunt tailor of London.”[733] Previous to his death, Flower had “for certeine years past at his cost and charge caused a fre Gramer Scole to be maintained and kept at Cukfelde.” This school was further endowed by William Spicer, the incumbent of Balcombe in 1528, who required that the schoolmaster should “teach the said school grammar after the form order and usage used and taught in the grammar school at Eton near Windsor from form to form.” For this purpose, a copy of the Eton time table was obtained. This original has, unfortunately, been lost, but a copy, which dates from the Stuart period, is still preserved in a book in the possession of the Vicar of Cuckfield.[734] The Eton time table of this period was also sent to Saffron Walden School, and, together with the time table of Winchester, was incorporated in the Saffron Walden School statutes.[735]

The statutes show that the Latin grammar in use was that by Stanbridge, so far as the lower forms were concerned, and that by Whittington in the higher forms. John Stanbridge, who was made master of Banbury Hospital School in 1501, wrote several Latin Grammars. The teaching of grammar “after the manner of Banbury” was subsequently prescribed at a number of grammar schools, e.g. Manchester, Cuckfield, and Merchant Taylors.[736] Whittington was the master of the school at Lichfield, in connection with St. John’s Hospital in that city; he brought out an improved version of the grammar of Stanbridge.[737]

The Latin authors mentioned in these statutes include Terence, Cicero, Sallust, Caesar, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, thus showing that the influence of the Renaissance was beginning to be felt. Here, however, we touch upon a topic which must be reserved for future consideration. It is possible to read too much into this list of authors, as Colet, in his statute of 1518, when dealing with the choice of authors to be studied at St. Paul’s School, mentions Lactantius, Prudentius, Proba, Sedulius, Juvencus, and Baptista Mantuanus, even though he expressly stated that he wished to select only “good auctors suych as have the veray Romayne eloquence joyned with wisdome.”

We may, therefore, summarise the school curriculum of the Middle Ages as consisting mainly of grammar, meaning by the term the study of the reading of ecclesiastical Latin, and the acquisition of the power to speak Latin. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Logic was also studied and, for a time, was the supreme study. Gradually the study of Logic returned to a subsidiary position, due, partly, to the fact that new studies were slowly finding their way into the curriculum owing to the humanistic influences which began to manifest themselves in Italy in the fourteenth century; and partly to the fact that the barren nature of the study of Logic was being realised by men of thought.

A new subject began to win a place in the school curriculum towards the close of the fifteenth century—the study of the Scrivener’s art, or the art of writing. We have already dealt with this subject in previous chapters.[738] Here it may suffice to set forth the reason which Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, gave for introducing the subject into his Foundation of Rotherham College in 1483:—[739]

“Tercio que, quia multos luce et ingenii acumine preditos juvenes profert terra illa, neque omnes volunt sacerdotii dignitatem et altitudinem attingere, ut tales ad artes mechanicas et alia mundi Concernia magis habilitentur, ordinavimus tercium socium, in arte scribendi et computandi scientem et peritum.”